the ocean

Just as I'm complaining about my lack of things to write about, I have work travel that provides plenty of fodder for discussion.

Monday I flew to Newark for some work meetings. As fate would have it, I was seated next to an elderly Russian couple who spent the entire trip loudly discussing in two different languages how confusing nearly every aspect of the flight was to them. 

When I arrived, the man was hunched over in his seat with his eyeballs approximately one inch from the in-seat display, messing with the parental controls settings for no earthly reason. Then, his wife coached him on the process of selecting a movie to watch, which resulted in him accidentally starting an episode of the NBC sitcom I forgot existed, "St. Denis Medical," with what appeared to be Dutch subtitles. Understandably terrified by this development and apparently unaware that one can exit out of erroneously selected programming, the gentleman asked his wife to switch seats, but she was already too invested in The Barbie Movie to agree to that.

Shortly thereafter, and it's really important you understand I am not making this up, the woman became convinced that we had already taken off and landed, when in truth we'd just been doing the incredibly long taxi for which O'Hare is so well known. She convinced her husband to ask the flight attendant why we had landed so quickly, leading to one of the most meaningful stunned silences I've ever encountered. Fortunately, my new friends were actually delighted to learn that five-minute round trips are not actually in the United Airlines playbook.

Then there was the in-flight service. They asked the snack lady for a drink and the drink lady for a snack. Then the wife asked if they had any chocolate alcoholic drinks, apparently mistaking the plane for a bespoke speakeasy in Brooklyn. After discovering that alcohol was not complimentary, she settled on bloody mary mix with no vodka, which she then complained tasted like tomato juice. 

Once we landed, they entertained a ten minute phone call with their pet hotel on speakerphone whilst we waited to deplane. During which they asked to speak to their dog. Which I feel, but still, do not understand the need for the entire row to be involved. Particularly during the hold music, which was a janky electronic version of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. Finally that music history training has paid off.

Needless to say, I am now best friends with these people and they're coming over tonight. Travel really does expose us to new horizons.

I am struggling more and more to come up with things to write about here, and I'm not sure why. I mean, yes, my life is relatively uninteresting, but hasn't it always been? It's not like I used to be a backup dancer for Madonna or Hillary Clinton's lesbian life partner (or both) or anything. I'm still in the same straightforward and largely not for disclosure profession I've been in for twenty plus years, and I'm still married to the same dude I've been with for more than a decade. I guess I do spend less time "out on the town," as no one says, than I used to, but it's not like I remembered most of that to write about it, anyway. I'm certainly not watching less television or doing fewer stupid things than I did back in the day.

Case in point: I was in my friend's wedding last weekend and, after two days of being friendly with strangers and taking photos for hours with only a Walgreen's sandwich for sustenance, I decided to practice some intoxication. And I ended up giving the Uber driver a combination of my current address and the address I lived at three years ago, realizing I hadn't brought my keys and could not remember the code for the back door that I enter literally every day of my life, and having to wake Ian up to let me in in the dead of night. 

Oh yeah, so maybe that's the shit I should write about. Except I just did. And it's not like I had anything funny to say about it, other than the fact that it happened. 

Should I start recapping old episodes of "Caroline in the City" or something? Only issue is that I would then have to actually watch old episodes of "Caroline in the City."

Actually having a reason for being is such a high bar for a blog...

Getting my dream Beauty & the Beast style home library has led me to realize I have a lot of books, though not nearly enough to fill all the shelves in my new Beauty & the Beast style home library. (For that, I am going to bring some books back from my parents' library in Quincy; that library also doubled as my bedroom when I was a kid, so I feel I have a valid ownership claim.) Among these classic volumes with which I could not possibly part are the following:

2009 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. I have never written a novel and I haven't written a short story in years. But if I do, I will certainly want to know where I can publish it in 2009.

Spanish Beginner's Dictionary. I never took Spanish at all, so I guess I am definitely a beginner.

America's Next Top Model Fierce Guide to Life. This requires no explanation.

Hoodoo Conjuration Witchcraft Rootwork, Volume Five. This was my dad's; he was a folklorist, among other things. Aren't most dads? I do wonder where volumes one through four went, though.

The Power of Kabbalah. This is Ian's. I assume it's related to Madonna's Kabbalah phase. He's also a big fan of her turn in Evita, as of course we all are.

Make it Nice by Dorinda Medley. I imagine this was a gift? I've not read it. I prefer a more literary bent in my housewives, you know like Danielle Staub.

Two copies of The Canterbury Tales, which I have never read. I mean, I ready excerpts in high school and college, which seemed like plenty. But I do plan to get to the whole thing before I die. And apparently read it twice.

Twenty Great American Short Stories. I have read this and must say that most of these American short stories are really just kind of mid.

How to Clean Practically Anything. Maybe from my mother? I do like things to be tidy.

UN Law on International Sales. This one is just for fun.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Some of these actually remain scary, even as an adult. I rarely if ever tell them in the dark, however.

Contemplating Courts. Just a great title, frankly. I think this was a textbook from one of my college classes. I just couldn't bear to part with it!

Approximately six thousand copies of everything I've ever written. I am nothing if not a narcissist!

I've been walking around with a black eye all week. I'm workshopping lies about how I got it because the real story isn't very flattering. I was trying to get a metal desk organizer off the top shelf in the storage room at work and I accidentally dropped it on my face. There was a significant amount of blood and swelling and I had to attend a full afternoon client meeting covered in band-aids and lightly oozing. I am sure everyone was very impressed. After a few days of gentle icing and anti-inflammatories, I have lost my resemblance to  Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame, but there are still some interesting color changes going on around my eye. It's like the northern lights, but less attractive and more embarrassing.

Because the universe has it in for me, this was also the week that I had to go present about careers in white collar criminal law to a program for youths. They certainly found my eye diverting. They said they thought I was wearing makeup, which even in this somewhat more enlightened age they did not mean as a compliment. Fortunately, I was able to distract them with stories of horrific murders. I've found that everyone loves to hear about the mail bombers and hammer murderers I have kept in jail. And no, I am not suggesting that says anything positive about our society. But I'm not the one who broke it; I'm pretty sure that was MTV in the early '90s.

Now the big question in my mind is if my appearance will be back to normal by Wednesday, when of course I am required to have a new building ID photo taken. It's not so much vanity that drives my concerns as the thought that I myself would certainly not allow anyone who looks the way I do now enter into any respectable office building. Although I guess that begs the question of what respectable even means these days. I did once work with a woman who got fired for running a bedazzling business from her desk during office hours.

Ian has taken to putting on the Vevo music video channels (included with your Samsung TV, friends) while he is working. I am not questioning the soundness of this decision, as it really does provide some pleasant ambient noise to accompany one's labors without being too distracting. However, I have come to realize from this exercise that many music videos of decades past are incredibly strange.

For example, the "Doing it All for My Baby" video from Huey Lewis (& the News, of course). For some reason, this incredible upbeat, frankly saccharine tune was accompanied by a video in which Huey himself plays Dr. Frankenstein for some reason. It is seven minutes long. It literally could not have less to do with the song. Did Huey just see "Thriller" and think, hey, I guess people are doing monster videos now? It's kind of jarring for a song that even at the time seemed destined for Muzak at your local Dollar General.

And then there's "The Warrior" by Scandal featuring Patty Smyth. I think it's supposed to be post-apocalyptic? It's kind of industrial chic and there's some sort of dance battle involved, with people who are maybe aliens? Or fishermen? (There are nets, but also body suits.) It does look a little bit like Cats the musical.

Not as much as the video for "Bad Boy" by Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine, of course. It is a daring love story about a woman who seems to be sexually interested in man-sized cats. They are unambiguously cats, with tails that sometimes function as boners, whiskers, and a love of fish. And Gloria is in what appears to be a Quinceanera dress, dancing so stiffly that I literally googled to see if this was filmed after the accident where she injured her spine. It was not.

Anyway, it's all kind of a vibe. Not mad at it, but also pretty sure I'm going to have some fucked up dreams for a while. 

We've been living in a construction zone for the past few weeks, since we are having my home office built out to fulfill my childhood dream of having a library like the one from Beauty & the Beast. (Seriously, I'm even getting a wholly unnecessary ladder on the bookshelves.) It has been a lot. I swear they led us to believe it was only going to take a few days to install, since they actually built all of the cabinetry offsite over the last couple of months. But no, it's still going on. Friday was kind of a low point when the painters showed up at 8 in the morning just to tell us they were working on a different job that day instead of ours and wanted to take all of their equipment. Also, the wallpaper guy is apparently very much in demand? I mean, he's no Pedro Pascal, but still.

Ian has been handling all communication with the crew, which is good, since I am somewhat scared of craftsmen. By and large this has gone well. There was an incident where they asked to use the microwave and Dolly flew into a rage at this gross indignity, but she was clearly just itching to bark about something. Ian also sent a rather sassy email to the project manager at one point in which he used the phrase "I am trying to manage a household," as though someone was trying to commandeer Tara to use as a field headquarters, but surprisingly that just resulted in them sending him flowers. Always pays to channel your inner Karen, assuming you are white and middle class.

Allegedly everything will be wrapped by the end of this week. We'll see. I do tire of working at the kitchen table, but on the other hand the proximity to Chex Mix is appreciated. 

So the last leg of the bachelor party last weekend was a trip to the Weird Al concert at Ravinia. Like many of us, my friend who is getting married grew up with Weird Al's musical output and even performed it for a talent show, which the other kids were absolutely wrong for not realizing was very cool. So he had a yen to experience "Eat It" and "Amish Paradise" live and in person, which I was absolutely not going to prevent. Mother nature, that bitch, had other ideas, though.

You see, there was essentially a hurricane in Highland Park last Sunday night, even though Ian gleefully reported to me from Chicago that there was not so much as a cloud in the sky. It was so intense that even though we were sitting in the pavilion, it felt like it was raining in there because the wind blew it in at essentially a 90 degree angle. Not that I am complaining, given that the people on the lawn and all of their many and varied belongings got completely drenched. And, of course, no rain had been in the forecast, so most of the crowd showed up with candles, card games, snack tables, and arrays of cheeses but no umbrellas or ponchos. My mom, my sister, and my nephew were among the unfortunate lawngoers who had to make a mad dash for the parking lot through six inches of accumulated rain. And that was my nephew's first concert; I'll wait until he's older to tell him just to lie and tell people it was Sabrina Carpenter or something.

The show itself was pretty solid. He did all the hits, as well as the themesongs he wrote for not one but two animated shows I did not know existed. There were costumes galore, including Star Wars outfits for "Yoda" and the fat suit for "Fat," which does in fact hit different now. And although I can't claim to be an expert, I thought the accordion playing was pretty strong. More than worth the hypothermia. 

I went to an ultimate fighting event (match? contest? extravaganza?) on Friday. If you are thinking this does not sound like something I would do, you are correct, but it was for my friend's bachelor weekend and I am, of course, an incredibly supportive and amazing friend. Also I figured I might enjoy sweaty topless men grappling with one another, and I was not wrong. It was actually quite entertaining to watch them try to murder one another, though I understood none of the rules and was frequently out of the arena getting food or alcohol. And speaking of that, the drinks were appropriately strong given that each of them cost $30. The food, meanwhile, seemed to somehow be affiliated with Shaquille O'Neal, judging from the fact that it came with something called "Shaq sauce." Though I suppose it's possible that's referring to the New Zealand singer Shaquille Paranihi-Ngauma. Regardless, the sauce was rather delicious and I wish it nothing but the best. 

We also rented a boat and went out on the lake yesterday for this bachelor extravaganza, to a little area known as "The Playpen," which is a hotspot for youths with enough money to film their Instagram reels on min-yachts. Also for accidental drownings and, on at least one occasion, accidental foot severings, but who is counting? We remained on the boat and with all of our body parts intact, however, and it was a beautiful day for sun and mild competition over playlists. Plus, there was dip, so who could complain? Well, there's always someone who can complain, but the trick is just to leave them stranded on the shore.

Yesterday I went with my sister's family to the pool and the batting cage. And also to Chili's, but for once this isn't a post about Chili's. (The skillet queso remains my passion.) It was a hot day and nice to be in the water but apparently a lot of people felt that way so there wasn't an empty lounge chair anywhere in sight. And my spray-on sunscreen had some weird reaction with the water and ended up curling up into sticky little balls all over my skin, which seemed less than ideal. I've sort of realized that pools aren't really that much fun as an adult without alcohol, which to be fair can be said about a lot of things.

The batting cage was actually fairly great, despite the creeping realization that I had no idea who else had worn that batting helmet or what might have been going on with their hair. At first I was absolute shit out there, even at the "slow baseball" setting, but I slowly got into the swing of things, pun 100% intended. By the time we left I had successfully socked a few dingers, which made me feel good about myself. My niece had an existential crisis about her future in tee ball, but I think we managed to work through that with promises of Chili's. (Damn, I guess maybe this IS a post about Chili's.)

Today I had a brunch with some friends and am now puttering about the house. Yes, puttering. I'm very concerned about our plants in this heat wave. 

After nearly a decade of refusing to watch Summer House, Ian and I finally broke down and have now completed season one. And, God help me, it's kind of amazing.

My initial resistance was based largely on an aversion to Kyle, who I though was a douchebag and not actually all that attractive. But when he appeared on The Traitors, I realized that he was a douchebag and not that attractive, but also kind of ridiculous and pathetic. So I figured I could live with him. I was also against the Wirkus twins, as in general I find it suspicious for people to resemble one another and moreover, I did sort of feel they looked like the white chicks from White Chicks. That also hasn't changed, but we really needed something light and ridiculous for a summer watch and, well, this checked those boxes.

Like many Bravo shows, Summer House is a meticulous examination of the toxic behavior of attractive straight men and the delusional self-sabotage of the women who surround them. Kyle spends the entire first season telling Amanda (to whom we know is he now married) that he wants to be single and indeed catalogues to her a roster of his (relatively unimpressive) summer conquests, but she doubles down on the relationship. Carl essentially wears a T-shirt that says "I'm not that interested in you, Lauren" and, in response, Lauren decides it is Cristina's fault that things "cooled off" with him and screams at her before getting back in bed with him. Lindsay engages in weekly screaming matches with a man who flees the house to sleep in a bed with five other people and then decides to move in with him. This is all a horrific mirror on society and yet unbelievably watchable.

Cristina herself is an incredibly distinctive character in that, despite being generally in the right about everything in the house, she is still somehow really unlikable. I don't even know why. Maybe its the incredibly lousy job she does of trying to act like a casual, chill girl when she's obviously drowning in insecurities. Maybe it's her truly inartful pot stirring. Or maybe it's just her face. But when everyone turned on her for essentially no reason and she left the house early, all I could think about was how lame her exit speech was. You're burning these bridges and you can't even articulate any of the at least three dozen insults for your fellow cast members that I've come up with in my head? Please.

Anyway, this is happening. Or, rather, it happened in 2017. But we're in it now. Be afraid.

A podcast Ian listens to gave him the idea that we should give a watch to the 2007 Bravo series "Hey Paula," which, according to IMDb, "follows the personal and professional lives of Paula Abdul." (It also gives it a rating of 3.5 stars out of 10.) I was skeptical, but given that it was only seven twenty-two minute episodes, I figured there was little risk involved. Needless to say, it ended up being a rich emotional journey. 

First and foremost, the series makes it appear that Paula is deeply unwell. I don't know her in real life and it would be unfair of me to speculate, but I will note that she says more than once on the show that she doesn't take "recreational" drugs, which seems to me to be an interesting choice of modifier. Regardless, pretty much every episode features Paula saying that she is hungry and/or exhausted while jetting back and forth from, say, being honored as the Las Vegas Ballet's Woman of the Year (note that it is not all of Nevada or even all of ballet involved) and promoting her jewelry collection on QVC while women with questionable accents call in to tell her she inspires them. Invariably, though, Paula decides to forego sleeping to, like, stop at a Starbucks in the dead of night and sign autographs for people who did not request them. A lot of this is very stressful. For me, I mean.

Then there are the professional travails that seem to plague Paula. There is an ugly incident where we learn Paula has designed costumes for a Bratz movie that I am surprised to learn actually came out, but the producers have informed her those "looks" will not be seeing the light of day. (This may be the occasion that causes here to say she is "tired of not being treated like the gift that she is," although it is hard to keep track.) There is another crisis when her QVC jewelry partner fails to hold back product for her to give away to the "Idol kids" (her term) as she had requested, and Paula must go out of pocket for the jewelry (as opposed to just forgetting about it altogether, as I am confident everyone else already had). Also, Paula does a series of loopy TV interviews and is accused by of being drunk by a magazine your aunt Cheryl reads. I guess I had just kind of assumed that was her brand, but apparently she does not care for it.

Oh, and the rental house drama. Paula decides to remodel her house and rents a house to live in while that happens. She then hires a designer to furnish it for her, but never meets or even speaks to that person, instead sending her hairdresser (natch) who tosses out a lot of word salad centered on Paula's "femininity" and calls it a day. Then, once the entire house has been furnished and she's supposed to move in, Paula decides she hates the design (which does admittedly contain an antique birdcage) and screams at the designer on the phone as her hairdresser attempts to recede into the nearest wall. At the end of the day, Paula changes her mind about remodeling.

Did I mention that one episode is just a "clip show" that consists of footage for plotlines they apparently decided weren't interesting enough to include in the other six episodes? Including a surprise party thrown for Paula by a boyfriend we didn't even know she had from the rest of the series? It's all very much worth a look; the perfect televised companion for our nation's gradual descent into madness.

As I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, most years Ian and I make an effort to see all of the best picture nominees before the Oscars. Note that I say "most years," because sometimes there are nominees I know are not going to work for me, a la Avatar: The Way of Water, and I drop any pretensions of running the table. (I get a headache just thinking about the Avatar movies, and not from the 3D, just from the dialogue.) This year, we did attempt the sweep, but were two movies short by the time the ceremony rolled around; blame our incredibly rich social lives. But now we have caught up, and the results are not that impressive!

From the eight we saw in a timely fashion, Nickel Boys was my top choice, though I knew it had absolutely no chance of winning. Conclave looked prestigious as hell but was fairly ridiculous. Dune Two was way too tan and grainy, and The Substance was gross as hell. Emilia Perez we're supposed to pretend never happened now because reasons. Wicked was actually a really good movie and I don't even particularly love the source material, but probably not "serious" enough to win anything. Anora was fine but kind of won by default I think? Anyway, that was then and this is now.

A few weeks ago we finally blocked out the three and a half hours to see The Brutalist. It was really beautiful to look at and I like the score a lot, but good lord was it long and frankly pretty random in places. Also, I'm not sure if I was supposed to hate the main character? I mean, I get not wanting to make artistic compromises, but also maybe you don't want to subject your entire family to grinding poverty for your principles? And I do sort of hate that brutalism seems to be having a moment again. I refuse to accept that giant slabs of concrete are any sort of aesthetic at all.

And last week we saw A Complete Unknown, and wow. They just made a bunch of shit up about Bob Dylan, huh? Like, some of it seemed weird and then I was reading about it online afterwards and the director was just like, oh, it's not really a biopic, and I didn't want to have "fealty" to the facts. OK, then. Be on the lookout for my movie about Queen Elizabeth where she wins a hot dog eating contest and travels across the Pacific Northwest ingesting mushrooms. I mean, it was well acted and an interesting recreation of a period (I think, obviously I was not alive then) but maybe don't have Dylan bone Joan Baez during the Cuban Missile Crisis if they didn't actually meet until like a year after that? 

Whatever, I'm getting cheese fries.