the ocean

Debtpocalypse Now

It may surprise you to hear this, but I am not exactly an economist. I took economics in high school, but my teacher just showed filmstrips about trade all the time, which caused me to fall asleep and have very vivid dreams about eating a giant cookie. (Also everyone except me cheated in that class without any consequences -- I still remember that one of my friends bought her final paper for that class and accidentally got one on the wrong topic, but still got a B.) I also took economics in college, but it all kind of seemed like fantasy to me. And not the good kind with unicorns and rainbows.

Anyway, my point in all of this is just that I have no understanding of what specifically will happen if the debt ceiling is not raised by Tuesday, but I do feel like it won't be good. Do I need to get my money out of the bank and start hiding it in various places around my house and yard? Should I be changing it over to foreign currencies? I think I have a few savings bonds my grandma gave me someplace -- do I need to cash those in now? Should I just invest everything in crop tops and be done with it? I have so, so many questions.

Maybe there will be some sort of deal. I'm sure whatever it would be would be horrible for the country in the long run, but at least it would save me from having to come up with some sort of financial plan right now.

The Event

Yes, I have photo evidence, so it actually happened. I daresay it was the greatest 100th birthday party in the history of time.

Thankfully, we were able to prevail upon our chain smoking waitress to take a few group shots before she left for the three-hour motorcycle ride in 100 degree heat she was telling us about all afternoon. Can you pick out the 100 year old? Here's a hint: she's the one with hot wheels.

Lazy Sunday

Another exciting day here in Quincy. We went to lunch with at my grandmother's house, where she had an infomercial starring Mr. T on the whole time, possibly under the mistake impression that it was the news. If you squint a little, he does look a bit like Brian Williams. She showed us all of her birthday cards, and damned if she didn't get three times as many as me. I mean, sure, on the one hand, the hundredth birthday is a milestone. But on the other hand, how many friends can you have that are even alive at 100? I'm trying not to take this personally.

We also went to see the latest Harry Potter. I stopped seeing these a few movies ago because I felt like they didn't really add anything to my (rather pleasant) experience from the books, but I relented in the interest of family fun and closure. It was okay. They made a lot of weird changes from the book that didn't really seem to improve things -- mainly by injecting a lot of teen romance -- but it was nice to see so many good British actors getting work. I mean, they could have cast Renee Zellweger as Professor McGonagall and Megan Fox as Madame Hooch, so the effort to be authentic is appreciated.

The Social Event of the Century

We had my grandmother's 100th birthday party today. She actually turned 100 last week, but not all of her friends and relatives could make it back then, so we had the party this week. It was a gala affair. I wore gray plaid slacks with a white dress shirt and red tie by Banana Republic, thank you for asking. Catering was by the Tony's at the Holiday Inn of Quincy. There was also a sheet cake.

For me, the event largely involved making small talk with relatives I've not seen in ten years and then "translating" that small talk for my grandmother, by which I mean repeating it at a higher volume. Of course there was also commenting on the deliciousness of the food I was eating and inquiring about people's health. Oh, and we had a PowerPoint with pictures of my grandmother in the various decades of her life. That was a Meg S joint.

It is pretty hard to believe it's already been 100 years of my grandmother. And not just because she smoked until she was in her 70s and has eaten red meat and heavy starches pretty much every day of her life. It's just that it seems like it was just yesterday that I was bringing her to grandparents' day at Monroe Elementary School to show her the bitchin' mailbox I made out of old milk cartons. But I did double check my calendar, and that was in fact not just yesterday. Yesterday I mainly spent playing Angry Birds.

Movie Night

So I watched Burlesque this week. Okay, fine, in the interest of full disclosure, I actually bought Burlesque this week. It sort of hurts me to type that. But it was $11 and I thought my sister would like it as an early birthday present. And yes, in retrospect, I'm not quite sure why I thought that. You should have seen the look on her face.

Anyway, it happened. That should probably have been the tag line for the movie itself. It's actually the most amazing thing about Burlesque -- that it got made at all. Someone heard a pitch involving Christina Aguilera, Cher, and a nonsensical plot about a small town girl making good by singing in her underwear and thought "yes, let's throw some money at that." They probably didn't mention the Alan Cumming, to be fair. Or the cinematography stolen shot by shot from Chicago.

A lot of it is so bad it's not even amusing. Not all of it, though. Eric Dane is a reliable source of unintentional laughter as the sleazy developer who romances Xtina and just generally looks greasy. It's his greatest role since that movie he made in the hot tub with his wife, that other lady, and a bunch of weed. Kirsten Bell is amusing in that she no longer seems to be "playing" a bitch; at this point she really is just a bitch. Stanley Tucci brought his role with him from The Devil Wears Prada and delivers zingers in such a way that I just want to shout "Bam! You got Tuccied!" Oh, and Peter Gallagher is in it, looking like Peter Gallagher on the downward spiral that is his career over the last ten years or so. So yes, a star studded cast.

The big problem is that it's two hours long. After that, let's be honest, unless you've got 3D robots, who gives a flying fuck?

Training Day

There's nothing like a crowded train in a major city on a 90+ degree day to make people want to punch each other in the cunt. I'm pretty sure I got elbowed in the kidney no fewer than sixteen times on my way to work this morning, even as I attempted to will myself into not sweating through my shirt, which was of course white. After about three stops the train was completely full, which led to many colorful dialogues between the people on the platform and the people standing in the door. But it wasn't until Armitage when things almost came to blows, due to a particularly portly fellow and the excessive use of the phrase "move in a little." Someone on the train decided to clarify that there was, in fact, no where to move in, unless the train had a secret passageway somewhere that no one knew about. The would-be boarder than began ranting and swearing loudly about how this asshole was going to get him fired because he would be late. Another passenger then offered helpful advice about leaving a little earlier in the morning, and then there was a lot of jostling and grunting. I almost dropped my Red Eye.

The Talk

For some reason, strangers frequently feel the need to speak to me randomly. I am often stopped by tourists who need directions, and half the time I even send them the right way. Of course panhandlers love me, even though I have now mastered the art of walking with purpose and avoiding eye contact. And sometimes people in the waiting room at the doctor's office start telling me all about their medical histories, despite my sincere efforts to demonstrate my complete and total lack of interest. I guess I have a face that says "I'm listening" even when my lips are saying "go to hell."

Anyway, I mention this because it happened twice today. First, at church, the guy in front of us turned around at told my sister and me that we had beautiful singing voices and should perform for a living. Of course we are quitting our jobs and following his advice, but I find it odd that it was offered in the first place, much less with a side of the body of Christ. And then at my sister's pool, a woman of a certain age tried three or four times to engage me in conversation about the issue of People she was reading. But I just don't have that much to say about the weight loss strategies of minor celebrities. I guess I will just have to study up for next time.

TV Time

A lot of big TV news lately, folks. Well, not really, but big news if you're into ironic enjoyment. That's right, ABC Family has renewed Melissa & Joey for a second season. So we'll have another 22 episodes to try to figure out what happened to that Asian assistant character they had for about three episodes in the first season and adjust our volumes to a level suitable for Melissa Joan Hart's high decibel line readings. Maybe we'll also be able to wrap our heads around the CRAZY idea of a man keeping house and taking care of children for a living! It's like they brought back the actors from the '90s but the attitudes from the '70s. I love vintage television.

It was also announced this week that Dierdre Hall is returning to Days of Our Lives as Marlena Evans Brady, the woman who was possessed by Satan briefly in the late 1990s. (Not to be confused with Carly, the woman on Days of Our Lives who was buried alive briefly in the late 1990s.) Of course, it's too much to hope for a reprise of that little plot line, but I'm excited just to see what her face will look like! After having so much time off, there's bound to have been a bit of nippage and tuckage that was done.

House Party

Yesterday my sister and I went to the Robie House, the Frank Lloyd Wright building down in Hyde Park. On Saturdays they have events where you can just roam the house freely and "use the house as a house," although I did not take that to mean that I was allowed to take a shower or curl up for a nap on the living roam sofa. It turned out that as a space it was really not overrated, with lots of beautiful, bright open spaces and a great sense of overall unity to the design. It is sort of too bad how the house was neglected and misused over the years before preservation became a cool thing to do, but they're trying to buy back the furniture now and get replicas of the original fixtures (really, it's as though the place was used as a frat house), which is good. I'll be interested to go back in a few years and see how they've progressed.

But the really interesting part of the afternoon was the Q&A that followed the presentation on a local museum and its preservation issues. As everyone knows, allowing an audience to ask questions is really just an invitation for them to make declarative statements that show how smart they are. And so we had innumerable questions that followed the format "I once saw a museum exhibit about X and it was great. Are you going to do any exhibits like that?" Then there were more general ramblings about the importance of museums generally, with a few references to articles in the New Yorker or Vanity Fair thrown in. But my favorite was the gentleman who asked if they were restoring the museum facilities to look like any specific year and, when the speaker replied that she didn't know, tried to explain what he meant by the term "year." Or maybe it was the lady who just asked if she could get her parking validated, I don't know.

Round Midnight

I saw Midnight in Paris last night. It was all right. Frankly, I would be fine with just staring at well shot images of Paris for two hours. (I did think I saw a boom mike in the corner of one shot, though, I swear.) Anyway, I was fairly convinced it would be vastly overrated just because it's kind of hard for me to fathom why Woody Allen would suddenly be getting the biggest box office of his career at approximately 170. And it certainly isn't as good as any number of his movies, most notably Annie Hall, Manhattan, Match Point, Zelig, and I would even say Sleeper. (My parents took me to see that one when I was like 3, apparently not bothered by the fact that it's beyond dirty.) But it was enjoyable. Sort of quaint. All of the celebrities of today playing celebrities of the past were charming, and Owen Wilson was one of the better Woody Allen stand-ins we've seen. Rachel McAdams came across as an all around horrible human being, but that was pretty much what she was there to do. I could have done without the Adrien Brody, but that's pretty much a constant.

So yeah. Worth seeing, I suppose. Although I'm still holding out for Transformers 3.

Independence, Day

I had a pretty nice fourth, as it turned out. When I woke up, Halle Berry's Catwoman was on TV, which is how I would like to start every day, if only it were socially acceptable. I just enjoy watching Oscar winners rub catnip across their faces sensually, is that so wrong? Then I took the train down to my sister's place, which gave me the opportunity to eavesdrop on strangers and confirm that their lives were no more interesting than my own. Then we had several hours of pool time, which actually involved very little time in the pool and much more time spent reading old issues of Us Weekly in the sun and eating a Potbelly's sub with my shirt off. It's a real advantage to not have to worry about getting mayonnaise on your clothes.

We briefly checked out the Navy Pier fireworks, but did not bother to go any closer than the yard in front of my sister's building. And indeed we were rewarded for our sloth, for upon returning to her apartment, we discovered that there were approximately ten million different fireworks displays going on in various neighborhoods and suburbs to the south and east, all of which we could see from the comfort of the couch. Well, relative comfort. My sister inherited whatever gene my parents have that keeps them from turning on the damn air conditioning.

American History Fun Facts

-- In addition to a cherry tree, George Washington also chopped down two pine trees, a mailbox, and his next door neighbor Prudence.
-- One of the leading causes of the Civil War was disagreement over who should play the Sally Field role in Steel Magnolias.
-- Benjamin Franklin was not, in fact, all about the Benjamins.
-- The U.S. Constitution originally had over four hundred proposed amendments, including a ban on "scrubs" and mandatory "topless Thursdays."
-- In the effort to conceal his polio, FDR would frequently tell people that Elanor had broken both of his legs with a meat cleaver.
-- Calvin Coolidge guest starred as Rachel's boyfriend on a three episode arc of Friends.
-- The War of 1812 actually took place in 1974.
-- No one actually cares about the Teapot Dome Scandal.
-- Thomas Jefferson was very much cuckoo for coco puffs.
-- The signing of the Declaration of Independence was immediately preceded by a signing of Jackie Collins' Lucky.
-- The Great Depression was actually not so great.

Anti-Dentite

So I feel like I end up writing about the dentist every time I go there, but the fact of the matter is that something weird always happens that I'm dying to share. A big part of this is that they go through hygienists like Paula Abdul goes through painkillers. I swear to god I've had about six different ladies scraping at my teeth at this point, from the one who talked to me about colonial dolls the whole time to the one who dropped her scraper thingy on the floor and then tried to put it back in my mouth without sterilizing it. I actually preferred her in a lot of ways.

Anyway, today's lady was no exception to the general rule of craziness. She began our visit by quizzing me on the Us magazine I'd been reading in the lobby, despite my repeated protestations that I hadn't even read the article about Kim Kardashian's upcoming wedding to some gay dude. She then insisted that I wrench my body into an exceedingly uncomfortable position where my head was essentially thrown back at a right angle to my body because that made it easier for her to get her tools into my mouth and "she's all about the ergonomics." Then came the relentless verbal assault on my tartar, which she seemed to view as a personal affront to her dignity. But the highlight had to be when she announced that my gums were "extra bleedy or something" as I spat about three quarts of red into the sink. Either that or when she suggested, apropos of nothing, that I get veneers.

I don't think this will be a problem for long, however, as I can tell that my dentist already hates her. He gave her a whole list of mistakes she made in the cleaning of my teeth and kept passive aggressively announcing that "it would be his preference" if she would do it correctly. And he physically smacked my chart out of his field of vision when she tried to bring it over to him. So yes, I think I'll have another post about a new person in another four months. Mark your calendars.