2022: The Year in "...I'm not 100% on what I actually saw"

Look. The fact of the matter is that if I really really like something, it sticks in my brain to the detriment of any other input that might attempt to cram itself into my head over the course of a day or week or whatever. So today's annual (or...is it?) bloggery is devoted to the things I saw this year that I really dug on the most. It might be something from last year, or even a couple-plus years ago. It might be something so I have an excuse to post up a smoky hot picture of someone. THIS BLOG IS A ROLLER COASTER. STRAP IN. I am going to BLATHER MIGHTILY TODAY.

MOVIES

This year I was gifted with something that is an action movie, a musical, a friendlove story, completely out of its mind and wildly, wildly, wildly entertaining to me:

RRR

Junior NTR (front) and Ram Charan Teja in the movie that made me so fucking happy

It's no joke to say that it's almost impossible to really explain "RRR" in a way that properly communicates to anyone why it's such a delight. You say "it's three hours long" to someone and that may be a turnoff for some people. You say "a character throws a flaming motorcycle at someone" to others and that might turn it right around into a must-see. "RRR" started getting talked up very enthusiastically on social media earlier in the year and I feared it would be something that ultimately wouldn't live up to the hype. However, for me, "RRR" made me deliriously, rapturously happy this year. My absolute favorite favorite favorite. 

"Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery": Rian Johnson's follow-up to "Knives Out" is another delicious thing, a sumptuous meal of a movie that gives Daniel Craig and a terrific ensemble cast so much to chew on. Janelle Monae is an absolute standout (not only in this movie, but in general because they are so boss. Right here is a proper snack:

cribbed from Janelle's tweeters. I would be that person that sees this embrace and is, like, "let me get in on that hug!!!". You know that person. You quietly hate that person.

"Midsommar" (2019; new to me this year): let me be the 900,000th person to say "oof, you all, 'Midsommar' is fucked up" and yet...there is something appealing about living in a sun-drenched commune that seems to be built on a matriarchal hierarchy and everyone eats meals together and oh yeah, there's a bit of ritual death here and there. But that artisinal mead is delicious! In any event, 

Florence Pugh is a brilliant actor and her performance in this is a gut-wrencher/a thrill as she is so. damn. good. 

you fucked around and found out, crappy boyfriend - anyone got more of that mead? 

Now, I genuinely do try not to talk mad shit about films and such that did not work for me. Yet I feel like I must take a moment to address Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis" because there is a Janeiverse in which I would be super into this movie. I haven't watched "Moulin Rouge" in approximately 100 years, and I'm not confident it would age well for me, but at the time? HO BOY, I loved it with every available bit of my heart. I like some brashness, some glitz, some dreamy magic in a movie. Baz loves brash and glitz, and "Elvis" is positively slathered in it. I guess where I got lost was that I wasn't quite sure why any of it was happening. Elvis Presley is like Marilyn Monroe at this point: I don't think there is much to say about either of them anymore. They have been biographied and hagiographied and pilloried so thoroughly that there isn't anything left to pick at. Baz didn't seem too interested in taking a position or making a point about Elvis except to say he existed, did some stuff, and he had one funky-ass manager:

I'm going to haunt all your dreams with my prosthetic face my boy

 TELEVISION (the plug-in drug)

I looked like this in 1989/1990: 

How the hell do you think I felt about Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman" on Netflix? Sweet mother of pale cheekbones, it tripped so many joyous triggers in my carcass I can't even begin to count. I've never read the comics, but I've always known about "The Sandman" somehow. It's always floated around in my gothy consciousness, and it was always described as something that could never possibly be adapted - or rather, adapted correctly. For my money, they did a bang-up job. I mean, look at this beautifulness:

Tom Sturridge and Kirby Howell-Baptiste just fucking tearing it up in black and angles and Doc Martens and silver jewelry and backcombed hair and oh my god it's wondrous

It's a wonder I haven't found myself staring into a mirror, holding a comb and a can of Aqua Net hairspray, ready to return my hair to its proper heights. 

Don't think for a second that you're going to escape some spray wafting at you from the Splash Zone - of course I reveled in Marvel's "Moon Knight" on Disney+, you fools. I sighed gleefully as I sunk into that six-week long hot tub of an acting clinic put on by the endlessly impressive, boundlessly talented and almost annoyingly entrancing Oscar Isaac. Here he is being stabbed and looking a little irked about it:

*angry jaw-acting intensifies*

There were issues here and there - for one, six episodes really wasn't enough. I'm not just saying that because I'm a fat dork-ass fangirl, either. There is a LOT going on in the Moon Knightiverse (or so Wiki tells me) and the final ep felt like they were jamming 10 pounds of story into a five-pound bag. It remains unclear if there will be a second season of Moon Knightery, so it arguably ended well as a one-shot deal. But boy, that hot tub acting clinic sure is cozy.

I would be remiss if I didn't pause for the Saulse (oh god I'm so sorry) of it all as this year saw the end of the exquisite "Better Call Saul" on AMC. I was so uncertain about how on earth they were going to spin off Saul Goodman from "Breaking Bad" (note: I did not watch "Breaking Bad"), but Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould spun off a brilliant six-season tale of one man's downfall - not due to drugs, but ego, hubris, and wanting to be loved. Seriously. (At least in my opinion.) Naperville's own Bob Odenkirk showed just what a gem of an actor he is as he took Jimmy McGill on his journey from well-meaning guy with a past to the cutting, snarky shark of a lawyer sitting alone in his tacky office. 

precious cargo Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy "Saul Goodman" McGill (AMC)

But there is no entertainment justice in the world if the brilliant rock star that is Rhea Seehorn does not get an Emmy lobbed at her for her work as Kim Wexler. Holy crap, Rhea is so good. She has been beyond good since season one. She destroyed in the season six episode "Waterworks", where Kim finally confronts the downright abominable things she did before cutting herself off from Jimmy/Saul. 

THE QUEEN, Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler (living in purgatory aka Florida after leaving Jimmy/her old life behind)

I'm a big ball of soft so of course I would have preferred a different ending, but I understand why it's ultimately appropriate for all the nonsense Jimmy/Saul got up to over the years. IF HIS BROTHER HAD JUST BEEN PROUD OF HIM DAMMIT

ODDS AND ENDS

Hey, if you read? I really liked Susan Orlean's "The Library Book", which is about a massive fire that took place at a branch of the Los Angeles Library in 1986. 

I enjoyed "Flying Solo" (fiction) by NPR's Linda Holmes. It's the second book of Linda's that has made me cry. It's a nice comfy comic romancey easy read. 

I also dove headfirst into Richard E. Grant's memoir "A Pocketful of Happiness" about the loss of his wife, Joan Washington. What I've found rather lovely is that he hasn't hidden away his sorrow in either his memoir or his presence on social media. 

Some music bits: boy, that "Renaissance" by Beyoncé was terrific. Loved the beats and how unrelentingly dancey it was. 

Duran Duran got into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame (finally). Duran Duran was the first band I lost my goddamned mind about, and I still have such fondness for them to this day. 

Nearly four years had passed since the last time I saw Nine Inch Nails live, but I was able to rectify that in September at the Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood. OF COURSE I cried, you silly gooses. 

I did watch "Andor" on Disney+ and it was so well done. Diego Luna is terrific and I was very happy to learn they're working on the second season now. Seeing the Empire at the base level - the mundane everyday existence of living under/working for the Empire adds a lot to the overall "Star Wars" universe vibe. It's great viewing.

AND FINALLY...on the social media of it all

We all know what's going on with Twitter. I am someone who likes social media, mostly. I met my husband and many friends via social media (back on beautiful, beautiful message boards). There are a few platforms gunning to be The Place to Go, and I can tell you this much: I'm mostly floating around Post.News at the moment. I managed to get in fairly early - it's still in beta. It reminds me a bit of LiveJournal (my dear, much-missed LiveJournal) and there are features that are quite interesting, including the ability to pay for single articles that you'd want to read and the ability to tip people. However, I can't quite figure out where or how to be. For every picture of a dog, it feels like there's 20 deadly serious articles about the death of the earth/democracy (it's very much a liberal crowd). I can't pinpoint where the silly people are. I'm following some folks that I followed on Twitter, but they're not really posting. So we'll see how I feel down the road about Post.news. 

I'm also awaiting the debut of Spoutible, which comes from the creator of Bot Sentinel. What I'm liking is the amount of input Christopher Bouzy is seeking from future users about what they'd like to see in a social media platform. I feel like Spoutible may wind up being more my speed down the road. (You can pre-register at Spoutible if that rings your bell.

All of this to say that in 2023, my 51st year of existence, I am determined to do more of this shit: blogging about whatever strikes me. It will probably lean towards goofiness more than anything else, which I think I need more of. I don't think it will serve as a true PLATFORM or FAME-MAKER for me, but if I wind up whipping up something that you find amusing or interesting, do feel free to pass it along to people that you like (or pretend to like). 

Anyway, I'd better roll. Bulls are playing at six p.m. Happy New Year. 

2021: My year in whuh?

It's a good thing this blog still exists. I was going to confine all my bullshitting about the year in whatever to Facebook, and that simply isn't good enough for my purposes. If I'm going to talk about the pop culture I digested this year, I need plenty of room for blathering (and the insertion of pictures). 

I'm going to keep it pretty light and borderline obnoxious, as that is the personal brand I hope to cultivate in 2022. I mean, that seems to work for an awful lot of people. 

I won't spend a lot of time on the things I did not enjoy. I have more fun babbling incoherently about the things I liked/loved. And please note: this is all about me and the things I liked. You don't have to like them, and you are under no obligation to inform me that you don't like them, nor elaborate at length why you didn't like them, and why I'm wrong for liking them. Take that to heart, and think about your life if you find you are one of those people who believes it's very important that you tell other people their taste isn't up to your standards.  

First, let's talk about some MOVIES. I left my house a few times to see movies this year, though I'm not going to lie - being able to watch some of this shit without leaving home is not the worst thing in the world. Especially when some of that shit includes "Space Jam: A New Legacy". Goddammit, I said I wasn't going to be negative. There will be spoilers. I should also note that a) I have probably forgotten things I watched and liked and b) I digest far less "content" (ugh) than I did in my younger years, so there will be tons of stuff that I missed and I'm sure I'd probably like whatever movie or show but I've got things to do but ANYWAY

What the Hell Happened This Year: the 2018 Edition

The thing about being in my late 40s and having the brain that I do is that time gets a little iffy for me. Oh, I’m fully oriented, but I’m never sure if certain things occurred unless I check at least three other sources to verify. 2018 was a year of things that I’m fairly confident I said, thought, or did. C’mon gang, let’s look at the highlights!

The Iceman Cometh 

courtesy of my dear dear friends @ Variety

– and Jane was remindeth that lord above, New York City is a lot of work. In May, my spouse and I traveled to New York, the primary motivation being to see Denzel Washington in Eugene O’Neill’s rollicking kneeslapper, “The Iceman Cometh”. In my younger days, going to New York City was thrilling and, as the song says, I wanted to be a part of it. As a bitch in my 40s, I was exhausted seconds after we landed. Though that might have been the waking nightmare that is LaGuardia. Note to self: fly into ANY OTHER AIRPORT should my presence ever be required again in NYC. I did finally go to MOMA, a joint I’d never managed to roll through when I used to go to New York somewhat regularly, and that was very very good. Seeing Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”, one of my favorite paintings, in person was rather moving. We then hopped on a train and hustled ourselves down to our lady Kristin to see what was doing in her neck of the woods, and paid a visit to Washington DC. Massive pick to click: the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. Holy cats is all I can say. Also a highlight – staying in a hotel that has mothercrunking bunk beds.

Chicago’s Very Own John Mulaney

John Mulaney from "Kid Gorgeous"

We saw him, he’s terrific, I would like to be his friend and I don’t quite understand why I’m not. 

David Duchovny – I had another 5.4 second visit with one of my most beloved ex-Imaginary Celebrity Boyfriends in August. That was delightful. The picture? Well, he looks good. But he always looks good. *leers politely*

Tickets made me angry – I got hosed on getting tickets to see Massive Attack because Ticketmaster blows. I was also testy with my fun-sized rage angel Trent Reznor because I don’t know how to read good sometimes. I was more successful with getting passes to Star Wars Celebration for April 2019 – well, for one day, at least. Sunday. The day that will probably not be a day when cool things and/or people appear because that’s going to be Saturday.  And I will be there Sunday.

The Foo Fighters at Wrigley Field 

A sign for the Foo Fighters. I do not have a picture of a sign for U2.

That was good! The Hotel Zachary, the “boutique hotel” across the street from Wrigley Field, was darn fine! 

U2 at the United Center – that was also good! Those fellows sure know how to put on a show. 

How Did This Get Made – seeing Jason Mantzoukas in the flesh was a gift. I laughed so hard at a certain bit I almost hyperventilated, which is a mark of a quality live comedy podcast.

Avengers: Infinity War and other Fandom nonsense (spoilers and standard weirdness from me, your host)

"WHY" - my soul at "Avengers: Infinity War"

As you have probably gathered, if I like something or someone, I reaaaaaaaally like the fuck out of it/them, and more likely than not, to an embarrassing level. Prime example: traveling to Austin, TX in August 2000 to see Russell Crowe and his band. And I have no doubt I will do other borderline mortifying things in the future in order to scratch various itches (I’m just going to start the apology tour now for anything you may read from me regarding Oscar Isaac for the next, oh, three or four years because when I’m in? I’m in for a long time). I am, of course, 100 percent on board with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I would never describe myself as an expert on any level regarding the comic book origins, but I will do my due diligence so I can understand the source material. I knew the general jist of where “Avengers: Infinity War” was coming from re: Thanos and his whole schtick. What I was not expecting was watching my movie friends (stay with me) FUCKING DISINTEGRATING INTO ASH FOR A GOOD FIVE MINUTES STRAIGHT. I had not planned on my festive moviegoing experience DESTROYING MY SOUL. I mean, the only way I could possibly assuage my damaged well-being was to pay good money to briefly touch Chris Evans this past October and have it photographed. 

I Called Captain America “Honey” – and it was spectacular.

I Cooked Sometimes – and I usually took photos of it. 

Stuffin'. Or dressing. Whatever.

Went To Vegas in the Summer, Enjoyed a Cabana – I ate at Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen and holy mother of fuck, the sticky toffee pudding is legit insane. I cocktailed thoroughly. I lost my ass gambling. Went swimmin’ (well, floated around since I don’t know how to swim) in a pool. All the hallmarks of a quality trip.

The Tooth and Nothing But – I had a tooth decide to get enraged with me and had my first root canal. The two-month long saga of repairing it has finally come to an end as I now have my permanent crown. A crown that my insurance won’t pay for because it is garbage insurance. America!

Uhhhh What Else What Else – I saw some movies, like “BlackKKlansman” (which was very good!), “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” (also very good!), “The Favourite” (oh shit this was good!), “Black Panther” (seriously so good!) and “Annihilation” (it was fascinating/weird/good and provided me with one of the best 2018 exchanges with my belov’d spouse:

Spouse (as Oscar Isaac’s character coughs up blood): Is he still sexy vomiting blood?

Me: Yes. Yes, he is.

I also watched some television that I enjoyed a bunch, like “The Good Place”, “Big Mouth”, “Bojack Horseman”, “Better Call Saul”, and “Brooklyn 99”. “The X-Files” swung through for another season and I dug it, but you know it’s my ride-or-die show. “The Venture Brothers” came back for an all-too-brief season on Adult Swim and my gosh, this show. Not only is it a fucking treasure trove of comedy with many references directed squarely at those of us of Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer’s generation (that would be me), but it’s also a show that is deeply invested in its characters and, in turn, makes the viewer give a serious damn – and it’s a cartoon. I just love it to bits. And even though he may now be consigned to the ex-Imaginary Celebrity Boyfriend pile, Benedict Cumberbatch killed it in Showtime’s “Patrick Melrose”. (I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.) 

And then there was Gritty.

GRITTY WILL GET US THROUGH

Weeping Publicly While Seated – I capped off the year with a 36-hour visitation to Las Vegas so I could have my not-frequent-enough public weeping/anger purge at Nine Inch Nails. It was the first show of theirs that I literally sat through, which was kind of odd (but made sense since I was in the balcony), but I still managed to have a fine release of stress and anger and sadness like I always do at a NIN show.

I Wrote a Lot (said to the tune of “We Care a Lot” by Faith No More) – it’s stuff that you haven’t seen yet and maybe never will, but this year was the most prolific I’ve been since the very early 2000s. I’ve created a bit of a romcom-ish universe of my own and it’s very fun (for me) to conjure up these little stories (and by “little” I mean 130-150 page screenplays – I get…wordy) and it keeps me off the ledge, off the street, and mentally functioning better because I’m able to direct some of the hot nonsense that likes to kick my ass around into a more productive, um, thing.

What’s On Deck for 2019: I can tell you I’ll be back in Vegas with m’lud in February for our standard birthday/wedding anniversary trip. We’ll be seeing Thomas Middleditch and Ben Schwartz be amusing at the Chicago Theater in April. That same month, we’ll be swanning through McCormick Place to see just how nerdbirdy it gets at Star Wars Celebration. That much I know for sure.

I hope my brain continues to cooperate with my medication as we have had a reasonable détente for the last year and a bit. I hope I can figure out a way to be fulfilled and successful at something that I actually like doing. I hope I can stop being quite so haunted by my age and my failures. I hope I can take the voluminous, bordering on sentient anger I have and make it work positively in some fashion. I hope I can be happy. 

But I am the god of hellfire, honest.

A couple of times a month, I receive a plus-size clothing catalog that I will leaf through quickly, so fast the pages snap, scanning the items on offer. Tee shirts emblazoned with “inspirational” or “funny” quotes (“it’s wine o’clock” or “hang in there, Friday’s comin’” or “I am the god of hellfire” – actually, I might buy a nightshirt that said that), shirts with cutouts and “ruching” (whatever the hell “ruching” is), jeans touted as having “tummy-flattening technology” and pre-ripped for your convenience. My jeans aren’t generally ripped across my thigh unless I’ve gotten into a knife fight, which happens more than you might expect (I am brandishing a machete as I type this). Everything’s outrageously overpriced and every model looks nothing like me. They fit into the very small box allowed for fat women, the one where you’re “okay” as long as you’ve got an hourglass shape with a great rack and a generous behind, and they’re all stunningly beautiful. Objectively, subjectively, there’s no getting around that these women are lookers.

I don’t know if it’s my faulty brain chemistry or the curse of having a creative bent, but I think a lot about, well, me. I like to pick apart things I’ve done, feelings I’ve had, trying to understand why I said or did or felt something, what brought me to where I am at 2018, right at this moment, 7:02 a.m. on a Thursday, listening to a Jesus Jones album (no, really). Oh, and to, uh, try to be a better person maybe? As of late, my attention has been focused on my carcass – more so than usual. I’ve gotten back into writing in a big way in the last six to eight months, using good ole screenplay format (Fade In is awesome software) to spit out stories with an eye toward perhaps novelizing them one day (plus, I do love writing me a screenplay, always have). What looms in a lot of my stories lately is the idea of femininity, what is the “right” way of being a woman, how women who don’t perform womanhood “correctly” tend to be punished societally. Mind you, the stuff I’m writing I classify as romance/romantic comedies, folks. So, you know…layers.

Being a woman is not great for me. It never has been. I identify as a woman, but it’s always been with a bit of reluctance because it’s something at which I am not skilled in the least. I don’t like doing something I’m not good at – that’s ingrained in my DNA. It is something that makes me uncomfortable. I tried my best for many years to play the part. It’s only in the last few months that I’ve realized just how much damage it has done to me. And when I say “damage”, I assure you it’s not something that constantly haunts me in my waking hours or shit like that – honey, I’ve taken plenty of hits. I’m built like a motherfucking battleship.

I played the game for many years, performing all the aspects of my gender that I could – the makeup, the hair, the earrings, the shapewear. That version of Jane wasn’t me. Well, it was me, but it wasn’t me. It was, in a sense, a version of drag, except it didn’t make me feel “free” or more expressive or more in tune with who I was – it was a burden. It was a burden because all the things you’re told as a girl that will happen if you just go along with the program…didn’t happen. I wanted to be loved, and I wasn’t.

That’s the devil of it all, that little bastard that has haunted me most of my life, that cursed, heart-crumbling desire to be loved. I knew early on because I was fat and wasn’t pretty that life was going to be a bit of a thing.  So I cultivated my personality as early as I could – I would be the funniest, the smartest, the most entertaining motherfucker you ever met because I had to somehow transcend this garbage bag of a carcass so maybe, just maybe someone would see me and determine that I was worthy of love in spite of my size, in spite of my lack of prettiness. I did my best to meet regulations, you know, I wore uncomfortable clothes and put on a girl show, but even then I wasn’t great at it. I gravitated towards ratting my hair up like Robert Smith of the Cure and I stomped around in beat-to-shit Dr. Marten boots. My fashion icons were (and primarily remain) men – my god, I tried so hard to emulate John Taylor of Duran Duran’s look and my brain simply would not accept I wasn’t a gangly white 20-something INSANELY BEAUTIFUL man from England.

Tangent: No, seriously, we have to take a moment to discuss John Taylor in his youth because he was a beautiful, precious angel, like…it was almost painful to lay eyes upon him because he was so luminous. He’s still managed to remain a damn handsome man at 58 – oof, that hurt me to type mainly because of my own issues regarding my age – but sweet mother of pete, John Taylor Prime was fire.) (/tangent)

And the thing was that I was missing – yet really not missing – was that there were girls who could do the Robert Smith hair and the boots and it was good and appealing. The difference between me and them was that they were pretty.

Tangent/rule: I am absolutely 100 percent okay describing myself as not being pretty, because I know that I am not. Being not pretty is OKAY. I am not fishing for compliments, I am not playing Poor Me, this is simply a fact. I do not meet the societal expectation of “pretty” as it exists in the present world and THAT IS OKAY. (/tangent)

I played the game for a long time, longer than I should have. It took me until my mid-30s to take my leave, good ladies and sirs, and stop putting on the show. The show hadn’t done anything for me anyway. I could have draped myself in the finest couture, worn expertly applied makeup, whirled my coif into a magnificent tangle of meticulously highlighted hair and I’d either get “sir” or “fat bitch”. I was erased, essentially, because I wasn’t a proper girl thanks to my height (tall) and weight (big-ass). I was an it, genderless, sexless. A thing, a freak. I might be out of the game, but there’s no avoiding seeing the plays. The strangest things strike me, things that probably wouldn’t register with anyone else, probably didn’t even register with the person it happened to.

I was watching a video of a press conference for a movie, and one of the major people in the production was a fat woman (she was a producer/behind-the-scenes-y person). She was standing on stage as the actors were introduced, and then it was time for the cast and creators to sit down. The male actor standing next to her almost fell over himself to pull out a chair for the stunningly gorgeous, slender female actor on his left while the fat woman, who was on his right, just sat herself down. Pretty normal, sure. She was capable of sitting down in her own chair, like all of us are. Something you probably wouldn’t think much of, either as an observer or as a participant. But me? I saw it as her being disregarded, not being seen as someone worth being gentlemanly to. It was more important that the beautiful actor knew she was worthy of attention, even something as small as pulling out a fucking chair, than for him to perform that gesture towards the fat woman.

Yes, it’s a completely pointless thing and I am certain the man who did it was not thinking like that at ALL. He was not actively thinking “Beautiful Star needs to be shown she has value and Fat Chick sucks!” He could probably spend some time talking about how terrific Fat Chick is, in fact. Yes, absolutely, who cares about chairs being pulled out, chivalry is antiquated patriarchy blah blah blah – but it matters.

It matters when you are informed quite merrily by, you know, the WORLD that you are useless garbage because fat and you take that on board into your being and you can’t unsee tiny pointless things like that. It matters when you never ever EVER see anyone who looks like you in movies, on TV – unless you’re being used as an example of someone who’s gross, worthless, and only matters if she loses weight. And certainly will not and never can be loved - or even liked – while she’s in that state. She certainly won’t be anything resembling happy as long as she’s fat, and any sort of joy or happiness she has while fat will be constantly undercut by tragedy or near-tragedy (aka “This is Us” which can go fuck itself). 

Tangent: The trailer for “Life Itself”, which was written and directed by the same man-creature that created and runs “This is Us”, made me piss blood I was so enraged. I swear to God, after I saw it I rage-wrote a full 20-page screenplay treatment as if I was responding to a dis track. I don’t know what dirt he (I will not speak nor write his name) had on that murderer’s row of actors or how he managed to entrance them all with his garbage nonsense words or how he managed to make me temporarily, so very temporarily, like maybe 15 seconds long angry at the sight of Oscar Isaac WHICH IS NIGH ON IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE HE IS – never mind, we’ll talk later.

DUDE, HRH ANNETTE BENING, JEAN SMART, ANTONIO BANDERAS, AND MANDY FUCKING PATINKIN. HOW DARE YOU.

The saving grace is how mightily it ate shit. (/tangent)

Fighting to keep myself from succumbing to forces that really, really want you to loathe yourself (because boy oh boy it is good for business and maintaining power - hi, white men) is exhausting. All. The. Time. Looking at myself in the mirror is agonizing some days. It feels hard to look at my face because I don't like it. It doesn't look right. It doesn't look nice or pleasant or appealing. Then, other days, I don't give a shit. Striking the balance between that infernal self-loathery and not giving a rat's ass is an ongoing battle. I really want to be positive and a good example of...whatever, but I'm not sure what that looks like. I guess I'll just keep swanning through the world like I’m hot shit, and I will call Chris Evans “honey” and I will wear outfits that are not far off from something a Guy Fieri or the Guy from Smashmouth* might wear. I'll keep writing my little weird stories that I don't have the moxie to show anyone (yet) about my little weird characters who mostly get what they want in a world that isn't designed for them to have it.

*Guy From Smashmouth has a name – and honest to Christmas, I googled “Guy from Smashmouth” and got the answer: Steve Harwell.

The Chronic

I’m currently dealing with chronic pain as the result of a back problem brought on by a lung problem that had me with just about enough energy to get up, go to work, and go home and that was it for, oh, 2015. All. Of 2015. Forget going to the gym as I had been, just trying to get rid of the crap that had taken over my chest was about all I could manage to do. So, going from “pretty perky” to “inert” when you’re in your early 40s translates to a back issue that has been hanging around for the better part of a year. Physical therapy has made me realize I do not bounce back like I did when I was 30, or even 35. I have cried a lot in the last few days as I have pushed my carcass and struggled with things that used to be quite easy for me. While I have laid on the floor and did my bridges and held my lower abs and quadraflexed my ponyhoists, I thought about how much I liked physical activity. (Except walking. Walking – unless it has a purpose of getting me from Place A to Place B – annoys me. It’s the Phil Mickelson* of exercise for me.) I liked going to the gym and dancing about and developing big-ass calves. Frankly, I liked to annoy gym personnel when I would tell them my goal wasn’t to lose weight. As a person, especially a fat person, my response is not supposed to be only “I am interested in getting stronger” when I’m at a gym. It should only be about losing this unsightly flesh of mine.

But that isn’t what this is about – well, it is, tangentially, probably. Trying to work my way back to a level where I can tolerate going to the gym makes me think back to what giant a-holes I had for gym teachers when I was young and how they helped to kill the fun of physical activity. There was simply no room for anything but winning and being athletically skilled and if you didn’t fit into that particular box, you were a useless loser. My elementary school gym teacher (also fat) mocked me in front of the entire class; my junior high gym teacher thought I should be keeping a food/exercise journal – never mind she wasn’t having anyone else in the class do it. (My mom put a stop to that red-hot bullshit.) I was never going to be “good” at sports or games, and boy did they love to make sure all of us non-good kids knew it.

To what end, I wonder? What good does it do a child and, frankly, an adult, being told that if you’re not a) an elite athlete or b) aspiring to be an elite athlete physical activity and playing games or sports is off limits? Every single fucking fitness ad or product is quite explicit that every human being should be looking to run a marathon, basically. Having a goal like mine – getting back to a point where I can get into the gym three days a week – is for jerks. If I really wanted to rank, I would be making a 5K my goal. Followed by a 10K. Followed by a marathon. Followed by THE IDITAROD…except I WILL BE PULLING THE SLED AND THE PUPPERS WILL BE RIDING IT.

I would love to see an ad for a gym or a fitness product or “Let’s Move” that featured people that looked like me, all tattooed and goofy and just drenched in sweat and weird-shaped doing fun things…for fun. Flopping around on the elliptical and mouthing the words to “Let it Whip” by the Dazz Band or just barely staying upright on the treadmill because the connection between my brain and my legs gets distracted sometimes by thinking about work or my book or Benedict Cumberbatch or where my husband and I should go to dinner on the weekend. The universe’s physical body default is not the Rock. Those of you who wish to resemble the Rock, go forth and be fruitful. Hone your eyebrow-raising skills and make me proud.

My activities might not result in anything more than my getting my big-ass calves even bigger and returning to my pre-funkylung state of being where I was feeling good and ready to fight. But that’s good for me, and if that’s all that people aspire to, that should be good enough, too. No one should feel like they have to run a 5K in order to be considered “worthy”. Physical activity doesn’t have to result in pounds lost in order to be worth doing. No one’s goal has to be some towering athletic achievement in order to feel like one has achieved. Shit, my achievement this week has been walking up five stairs without pain. Good enough for me.

(*I have an irrational dislike of golfer Phil Mickelson. He has not done anything to me personally, professionally, or otherwise; he has simply made the grave error of existing in a fashion that somehow displeases me. The only other member on the Mickelson’d List thus far: Paul McCartney. Though I believe there are more, I can only think of Paul friggin’ McCartney right now. Just typing his name is causing my face to tighten up into a twist of displeasure and disgust.)

Bowie.

I can't pinpoint when I figured out David Bowie existed for me. Even though his "old stuff" (a statement that sounds ridiculous when you think of how present so much of his "old stuff" sounds) had certainly gotten into my head by the time I really became interested in music, I'd guess it was "Let's Dance" and his presence on MTV brought him into my sphere. And, I'm sure it didn't hurt the Duran Duran-obsessed me that they touted Bowie as a big influence so OF COURSE I had to love him too.

Not that it was hard to love Bowie when you're a fat girl that loved theater and theatricality and wearing funky clothes and didn't quite know where the hell she was going to land or if she was ever going to be loved. He was an elegant, stylish presence, assuring those of us who might not have felt like the regular world wanted anything to do with us oddballs and weirdos and freaks that we were going to be just fine in whatever form we wished to take. He was a patron saint of the strange.

What I dug about Bowie was how he was one of the few artists, if the ONLY artist, who could try different genres of music as he aged and not make it feel like a gross cashgrab or sad attempt to stay relevant. He made a fucking electronica album at 50, for Christ’s sake. I loved the album cover of “Earthling”, him with his back to the camera, wearing an Alexander McQueen full-length coat with the Union Jack emblazoned on it. I suppose that’s an aside, but it was that “fuck you, I’m David Bowie” spirit that I loved. Of course he was going to make an electronica album. Of course he was.

David Bowie was cool, seemingly without effort. If you ask me, he established a certain level of cool that most (if not all) of us will never be able to come close to meeting. I mean, I think I’m maybe...Midwest Cool but I’ll never be Bowie Cool.  He was cool without effort, without being that guy going around, tugging at our sleeves and saying “hey, hey, hey, hey everyone, aren’t I cool? Aren’t I edgy? Look at how edgy and different and weeeeeird I am!”  When it feels like most of pop culture nowadays relies on shock value and people insisting they are unique special snowflake flowers for fun and profit, David Bowie was an original. THE original.

We’ll probably never hear the full story about his illness and death, which seems right to me. As awful as it feels that he’s dead, it also seems so right – dare I say, rather cool – that instead of making a maudlin announcement a year or so ago, putting us all on notice that his demise was imminent, he made a record that, in retrospect, is his telling us just a bit of his story of the last months of his life. I get the sense he didn’t want his art to be viewed with any sort of kindness – he didn’t want people to go easy on him because he was terminally ill. You know how people are. He knew how people are.

Purely by accident, my husband and I were on a bit of a Bowie tear this weekend – the cable channel Palladia was showing DA Pennebaker’s “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”, which I had never seen. My mind was blown – not by his musicianship or his voice, because duh– but by the fact that this eyebrow-free, stringbean-bodied, henna’d mothercusser was doing fucking MIME on a stage in front of thousands, wearing a shorty kimono sans trousers and knee-high silky boots and people were LOSING THEIR MINDS. And this wasn’t just some dude who had a small niche audience that dug the cut of his jib, he was blowing up HUGE. That amazes me.  It also amused me, because how can it not? The sack of this guy, the spine on this dude, deciding that's how he was going to roll and holy shit, it worked out. IT WORKED.

On January 9th, I tweeted "Day two of thinking about the tremendous impact David Bowie has had on popular culture. This might go on for a while." I thought I'd get to ponder what additional impact he was going to have as he entered what we all probably imagined was the last, oh, 30, 40, 50 years of his life. It's still kind of hard to wrap my head around his being dead because he was so damn present in my (our?) universe, even in the years between albums, even in his retirement from public life. He was...no, no, no.  

He is. 

A brief return...for a thinkpiece. UGH.

When I read the summary of what Louis CK’s episode, “So Did the Fat Lady” was about before it aired, I was quite curious to see just what he’d wind up doing.  I have a very, very sadly small pantheon of white male comedians who actually seem to “get it”, or at least, appear to make an effort to “get it” when it comes to issues of sexism, racism, misogyny, and the like.  Louis CK is a member, along with Paul F. Tompkins, and…well, there’s plenty room for more.  So come on, fellas, the snacks are top-notch.

I am a fat lady, the kind of fat that makes people really angry.  It’s my body type that’s more likely to be used in one of those “headless fatty” montages used on the news when they decide it’s time for the quarterly report about how awful fat people are.  I did my due diligence in my younger days of dieting, losing some weight, gaining it (and more) back, dieting, losing some weight, gaining it (and more) back.  I removed myself completely from the world when it came to romance and dating.  I believed 100 percent that a woman that looked like me had absolutely no shot at finding a fellow that would love me unconditionally, that wouldn’t see me as a make-skinny project, that wouldn’t keep my existence a secret because he wouldn’t want the world to know he stooped so low as to fuck a fat woman.  A part of my pain-in-the-ass brain understood that I actually did deserve love and was someone who was entertaining and festive and decent, but as long as I had an ass the size of Madagascar, it was simply pointless to make an effort.  So I didn’t.  Well, I wouldn’t until I’d reached some sort of “acceptable” size.

In my earlyish 30s, I discovered fat acceptance and began a lengthy re-acquaintance with feminism and figured out “holy fucking shit, I have wasted SO MUCH TIME hating myself”.  I got my head right and even though I still wasn’t terribly keen on venturing into romantic waters, I wound up the happiest, the most confident, the most comfortable and content I had been in a long time.  I finally understood that a goodly amount of the noise my head was filled with regarding the pursuit of the opposite sex was self-generated – maybe the reason why I never had a boyfriend wasn’t because I was fat, but because I’d bought the shit that was being sold to me and it turned into one of those handy self-fulfilling prophecies.  However, since I’d never actually participated in the rigmarole of dating, I couldn’t speak to whether or not my fat was truly an impediment.  I’d certainly had my stomach-churning crushes and felt like I had “loved” someone (though he didn’t love me back), and all the experiences had all ended with me feeling humiliated and worthless because the affection wasn’t returned.  But these were experiences I had had between the ages of, say, 14 and 20.  The one blind date I went on thanks to the personals section in the Chicago Reader went from gross (he interrupted me while I was talking and said “let’s cut the small talk and get to the sex”) to hilariously cataclysmic (he presented me with photographs of himself posing on a rug, wearing just a Speedo, then followed his disturbing presentation with a story about getting a handjob from a lesbian on a gay bar dance floor – oh, and he was wearing a wrestling singlet, as you do).  So I was a bit at sea as to how to go about pursuing a potential suitor…if I even wanted one at that point.

Long story short, the internet – the blessed, infuriating, bullshitty, wondrous internet – would eventually deliver a stone fox to me, and we’ve been friends for almost seven years, together for almost five, and married for just a smidge over two.  I never “dated” until I met my husband.  Oh, I made a halfhearted attempt at online dating and quickly realized it just wasn’t for me despite my having done a goodly amount of socializing online since the late 90s.  I had two things that were important to me, things I wasn’t willing to compromise on – I wasn’t interested in dating someone who was religious, and I wasn’t interested in dating someone who had children.  It would also be helpful if someone was feminist or feminist-friendly.  The suggestions provided to me by the service I used inevitably consisted of men with children, and those who didn’t have children were quite keen to have women with “weight proportionate to height” which I definitely am not.  I checked out free sites, pay sites, and at the end of it all, I couldn’t conjure up the energy or interest that was required to “date”.  Then I was resolute – if I was going to be single until my dying day, then for fuck’s sake I was going to make my life as entertaining as possible.  That resolution has had some revisions since then.

So I couldn’t necessarily identify with what Vanessa said during her speech about dating and flirting since I didn’t endure years of fruitless dating and I suspect I’ve flirted over the years, but I really can’t be sure.  But mercy, mercy me, I felt it, I completely understood when she said, “You know, if you were standing over there looking at us, you know what you'd see? That we totally match. We're actually a great couple together.”  I felt it when she presented Louie with those fucking hockey tickets that she insisted wasn’t some sort of demand for reciprocity in the form of a date or just a kind word or some affectionate attention, because God almighty, how often did I do that over the years.   There’s a certain hustle that goes into being a fat girl – my hustle consisted of having a sense of humor that was beyond, a personality that was funny and loud and funnyloud, doing whatever I had to do in order to make the life of the object of my affection wonderful and joyous and oh he’s asking out someone else and now they’re getting married and oh.  My hustle should have taken me into comedy or performing or acting, but good ole insecurity/my being chickenshit took me out, and if there’s a regret I cling to to this day, it’s that I didn’t take the best compliment I ever received from a teacher of mine – “You have a knack for making an unfunny scene funny again” – and run the shit out of it.  

I’ve read a few thinkpieces (let’s have that word destroyed, shall we?) about “So Did the Fat Lady” and they interpret Louie grabbing Vanessa’s hand as a sign that he just wanted her to stop talking and be quiet, or to end the awkwardness, or any number of things that would point to him not having had a moment of clarity.  To me, it was a moment – and maybe it wouldn’t stick with him, maybe that moment of courage would only be just that, a moment – where Louie decided to flout conventions, give the middle finger to all the guys who would give him shit for being seen with a fat girl in a romantic way, and hold the hand of this woman who was “very really beautiful”.  

Maybe I’m being optimistic.  I probably am – shit, I’m in the midst of writing a novel about a fat girl in her late 30s getting her shit together and finding love for the first time in her life which, if you know me personally, IS BASICALLY MY FUCKING STORY.  But it’s not hard for me to see it being dismissed as fantasy, wish fulfillment, complete bunk – once again, EVEN THOUGH IT ACTUALLY SERIOUSLY HAPPENED TO ME.  And fucking forget it ever being made into a movie, since romcoms are only allowed to feature thin women who have a tendency to be a wee bit clumsy because isn’t that just ADORABLE.  I couldn’t bear seeing someone who wasn’t me, frankly, playing the lead role.  After all, I spent so much time as a supporting player in my own life – I’m not giving up the spotlight ever again.