***I know I mentioned this on Facebook, but has anyone watched the new A&E show "Obsessed"? I had so been looking forward to it as I am always fascinated by human behavior and feel that OCD has been really misrepresented with only the stereotypical compulsive aspects of the disorder being depicted, but...this doesn't feel good to watch. It feels exploitive. The first episode predictably featured the obsessively clean man whose home is spotless (and rugless) and who throws every bit of trash into and outside receptacle. The treatment in most cases (on the show) is exposure to the anxiety-producing agent. On this particular episode, the guy's therapist, "Dr. Shana", asks to use the gentleman's bathroom (as the session is in his home) in order to change and dispose of her tampon. It was part of the treatment but it didn't sit right. First of all, the guy was gay and lived alone. Is exposure to used tampons something that he really is going to encounter in his daily life? Second of all, ew.
(It should also be noted that while Dan and I were watching and saw this guy's completely sanitized bathroom, Dan asked me, "Is that your dream?" My response: "Totally." I'll save for a later post my wisdom on how to properly clean a bathroom and why Dan is so lucky to have me to teach him this while he is cleaning the bathroom.)
The show was hyped as being from the people who brought us that shiny jewel of a program called "Intervention" but it is not even in the same league. If "Intervention" is pure heroin, "Obsessed" is shwag.
***If you like your mental illness with a side of song and dance, you need to buy the soundtrack of Broadway musical "Next to Normal." Usually when I listen to a new soundtrack, I play it nonstop for a few months until I know every word. (I've been rapping a la "In the Heights" for over a year now.) But with "Next to Normal," the music and story is so unsettling that I've actually had to make myself take breaks from it to protect my energy and keep from going to the dark side. I have never had this experience with anything else I have ever heard. How often can you say that? The story of a bipolar mother and her family as they struggle with her illness and treatment is so painful and so compelling; the music, positively haunting. (If you do get it or have, gasp, seen the show, talk to me about it! I'm dying to talk to somebody about it.)
***I'm not really sure I know how to use semicolons properly but to quote someone I heard recently---I thought it was Elizabeth Gilbert (whom I so enjoy) but now I'm thinking it wasn't and that it was an Oprah guest---this is my "one fabulous life" and I'll be damned if I'm too fearful to use a semicolon. (I'm pretty sure punctuation is not what Liz---if we were friends, she'd want me to call her Liz---or whomever had in mind when she said it but there it is.) However, one of my most loyal (and favorite) readers is an English teacher, so I can't help but get a little RPA (Red Pen Anxiety) while writing. V-dawg, perhaps you would consider a future guest spot as our on-site grammar counselor?
***Everybody is complaining about the rain. I'm not (at least right this moment). I'm in boxer shorts and a babushka (also, a shirt) and am happy to have no guilt about staying inside and writing/cleaning/facebooking. Pretty soon I'm going to take a bath and read my book (no Molly today)---you can't do something like that on a sunny day. As an ADD kid whose gig involves sitting for long periods in front of a computer or pad of paper, rainy days keep me focused. On sunny days I get so excited that I'm like a horny bumblebee, buzzing from thing to thing.
*** I need someone (preferably a woman) to see Pixar's "Up" and tell me if you spent the first 15 minutes of the movie bawling, as I did. I'm trying to gage whether it was PMS, fatigue, or just a genuine emotional reaction. The movie was great, of course, but it peaked during those first 15 minutes (the musical montage for those who have seen it). In fact, after that I was sort of annoyed with all the talking dogs and adventure crap until I remembered that it was a kid movie and if I wanted a crier I could go watch Terms of Endearment for the 536th time.
***Has anyone noticed Garrett Morris on the new Nintendo commercial? I hope he got paid 100,000 points for that job.
***You wanna know what hell is? Hell is eating a water chestnut wrapped in bacon right out of the oven and suffering second-degree burns on the roof of your mouth. (I don't think they're really second-degree burns but on the oh-fuck-ometer, the experience was up there.) Then, as the burns blistered and bubbled (and not quite satisfied with the amount of saturated fat the bacon provided), I decided to enjoy the marshmallowy goodness of a rice krispy treat which served to puncture and scratch open my wounds. I sustained this injury about a week ago and am still trying to maintain a smoothie and yogurt diet in order to let it heal. The lesson: Try harder not to be a total dumbass.
***I've been watching a lot of documentaries about bears lately and was feeling relatively prepared for a potential run-in until I heard this tidbit: Though it's widely accepted that one should play dead during a bear encounter in order to appear nonthreatening, apparently this only serves you if you think the bear's attack is defensive in nature. If it is offensive in nature, (i.e., he's got a hankering for the unrivaled delight of human scalp) you are supposed to fight back using every means necessary. (Indian sunburn?) The part that so concerned me was that we are supposed to discern---in the 5 seconds before the bear attacks and with all the levelheadedness that being attacked by a bear provides---whether or not it's a defensive or offensive attack. Maybe I'll ask him what his sign is while I'm at it. Maybe I'll ask him if he'd like fries with that.
I feel wholly unprepared now...Perhaps, I'll meld the two options and act like an aggressive zombie. Dan's response when I asked him what to do when he sees a bear: "Grab its baby and run?")
***That's all for now. Off to enjoy a Pad Thai smoothie.
2 comments:
"Up" was an amazing movie. It was a true story with layers and developed relationships. The whole time I was watching it I couldn't stop thinking about how simple "The Little Mermaid" was. Just a horney red head that sang and had a rack.
But it was some rack, wasn't it?
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