Fantasy

Yesterday, I could think of nothing to say. I apologize. I did talk to the Blog Bully last night for the first time in a long while and he said, "Well, that's what being a writer is. Writing something even when you have nothing to say." That's probably not a direct quote, but it was something plucky along those lines. Did I say, "Wow! You're right! Thanks, Blog Bully!" No. I said, "Are you KIDDING? Have you nary a word of praise? I've been writing and writing. You are the meanest Blog Bully EVER." He then mustered up some pride and compliments for me, but it was too little too late. I am a sensitive flower.

Speaking of almost successes, I did go to the gym yesterday. I know! I too was amazed. However, I did not actually exercise when I got there. I intended to. Honest. But it was all "two people to a lane, I didn't really want to come here anyway" in there, so I just spent some time in the steam room and took a shower before heading across the street to Yoshi's for my friend's gig. And a hamburger. It got me no closer to fitness, I'll admit, but I did feel much better when I left than I did when I arrived, and isn't that what the exercisers are always claiming about going to the gym? So, I think I win. Plus, my hair looked a lot better after I washed it. Turns out you're supposed to wash it. Weird.

Instead of exercising (or washing my hair) I have been watching Game of Thrones. As with everything else that is popular among the vast majority, I am late to join the Game of Thrones fervor, not so much from lack of interest as from lack of access. However, a friend recently loaned me seasons 1 & 2 on DVD. [Another friend just loaned me The Killing season 2, and someone is coming over to bring me Deadwood tonight. I am a well-known junkie. Soon my limbs will atrophy completely and I will have to be carried to work by strapping servants, provided they can extricate me from my deeply indented sofa.]

I have taken to referring to Game of Thrones as Medieval Fantasy Boobs. I meant "Fantasy" in the sense of the genre: dragons and spells and magical kingdoms and the like. However, I'm now six episodes in and have already seen even more bare-chested women than I originally anticipated. I have also, as you'll recall, recently been in the gym locker room, where I saw the usual number of bare-chested women--just regular, notably dissimilar women. Having weighed all this data, I think I am going to have to reallocate the "fantasy" to directly modify the "boobs." In short, it's fortunate that my gym is in San Francisco and not in the Seven Kingdoms because I'm pretty sure none of our bosoms would make the cut. Accordingly, we would all be swiftly dispatched in some grisly manner, as I assume the law of the Great Revered Ancestors must require.

Innovation

I have an email in my inbox today from Anthropologie.

Subject heading: How we're wearing shorts.

Needless to say, I am on the edge of my seat. I'm saving it for a little mid-afternoon treat. I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but my fingers are crossed that it's:

atop our heads, like so many jaunty caps. Unlike traditional hats which create a mini oven for your head and leave you with a matted 'do, inverted shorts have two passages for refreshing airflow. Combine that practicality with the endless possibilities for incorporating your hairstyle directly into your fashion look and you've got a surefire hit for the hot days ahead! We are loving shorts with two ponytails threaded through--casual, carefree, evocative of the playful, endless summer days of childhood!

Funny vs. funny

On Friday night, my friend invited me to go with him to a stand-up comedy show on Mission at 10pm. (Partially this is because 1. He likes stand-up comedy 2. He wants to do stand-up comedy 3. He wants me to do stand-up comedy and 4. Stand-up comedy is the cheapest entertainment in town occurring outside one's own house.)

It is very rare for me to go to things that begin at 10pm, particularly on Mission Street, though I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell the cool kids. God knows I'm having enough trouble getting a date in this god forsaken town without you announcing to everyone that I'm not cool. Anyway, there we were. On Mission. At 10pm. I learned that many, many people are wandering the street in difficult shoes and inadequate outerwear at that hour seeking [more] alcohol. They stand in line outside noisy places to get it. I had no idea. It seems like a terrible way to spend an evening, but what do I know?

We waited with some other comedy patrons in a confused cluster for about 15 minutes until we were allowed in to the little theatre, to which (I add parenthetically), I proved to be allergic. Literally. Not is highbrow "the theatre did not meet my requirements" type of way, more in a "oh man, this place makes me itchy" kind of way.

When we walked in, there was already a five-piece band cramped on the tiny stage: a banjo player who looked like a Prohibition-era gangster; a skinny mandolin player with Kenny G. hair; a guitar player with a close-trimmed beard, trousers with suspenders, and a plaid shirt, like a farmer headed to church; another guitar player sporting a copious and poorly maintained beard, a bandana tied sweatband-style around his head, and a tan suit--an ensemble that, taken altogether, said "homeless hippie going to a job interview"; and, on the double bass, an incongruously short, rather androgynous guy with a shaved head, a sideways baseball cap and large glasses. For what seemed like a very long time, they noodled around on their instruments, not actually playing anything. When the lights at last dimmed, they launched into the first of several seemingly identical bluegrass songs. I have no explanation for this. My friend asked me several times if we were at the right show. I reminded him that he had invited me, so if anyone should have some insight into why we were currently watching a bunch of very earnest young bluegrass musicians at a comedy club, it was himself.

After about four songs, a special guest was invited to join them for the next (still identical-sounding bluegrass) number. I'll be honest; I was expecting a fiddle player, or possibly a stronger vocalist. What I was not expecting was a very full-figured woman in garters and spangles to come out and strip. But that's just what she did. She shimmied and shook and vamped and winked to the country twang of five string instruments all the way down to her knickers and pasties.

There really wasn't anything funny about it, or, at least nothing funny in a way one associates with amusement or, more specifically, comedy. It was funny like, "I don't know, but I've got a funny feeling about this." or "Does this smell funny to you?" It was perplexing as hell is what it was.

Just when we had given ourselves over altogether to the Twilight Zone episode "The Wrong Theatre," an actual comic took the stage. He was funny. You know, like a comic. We were relieved. Nevertheless, the band, cramped though they were on the wee stage, stood there for the entire show behind the comics like an eccentric Greek chorus. They didn't play again until all five comics had finished their bits*, which is to say that they just stood there for about an hour. Possibly the theatre itself was too small to accommodate five more people in the house?

*Speaking of people's bits, the stripper came back on at the very end. I know you were wondering.

Thursday night

Have you ever had one of those days where you get all depressed and full of self-pity/recrimination and then later at home you feel no better and become suddenly disgusted with yourself for watching so much television, so you turn it off and--to rather ambitiously combat your TV habit--undertake to read a long biography of Marie Antoinette, but when you get to page 8 you fall asleep in a chair, only to wake up an hour later and relocate to bed where you have vivid, anxious dreams, but no actual rest because your allergies are raging out of control so that when you finally get up the next morning, after hitting the snooze alarm for a full hour, you have a nasty headache?

No?

Oh.

Yeah. Um...me neither.

Not the good kind

I suffer from as many weird body-image issues as the next woman, but I think my sense of self-worth may be most unhealthily reliant on the praise of dental practitioners. If I walk out of the dentist's office cavity-free and brimming with compliments on my obvious flossing, I am like a first-grader who's earned a sticker. So proud! So happy! If there is scowling or tsking or technique lecturing, I am brokenhearted. You can imagine how low I felt when I was informed I required the Human Dermal Product to be sewn into my mouth. It was all my fault! For brushing too hard, of all things. A large-scale punishment for overeager oral hygiene. That seems hardly fair.

In the six months following the surgery, I have tried to mend my brushing habits to meet the needs of my delicate gums. I am even using an unsatisfying extra-soft toothbrush, which, as I may have mentioned, feels not much more effective than rubbing a kleenex around in your mouth. Still, I have been mindful. When I went to the periodontist today, for the final recovery status check, I was primed for praise.

Instead, I have plaque. Not a plaque, mind you. Not a plaque that says "Best Patient We've Ever Had" or similar, just plaque. "You're totally lousy at brushing your teeth" plaque. "Ah, you have plaque here," he told me. And I wanted to say, "You have plaque. You have plaque all over your big, stupid, plaquey FACE." But I didn't.

He made me look at the inflammation with a hand mirror. And then he continued to poke my gums with a super pointy metal stick, calling out mystery numbers to his assistant. "And there's bleeding, of course," he told her, with what struck me as more than necessary condescension. And I wanted to say, "That's what happens when you poke the inside of people's MOUTHS with a pointy metal stick. You big dummy." But I didn't. Instead I said, "I've been worried about brushing too hard. Particularly at the surgical site." He said, "Well, now you're being too careful."

For the love of God! What do you people want from me?

So, that's it. I am a big dental failure.* If you don't want to be my friend anymore, I understand.



For the record, however, though the periodontist has told me time after time that the kidney stone he had was worse than the kidney stone I had, [Oh. excuse me. Renal stone. He calls it a renal stone, because he's a doctor.] it totally wasn't. Mine required SURGERY, suckah. So, whatever. I lose at gum-line brushing, but I win at kidney stones. Ha!