Like now for instance...
May 16, 2008
Sometimes
I think about how much I'm really going to miss working in this office...
Like now for instance...
Like now for instance...
There are SO many horrifying things happening right now...
Like this.
I love Bittman. Batali and his sweaty, smelly crocks are all right. But Paltrow? Please, God. Why are you doing this? You know how I feel about the sound of her voice. The smug expression and equally smug sound bites on magazine covers. "I Simplify Everything." Yeah, it's amazing how simple things can get with bazillions of dollars.
You remember when I wrote this letter, God? Did you think I was kidding?
Dear Gwyneth,
You and I started off fine. I found you precious in movies like Emma, Sliding Doors, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Seven. I coveted your long blond hair and sweet British accent. Then I found out you aren't British but I didn't begrudge you! Oh, no, quite the contrary. Any child of Blythe Danner is a pal of a mine.
And then...when did we go wrong, Gwyn? It must've been after the Brad breakup, the Affleck breakup, Shakespeare in Love, the pink Oscar dress...It seems unfair to put all of this on your relationship with Chris Martin but I think that's where the trouble began. It's like when one of your friends get married and where they were only mildly irritating before, now they're now insufferable and you feel the urge to set fire to their townhouse whenever you drive by. Um, or so I hear.
So now I find myself unable to hear you speak. You talk about macrobiotic diets and you smugly tell reporters you never would've exposed yourself to the media the way Jennifer Aniston did, blah blah blah, and you refer to Anthony Hopkins as "An-tony" during an award presentation and suddenly I can't enjoy even Shakespeare in Love because your pretension has seeped in and stained everything, and it all has the stench of an Elizabeth Arden commercial or whatever that is that you're stumping where you roll around in wildflowers and play with puppies and your own happiness and, ugh, I'm too busy sitting in my own vomit to continue this any longer.
Please stop calling me. Accept that this is over. I don't want to come over and listen to any more new Coldplay tracks. I don't want to listen to you talk about how milk causes cancer. I'm not interested in what Moses did on the potty yesterday. The fact that I had to write that sentence at all is so wrong. You are all so wrong.
Sincerely,
Judi
I guess I have to be more graphic. The mere mention of her fills my throat with bile. Cease and desist immediately.
I love Bittman. Batali and his sweaty, smelly crocks are all right. But Paltrow? Please, God. Why are you doing this? You know how I feel about the sound of her voice. The smug expression and equally smug sound bites on magazine covers. "I Simplify Everything." Yeah, it's amazing how simple things can get with bazillions of dollars.
You remember when I wrote this letter, God? Did you think I was kidding?
Dear Gwyneth,
You and I started off fine. I found you precious in movies like Emma, Sliding Doors, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Seven. I coveted your long blond hair and sweet British accent. Then I found out you aren't British but I didn't begrudge you! Oh, no, quite the contrary. Any child of Blythe Danner is a pal of a mine.
And then...when did we go wrong, Gwyn? It must've been after the Brad breakup, the Affleck breakup, Shakespeare in Love, the pink Oscar dress...It seems unfair to put all of this on your relationship with Chris Martin but I think that's where the trouble began. It's like when one of your friends get married and where they were only mildly irritating before, now they're now insufferable and you feel the urge to set fire to their townhouse whenever you drive by. Um, or so I hear.
So now I find myself unable to hear you speak. You talk about macrobiotic diets and you smugly tell reporters you never would've exposed yourself to the media the way Jennifer Aniston did, blah blah blah, and you refer to Anthony Hopkins as "An-tony" during an award presentation and suddenly I can't enjoy even Shakespeare in Love because your pretension has seeped in and stained everything, and it all has the stench of an Elizabeth Arden commercial or whatever that is that you're stumping where you roll around in wildflowers and play with puppies and your own happiness and, ugh, I'm too busy sitting in my own vomit to continue this any longer.
Please stop calling me. Accept that this is over. I don't want to come over and listen to any more new Coldplay tracks. I don't want to listen to you talk about how milk causes cancer. I'm not interested in what Moses did on the potty yesterday. The fact that I had to write that sentence at all is so wrong. You are all so wrong.
Sincerely,
Judi
I guess I have to be more graphic. The mere mention of her fills my throat with bile. Cease and desist immediately.
May 14, 2008
Please Buy My Shit
The move to Chicago is in full swing. Right now I'm so overwhelmed at the thought of everything I have to do (sell furniture, sell car, pack boxes, ship boxes, clean apartment, paint apartment God) in two and a half weeks that I'm finding it difficult to breath.
In two weeks, we will be out of our home for three years, The Tree House, and Vic will be settling into her new place across the alley in Neighbor John and Neighbor Jen's old building because apparently she has to follow John's life to the letter (lest you forget that he used to live in our old apartment a couple of years ago and is responsible for our decrepit dish rack and the world's crappiest shower head amongst other things). And I will commence sleeping on her new hardwood floor and living out of my giant suitcase for two weeks.
But at least by then (June 1 aka 17 days, 10 hours, 10 minutes and 28 seconds to go- not that I'm counting) I will be pretty much done. The boxes containing all my measly belongings will be packed and dutifully mailed to Liz and Adam. The furniture, painstakingly collected over 4 years and countless thrift stores, will all be sold/given away. The Tree House will be as barren and empty as the first few weeks we rented it, when we were living half a mile away with He Who Will Not Be Named and were sneaking out at night to go visit it, to sit on our new living room floor in the dark and talk about how wonderful it would be when we finally moved all of our stuff in.
I'm listing all of my furniture for sale here too for any LA friends who are interested in my second/third/fourth/infinite hand stuff.
Look at that beautiful bed. Wouldn't you KILL for a beautiful bed like that? I realize most people strip the bed in cases like this but I so rarely have the opportunity to show off my Calvin Klein bedspread, aka the most expensive thing in my possession and no, it's not for sale.
In two weeks, we will be out of our home for three years, The Tree House, and Vic will be settling into her new place across the alley in Neighbor John and Neighbor Jen's old building because apparently she has to follow John's life to the letter (lest you forget that he used to live in our old apartment a couple of years ago and is responsible for our decrepit dish rack and the world's crappiest shower head amongst other things). And I will commence sleeping on her new hardwood floor and living out of my giant suitcase for two weeks.
But at least by then (June 1 aka 17 days, 10 hours, 10 minutes and 28 seconds to go- not that I'm counting) I will be pretty much done. The boxes containing all my measly belongings will be packed and dutifully mailed to Liz and Adam. The furniture, painstakingly collected over 4 years and countless thrift stores, will all be sold/given away. The Tree House will be as barren and empty as the first few weeks we rented it, when we were living half a mile away with He Who Will Not Be Named and were sneaking out at night to go visit it, to sit on our new living room floor in the dark and talk about how wonderful it would be when we finally moved all of our stuff in.
I'm listing all of my furniture for sale here too for any LA friends who are interested in my second/third/fourth/infinite hand stuff.
Gorgeous! Spectacular! The best purchase I ever made on someone's driveway!
It kills me to part with this chair. It's small and squeaky and I would carry it on my back to Chicago if at all possible.
Look how chic and classy! And dusty! I promise to wipe this bad boy down, should you be interested in taking it home with you.
Look how chic and classy! And dusty! I promise to wipe this bad boy down, should you be interested in taking it home with you.
May 12, 2008
May's Reign of Terror Continues
My grandmother passed away on Wednesday.
She was 94 years old. When my father wrote his eulogy, he gave it to me to read since I was his back-up plan, should the funeral service leave him too emotional to deliver it himself (I'm the usual go-to in these situations since I have a weird and kind of unnerving ability to maintain my composure in such circumstances). He told me that he wanted the people at the service to come away with an impression of his mother's whole life- rather than what we would more naturally focus on, which is the last twenty or so years of her life.
My grandmother was a strong, complicated smart-ass, for lack of a better word. Putting her next to my mother's mother, who is now 95, was always a study. My maternal grandmother is the epitome of sweetness, absorbing the world's joys and sorrows with an almost childlike innocence. Gram, on the other hand, was more likely to swear and ask you for a scotch on the rocks. Obviously, this isn't a complete picture of who she was but it's the one I've had in my head for practically my whole life. Hence my dad's dilemma.
And it worked. It painted the picture for who she was, for the near-century she was on this earth. In a strange way, it makes her more real to me- this 3-D picture I have of a woman who loved to dance, who dumped her fiance to marry my grandfather, who once socked the leader of a neighborhood gang who threatened my dad when he was 12, who, with the help of her siblings, helped raise my father's cousin, left motherless at childbirth, and remained devoted to him throughout her life. She shrugged off the Depression as no big deal. She worked in a chocolate factory and she was a lunch lady after my grandfather died.
Real is good. Perspective is good. We all want to live to an old age but we forget what that brings with it- that we can so easily be reduced to who we are at an old age, rather than who we've been our whole lives.
Unfortunately, with it comes yet more sadness and a little regret that we didn't ask the right questions or keep the whole picture in mind when we had the chance.
She was 94 years old. When my father wrote his eulogy, he gave it to me to read since I was his back-up plan, should the funeral service leave him too emotional to deliver it himself (I'm the usual go-to in these situations since I have a weird and kind of unnerving ability to maintain my composure in such circumstances). He told me that he wanted the people at the service to come away with an impression of his mother's whole life- rather than what we would more naturally focus on, which is the last twenty or so years of her life.
My grandmother was a strong, complicated smart-ass, for lack of a better word. Putting her next to my mother's mother, who is now 95, was always a study. My maternal grandmother is the epitome of sweetness, absorbing the world's joys and sorrows with an almost childlike innocence. Gram, on the other hand, was more likely to swear and ask you for a scotch on the rocks. Obviously, this isn't a complete picture of who she was but it's the one I've had in my head for practically my whole life. Hence my dad's dilemma.
And it worked. It painted the picture for who she was, for the near-century she was on this earth. In a strange way, it makes her more real to me- this 3-D picture I have of a woman who loved to dance, who dumped her fiance to marry my grandfather, who once socked the leader of a neighborhood gang who threatened my dad when he was 12, who, with the help of her siblings, helped raise my father's cousin, left motherless at childbirth, and remained devoted to him throughout her life. She shrugged off the Depression as no big deal. She worked in a chocolate factory and she was a lunch lady after my grandfather died.
Real is good. Perspective is good. We all want to live to an old age but we forget what that brings with it- that we can so easily be reduced to who we are at an old age, rather than who we've been our whole lives.
Unfortunately, with it comes yet more sadness and a little regret that we didn't ask the right questions or keep the whole picture in mind when we had the chance.
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