The Jane C. Nolan

I love...

2012-02-14T19:33:00.000-06:00

...when you shut the hell up.

You do realize that all of you screeching about Valentine's Day being a Hallmark holiday from hell are just as annoying as the lovey-dovey Cupidlickers, right?

I know, I know, I'm a member of that special married people's club now and, ergo, “the enemy” in this sort of Jets vs. Sharks set-up that's evolved over the years when it comes to Valentine's Day, but my memory is fucking long, brothers and sisters. I had myself almost 37 years of watching as seemingly everyone but me was getting flowers and candy and singing telegrams and Satan's scrotesuckers on February 14 and the world was against me and everyone hated me and I was eating worms (yes, I was on the hunt from BIRTH).

Then there came a point (while I was still single, mind you) that I had myself a moment of clarity and realized it was time to get over my goddamned self. No, it didn't mean that I stopped being unhappy about being single (though that too eventually went away – WHILE I WAS STILL SINGLE), but I stopped being that “fuck you, Valentine's Day is BULLSHIT and everyone who celebrates it is BULLSHIT and it's all meaningless and STUPID and FAUX and *takes a long drag on a French cigarette and adjusts beret*” person because at some point, I realized I was complaining about a single day of the year that had absolutely no significant impact on my life whatsoever. Well, unless I wanted to get dinner reservations for that night.

Gooey couples who are crazed about Valentine's Day aren't rotten, stupid people who are capitalist tools. They're just people who have decided they're going to be gooey and crazed about Valentine's Day, and then they continue being gooey well after Valentine's Day has concluded. If you're fretting about being single, you're going to continue fretting about it well after Valentine's Day has concluded. The inequity in society that celebrates coupledom and gives the side-eye to singledom wouldn't magically disappear if Valentine's Day was stricken from the universe. It would be replaced by some other silly-ass day and it would be called...YeeHaw Couple Day or Whoop Whoop You'd Better Get Married Or You're a Failure Day. While society would like you to believe that you're somehow less than because you're single, you are more than welcome to give society a well-toned finger of the middle variety. There is no law that decrees you must be decrepit, sad and angry 100 percent of the time when you're single, just as there is no law that decrees you will find your ultimate lovemuffin, just as there is no law that decrees you'll be blissful and complete should you find your ultimate lovemuffin. It's the nature of the beast. Our world is really hot on “fate” and “happy endings” for all because that shit sells magazines, movies, books, diet plans, and all sorts of other lies. I would not sell many self-help books because the chapter about love and long-term relationships would be “Eh, it might not happen, so it's in your best interest to make your life as entertaining and adventurous as you can because it can be entertaining and adventurous flying solo as it can be with a long-term partner”.

SIDEBAR: The rotten, stupid people are the ones who lord their coupledom, who think they're made of magic and unicorn because they've found someone to rut with on a regular basis, and who dole out those awful platitudes about there being an ass for every saddle and how you have to stop looking and all that wretched goddamned shit that just made me want to kick people in the fucking face whenever they'd drop that science on me. Those are people that you should be directing your ire at, not the regular goofs who are all “I MUST HAVE FLOWERS SENT TO MY OFFICE” or whatever.

SIDEBAR THE SECOND: Seriously, though, if you want something from your sugarpuss on Valentine's Day, fucking say something. Don't play douchey games where you sigh, “Oh, I don't need/want anything, pookums!” and then stew when Sugarpuss Pookums takes you at your word. And then don't ascribe that game-playing bullshit to an entire gender because ho boy, that makes you an even bigger mope who perhaps needs to audit a few more classes at Grown Fucking Adult University.

SIDEBAR THE TH—just kidding.

ANYWAY. In short, as William Murray once said in the epic moving picture, “Stripes”: Lighten up, Francis. If you think Valentine's Day's a sack of shit, GREAT. If you spend hours contemplating what the perfect evening/gift for Sugarpuss Pookums is, GREAT. One or the other doesn't make you intellectually superior or better or cooler. It's your personal choice and it's totally valid. Just be assured that your railing against the Valentine's Day Cabal is just as eyeroll-inducing as Miffy and Stupendouspants cooing about how awesome their love is (which they also tweet about and Facebook about and FourSquare about) while eating overpriced fondue.

Your relationship is not my relationship.

2012-01-31T19:12:00.000-06:00

Soon, I will be joining a club that I hadn't thought I would ever join. In a couple days, I'm getting married and to some people's chagrin, I'm very laid-back about it. Don't confuse “laid-back” with “not being excited” - I'm excited that I'm marrying someone that I think is very amazing and my best friend and all those good things. But I've never been much of a “jump up and down and squeal” sort of gal, and I'm marrying a fellow who isn't much of a “jump up and down and squeal” sort of guy. I suppose if we were getting in a more traditional fashion, with the big-ass ceremony and big-ass reception and bouquet-whipping and chicken dancing, I imagine I'd be more traditionally “excited” - and wishing I'd fucking eloped. So knowing myself as well as I do, it's for the best that he and I are rollin' to the courthouse, dropping a ten-spot, and making it legal in less time it takes to get an oil change.

We kept our relationship quiet for quite a while, only letting those who needed to know know about what was happening on our personal planet. Now, of course, thanks to those handy Facebook buttons, it's no secret and, at my workplace (the Evil Empire), it is no secret either. Which has resulted in my experiencing a strange phenomenon – people expressing their own loathing for their relationships in that weird, uncomfortable “joking” fashion. I was trapped on an elevator today with a co-worker, a co-worker who has in the past given me other pieces of “advice” which included never letting my future husband anywhere near the finances and to NEVER NOT KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON WITH THE FINANCES. I'll let you connect the dots as to what causes her asshole to pucker in her marriage. Today's precious moment began with her laying out a fresh chafing dish on her bad news buffet, with the expectation that I would happily step up and hold out my dish to hear about what new fuckery her husband was up to. I wisely stepped back from the sneeze guard. But that didn't stop her from saying, “are you sure you want to get married”, capped with a laugh I can only describe as the kind of laugh that can be heard in space and causes astronauts on the ISS to wish for puppies to punch. I replied, “I want to marry Futuregroom”, to which she stated, “get back to me in 20 years” (cue cackle from Satan's crotch). Another co-worker let me know that I would be officially relieved of my freedom the second the ring hits my finger, then did that weird uncomfortable laughing thing to assure me that...I'm not quite sure. That whatever shit she dealt with on a daily basis in her marriage was destined to be visited unto mine? That all men are infantile morons who are incapable of functioning without a woman at the helm to steer them into the appropriate ports (or icebergs)? That I would morph into a squalling harpy barking orders at my hapless spouse?

Look, I'm 40 fucking years old and I've spent a LOT of time ensuring that a) I've checked myself before I've wrecked myself and b) I am solid with what sort of bullshit I'm willing to put up with from other people. Everyone's got bullshit that's on display and I'm well aware of my bullshit, bullshit that I work on on a consistent basis to temper and minimize. Therefore, I am really quite solid and comfortable with my determination that the man I'm going to marry ISN'T A STEAMING DOUCHEBAG and that he, in turn, is not marrying A STEAMING DOUCHEBAG. If he had glaring personality defects that would shoot up multiple red flags on every planet in the solar system, I would not be marrying the motherfucker. Honey, I'm good with myself. I figured out a while ago that I didn't need to hunt down someone in order to make me “me” and that if I wound up being single until I died in a spectacular fashion involving perhaps a tiger, pyrotechnics, and a gunfight, I would still be capable of having a really gorgeous life. So I'm not getting married to fill a void or complete me because I was done to perfection before he careened into my life.

No relationship is perfect, fucking amoebas get that concept. It's not a sweeping romantic epic from start to finish. If you can't get over your life not resembling the lies that are sold by pretty much every piece of media that exists, you run the risk of being one of those people who get all shriveled and bitter and cynical and works quite hard to shit upon other people's contentedness because you haven't summoned up the spine to do what needs to be done in order to get right with yourself and the other person involved. Marinating in a years-long stew of misery because you think that's how it's “supposed to be” is a load and you do yourself or anyone else any favors.

So if your advice (hopefully solicited, because just dropping “advice” on someone who hasn't asked for it is a dick move) to someone else is a barely-disguised napalm job of your own relationship peppered with creepy “jokes” about the old ball and chain, you need to step back, stop, drop, roll, and resist the urge to paint everyone else's life with your crap-laden brush because your brush is the brush you own, and perhaps it's time to clean it.

Christ riding a chimney sweep, that was one of the more belabored metaphors I've constructed in quite a while. Must be that old ball and chain dragging me down.

Growing up is not giving up.

2012-01-25T20:10:00.000-06:00

I'm about to turn an age I couldn't comprehend turning back in my 20s. The year 2000 seemed like a science fiction dream, for Christ's sake, let alone turning 40 YEARS OLD. Back then, 40 was a wretchedly old age. It SOUNDED old. And I certainly wasn't going to be OLD, I was 21 and getting loaded every weekend and just barely managing to attend my part time job and living in the SUPER-COOL CITY. Shit, I even wrote a comic song called “I Hope I Die Before I Hit 30” (I was going to be what I now recognize to be one of the more evil things in the world – A STAND-UP WHO PLAYED NUTTY SONGS DURING HER SET – AUGH).

Of course, time rolled on and I stopped getting shitfaced every weekend and I started working full-time at that part-time gig and suddenly, I hit 30 (I did not die)...then 35...and now I'm staring down the barrel at 40. I have a car payment, I manage my debt wisely (mercy, that took a long time to do), I've worked at the same place for 21 years (!), and an exciting evening for me is lounging about my lair in the company of my futuregroom. I am solidly and firmly what would be described by most as an “adult”.

However, I feel like behaving like an adult is frowned upon more and more – that not having the desire to go out and do endless shots and puke in doorways (been there) means that I am a no-fun Francine. There's this very, very strange cult of personality that has sprung up around “party” people – people who happily brag about the assorted substances they ingest at any given time, how little they've slept, and how late they rolled into work (if they actually HAVE a job). And that it's somehow bad if those of us who aren't doing lines out of a Brooklyn hipster's hole look somewhat askance at those who don't appear to be interested in anything other than having some new, “edgy” story to bust out on the internet. Drinking a carafe and a half of Snakejuice and passing out in a dank corner of a club every other night is not “edgy”, sailors and sailorettes. Waltzing into work at the crack of noon and putting the nose to the grindstone for a grand total of four hours isn't “edgy”, fair dames and sirs. It's asshole behavior. It's the kind of bullshit you get to pull when you're in your early 20s and still convinced you're invincible and everyone above age 30 is stodgy, imperialist swine who have no idea what it's LIKE TO BE YOOOOOOU, YOU SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE YOU and then you have that moment of clarity where you realize that having a freezer filled with nothing but assorted flavors of vodka is not that cool because eating food that isn't three-day-old pizza is good and being current with your bills is a nice feeling and getting a good night's sleep is delicious.

When you have that moment of clarity, you may have an additional moment where you think “oh man, I'm so BORING and my life is OVER”, but unless you are a dope, you don't stop having fun simply because you're not belly-flopping on a Slip-n-Slide soaked with beer in the back room of a crap bar four nights a week. Fun is not ruled out because you have a 401K and you're not making lists of the shit you own that you'd be okay selling because otherwise, you're not going to be able to pay the electric bill. You are not a faceless drone like all the other squares, MAN, because you're not vomiting loudly into your trash can at work. You are, most likely, just an ordinary person like most people in the universe, and THAT IS OKAY.

I think the culture has evolved into this odd beast that gives the stink-eye to the regular Joe and JoeBobette – and not even so much to the regular Joe or JoeBobette, but to those of us who don't have that crazed need to be constantly looked at, constantly paid attention to, constantly ringing that bell and screaming “BUT WHAT ABOUT ME BUT WHAT ABOUT ME BUT WHAT ABOUT ME HERE'S WHAT I THINK AND HERE IS AN ANECDOTE ABOUT THAT THING ONE TIME THAT INVOLVED PYROTECHNICS AND A LEMUR AND SARAN WRAP AND LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEE HERE'S A PICTURE OF ME AND A WHATNOT AND LOOOOOK”. It's almost like everyone is compelled to trump the next fellow's story and the more places on the internet it gets posted, the better. And then there's the odd crew that applauds and fawns and giggles over the tales of getting popped for public urination or snorting chopped up cough drops or drinking lighter fluid out of a blockhead's crotch. I mean, if you're able to drink lighter fluid out of a blockhead's crotch AND make that eight am meeting AND complete your presentation on the debits, the credits, and the people we exploit? I guess I give you kudos, even if you do probably smell like lighter fluid. If your need to be a jackass doesn't fuck with my day, I reckon I can't complain. But just as an FYI – you're no more special or unique than the cat that's up at 4 am to take the train and the bus and another bus to put in her/his 10 hours so he/she can kick back on the couch at night after a delish dish of Hamburger Helper and fall asleep to “Hoarders”. You just lack the ability to not be the center of attention every single goddamned minute.

Now, as something resembling a writer, I am required to do a little LOOK AT ME so that people will read the claptrap I cough out on the internet whenever I can be arsed to do so and be entertained by it. As you can see from the amount of entries I have, however, my need to feed the beast is a fairly occasional scratch that requires itching. Back in the day, the beast demanded I learn how to eat fire, weasel my way onstage to be a part of a Penn and Teller performance, and do a one-woman show in a comedy festival. These days, the beast is content if a couple of my friends share my shit on Facebook. But Universe help us if I ever rediscover the Look at Me Beast and decide to write that book I've always threatened to write, because hoo lawsy, my beast is loud and has a lot of fucking time on her hands and is involved in a LOT of social media.

Blockhead = a performer in a sideshow who specializes in hammering nails or other implements into one's nasal passages

It's Christmas...all over...again.

2011-12-24T08:05:00.002-06:00

Strap in, because Christmas is comin' atcha!

Look, I'm not a big Christmas fan. At best, it's tolerable. Though I am entertained by lights. The area I live in buts up against a neighboring suburb where the mayor (whose childhood nickname was “Bimbo” - no, really) clearly fucking LOVES CHRISTMAS and he charges his minions to deck the halls like a muhfucker. You know those grassy areas near entrance/exit ramps and such for the expressway that might have trees and whatnot on them? Bimbo decorates that shit, too. When I've been driving to work at silly o'clock, my eyes feast on a Christmas disco from Planet Santa. So that's okay.

The rest of it, though? Oh, no thank you. So I'm not going to wax poetic about the wonderfulosity of the season and blah blah blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah – I'm going to post a picture of a baby sloth eating a carrot and then discuss other things.

As we approach 2012, our final year on earth, I would like to state that the one thing I'd love to see in the final year is for the chronic woe-is-me'ers to sit back, check themselves, and proceed not to wreck themselves. Oh SHIT time for a baby orangutan disclaimer:

People, let's get it straight – if you think I'm talking about you, most likely I'm not. You KNOW who I'm talking about. There are people in this world who DO have grounds to woe-is-me it up in this joint. And they probably would if all the space wasn't taken up by the folks I'm about to narrow my eyes at. So, dial it back before you get all fretty-betty and whatever. Though, you know, if you do think it's about you? You might want to do some checking of self as well. DISCLAIMER CONCLUDED!

No, luscious readers, I am talking once again (because I'm almost certain I've covered this in a previous entry...oh, shitwiches, I have. SIGH. All right, I need to have a moment to myself and ponder where the hell this is going to go now. WAIT. I've GOT IT.

But first, let's seriously, seriously talk about baby sloths. Because my god, they are so adorable. I think it's their little faces that crack me up the most because they look perpetually bemused. They are so cool. If I could hold a baby sloth in one arm and a baby orangutan in the other, I'm 99 percent sure I could drop dead from absolute bliss.

Now, let's have another serious discussion about the trailer for “The Hobbit”. I read “The Hobbit” for the first time fairly recently and, well, it was not my bag...gins HA OH I KILL ME. I wasn't sure what the hell the finished product of the movie version was going to look like, but after seeing the trailer, I'm feeling like it's going to look like AWESOME. Martin Freeman looks awesome, there's Ian McKellen being all awesome in his Gandalfery, and so, it made me all happy inside. And awesome.

While I'm thinking about it, I'm planning on writing a little something prior to the New Year so...uh, mark your calendars, I guess? It will probably be about how resolutions are bullshit and don't get sucked into meeting expectations you can't possibly reach along with my yapping about, like, the year gone by and stuff. There may be maudlin content, I can't be sure. Of course, I have to remember to actually do it. And carve out some time to do it since I will be getting a new roomie next weekend in the form of my New Zealander futuregroom. Fret not, my sugarcoated candy canes, you'll hear from me again soon.

Finally, let me tell you a Christmas tale. It has settled into Nolan family legend and, since it is epic in scope, it must be told to others. Mainly because I think it's funny.

Some years ago, we decided that our Christmas Eve celebration (since that's when we do our family thing) needed to have a special cocktail to go along with our sugarplums and fine fatted goose. Emeril Lagasse created a little zinger of a thing called a “Poinsettia”. The Poinsettia contains champagne, vodka, and cranberry juice. Take a moment and read that again. Champagne. Vodka. Cranberry juice.

We also have special hors d'oeuvres that are only trotted out for Christmas Eve. One is marinated flank steak, wrapped around water chestnuts; the other, baked won tons filled with sausage, red peppers, and cheese mixed with ranch dressing. The flank steak is downright beloved. It is prized and there are never leftovers.

We enjoyed our Poinsettias quite enthusiastically, but none more so than my sister. We will call her...Auntie Sister. Auntie Sister found herself very full of Christmas joy – so full that she wound up sitting on the couch after dinner, a stewpot on her lap, and vomiting vigorously into it as the evening wore on. My nephew, perhaps five or six at the time, ran circles around the kitchen island declaring, “Call 911! Call 911! Auntie Sister is spitting up!” Auntie Sister retreated upstairs to the guest room and a silence fell over the house – well, a silence in as much as there were no heaving sounds. After a while, I was charged with finding out what Auntie Sister's status was. I crept into the guest room and Auntie Sister was laying on the floor (as you do), a corona of hurl around her head. She was alive and well (as well as you can be after your body hits the reverse on itself) and I found by going up to see how she was I'd also drawn the short straw on clean-up duty, so there I was...mopping up her leavings. Once she was snug in her bed (passed out), I came downstairs to family members questioning Auntie Sister's status. I replied, “Well, at least there's more flank steak now.”

RIMSHOT, BITCHES

*DROPS THE MIC*

Norman Rockwell ain't got shit on us.

Until next time, you gorgeous specimens of humankind, stay frosty and remember to always nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

“Prometheus” looks HOT. Ridely Scotch*, go on with your bad self.

*h/t Superego

Survival of the holidayest.

2011-11-24T11:06:00.000-06:00

Hey kids, it's that time of the year again! You know, the one that can really blow. Here are some helpful hints, tips, tricks, suggestions, advisings, suggadvices, and hinttipricks that might help you make it through.

It is nearing 8:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day and I'm still in my pajamas, hair very askew and getting into that post-waking “I feel greasy and gross and want nothing more than to shower” mode. But I'm already seeing assorted online friends and acquaintances starting the day with dread because oh mother of fuck, I have to spend time with people I really kind of dislike a bunch. These could be family members, they could be friends of friends, any number of walking black holes that seem determined to be mannerless pig bastards on a day that is allegedly about being grateful to be with those you love (and who love you). And that's not cool. So many of us have a precious day off from work, where we're often forced to deal with mannerless pig bastards – but at least we're getting paid for it. Instead of spending this workfree day luxuriating in whatever sort of thing we want to do, we're INVITING THE MANNERLESS PIG BASTARDS INTO OUR HOMES. Or GOING TO THEIR MANNERLESS PIG BASTARD HOUSES. And then there's hurt feelings and frustration and wishing for death and drinking a lot and it all ends in tears and a promise to ourselves that NEXT year, we are going to THE BAHAMAS/NOVA SCOTIA/ANTARCTICA in order to avoid this fuckery.

This is no good, my loves. This silly-ass “suck it up and suffer the mannerless pig bastards (can you tell I am REALLY entranced with that phrase)” thing stops now. You need some solutions so you don't have to suffer through one more goddamnably awful Thanksgiving or holiday gathering (because oh yes, more's coming). And don't think because you might not have a “signature” holiday approaching because you might not be of the Judeo-Christian or Western Worldly persuasion that this can't apply to you. Everyone with, let us say, problematic interactions with assorted people can utilize some of my hinttipricks.

Let us begin with the most obvious, yet hardest thing to say for so many of us: NO.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. Try it, let the word trip off the tongue, say it short and staccato NO or revel in the vowel NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. We are terrified of “No” because we don't want to seem like the bad guy or no funsers, and often we're dealing with mannerless pig bastards (let's just abbreviate from here on out, MPBs) who “won't take 'no' for an answer”. Well, guess what? They're about to learn...that they WILL. Because with a “no” comes action – or, rather, inaction. Does going to your parents' house fill you with dread and horror because it's hours upon hours of passive-aggressive nitpickery and criticism disguised as “advice”? Are you expected to appear at multiple houses, even though those houses contain people you do not like? Are you routinely guilt-tripped with things like “I don't know if I'll even live to see next Thanksgiving/but your Aunt Tillie's got a foot in the grave/but I never get to see you/what would Glenn Beck say”? Would even Gandhi be all “fuck this shit”? Then it's time to make other plans, fans, and put the NO to work. And you know what? You don't even need to have other plans outside of “sit on couch and scratch my ass” because you don't have to justify not making the trek to RottenFeelingsTown. If it makes you feel better to craft an elaborate pretend plan, go for it. But the most important part is removing yourself from that maelstrom of horror. Which includes having MPBs to YOUR house, too. Your house should be a jerk-free zone, especially important if you've got children running around. Being exposed to bad behavior from adults is not cool. Your kid shouldn't have to see you being dressed down by your overbearing relative or witness you literally crying into the mashed potatoes because your father is a rancid asshole. And if they DO have to see it, use it as a moment to explain to them what rotten behavior is, even if it's coming from MeeMaw and PeePaw. When the inevitable invitations start coming in, start cranking out the No. You have other plans, you need to stick close to home since JimJoe/SissySue has to work Friday, we've decided to have a quiet holiday at home, traveling is difficult and expensive for us right now, no thank you no NO no NO no.

They will counterstrike, of course, whether laying on guilt or insisting on paying for your plane ticket/bus fare (eww)/gas. But you must hold firm and fast and keep on rockin' the no. It's not you being selfish – unless you think getting through a day without feeling like your soul has been crushed by those purported to love you the most is being selfish. It's you saving yourself. It's about taking control of how you are treated by others. It is protecting your partner and (if they exist) your children from people who are NOT going to have a Scrooge moment and throw farthings out the window to a local boy to bring him the finest fatted goose because they've realized the error of their ways. The MPBs are, nine times out of ten, going to be MPBs TO THE GRAVE. And hey, maybe your limiting your exposure to them might trip something in their pig brains and cause them to reflect upon their behavior. If that does happen, that is beautiful.

It's also painfully rare.

It's a hard row to hoe, my squashes, I know. Having that realization that your parent or your sibling or your friend from third grade is someone that you really don't care for is a dark thing. Everyone wants everyone to get along and we all want that Norman Rockwell moment because that's what is supposedly “normal” and “right” and “the way”. But it's not the case for everyone, and I think it's important to stop suffering through so much shit like we all tend to do. You know that bit in “Return of the King” where Aragorn's about to go into the creepy dead people mountain cave and the inscription says says “the dead do not suffer the living” and he's all through clenched kick-ass teeth, “You shall suffer me”? Well, you are Aragorn with crazy eyes and you are going to raise your sword and proclaim “YOU SHALL SUFFER MY NO”. It's up to you if you want to tag it with “jerk”.

you will also suffer how FOXY I AM

“But Jane,” many of you are saying through clenched kick-ass teeth, “I seriously CANNOT AVOID THIS FOR REAL” and trust me, I feel you. I do. If you feel like you can't roll with the No, then I give to you the phrase that pays for me and one that I use ad infinitum: you cannot change other people. You can only change how you react to them. (Yes, I'm sure Oprah and Tony Robbins and probably the Dalai Lama have whipped this chesnut out long before me.) “Oh, I have never heard this before,” you are now lying through said clenched teeth, but I appreciate your going along with my game. “How might I best employ it in future interactions with loud report?” Why, I'm happy to tell you, sugardrawers!

Are you girding your precious loins for an onslaught of digs/”conversations” about your appearance, your line of work, your lack of work, your parenting style, your choice of partner? Do you find yourself either running to a bathroom to cry or getting so enraged that you wind up throwing a massive brody that will go down in family legend in response to these “conversations”? Or worse, bottling up said rage to then only unleash it on innocent parties? If your answer is “yes, you foxy broad” then let's have some hinttipricks to wriggle our ways out of these conversations and emerge from another holiday season triumphant and the rightful king of Gondor!

Don't look at me like that.

Redirection: Redirection is a fantabulous method with which to diffuse and otherwise take the MPB's attention off of you. For example, let's say MPB Mom uses every Thanksgiving occasion to moan at you about your weight, whether you be (by her estimation) too fat or too thin. She'll give you the side-eye if you reach for another spoonful of egg nog Jello, tsk-tsk if you only have turkey and a smidge of stuffing, or regales you with stories of a long-forgotten school rival who can still fit into her size two wedding dress and isn't it such a shame you've let yourself go. Instead of feeding into her nonsense, just smile and try the following in the most chipper tone you can conjure up:

a. “Oh, let's not talk about me, what's going on with you? How's (things in Middle Earth)?”

b. “The green bean casserole Uncle Manny brought was delicious, don't you think?”

c. “Do you smell smoke?”

It's all about setting boundaries. Make it clear that your body, your family, your partner, your life is not fodder for criticism or negative conversation. If you have to do a follow-up of “(Subject) is not up for discussion. Let's talk about something else”, then do it. You have to be quick-fire, you have to keep your head on a swivel so you can put out every single fire you have to in order to muddle through. Speaking of the word “through”, let's move onto our next bolded thingy:

The Follow-Through: If MPB Mom doesn't back off, then it's time to bring out the big guns - “Mom, I've already said I don't want to talk about (blank). If you insist on doing so, I'm going to leave.” Yes, you have to throw down. And yes, if she doesn't zip it, YOU HAVE TO LEAVE. No production number, no screaming, just say so long to the people who aren't MPBs and get your shit and split. (Note: if you bring a dish, be sure it's in a disposable container so you don't have to have the awkward next-day phone call trying to get your Corningware back.) Yes, she will be beyond pissed. Chances are others are going to be beyond pissed. You will most certainly be a topic of conversation then! But you know what? Be proud, because you stood your ground and you gave her plenty of warning that if she didn't shut her yap things were going to take a turn. And anyone who doesn't support you in your move can suck it, because you spined up and took a stand instead of caving in yet again trying to create a Rockwell picture that simply cannot exist in such an environment. What's the thing about a sign of true insanity being doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result? Kudos to you, you're breaking the habit of pacifying, coddling, and taking shit from someone! That is GOOD.

Have a place to retreat to: If you're crossing state lines in order to put up with shit, it is SO important that you have a separate place in which to have a case of the snappies. That means you do NOT stay with someone (unless they pass the all-important test of whether they are MPBs). Do NOT. Splash out on a hotel/motel. If it's not in your budget, there is your reason for NOT ENDURING THIS UNHOLY HELL (whoo!). If you just need some moments to sit quietly and collect yourself, find a spare room or the bathroom, the garage, the broom closet, any place you can shut out the roar. Take a knee and remember it's all about how you react to these dingdongs and you have control.

Don't leave your partner in crime hanging: Doesn't it suck when you're getting shit on and no one will be the Sam to your Frodo? If you see your partner/your child/your family member you actually like getting shat upon like it's a hurricane, intervene immediately. Again, don't swoop in guns blazing all “YOU SHALL NOT PASS”, just smile and cheery-voice “Oh, partner, I can't find my blank, can you help me?” or any number of innocuous statements that will save them from the shittery.

YOU SHALL PASS...THE SWEET POTATO PUFF

It plays into the Redirection notion above. If you have to bust out “Don't speak to my person like that”, DO IT. But to jack with the offender, say it like you are talking to an adorable puppy with as much sugary sweetness as you can muster. I'm a big fan of speaking my mind/making non-felonious threats in as sweet and kind a voice as I can because it makes me laugh. And it may very well diffuse whatever tension has built up by this point. Which leads me to...

Does anyone remember laughterrrrrrrrrrrrrr: If you can't beat 'em, mock 'em. Whether it's in an aside to your partner in holiday crime or tweeting something catty, having an outlet in which to laugh is very key. Because sometimes, in the face of so much ridiculousness, all you can do to cope is laugh like Tom Hanks in “The Money Pit”:

In closing, my cornucopias of delight, I cannot emphasize enough that holiday gatherings should not come with a heaping side of guilt, sadness, or anger. You do not have to put up with anything you're not willing or ready or built to put up with. You don't always have to take one for the team. The prize you can keep your eyes on is a holiday that's spent with people you like and who like you back, no matter what. And if that means you fly solo and watch movies all day, then by golly, you need to do that instead of being barraged by hours upon hours of jerkery. That's not togetherness, that's not fellowship, that's pure crap. It's crap you, as a fully-growed adult, DO NOT HAVE TO WRANGLE IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO. You can do this. I believe in you. You are my gravy-soaked favorites.

Addendums:

“Boring” is not the same as “hostile”. Yes, Grandma Pearl may be a petite, wizened dullard, but she knows how to rock a mean mashed potato. A boring gathering is far preferable to one where you feel like you need to wear Kevlar in order to survive.
Do take a moment to do a self-check of your expectations and flip the script to make sure you're not the Holiday Douche.
A good way to assist in a “No” is to send some sort of lovely floral item or Edible Arrangement or something classy from Harry & David or some other gourmet treat/trinket.

In th'cold Novembah rain.

2011-11-20T16:13:00.000-06:00

Well hey there, friends, foes, and otherwise. I swear, it's like I wind up having moments where I'm suddenly reminded that I have a goddamned blog - like tripping over a pair of shoes that have been left in my path by a careless housemate or something.

We're ramping up into the holiday season which, for a goodly many people, isn't the most wonderful time of the year. It's a season fraught with peril, whether it's having less-than-ideal relationships with family or having expectations ratcheted up so high there's no possible way you'll escape without disappointment. There's a lot of control involved, control you CAN exert but we're all so trained to believe we have to put on our happy faces and endure all sorts of fuckery in the name of the SEASON. The easiest and quickest thing I think you can do is to lower those expectations immediately, because nothing kicks your ass faster than having an expectation of Person A, who nine times out of ten can't meet that expectation because that is how Person A simply is. And you know deep down that's how Person A is but you get hornswaggled and hypnotized by the SEASON and this year, maybe THIS IS THE YEAR Person A isn't going to be a disappointment. Don't bank on it. That magical moment is most likely never going to come and the sooner you drop those expectations to "well, Person A didn't get lit and try to carve the turkey with a corncob holder", the better you will feel and better equipped to handle the holiday hoo-hah.

MEMO

TO: Those people inclined to tell others "blood is thicker than water/but they're FAMILY/you'll regret it one day"
FROM: Jane C. Nolan
RE: Holiday events

Hello, well-meaning but terminally busybodied people! If you feel yourself inching towards opening up your own personal Lecture Loft to instruct others how they should do whatever it takes to patch up frayed relations with assorted family members or friends, my suggestion would be to CRAM IT. Chances are you don't know the full details as to why your target isn't on speaking terms with whomever, so it's best to take hold of the nearest spoonful of mashed potato and place it right in your yapper when you feel the urge to elucidate on the SEASON.

This would also include you opining about how people should lose weight, gain weight, wear different clothing, have children, or live their lives in a fashion you approve of.

Yours sincerely,

Jane C. Nolan
--------------------------------------------
In other fairly exciting news, I actually had something I wroted appear on a website that isn't Blogger or my own violently neglected, outdated website intellectualbabe.com! Since I yammered about it on pretty much every social network site I'm on (the facebook, the twitters, and a couple of message boardses), it probably won't come as a surprise to you, all two of you who read this blog on any given day, but link to it I shall!

It happened to me! I made an effort!

So that was neat.
--------------------------------------------
Finally, I have to spend a paragraph or so just delighting in he who is Paul F. Tompkins - comedian, podcast host (The Pod F. Tompkast), all-around cute-as-a-button motherfucker. He's funny, he's insightful, and I must admit one of the things I enjoy about him best is how he is always so publicly goony for his wife, actress Janie Haddad Tompkins. More often than not, it's the married man's role to bitch about how his wife is a harpy, how she tells him what to do, how being married is a nightmare, loss of freedom blah blah blah. (Christ knows publicly expressing affection for one's partner is SUCH a loser move.) But I've yet to hear such cliched claptrap come out of Tompkins, and it's so refreshing to hear a guy who thinks his wife/partner is awesome instead of bitching about how she's somehow made him "less of a man" or some such shit. He's available on Twitter under @PFTompkins, and you should follow him and delight in his delightedness. Plus, he's on, like, every podcast under the sun on an almost weekly basis. Which is awesome. And you should listen.

Well, other than that, not much is going on in this neck of the woods. There very well may be an end in sight for the immigration festival I've been on for the last eight months or so with my partnerperson, so I may very well blog about it...in 2012? Stay tuned and find out!

My September issues.

2011-09-25T14:23:00.000-05:00

I remember, way back in my youth thatwas ever so long ago, getting fired up over fall and the idea ofgoing out and buying all sorts of cute new outfits for school. I say“idea” because, as a young chubster, buying all sorts of cute newoutfits simply wasn't going to happen because they didn't actuallyexist. I would buy the fall issue of Seventeen magazine, big andthick and crammed with all sorts of fashion ideas and tips and tricksand ooh and ahh over the assorted ensembles on their pages, and ofcourse not a stitch of the ensembles came in a size bigger than 12.

I would try to cobble togethersomething that could be interpreted as being sort of hip or current,but I had two stores from which to cobble – Lane Bryant (backbefore they decided to make clothing for women under 60) and SizesUnlimited (lots of basics. Lots...of basics. LOTS). I rememberbuying a hot pink studded belt from maybe Claire's or ContempoCasuals or maybe Express (since all I could buy were accessories if Iwent shopping with my thin friends), a belt that was meant to goaround one's torso twice. Of course, it only got around me once withperhaps another six or seven inches available, and I spent agestweaking it so at least I could wear a COOL BELT (it was 1985). Aparticularly disagreeable male classmate decided to call me out onit, of course, since what business did I, Fat Girl, have trying tolook like the thin girls?

Oh, there was so much polyester in mylife. So much damn polyester. It wasn't until junior year of highschool came along that it seemed like clothing from a planet closerto mine began to be made for the fat chick about town, and I hadsettled into my “I Am Robert Smith of the Cure In Drag” phase soI could slap together lots of black and skirts and such that made mefeel more like ME than someone being forced to wear god-awful shitbecause that was all that was available. I want to say Mode Magazineappeared around that time as well, but the internet is not helping meand at some point, there's a lot of blurring beyond a certaindate, if you feel me. Reader, I'm 39. BLURRING.

Had Torrid appeared when I was 16? HOLY. SHIT. I don't know what I would have done with myself fromall the joy that would have been coursing through my veins. Mindyou, I'm referring to version 1.0 of Torrid, when it was Goth-esqueand DARK and I WEAR BLACK ON THE OUTSIDE BECAUSE BLACK IS HOW I FEELON THE INSIDE awesome for suburban teens such as myself. And I'mglad that Torrid exists for fat teengirls now because Lane still justdoesn't quite cut it if you're below a certain age. Well shit, Lanedoesn't really cut it for me at 39, but so few clothiers do. If I dodecide I must buy something, my first stop is going to be Vive LaFemme in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood because owner StephanieSack is made of 100 percent pure awesome and makes shopping forclothes so festive. I always thought I was sized out of what iscarried at Vive La Femme, but Stephanie is magic. I also will snarfaround LucieLu.com and I have some dresses from her that are alsomagic. Lane gets my business for my unmentionables and jeans andthat's about it because I'm sniffy and refuse to be anything otherthan comfortable these days. That may mean I dress like a20-something fat skater kid, but I'm not constantly pulling oryanking or adjusting something to get it over my belly/out of myass/up above my knees. I can't present myself in a manner which Iappreciate if I'm in shoes that are making my size Tenleven gunboatshurt.

I'm looking at my closet right....NOWand there are so many items in it that I haven't worn in literallyyears, but it's as if I'm keeping them for a rainy day where I'llsuddenly come over all I MUST DRESS UP. I just hope they'll all gowith jeans.

We hate it when our friends become soft pretzels.*

2011-09-22T18:30:00.000-05:00

I had kind of a weird revelation todaywhen I arrived home from my gig at the Evil Empire. I was named anemployee of the month at the Empire and then my boss told me shewants to present me to my co-workers as, basically, someone toemulate. All of which, on paper, seems quite good.

However, in reality, I'm utterlyhorrified by it. If there's anything I've learned in my 39 years ofexistence it's that people being successful at something is kind ofannoying. Sure, if you're “mature”, you are pleased when friendsor family achieve something. But tucked deep down in a corner of thesmall bowel is a little wretched imp that breathes, “fuck you,sailor” whenever someone does something of an achievementy nature. Okay, fine, at least in me it does, but I know you've got a wretchedimp in there too DON'T LIE TO ME.

It's not that I don't want to be goodat my job. I like money and I like having some sort of say in howthings are run in my little corner of the Evil Empire. But I amfretful that my co-worker pals will stop seeing me as Good Time FunJaney and begin seeing me as the goddamned pain in the ass brownnoserwho is making them do things or try things they don't want to dosince all any of us want to do is do our work and go home and nothave someone up our collective ass about how we do our work. Insteadof being part of the team and saying “yeah, yeah, they need to gofuck themselves”, I'm going to be a part of the team that is goingto be the target of the “go fuck yourselves”. I want to believethat I will be helpful and perhaps teach them some new tricks...but Isuspect I'll just be painted as a meddling douchetron. They're notgoing to be glad that a member of the team is on the inside, they'regoing to be pissed that I'm possibly complicating things for them or,worse, making them look bad.

That's the rub, isn't it, being jealousor irritated when someone achieves something. It's not so much aboutthat other person, but completely about us. About how we're somehowNOT succeeding as long as someone else is. Or that it's utterlyimpossible for us to succeed if Fang Watermelon has gone ahead andwon the trophy for Best Whatever. Never mind that we might be tryingfor a different trophy, say, the Best HooHahery trophy – thatmotherfucking Fang Watermelon's gone and TAKEN ALL THE GLORY. Andsure, if you're struggling to discover what it is you want to succeedat or it feels like you haven't caught a break or you're a little lowon soul coal, seeing your peers or co-workers or whatever doing wellor getting attention for something...it can blow rather hard. Inthose moments, all we can really do is dig our heels in and takestock of what things in one's life are actually good and, if notpleased with those results, see what it is that needs to be done inorder to make things good...er. I know I have people skills (despitehow much they can irritate the piss out of me) and that I can help myco-workers see that I'm not the enemy or trying to make things shittyfor them.

Well, if nothing else, I'll dazzle themwith candy since all the Halloween displays are up and YUM FUN SIZED.

*this is what an old friend used tocall Morrissey's “We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful”

Oh shit, I have a blog.

2011-09-16T15:31:00.002-05:00

So yeah, it's been a while (andgoddammit, whenever I say that phrase I wind up with that silly-assStaind song stuck in my head), but what can I tell you except the29-year-old me would have kept on bloggin' about the most useless ofshit while the 39-year-old me doesn't assume that anyone gives arat's ass about what I have to say because it's okay that no onegives a rat's ass about what I have to say.

Admittedly, operating under thatassumption (that is, I don't have to zip open my innards and poureverything onto the page under the guise of “entertainment” or “awriting exercise”) has resulted in my creativity going straightinto the dumper. Every now and again, it scratches at me, that kindof annoyance that comes when you're getting a tattoo and it feelslike someone constantly scratching at your skin for an hour, completewith ooky bleeding and seeping. At the present time, I'm “enjoying”a grand ole time at the Stress Circus thanks to having one parent whodecided having a stroke the day before my boyfriend was due to arrivefrom overseas for a visit was a great idea and the other parentdeciding to throw all coping skills to the wind. (Note: said strokewas minor and the strokee is going great guns and doing quite well,etc. etc. Copercabana...well...uh-huh.) For me, stress manifestsmostly physically – my carcass decides to basically cave in onitself and provides me with aches, pains, stomach troubles, andrepellent events of a bathroomy nature. I handle my stress by givinginto it for a couple days and then something in my brain clicks andallows me to ignore it, but not ignore the guilt that comes with notgoing to work for two days, not wanting to talk to anyone, anddevoting whatever energy I can summon up to get out of bed/go towork/perform my duties/come home/perform my duties/retreat to cave. There isn't much room for anything else.

Ergo, despite the fleeting ideas (Iloathe the fucking phrase “plot bunnies”) caroming around myhead, the thought of sitting down and giving said ideas any sort ofexistence is horrifying to me. Which then leads me down the DepressoPath of “well, it's not like you'd actually be able to sellit/publish it/put it on a pamphlet and pass it to people outside ofstreet festivals”, naturally. Then the Depresso Path sort of foldsin on itself in an “Inception”-style fashion and Marion Cotillardis sad and mysterious and Leonardo DiCaprio's face just gets widerand his eyeballs get narrower. Kind of like Gollum, actually.

Holy shit, speaking of Gollum, Idecided to read The Hobbit for the first time since I was akid (I think I read it when I was a kid, though maybe I justsaw a cartoon of it...maybe?) and I was not prepared for it to, well,kind of suck. I shouldn't say it sucked, because it certainly movedalong and was well-written and whatnot, but oof, at the end of theday it was not my bag. After reading the ever-so-serious Lord ofthe Rings trilogy, digesting the utter romp that is The Hobbitis a bit rough. Thinking about how in the red-hot hell they're goingto make a movie out of The Hobbit that doesn't make me seekout something to punch troubles me, reader, lo how it troubles me. Not to say I won't see it, I will see the SHIT out of it. But I'msteeling myself now for something that could possibly be a steamingpile. Trust me, I'm not one of those folks who gets super-tight whena film of a book I enjoyed gets loosey-goosey with the sourcematerial (though Bennie winding up with Jack in the film version of“Circle of Friends” was a bullshit cop-out and casting 98 percentof “The House of the Spirits” with white people was an absoluteLOAD plus two hours is not enough to tell such an epic story andlet's not get me rolling on “Memoirs of a Geisha”), but it justseems so...money-grubby to throw in appearances by Elijah Wood andOrlando Bloom to entice Ringers into seeing The Hobbit. There has tobe Hobbiters, right? And I would assume Ringers and Hobbiters allkind of dine at the same restaurant. Unless there's some sort ofvocal Ringers vs. Hobbiters gang war that I'm not hip to. I wouldn'tbe surprised if there was, since the internet has long taught me thatif there's a goodly reason to fight, by gum, we shall fight. Whetherit be over politics, religion, the “Star Wars” Blu-Rays or ifOrlando Bloom looks better with short hair or when his lustrous maneis in full curly magnificence.

Don't judge me, you a-holes. I'm IN ASTATE RIGHT NOW.

Hot for hyperbole.

2011-07-31T13:22:00.001-05:00

I suppose one of my character flaws is that I have very little patience for other people’s personality “quirks”. I go from zero to off-the-charts irritated quickly when confronted with nonsense generated to gain attention or solicit friendships. Being a borderline shut-in for most of my twenties provided me with the opportunity to spend enormous amounts of time with my head up my own ass, examining what I was about and why, and I came out the other side with one eyebrow permanently cocked Spock-style with disdain at...well, pretty much the entire universe.

As the years have marched on, our general culture has morphed into that guy that stands in the background of news reports done live and on the street who jumps up and down, waving his hands, perhaps pointing at his genitals. People pour every single thought, feeling, and deepest secret out into the world. Once, it was done to perhaps find fellowship with others feeling and thinking the same sort of thing and, ultimately, lead to some sort of personal epiphany. Nowadays? It’s less about finding fellowship and more about FML.

Yes, the delicious, hyperbolic FML, which stands for “Fuck My Life”. In the right hands, it can serve as a semi-amusing, ironic statement about just how privileged one’s life actually is. For instance, I was barbecuing yesterday and left the pork chops on a bit too long, resulting in dry pork. FML, y’all, FML. It’s “funny” because I can afford to cook pork on the barbecue and I live in a neighborhood where I can go outside without fear and do said barbecuing. Har har....har. But more often than not, FML is in the wrong hands, the hands of insipid douchebags who really do think not getting a good parking space or not getting a phone call from a potential dating candidate equals a life that should be crammed down the nearest shitter. People who can’t wrap their brains around the concept of changing a tire let alone privilege.

These are the people who will write screeds on the internet about every single problem they have, from the small to the overwhelming. Of course, the small problem could very well be overwhelming, depending on what kind of delicate flower we’re dealing with. As it’s in many people’s natures to aid those we sense might be in a bit of a pickle, commenters subsequently fall over themselves to provide the writer with possible solutions, information, and what have you. The writer dries his/her salty tears and thanks everyone for the internet hugs and positive vibes (heretofore known as “pozzies”) and swears they are going to CONQUER THIS PROBLEM.

Two days later, the writer has an update. Wait, it’s not an update, it’s a list of reasons why all the good suggestions given to him/her by well-meaning suckers – I mean, people – simply will not work and oh my god and WTF and FML. Second verse, same as the first and scooby dooby doo. It’s as if something clicks in these creatures’ heads – “if I actually solve my problem or take steps to do so, I will no longer have the shiny spotlight of attention focused on me and I will be expected to conduct my affairs like a grown-up person does! THIS SHALL NOT PASS!” And the well-meaning suckers – I mean, people – will continue to fall for the same shit, different day and I will wish to be rendered sightless by a swarm of Africanized bees that have come for the sole purpose of stinging my eyeballs out of my head.

Ah! Hyperbole! My theme(ish), I have found you. Hyperbole is used by anyone who’s ever said “I would kill to get a shirtless Justin Timberlake to serve me a bowl of dulce de leche ice cream as I recline on my chaise lounge”. My problem with hyperbole is that it’s so dull. I mean, hyperbole your ass off all you want, but if you’re going to hyper your bole, jazz it up. If your life is such a gut-wrenching nightmare of a traumatic cesspool of a dungheap because that book you wanted from the library is out on loan for another two weeks and no, the librarian will not tell you who has it and no, the librarian will not call that person and demand they finish reading it so you can finally tuck into “Life-o-Matic: Gallagher’s Smashed Watermelons For the Soul”, then you’d better bring some serious shit in order to keep my attention and not cause me to flip off my computer screen with two emphatic fuck-you-fingers.

Don’t just drop the FML like you’re dropping the mic at the end of your set at the Dysfunctional Coffee House and Espresso Pump, fucking tear shit up and make your hyperbolic statement one for the ages. In an earlier paragraph, for example, I stated that I wished to be blinded rather than read self-absorbed internet screeds from infantile people who prefer drama over a low-key, ordinary life. I could have left it at “I wish to be rendered sightless”, but instead, I chose to BEDAZZLE(tm) that sentence with the desire that my sightlessness come at the teeny apiarian hands (claws? Mitts? Pincers?) of Africanized bees (very aggressive, those bees) whose only mission in life isn’t to reproduce or make sweet, sweet honey, but to POKE OUT MY EYEBALLS.

If we’re doomed to live in a self-absorbed culture that results in people doing whatever it takes to get all eyes on them/prove what unique critters they are/set themselves apart from those boring jerkwads who just go to work and pay their bills and do weekend trips to assorted places with their families and/or friends, then you had damn well better step the fuck up and entertain me while you’re sadmouthing everything in your universe in order to grab some of those cozy internet hugs-n-pozzies. Is your old lady givin’ you a hassle because you decided to buy all of “Space: 1999” on Blu-Ray instead of paying the gas bill, and the resulting argument made you feel sad and, like, only your internet friends truly understand how “Space:1999” on Blu-Ray (BLU-RAY!!!) is way more important than some stupid gas bill? The only way to avoid the negative Nancies who are going to shit all over you even more than your ole lady by agreeing with your ole lady is to make that argument and subsequent realization that internet friends will always support your fucking bullshit as flashy and over-the-top as a kickline at a Vegas titty show. Employ metaphors, dramatic ellipses, plenty of *actions* (i.e. *rolls eyes*), and have at least one, if not TWO potential catchphrases tucked away in your telling. Don’t make the mistake of capping it with a mere “FML”, though. “FML” is simply not powerful enough to communicate to your fans (because that’s what you really want - fans, not friends) the gravity and the pathos of your previous evening’s disagreement. There is only one way to conclude your sordid, heartbreaking tale.

YOU MUST CREATE YOUR OWN INTERNET MEME.

YES. Every SINGLE TIME you saddle up and are going to throw down your despair about the Bath and Body Works discontinuing the Pink Grapefruit scent or someone not being nominated for an Academy Award, it must conclude with a viable Internet Meme. I know, I know, so many have been taken already, but you’ve been telling us how smart and clever and unique and zany and yet delicate and fragile and damaged you are – I know you’ve got it in you to put on a true show every single time you take to Facebook, Twitter, your blog, your other blog, and Tumblr. Go forth, attention seeker, and THRIVE.

That pozzie right there? Free of charge, honeydrawerses, free of charge.

130,418 blog posts for the price of one.

2011-06-14T19:51:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so it’s been a bit since I’ve felt the need to put fingers to keyboard and whip up some sort of mildly interesting or vaguely entertaining blog post. You know, not the greatest post you’ve ever seen in the history of bloggings, but not utter shit, either. One of those that elicits as “oh, it was fine” or “how nice” or “well, most of the words were spelled correctly.”

I was chewing recently on my relationship – it’s a long-distance relationship, like, LOOOOONG distance. We’re not talking I live in Illinois and he lives in Wisconsin, oh no, this is a distance that requires double-digit hours on an airplane long distance. The kind of distance that makes roll my eyes at a movie like “Going the Distance”, where Drew Barrymore and Justin Long are pinin’ for the fjords because she lives in San Francisco and he lives in New York City. Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoyed the shit out of that movie because everyone cussed like sailors, they weren’t rolling in dough so flying to the coasts was not a no-big-deal proposition, and they captured some of the more agonizing bits of a long-distance relationship really nicely. All that being said...I’d sit through a Carrot Top show once a week if it meant my fellow was a mere five-hour flight away from me.

But what I was thinking about was my last visit to the land of Far, Far Away – I had a bit of a tizz about halfway through my two week stay because I got a sinus infection of some sort and wound up feeling like all kinds of shit and shinola for three days or so. Said tizz consisted of copious amounts of ridiculous tears while my erstwhile gentleman kind of stared at me, head tilted like Nipper, the RCA dog. At the time, I couldn’t quite express why I was so infuriated at my uncooperative nose/sinuses but then it clicked as I was idly musing while driving home from someplace recently. The thing is, when we’re actually in the same zip code, there’s no room for things like being sick or being otherwise incapacitated because there’s no time for a do-over. When the clock’s ticking on the amount of face time you have, being less than “perfect” isn’t acceptable because you have a finite amount of time in which to cram what would be, say, six months of regular dating time in a relationship that takes place in, well, the same place. So when you’re faced with only having 14 days with the person that you adore the most in the known universe, being dropped by a fucking sinus infection is going to cause you (okay, me) to throw a tizz.

Luckily, the fretting about having only a handful of days sharing the same airspace is finite, as machinations and plans and things are in the works, but goddammit, if our next rendezvous gets fucked up somehow because of my nose or my knees or my ass or whatever, something’s going to get kicked very hard.

Another thing I was thinking about recently was Hugh Jackman. Well, not so much thinking about as actually seeing him – last Wednesday, June 8, Hugh appeared on stage alongside 80s and a wee bit of the 90s star singer/songwriter/Chicago’s very own Richard Marx. Richard was taping a PBS special at the Arcada Theater in lovely downtown St. Charles and apparently, he and the Jackmeister General are BFFs. Who knew? I did not, but my sister, a Hughge (GEDDIT) Hugh Jackman fan, discovered that he would be appearing via some local gossip’s column. So we snatched up tickets to the show and found ourselves awash in...Richard Marx fandom.

Now, I was never a gigantic Marxist (GEDDIIIIIIIIIIIT???), but he had some tunes, you know. And I always like it when a dude that has some serious success decides to remain in the place he originated from – Richard and his wife Cynthia Rhodes and their three kids live in suburban Chicago and that is neat. So it’s not like we were going to suffer through two hours of absolute shite music just in order to catch a glimpse of Hugh. We learned many things that evening:

a. Richard Marx is a funny motherfucker – he is Mr. Wit and Charm onstage

b. The dude really has had a fuckton of popular songs! Seriously, we sat there and it’s like, “oh yeah, I know ‘Don’t Mean Nothing’ and ‘Right Here Waiting’” and then he’d bust out, like, 10 more songs that we found ourselves singing along with.

c. Richard Marx really does have a nice set of pipes. The man can belt.

d. Hugh Jackman is awwwwwwweeeeesssooooooooooooome. No, for real. My sister and I had boogied out to New York City when he was on Broadway with “The Boy From Oz” which, while being a fairly not good show, was elevated to KICKASS simply by the sheer force of Hugh’s Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent. He is a delight and the entire evening was worth not getting home until almost 12:30 a.m. and having to rise for work at 5:00 a.m. and grind through the Thursday with very narrowed, sleepy, angry eyes.

Other than that, things are rather mellow in the Fat Girl Fortress. Mellow is rarely conducive to writing blogs-o-rage or blogs-o-anything, but when one is a walking stressball 24/7, one welcomes those patches of mellow that do not produce blog posts that are essentially “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *punch punch*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” After all, throwing a tizz without an audience to look at you like you’re suddenly speaking Esperanto just isn’t that entertaining.

What the Fuck Friday.

2011-05-13T18:42:00.000-05:00

So at my workplace, we have a cafeteria that features all sorts of delightful things, from a well-appointed salad bar to freshly made sandwiches and whatnot. The selection is goodly-sized and it’s a nice perk to have. I was in said cafeteria recently to get breakfast, as I am known to do, and I decided to have a flatbread sandwich-esque thing that involved cheddar cheese, egg, sausage, and mushrooms. While I was awaiting my treat, two employees that I know in that “I see you frequently and will say ‘good morning’ to you but we don’t work in the same area” kind of way came into the cafeteria and proceeded to circle around the assorted offerings (fruit, yogurt, oatmeal, bagels, toast, and items from the grill) and loudly discuss what they “could” and “couldn’t” have. Then, they proceeded to stand behind me (a little too closely behind me) to observe what I was having for breakfast. They bemoaned their inability to have something like I was having – not because they didn’t have enough money to pay for it or lacked vocal cords to tell the grill cook what they wanted or were unable to hold the plate in their mitts. No, they couldn’t have it because they were on diets. Ahhhh. But I guess standing practically up my snapper in order to verbally mourn items they “couldn’t” have somehow made up for it.

It’s not unusual behavior in the workplace (or society in general) to have that segment of people groaning and moaning about what they are not “allowed” to have because of whatever diets they happen to be on that that given moment. They loudly celebrate being “good” because they chose not to have a brownie and flagellate themselves when they are “bad” and have a brownie or “jokingly” hiss at the co-worker who dared to bring in those brownies or candy or whatever about how said co-worker is trying to make them “fat” – oh wait, *I* would be that co-worker who brought in that candy! I was under the impression that having a treat available in our high-stress unit would be a nice thing, but apparently I’m trying to make my co-workers “fat”. To which I said, “come join me” with arms widespread. (No really, I did.)

People on diets at any given time, it’s not my problem that you “can’t” have whatever it is I choose to be eating, whether it’s a flatbread with egg and whatnot or a brownie or any number of things on the assorted lists of “bad” things. It’s not my problem that you’ve bought into the horseshit pumped out there about how you have no “willpower” or “self-control”. When you prattle on about how “bad” you are for eating something that involves fat or sugar or white flour or chocolate, I’m not going to comfort you and tell you you’re okay and you can work it off on the treadmill or just have salads for the next 30 days in order to atone for your behavior. I’m sorry that you’ve become terrified of food, but it’s not my problem. I won’t stand over you and shove whatever evil foodstuff you’re avoiding into your face, and I would appreciate it if you could manage to shut your yap – I mean, maintain a polite silence – when I’m enjoying whatever I’ve chosen to enjoy. I’d love it if you could manage to have a meal or a conversation or whatever that doesn’t ultimately turn into a conversation about your diet and workout plan and how you’ve been “good” or “bad” in any given week. You're more than welcome to do what you like with your body and your food intake, but perhaps you might want to find someone else to discuss it with.

Meanwhile, over at Roger Ebert's reviews, he reviews a documentary called “Forks Over Knives” which is a doc in the vein of Morgan Spurlock’s “Supersize Me” where he ate nothing but McDonald’s for a month and, like, turned into the Grimace or some shit. Never mind that a vast majority of humanity doesn’t eat McDonald’s for every meal, but whatever. “Forks Over Knives” is about how animal protein is wrong and everyone should eat a plant-based diet and four people with assorted illnesses are magically transformed into healthy (read: virtuous and good) human beings because they ate fruits and vegetables and shunned the evil animal proteins and dairy and sugar. I’m quite sure that the doc doesn’t touch on concepts like privilege or access or that sort of thing because so often the “you’re an asshole if you don’t eat perfectly” movement doesn’t go anywhere near realizing that not everyone is a middle-class white person. But what bothered me was Roger Ebert’s belief that he was “weak and lazy” back in his fat days and the underlying tone that because he didn’t eat “correctly”, he brought his illness (the cancer that took his jaw) upon himself.

I’m fat. I’m neither weak nor lazy. I eat fast food perhaps once a month, I avoid processed stuff because it makes me feel shitacular, I love the shit out of vegetables (which torments my vegetable-loathing boyfriend beyond belief) and fish and all sorts of things that fall both on those vaunted “good food” lists and “bad naughty evil awful food” lists. I didn’t think Roger was weak or lazy when he was fat, and he’s not weak or lazy now, and he sure as motherfucking hell didn’t bring his cancer on himself. I adore the shit out of Roger Ebert. One of my most nerdliest of nerdy moments came years ago when I emailed him a question about a movie and OH. MY. GOD. HE. REPLIED. BACK. TO. ME. FOR. REAL. He sent my mom a nice note after he wrote a column in the Sun-Times about being a recovering alcoholic and she wrote him a note of admiration for his candor (she was working as a nurse at a rehab center at that time). I can't help but shake my head and feel sad for a moment that after all these years, he seems to be so strongly bothered by his years as a fat man. After everything he’s accomplished, will the one thing he points to as the most important achievement of his life be losing 70 pounds and no longer being “weak and lazy”? How many people who aren’t Pulitzer Prize-winning critics keep holding onto that notion that life can only be worthwhile if they fit into the approved definition of what “healthy” is (thin)?

Anyway. It's Friday, goddammit, it's been a hell of a week at the Evil Empire (picture me running around as if my head was on fire and only being able to put it out in a large bucket at about 2:40 p.m. today). One of these weeks I'll write a post that doesn't involve opening up the Lecture Loft, I swear. That is, if I'm not dead from the butter and animal protein and box of donuts I eat every hour on the hour, even in my sleep. Let me tell you, my pillow smells delicious.

Five years gone

2011-04-26T18:42:00.000-05:00

Recently, my friend Jenn celebrated her fifth wedding anniversary, which is a nice thing and whatnot. It was a bit mindblowing to me because it seemed like it was about 200 years ago - seriously, after you hit a certain age, time whips by and everything winds up having happened 200 years ago. I mean, for God's sake, I just realized that it was 19 years ago this month that I had my 30 seconds of Z-list fame when I was an Audience of One on "Night After Night with Allan Havey" on Comedy Central.

NINETEEN. What the hell. And I'm going to be 40 in nine months. What the super-hell. ANYWAY. I'm drifting, as I am wont to do, and I kind of sort of have a point to this particular post.

Kind of. And we'll get there...together!

So five years ago, my life was rather different than it is now. I was a bit crabby because I'd moved back in with my parents after my finances ate gigantic shit and I couldn't afford to pay rent AND pay credit card bills AND buy groceries PLUS there was the whole thing with the fucking rats in my Wrigleyville apartment but that's a tale for another day. I was feeling kind of failure-y and having difficulty adjusting to going from living alone to living with two other people...that also happened to be my parents. And old. Ohhh, so old. But I was rapidly discovering that not having to pay almost a thousand dollars a month in rent meant I could get my finances in order and do fun things, like go to Vegas and see one of my best friends get married.

We had a friend in common, someone we both had been very close to for a while, but were starting to realize that perhaps she was not someone who was, ultimately, beneficial to our lives. More so me than her, and it had to do with weight. My weight, really. This person, who we will call Friend X, self-tormented by her weight, decided that a liquid diet was the trick to losing all that ugly fat that was preventing her from...I couldn't really tell you what, but it was. So, naturally, she dropped a shitton of weight because that's what happens when you don't eat solid foods, and like so many of us who have had weight loss of any sort of significance, became a Weight Loss Messiah. What made it more...weird and creepy to me, however, was that she wasn't being a Weight Loss Messiah to my face - instead, she was going through friends, telling them about how her hopiest of hopes was that I was going to get "my health together" (read: lose weight). And so much of her conversations became all about her weight loss and exercise regimen, things that even before my embracing of Fat Acceptance, bored the ever-living shit out of me. Before the trip to Vegas, I had been pulling away from Friend X since conversations began and ended with her and her weight and her pounds lost and liquid foods consumed, but after Vegas I knew it was time to start cleaning house and end this relationship because it wasn't doing me any good.

For the first time in my life, I was actively disconnecting myself (in that I was informing the other party of what was going on) from someone else. I was standing up for myself and outlining what I was no longer willing to tolerate and holy motherfucking SHIT, it was so gigantically liberating. For so many years, I clung desperately to pretty much anyone who entered my hemisphere because I was wrapped up in that notion that a) fat girl = unloved and b) quantity of friends is more important than quality. So you could treat me as shittily as you liked - as long as you showed me some modicum of affection at some point, I'd take your horseshit. I couldn't give you a specific example why this straw broke my camelly back and I decided to walk, but it was just TIME to stop being everyone's goddamned sidekick and supporting player in my own life and put my fat ass first.

Putting my fat ass first meant that I was also starting to feel the nascent vibes of loving and digging my fat ass as it was and not what I imagined it was supposed to be, which was also a synapse-snapper. Being free of a relationship that was nothing but negativity about bodies that resembled mine was astonishing. Time passed and I found things like Joy Nash's "Fat Rant" and Kate Harding's "The Fantasy of Being Thin" cementing what I suspected was right for me. I had done plenty of things fat and without obvious shame (performing on stage, traveling, going out in public), but the weight that my weight placed on my shoulders was always there and, well, weighing me down (to overwork the hell out of a metaphor). Bit by bit, blog by blog, article by article I was freeing myself, becoming happier, re-discovering the defiance that had fueled me in my younger days.

That disconnection is one of the few things I can point at as a signpost or signifier or what the hell ever in my getting to where I am today. I don't think the me that cringed her way through writing a letter that, in summation, said "yeah, I'm done because I'm no longer interested in all of *hand flutters about* this" could have imagined where I was going to end up. Of course, to get all Oprah Deepak Chicken Soup of the suck-it on your ass, the journey isn't over yet and there's much more to come yoga-pose or whatever. But when I try to conjure up where I might still be had I not summoned up the spine to be a villain (because oh, I was quite a villain in certain circles when all was said and done)...oh man, I'd do it again and again and again. Freedom is so worth it.

The post you've all been waiting for.

2011-03-26T15:15:00.000-05:00

I woke up today with this idea in my head of what I could bllllllog about and I was all excited and rarin’ to go and then I had to have a bagel and a smoke and some caffeine and promptly forgot what the fuck I was going to write about. As the day wore on and I played Zuma Blitz and Bejeweled Blitz until my eyes bled (haven’t hit the Angry Birds....yet) I kept reminding myself that I needed to write SOMETHING, need to yap about whatever, just some sort of mildly creative – “mildly” is an understatement – thing so one could stave off the annoying whiny “I can’t WRIIIIIIIITE anymore” moods I’ve been finding myself in as of late. Then I remembered that whenever my terribly delightful manfriendpartnerbeing happens to be online at the same time as I’m having these moods, he always says I should write about him.

You asked for it, sucker.

He’s rather tall.

See, the thing is, up until a few years ago, I was quite happy to be as frank and honest as possible in writing items composed for the internet set. Perhaps not at Kevin Smith-frank levels, but I didn’t have much issue exposing my foibles and having a chuckle over whatever adventures I had in my silly little life. About a thousand years ago (1998, maybe), I performed on a stage in front of people for the last time, a little 45-minute long one-woman playlet called “David Duchovny: Or the Socio-Economic Implications of a Celebrity-Hungry Society”, I talked about my skirmishes with depression and suicidal thoughts in a lighthearted fashion, which was probably a poor choice considering the family members that were packing the black box theater had no idea I had had such issues. Though, at the end of the evening, my father was far more appalled by my repeated use of “motherfucker” than anything else.

When I’d contemplate what my life might be like if I had managed to recruit someone to join me in my campaign of...uh...you know, living and shit, I figured I’d be someone who be always game to yammer endlessly about our life and our kooky misadventures and that sort of thing. Of course, I also envisioned me being a successful writer/bon vivant/chat show circuiter-type person so dammit, my personal life would HAVE to be fodder. But deep down, when it came to the relationshippy bit of the envisioning, I don’t think I actually believed I would find myself in such a place. I had a menagerie of Imaginary Celebrity Boyfriends, for Christ’s sake, there was no room for an actual human being. Let me put it this way – in my head, it was more far-fetched that I’d meet some random cat on an internet message board than wind up swanning about town with David Duchovny.

There’s all sorts of blah-blah-backstory yim-yam that goes along with that line of thinking that I’m sure can be found on my other, late blog, but jump-cut to the present and I wound up meeting some random cat on an internet message board (sadly, no swanning about town with David Duchovny...YET). Instead of vomiting forth constantly about him as I had once imagined I would do so with a partner, I’m hard-pressed to make mention of him in the public sphere. The word “boyfriend” doesn’t trip off the tongue because a) he’s not a boy, he is a MAN/ron burgundy and b) I’m almost 40 years old and while I may dress like I’m permanently stuck in the 90s (and more often than not, the lead singer of Smashmouth), my brain starts squealing unappealingly whenever I try to use the word because I haven’t been a “girl” in eons. I don’t know that I ever was, but that’s a whole other subject in and of itself. And, like, to spend paragraphs waxing on about the joybringer that is he just makes me cringe. He knows how I feel about him. I know how he feels about me. It’s just not important to me anymore that the rest of the universe knows as well.

Though, admittedly, from a fat girl activist-esque standpoint, it’s important that I am visible and, by extension, my relationship be visible as well. (You knew I couldn’t get through an entire post without bringing some fat flavor into it.) When one exists in a society that, despite evidence to the contrary, still shrieks that fat people will never have partners, should never have partners, and should be shunned, unloved, and despised until they approach an appropriate appearance, it’s important that it be known that a woman like me (fat fat fatty fat faaaaaaat *clown horn*) snagged a fellow who isn’t with me because of all the clichés we’re subjected to (fat chicks are easy, he’s desperate, he’s going to fix me, etcetera) but because he digs all elements of me, which includes my body as it is and as it will be. While I don’t doubt for a red-hot second that there is an element that is rather cross that I, without doing anything a woman is “supposed” to do (i.e. dieting into oblivion, adhering to cultural beauty standards), got myself a gentleman of regard and deliciousness, I would like in some way to serve as a bit of proof to those who find themselves mired in the “it’ll never happen for me’s” that oh yes, it’s quite possible, even if it takes a couple of centuries in order for it to happen.

But I also don’t wish to serve as one of those critters who plays the platitude game, either, because EWW GROSS ACK. If you want to cause my butthole to clench up fast and furiously, start dealing out platitudes about asses for every saddle and what have you. I know I got goddamned lucky. Goddamned lucky. There’s so much luck in all of this foo-fah that I couldn’t possibly begin to instruct someone on how to get themselves somebody if they desire it to be so because LUUUUUUCK. I was on the wrong end of those assorted platitudes for a very long time and it made me rather hostile and narrow-eyed at those who seem to revel in spewing them forth. Hence, another reason why I am reluctant to spend much of my bloggage time working my jaw about my relationship.

Ultimately, I don’t have to put on a show about my life like I used to, when I was working to convince others (and myself) that it was the greatest show on earth – don’t get me wrong, I had me some times but there was also a lot of self-inflicted fuckery that made it less circus, more sideshow. I don’t quite crave that audience like I used to, when I wanted everyone to adore me. I’m only really interested in the adoration of a small group of people...numbering in the MILLIONS oh dammit.

Let’s try that again. I’m only really interested in the adoration of a rather tall random cat that I met on an internet message board who thinks my horrific Dean Martin impression is hilarious and doesn’t find it at all odd that I have a Dean Martin impression. As for the rest of you...well, money talks. Keep that in mind.

Let's hold on a second here.

2011-03-16T20:03:00.000-05:00

A note: I've decided to turn off comments because...well, I just don't feel like having comments or moderating comments. I appreciate all of you who read it (all five of you), but not having access to moderating said comments during the day and refusing to not moderate doesn't engender much of a conversation beyond "that was good" or "fuck, you fucking suck" or whatever. So I'm shuttin' 'em down.

Anyway. So I was reading the glorious Fat Chat and Fatosphere feed, waiting for someone to pick up on a little news blurb I'd caught on the elevator whilst at work. The elevators in the office building I work at has these screens that show news and sports scores and ads, and one of the news blurbs was about how First Lady Michelle Obama was saying that childhood obesity was negatively affecting the economy. Hmmm. Now, being a fat that has, apparently, helped to cause terrorism and is killing the planet (not kidding about those - people have publicly said that), I was curious to find out how fat kids could possibly be causing the economy to tank. The feeds came through for me as I discovered this is what came flying out of her mouth at the National League of Cities conference:

"Childhood obesity is affecting your workforces too – obese children are less healthy and miss more school on average,” leading to more parental tardiness and absenteeism at businesses in their communities, she said. “When we talk about childhood obesity we are talking about the workforce you are trying to build, businesses you are trying to attract, budgets you are trying to balance everyday,” Obama said warning that businesses may be reluctant to invest and build in communities with an unhealthy future workforce. (from CNN)

Now, given that absolutely no sources or studies or anything was cited by Mrs. Obama in that little spurt of speechifying, I'm inclined to call GIGANTIC HORSESHIT. Have a gander at Paul Campos' latest over at the Daily Beast, where actual studies and whatnot show that in fact, GIGANTIC HORSESHIT.

Let me tell you some stories and yes, it's anecdotal, but perhaps it might shed some light on why fat kids miss more school on average - and it's not because us fat kids were sickly.

From first grade until eight grade, I was saddled with gym teachers who were, on a good day, complete assholes. As a kid in elementary school, I was mocked and made fun of more by a grown man than any of my peers. I went to other adults explaining the problem and...absolutely nothing was done. In sixth grade, my teacher told another teacher of mine that I was "crazy". I was shuffled off to a social worker who knew that all that ailed me was my fat and gave me diet books. In junior high, my gym teacher was determined to save me from myself or whatever, and demanded weekly weigh-ins and for me to keep a food diary. Thankfully, my mother shut that shit down right quick, and in my eighth grade yearbook, my gym teacher wrote something along the lines of "exercise is fun!". But thanks to her and to the douchebag fuckface elementary school teacher, exercise wasn't fun, it was torture. It was punishment for not being particularly good at games like softball or kickball, for not doing 25 sit-ups in 30 seconds for the Presidential Physical Fitness test, for not being able to do a chin-up. I didn't like school very much and if I could weasel my way out of going, you bet your ass I did. Did my mom miss work because of it? Hell no. We were still in the glory days of being able to be left alone in the house at a reasonable age.

In my freshman year of high school, my entire homeroom decided that I was the fat ass they were going to pick on. Signs on my back, tacks on my chair - did they get their bullying handbook from the 1950s? A boy told me he'd kill himself if he were me. Do you really think I was leaping out of bed every morning, eager to go to school to learn? The only bright spot was that my mom was smart enough to get me excused from gym for three years straight because she'd seen the kind of psychological toll dealing with COMPLETELY HORRIBLE ADULTS had caused, and she wasn't about to force me to endure any more of it. I consider myself lucky, though. I really do. I got lucky and found my feet and my people in theater and radio, and I could escape the crapweasels from sophomore year on thanks to having homeroom in the school radio station. And what's so darkly amusing to me is that these same fellow students that took such delight in shitting upon me from a great height were the same fellow students who voted me "Most Original" my senior year and signed my yearbook and danced in a circle with me at prom.

I do think that the overall concept of "Let's Move" is a decent one. Like, the notion that everyone should have access to good eats and safe spaces in which to play and run about and whatever - I can't quibble with that because everyone should. But instead, it's morphed into this bizarro fat-shaming festival that targets fat kids and ostracizes them even more than they already are and makes it clear that they're a problem to be solved, something to be fixed. There's no acknowledgment of how eating disorders are turning up in younger and younger kids, no mention of how soul-chilling it is that four- and five-year-olds are talking about dieting, no thought given to how something like "Let's Move" is ultimately doomed to fail because thinness is its only marker of success.

Every day, I'm more and more grateful that I grew up when I did because chances are had there been the same kind of almost inescapable pressure being put on fat kids to do whatever it takes to stop being fat when I was a fat kid, I very well may have done what that shitty classmate of mine freshman year thought I should do. Aren't we supposed to be smarter than this?

Maximum overdrive.

2011-03-05T21:44:00.000-06:00

I’ve been on a bit of a vacation for the last, oh, four weeks or so. I spent most of February out of the country and then a week on my ass recovering from those two weeks. There’s something almost sinister about the jetlag that sets in when one returns from Australia. You’re crossing about 19 trillion time zones along with the International Dateline itself, and it stands to reason that one good quality 14 hour sleep would go a long way to resetting your clock.

Oh no, not the clock for this carcass. I came home on a Monday and it wasn’t until a good nine days later that I felt like my body was realigned with the time zone in which I reside. It was entertaining for about two days to sleep until two or three in the afternoon – then it got annoying and old and I wanted to have my shit back in its place so I could resemble a functioning human again.

This little anecdote is really apropos of nothing, except to maybe say there’s a good reason why I haven’t taken metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper and rattled off some bloggings; or, more to the point, I am dreadfully fucking lazy and after a year or so of dedicated blogging regarding Fat Acceptance have a hard time writing a blog unless I have something I consider “important” enough to say.

That’s the bitch of writing on one particular subject only for so long – the ability to fluff it up and get relaxed and ridiculous tends to go away. I have a LiveJournal – well, “had” is more accurate a way to put it. I haven’t updated it in over a year and let it drift into unpaid status. But man, I used to take rather large pride in the kind of silly-ass dross and babbling I could chuck into the LiJo (I just totally made that up.) I’d happily yammer about Orlando Bloom and music and whatever other pop culture hoo-hah that was delighting me at any given time, and then I made the mistake of, like, reading shit. And paying closer attention to the world in general. And suddenly realizing how much stuff is fucking wrong and evil and hurtful. So basically, my “fun” writing took a big turn for the buzzkill.

Not that I feel anything resembling regret about spending as much time as I did writing exclusively about FA, oh heavens no. Frankly, I think I wrote some good shit. But writing in a fashion approaching, like, grown-uppish caused my “fun muscle”, let’s call it until we all start giggling inappropriately, to atrophy in a fierce fashion. I pay far less attention to pop culture and whatnot than I used to, mostly because so much of it winds up offending me or bothering me in some way and I really am not hot on feeling like shit while watching a movie or a TV show or whatever. But I’ve found that it’s hard to shut off that part of my brain that wants to analyze the holy hell out of everything and explain why such-and-such moment on “How I Met Your Mother” was problematic for me and yammer for 20 minutes about what a fucking load of shit whatever tearful weight loss “success story” commercial was and create a feltboard presentation about how I would save the world or whatever.

I don’t know that this entry will wind up being fluffy as a fucking cotton candy cloud because I’ve been pondering some things lately about my life versus other people’s lives versus other people’s perspectives about their lives and my life and I swear, I can be super-fun at parties and I can have conversations that aren’t deep or meaningful in any way. I use Twitter, dammit, I USE THE TWITTER. I suppose I’ve got a constant, severe case of compassion fatigue. I fully admit I’m very conditional in my compassion. I don’t hug nor do I pozzie those who rant incessantly about issues that one refuses to fix in one’s life. I used to be that person, railing and complaining about things that no one but me could handle and repair, doing the “Look at me in my despair and how unfair the world is and it’s all because of other people and has nothing whatsoever to do with me” dance. Then I realized what a fucking bore I had become and decided to spend the time I used to yap in a boring fashion about my boring ass to fix my boring-ass life so I wasn’t a walking black hole. It’s hard work and it sucks and it takes a tremendous amount of strength to not go begging on the internet or in real life for people to file once again through Jane’s Bad News Buffet stocked with bummed-out baked chicken, frowny french green beans, and pouty pudding. It expends a lot of mental energy to keep my head out of my ass and not make absolutely every single frigging thing in the known and unknown universe ABOUT ME. I have my days of utter assholatry, but I can identify the behavior and stop it before it devolves into a FML-Fest.

And that’s not to say that everyone is allowed to have days of wallowing. Wallowing needs to be done. But it also needs to end. Just like this entry does because Christ, it’s reaching “Under the Dome” proportions. So, in summary:

I was on the prison planet of Australia for two weeks and recovering from jetlag for another week and boy, are my arms tired

I am incapable of enjoying anything anymore because my brain is annoying

Get your shit together

There’s your Cliff’s Notes. I’m off to flex my fun muscle.

Thirty-niner.

2011-01-28T20:19:00.000-06:00

So I did this thing where I turned 39 years old today, and it's just kind of weird because when I was 25 and throwing a brody over turning 25, it was borderline incomprehensible that I'd be 39 one day. I mean, I grasped the concept of time passing and aging, but I was 25. Thirty-nine seemed to be so far away. And shit, I could barely manage turning 25, what the hell was I going to do when I turned 30? Forty?!?!

Oh Christ, how I spent so much time fretting and hand-wringing over where I was at any given age. These mysterious milestones and achievements I should have been racking up all passed me by. Didn't get married, didn't even get into a relationship, didn't have a career to speak of, didn't have an agent, didn't sell a screenplay, didn't didn't didn't. I built quite the little self-pitying industry based on all the things I figured I should have been doing, how I should have been looking, the life I should have been leading. I can remember walking home from the el in the dead of winter, leaving work in the dark and trudging down sidewalks in the city that were NEVER shoveled (seriously, fucking shovel your sidewalks because I did not appreciate doing headers or doing the super-cautious weird walk thing to try and avoid doing a header), and glancing at windows in assorted condos and apartments, convinced that whomever was living inside that particular place HAD to be having a better time of things than me. And I was sure the fix was so easy - be thin, be pretty, change jobs, cure the common cold, get super into particle physics.

To avoid making a long story longer, shit worked out. I still don't have a career to speak of, but I was never built for having a career. I'm fine just having a jobby job, being at the same place for 20 years. I don't have an agent and haven't sold a screenplay, primarily because I lack the crazed ambition and drive to do such a thing. I reckon I could crank out a nice screenplay that would make a pleasant movie, but yeah, that having a "drive" thing? I don't have it. Some days I wouldn't mind having that semi-drive and sort-of-ambition back, mainly because I would like to knit something other than a very long, very cushy scarf.

Shit worked out in that relationship department as well, which still takes me by surprise every now and then. It's been a year and a few days since things changed, and it's resulted in me having random revelations about assorted items. I hung so much of my lack of success in the romantical department on being fat and fuck, that really did not have much to do with it in my experience. Me not going out and about and being social and owning my ass (and the size of it) and banking that every stinking thing in my life would change the second I got to a size whatever is what jacked me up. Me not figuring out that being single was certainly NOT the most awful thing to ever happen to me is what caused my major malfunctions. Me waiting for someone to come around and make me "me"...oh MAN the time wasted...and the god-fucking-awful poetry/song lyrics written.

You know, it's dumb luck, dumb fucking luck that things happened how they happened between me and my beloved, terribly handsome, incredibly awesome partner in crime. I took major risks, stepped out of my comfort zone, Oprah the Secret Deepak Chopra Eat Pray Go Fuck Yourself Touchy-Feely Horseshit cliches whatever. And I did that shit while being fat and not wearing makeup and not sporting the super-stylin' threads and being absolutely 100 percent me. No compromises. No putting on shows, no playing dumb, none of that pathetic horseshit that women are told they MUST do in order to find themselves in a relationship - note that so many of those magazines and self-help books never quite tell you to aim for a relationship that, you know, doesn't suck, it's simply far better to be with someone (no matter how loathsome) than not.

It crossed my mind that a song by the Cure that I'm terribly fond of is called "39", and I'd wager it was penned by Robert Smith in one of his many funks about being on the brink of 40. The lyrics, as you can imagine, are terribly chipper:

So the fire is almost out and there's nothing left to burn
I've run right out of thoughts and I've run right out of words
As I used them up, I used them up...

Funny how it's only as I've found myself on that brink that I seem to have finally found some fire. And ohhhhh, how it's blazing.

Well, isn't that just a wretched "let's all join hands and kumbaya and then marvel at how clever we are" kind of ending. I kind of want to punch myself right now, but instead...I leave you with....

I...I've got nothing. Shit. Fucking blogging.

I'm playing hookey.

2011-01-24T13:04:00.000-06:00

It's kind of shameful, really, that I'm taking a day off when, in about two weeks, I'm leaving the country/going to be out of office for two and a half weeks, but fuck it, it's almost my birthday, and having my mom be happy (for a few nanoseconds) because I'm willing to drive her around for errands in the sloppyish weather is worth any sort of side-eye I might get from my overlords.

I always make a deal with myself when I play hookey - if I'm going to be a slug and not go into the office, I have to do something of worth with my day. I took my mom out to the Sam's and the Jewels, so that was good. I need to get the big-ass suitcase out of the crawlspace. And, as ever, I should "write something".

"Something"! *clown horn*

I do know that I'd like the use of "peeps" to mean "people" to be stricken from the vernacular. I'm having that itchy teethy feeling now when I see it trotted out. It's as worn out for me as billions of bad Austin Powers imitators crowing, "Yeaaaah, baby!" or "Do I make you horny?"

I'm also finding that megafans of anything, be it "Buffy" or a sporting team or whatever, only tend to make me that much more unwilling to partake in whatever they are selling, let us say. I think it's a definite signifier of my oldness. My megafandom tendencies were spent (oh how they were spent) on "The X-Files", and that was back before the internet REALLY started to eat my brain. Hell, for a goodly portion of that show's run, I didn't even HAVE internet in my own home. I'd truck out to my parents' house on weekends and use their computer that was connected via fairly crap dial-up to use the AOL X-Files chatroom for six, seven hours at a crack on Friday or Saturday nights. I made some inroads to online frienddom, which scored me a videotape compilation of uncensored gag reels from the first three or four seasons...I believe all of which is now findable on YouTube...anyway. Tangent concluded. Whenever someone tells me repeatedly that I should be watching something and if I don't watch something I'm missing out on the greatest bingbong hoohah of my lifetime and seriously, have I watched it yet because you need to watch it how about now are you watching it now...my natural reaction is to dig in my heels and fucking refuse to watch whatever it is you're touting until the end of my life.

I'm saving my serious eye-rolling, however, as the Oscar nominations are being announced tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at stupid o'clock. Then the onslaught of "SO AND SO DIDN'T DESERVE THAT NOMINATION" "THAT MOVIE WAS SHIT AND ITS MAKERS ARE SPAWNED FROM SHIT AND SHIT SHITTERVILLE SHITTOWN" will begin, and the "film fans" will refuse to acknowledge that in the big scheme of things, Oscars and Golden Globes and allllll the awards from assorted groups are about as meaningful as me winning the departmental award for Speech/Drama in 1990 when I was a senior in high school. Sure, it's neat and entertaining to see actors/artists/whatevers that I enjoy get some public kudos for stuff they do (zomg trent rezzzzzzznor), but holy. Christ. almighty. You know the hand-wringing angry CAPSLOCK typers that I'm talking about. The fun-killers. The sniffies who sniff dismissively if someone they deign to be "undeserving" suddenly finds themselves as a nominee for something. I used to be a fun-killer, I know my own kind. Then, you know, I realized what a pompous, whiny wanker I was being. And I didn't want to be a pompous, whiny wanker anymore. I still remain pompous (ohhhhhh, I can put on my Pompous Chapeau in .0012 seconds, trust), but I do my best to reign that shit in because oh GOD how I hate myself when I'm done vomiting forth my wretched observations on completely trivial things.

The other thing of note that I feel compelled to briefly discuss is the ever-increasing obsession with living, essentially, forever. It's a non-stop barrage of messages about how if we take these pills/eat this diet/work out X hours per week/live in X town/blah blah blah, we can live to be 80, 90, 100! Let me tell you, as someone who lives with two people who are old...the Golden Years are not golden unless you can fucking afford to have your casual getaway home in a warm climate and don't have to worry about paying for prescriptions/bills/all that shit. A few nights ago I found myself having to help my almost-80 year old father get tucked into bed and I thought about those who would screech that he didn't live "right" and that's why he has physical impairments now. My father quit smoking 30 years ago and worked out regularly and went to the doctor religiously (and still does) - he did things "right" - and his legs still crapped out on him and his lungs still went into the shitter, resulting in him being almost 80 and miserable because he feels like shit a goodly portion of the time. And then you have my mother, who is constantly gripped with anxiety because of my father's health status, their financial status, and that at 73, she still has to work almost full-time. Physically, she's still able to get around well, but her brain is a roiling mess of having to figure out timing on paying of bills to coincide with Social Security checks and paying for Medicare supplements and when it's possible to repair that goddamned board in the kitchen floor that is mysteriously cracked and worsening.

If you aspire to live to be 80/90/100, good luck to you, but I hope you're saving your dough and miracles abound for you because from this particular front line, it's not pretty. And it's sure not shiny or fucking golden.

Oh, one other note - I must not have had a setting checked on this damn thing so I wasn't being notified when people were actually commenting. That should be corrected now and I shouldn't have things moldering in the mod queue any longer. Whoo-hoo...when I feel heavy metal.

Looking at the world from the bottom of a well.

2011-01-13T20:05:00.000-06:00

I've been a funk these last few days. I've been spending a bit of time doing some inward thinking (as opposed to inward singing /tenacious d) and wallowing a bit in said thoughts and concerns. Not so much about me, per se, but about the world I inhabit and all the things I wish I could fix or make better and dispel some of the white-hot anger I feel about a litany of items.

It's insipid as hell, but I wish everyone could be happy.

Well, I warned you it was insipid.

Let me try and spin it a different way. I've lived an interesting life thus far. It has been complicated and difficult at times, but I've met so many interesting people and been to interesting places, seen amazing, hilarious, astounding things. So little of that would have happened if I'd been afraid of or hated people that were gay or non-white or non-Midwesterners or the unreligious (or religious, for that matter). I am in love with the world. And I wish everyone could be in love with it and all its strangeness and differences and cultures and realize that so much of the terror that we're programmed to feel about things that are "different" is bunk. It's fucking bunk. The adventure that life is supposed to be is replaced with "I don't need to go any further than my backyard". It's supposed to be fun, isn't it?

I don't like yelling. I never have. I think growing up in fear of being yelled at by my dad has made raised voices one of those things that upsets me the most. I hate feeling my stomach tighten and my ears burn and staring so hard at whatever's in front of my eyes so I don't cry and I don't draw the wrath of whoever happens to be yelling. I'm not so insipid that I want a world where everyone holds hands and fuckin' sings "We Are the World" or whatever, because that would make me gag so hard I couldn't even tell you. I don't even desire everyone to *like* each other. But goddamn, I want the yelling to stop. Stop for a while. Just some blessed silence so my shredded soul can get a leg up on fixing itself a bit.

A major case of the Stop Its.

2011-01-04T19:15:00.000-06:00

You know how you'll be reading something online or you'll be ensconced in conversation with someone, and they say something that just makes you internally clench your fists and mutter "stop it stop it stop it"? I find myself clenching an awful lot. I like to imagine myself as being terrifically laid back, and in certain ways, I am. I'm oddly relaxed when semi-serious things are afoot, but then will find myself spinning off the map over small, inconsequential things.

Hence, this blog. Hmmm.

Well, today I feel compelled to share some items that cause me to have a case of the Stop Its, and perhaps it will wind up being one for you to grow on. Or clench YOUR fists and mutter "stop it stop it stop it".

*Stop it with the insty undermining yourself and your efforts in any given thing. When you're paid a compliment, is your immediate reaction to list all the reasons why you shouldn't be paid said compliment, whether it's on your work, your appearance, or pretty much anything? Do you fall over yourself to ascribe acclaim to others when you know goddamned well you're the reason why Thing X came to fruition or worked successfully? Humility has its time and place, but no one on this crisp earth is required to be eyes-downcast-humble 100 percent of the time. If you've worked your ass off on something, then by crumb claim that success and the work you've put in. Stop having "well, you know, I got lucky and I suck at bocce and I have uncharitable thoughts occasionally about whiny children and I don't give enough to charity and my ass is huge" be your go-to yammer if someone says "I appreciate your help" or "That's a nice blouse" or "damn, you knocked it out of the park on the Bob Cumbers account".

*Stop it with the thought that you need to be someone's White Knight/saviour/personal cheerleader all the time. It's a personal philosophy that there's a fine line between truly nice and downright fucking creepy. I'm extremely aware of how I present myself at all times because I'm very fond of thinking before I speak or type. When confronted by someone who doesn't sport my level of self-awareness, it's usually not long before the fists begin to curl and the muttering begins. A whole lot of bad behavior gets swept under the rug because there are way too many people eager to call it being "nice" instead of "intrusive, rude, and scary". Perhaps I'm too judgmental of others who are simply trying to be "nice"...but more often than not, my instincts prove me out to be correct. If you're feeling like you have to immediately leap to someone's defense or wax someone's car on a constant basis because that's your "thing" to be mega! super! supportive! 110 percent of the time...well, you might want to re-think your approach because eww. It's not a fucking rule that you have to like everyone and everyone has to like everyone.

*STOP IT with the "I'm so edgy because I had sex/made out with someone once of my same gender" shit. No, seriously, stop it. It's obnoxious. If that's the only thing that you imagine makes you interesting, read a book or take a trip or something. Sure, in certain discussions, it might be appropriate in the context of the convo. But if the discussion is about shoes or X-Box? Fuck off. (And I'm talking about folks who, after their "dabbling", have retreated back to the safe, comfy heteronormative world. You know the folks I mean. I know that you do.)

*STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP IT with the hamhanded, unclever, cringe-inducing public online "flirting". Oh, it's so gross. Really, it is. This is something that makes me clench AND double over AND stomp my foot, begging for stoppage. Believe me, if something's funny or clever, I will overlook shit. But when's the last time you've seen internet nerdery engaging in flirting that's on any planet within the Clever solar system? If you want to flirt, fucking put some thought into it, not just spouting off sentences that inevitably wind up involving the phrase "that's what she said".

And finally:

S to the T to the O to the P with the "internet persona" crap. You know the first thing I think when someone says "Oh, so and so's really nice in person" when so-and-so's been a complete douchebag fuckface freakwater online? I think so-and-so's a gigantic ass. I don't care if zie fosters puppies and helps at soup kitchens when zie's not participating in the internets. If you act like a jerkweed whenever you're within 50 feet of a keyboard, I don't have time for you.

Now, I must admit I'm a bit of a Sally Two-Face when it comes to online versus offline behaviors, because if someone is giving what-for to someone else that I find to be annoying/abhorrent/weaselly, chances are I'm not going to see the guff-giver as Satan Incarnate - but someone else might see Guff-Giver as the villain versus the dingdong Guff-Giver is what-foring.

However, it's important to note that your friends are allowed to have friends that you find to be utter nincompoops. You might have to suck it up every now and then to be in the presence of the nincompoops, which is a downer. But if you have to clench your fists, perhaps save it for when you're in the restroom or in your car afterward when you talk to yourself (there's no way I'm the only person who does this....right?) and you can say "STOP IT" as loud as you want.

I hear the bells.

2011-01-02T11:02:00.000-06:00

No, seriously, I hear the bells. I live pretty much next door to a Catholic church and they like to play their bells. It's not real-live old timey ding-dong bells, it's a computerized thingy that plays tunes. So right now, it's...shit, I suddenly can't think of what damn song it is. It's a Christmas carol, and part of the lyrics is something about "bringing Him laud", maybe?

There's something wondrous about being able to type "bring him laud" into Google and having it spit back, "What Child is This" in .00002 seconds.

So, here it is, my new blog. And when you type the word "blog" repeatedly, as I have in the last half-hour or so, good Christ it's an annoying word to read. I may wind up renaming the blog (eerrggghh) before the day is out. The Jane C. Nolan...Thing. The Jane C. Nolan...Experience. Meh, too overdone. The Daily Jane...too cutesy, and the last thing I am is cutesy. Maybe just The Jane C. Nolan. If you choose to emphasize the "The" so it sounds like "Thee", it's like "KAPOW here she IS the one and ONLY". Maybe I'll go with that, then.

Which reminds me of my college days. I went to Columbia College in Chicago, which is a fine arts college, as I had an eye toward making my living in an artistic fashion. Twenty years later, I'm in the same office job I was at 19. But that's neither here nor there, I went to fine arts college, and part of the acting track was to take voice classes. One of the interesting tidbits that I will pass onto you as my welcoming gift is that if the word "The" is before a word that starts with a consonant, the proper pronunciation of "The" would be "Thuh". However, if it's before a word that starts with a vowel, "The" should be pronounced "Thee". So you're reading Thuh Jane C. Nolan, but if my first name was Amanda or Ione or Esther, you'd be reading Thee Esther C. Nolan. And now I have one more thing that makes me grit my teeth when I hear people talk.

Oh, I should probably let you know how things are going to work around this joint. I'm a moderating of comments kind of gal, so keep that in mind if you're going to take issue with something I say or are just saying "yay" or whatever. The office job in which I have worked for the last 20 years has delightful internet filters that don't allow me to access anything remotely resembling fun, so moderating comments usually has to take place within The Jane C. Nolan Nerve Center (my bedroom) when I am not at my workplace. If you're just looking to be a doucheweasel, I'll be the only one to view your doucheweaselity. So keep that in mind before launching into a screed about how I'm a fat fatty fat fatter fat fatterson who's ugly and stupid and blah blee blee blee. I mean, I am a fat fatty fatter fat fatterson, you're not wrong about that. But that's not going to make me curl up into a ball and bemoan my fatty fatterson life, as you might discover at my now-closed Fat Acceptance blog, Casual Blasphemies.

I'm planning to talk about silly things and serious things and things that are important to me, and hope to do so in a semi-entertaining fashion. Writers are supposed to write, and in the last 4-5 years, I haven't been doing much of it. I'm going to give it a good old fine arts college try to change that this year.

Or, like I did often at fine arts college, I'll smoke cigarettes, go to the Surf for an omelet, and ditch out after three years because I got sick of writing papers.