From London...
However I am horribly jet lagged and unable to think. I will confess, on the way over, I took two sleeping pills - not at once - I took the first one on take off - woke up five hours later (realized I five more hours of flying left) and took the second. Then I woke up just before landing. And um... well... if anyone was on British Airways flight 287 that left a week ago Saturday. I would really like to know how it is that I woke up in the flight attendants jump seat... And was it me, or was everyone avoiding my gaze?

A few thoughts regarding Viggo Mortenson based upon the fact that my kids just watched Lord of the Rings for about the billionth time (and honestly 10 weeks without school is just sick and wrong).

Viggo Mortenson is super hot in the first movie. This is largely because he is sort of dirty (in a good way) and doesn't speak much. (And p.s. in real life Viggo never wears shoes - at least not to interviews - which in addition to being pretentious means he must have chronically filthy feet and that is just gross)

In the second movie, Viggo speaks more. I noticed that his voice is a tad high pitched for a man of his vigor (which is troublesome) but more than that I couldn't stop staring at his very short teeth. He almost has speed freak teeth - though not quite - but still...

In the third installment he speaks alot - and I'm sorry... the man just doesn't have a great speaking voice (He's got the voice of a four foot tall dwarf). Remember when Kenneth Branagh gave that amazing speech in Henry V (We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...) It was amazing and powerful and this from Kenneth Branagh! (who my mom never forgave for dumping Emma Thompson but that's another story). Why didn't Viggo shout the thing? Why was he just talking? Where was Peter Jackson? Stop worrying about the background and focus on your main actor! Ugh. it was lame. But worse yet...

What the hell happened at the end? Why was he so bloated and quasi-corpulent. And what's with all the facial hair? When Liv Tyler shows up and they kiss - it was like watching her makeout with Big Foot.

And who shows up for their coronation covered in hair? That's a red letter Shave Day event if ever there were one.

So note to Viggo -- put on some shoes (clogs would suffice), shave and go see a dentist (Dr. Gottlieb on Olympic is very good)

What's up with NASA? And for the record since I'm from Jersey I pronounce it Nassau.

Now I know some people are outraged and shocked and frankly appalled but I want to know more!

Drunken astronauts, love triangles, boozing it before shuttle lift off... Sounds like Prime Time Television for me - actually it sounds like a feature and then a television show --

And believe me I've already peppered the town with emails so don't get any fat ideas about stealing this one (that's you Larry Doyle!) We need a new arena for bad adult behavior -- also maybe it's more dangerous than we realize -- maybe the astronauts are getting loaded because they're flying in tin cans and it's all about courage? See... there's so much to explore here. I better get to work on my take!

Also - embarassingly enough the great Ingmar Bergman died today and I was sort of surprised mostly because I thought he was already dead.

There are some etiquette issues that they just never prepare you for. Case in point: My trainer needed to go on a diet. To be honest, I was never fully impressed with her body, but she had toned arms and her butt was very high so I sort of figured she was fit enough to train the likes of me. Six weeks into our relationship and I began to see results. I was leaner and stronger and in the right lighting (i.e. dim) comfortable in a bikini. Okay, so she wasn't Cindy Crawford, she knew how to work out and she knew how to teach me. I decided somewhere around week nine that I was in it for the long haul. But then she went on vacation, where I can only presume (based on her visibly distended belly) she ate herself silly while lying in a prone position. I'm talking four months pregnant belly and I know where of I speak because I've had two kids and the last time my gut was that big, I was sporting a fetal sidekick.
But what is the proper etiquette between trainer and trainee? Was I obliged to facilitate an intervention of sorts? Because I couldn't see how she was engendering any confidence in her clients with that tummy hanging out of her adorable OliveU tank. As we continued our workouts, I gently steered the conversation into this core area. I would ask about best tips for weight loss, or if a particular exercise could target a specific area. At one point I asked openly what one could do to lose unsightly bulge in the tummy area, to which she sighed, and muttered, "It really all boils down to diet."
Which isn't exactly the answer I wanted to hear because if it all boils down to diet why the hell was I doing lunges 'til my glutes exploded?!
In an effort to get a second opinion I asked a few other trainers who were looking rather fit.
"It's all aerobic," said one.
"You have to do the weights," said another.
"It boils down to metabolic burn which can' t be achieved without both aerobic and weight bearing exercise."
"What about diet? Does it all boil down to diet?" I asked.
"Well, only if you're eating everything in sight."
I had my answer.
The next day I returned to my gym prepared to give my trainer a piece of my mind. I was paying top dollar and for that I expected her to be chiseled perfection. Her job was to show me the ultimate body that I could only dream of achieving. She was the proverbial dangling carrot in front of the treadmill. But when I entered the gym she was lying on the sofa eating yogurt-covered pretzels out of a feedbag. I turned and saw my reflection in a nearby mirror and realized all at once, that I had become more fit than my trainer. It was a scary realization. She was no longer a dangling carrot. She was a cautionary tale.
I considered searching for a new trainer, but the truth was, the more she ate the better I looked, which made me think that her gain was part of some larger scheme to get me over my latest plateau (which occurred right around the time of her vacation). Maybe she got fat in order to inspire me, because as a result of her excess tonnage, I am now weighing my food, training for a 5K and I've also bumped up my sessions to five times a week. I guess in the end it has been worth it. I've never looked better and she is quiet literally becoming a cash cow.

Hola Superstars...

I'm going to be guest blogging on Alison Pace's blog tomorrow. After that I should be more regular over here.

Oh but I do have one tiny confession... it's sort of an egg-head rant but still I feel the need to share.
I bought this book - Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill. It's all about the rise of feminism, science and art during the early years of the Catholic church. I saw the title and thought it would be interesting. My mother has issues with Cahill because he nearly screwed her out of this anthology that she was editing years ago called Territories of the Voice (which you should all get because it's the definitive collection of Irish Short Stories written by women writers and also because you can get it for about forty cents and it's worth reading) -- but still I was curious so I began reading it eager to learn about said mysteries (because who doesn't like a mystery)... I am less than three chapters into it and here's what I would like to say: Thomas Cahill really needs to get over himself.
Why do I say this? Because I am a smart person, an educated person, a person with a fairly large vocabulary... but I am choking on the words in this book... I feel as if the man writes with a thesaurus by his side and then inserts as many twenty dollar words as he can find. Worse yet, the writing has a glib quality that suggests Cahill is just so damn proud of himself and his massive (prodigious, vast, cyclopean, Brobdingnagian) vocabulary he is actually looking to alienate (estrange, withdraw, oppose, sunder, disunite) the reader. There really is no good reason to use all the following words in a sentence: apotropaic, propitiation, obscurantist, alluvial, apotheosis, equipoise, and extirpation - unless you are desperate to prove that you are a big, fat smarty pants. My only other theory is that Cahill's book is actually an SAT vocabulary study course disguised as a history book.
Either way -- I guess the mysteries of the Middle Ages are going to remain a mystery to me.

Hey... I'm guest blogging on Memoirists Collective today (and for the next few Fridays) so head over and read me bitch about the summer.

There was a girl in high school named Ann. She was smart and pretty and sort of slutty but in a palatable kind of way due to the combined fact that she wore very preppy attire and always demanded full girlfriend status before doing anything that involved nudity and/or groping. She had been this way since seventh grade and I admired her commitment to palatable trampdom. That said, Ann started getting a tad wacky by around Sophomore year. Actually in retrospect it started Freshman year, but by the time we really noticed it, it was Sophomore year.
One day we were sitting together in chemistry, and she began peppering me with questions about God and the Meaning of Life. I was sullen and tired and had taken to reading Nietzsche in my spare time so I really wasn't the one to be talking to. Finally, after what seemed like an endless array of inquiries she asked, "What happens when you die?"

I have always hated when people ask this of me, because how the hell am I supposed to know? But she was so earnest, staring at me with her pink and green Izod Lacoste sweater (that I secretely envied) I felt compelled to give her an answer. I replied, "Nothing happens, because there is no god and when you die there's nothing and you don't care because you're dead so it doesn't matter."

That evening Ann had a full on psychotic break and was promptly shipped off to 'camp' as her parents so aptly put it.

I was actually so troubled by this I asked my mom if she thought my nihilist rhetoric was to blame. Her answer... "It was gonna happen anyway, but you probably did nudge her over the edge."

I am officially old. Well maybe not old, maybe I'm just becoming my mother. Here's why:

I went to Urban Outfitters today - just briefly really as I love fondling the plethora of crap in that establishment (bras, flip flops, crochet purses, ah bliss). I especially love that they sell textiles. Who exactly is buying these textiles? In a perfect world I would buy them and make my own pillows which I'd throw on my groovy used sectional that I paid forty bucks for from some Orange County flea market (or for you Right Coasters - the one they used to have on 23rd Street - or was it 21st?) but let's get real... That's never going to happen.

That said - here's why I'm old. Because the entire time I was in the store, looking at Paul Smith shirts and tiny Japanese dolls that serve no purpose yet fill me with glee, I kept thinking to myself -- why is the damn music so loud? This went on for some time until finally I realized I was putting my fingers in my ears. Then I felt a headache coming on, then I just felt a tightness in my chest that I commonly associate with anxiety and I kept thinking... My shopping experience would really be more pleasurable if they'd just turn the damn music down. Finally, towards the end of my soujourn I turned to a sales associated and said, 'This music is making me want to kill myself," to which she replied in a sort of bored tone, "Sorry."
Ah youth...

I decided not to complain further, I simply said, "No, it's my fault. I'm getting older." She looked at me sort of perplexed but I had the vague satisfaction of knowing that her day would come.

I once stole a bottle of champagne from the woman whose house I cleaned - this was high school and I cleaned her house on Fridays to earn money to pay for bus fare to NYC in order to take music lessons. It was all very cinderella-ish. I stole the bottle of Dom Perignon and had planned on sharing it with friends in some wooded area (which was the preferred place to booze it) but instead, I kept it hidden in my room for the better part of six months, at which point I just put it back.

I don't know if this makes me honest or a chicken shit. But I guess deep down, I've always harbored a fear of karma.

Ok - this is sort of a confession - well actually okay it is a confession though it's a brand new one and I suppose it's sort of suburban because I live in a suburb of LA - so I guess I'm actually right on target here when I say:

I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE STUPID I-PHONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In fact, I find the entire preoccupation with it to be nothing short of retarded. Not to mention that the snaking lines outside the Apple Store on Friday evening blew my entire groove... because, and I suppose this is more of a dirty little secret than confession, every Friday I travel to my local Mall and treat myself to a 25 minute public back rub at the Chinese backrub station. For whatever reason - the Chinese Massage Guys have become the new black of legal immigrants. You can't go to a mall and not see them there in their red shirts and spiffy massage chairs. I'm sure you've seen them at your local mall (and avoided), but you shouldn't because the Chinese massage guys are the greatest. I live for my 25 minute public massage with pressure point tension relief! There's nothing better - and being forced to zone out in a public area is actually good for you (or so I tell myself). Anyone can relax in some candle lit room with Sri Chimnoy being piped in over the speakers. Try relaxing at the mall on a Friday night. That takes skill. And usually I can totally relax... However not last Friday night and this was due to the line of bozos behind me jabbering about this damn phone and applauding as people left the store carrying the item.

I wanted to scream PEOPLE ARE STARVING IN AFRICA AND YOU'RE CHEERING OVER A PHONE! but I felt it would be hypocritical since I was getting a backrub and all...

Hopefully next Friday will be better.