Thursday, January 8, 2009
Area 51
In lieu of talking about American Realism and Jack London today in class, my juniors and I discussed Area 51 and the disconcerting fact that it really isn't far. Of course it isn't. Las Vegas is the land of lost stragglers and why wouldn't extraterrestial stragglers not feel right at home here as well?
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Vanity Sizing
Went straight to Saks after school today for a new bag and a new pair of Sevens since mine are inexplicably (OK, that's a lie) a little snug.
Knowing that it will take at least a month of zero Christmas cookies before I shimmy gracefully back into my normal size, I need a little tiding over. I handed over most of my Christmas money in exchange for the biggest bag I saw. My Vegas chums, I know, will insist on scoffing and making rather boring remarks about carry-ons and Mary Poppins, but these are women who have never left their apartment at 7 a.m to hit the gym, the office, the power lunch, the after-work cocktails, the after-cocktail dinner and the grocery store before returning to their apartments just past midnight. Without a car.
Every smart New York woman truly keeps her life in her Birken. Where's my lipstick? In my Birkin! Where's my running shoes? In my Birkin? Where's my dissertation? In my Birkin! And every really smart New York woman knows that THE BIGGER YOUR BAG, THE THINNER YOU ARE. It is an undeniable axiom of truth in the same golden vein as water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit and the more money you have to blow, the less likely it is that you will find anything you like.
I moved on to the designer denim area of the store and begrudingly grabbed my favorite cut in the next size up. In the dressing room I was surprised that the jeans seemed a bit...loose. What the...did I not nearly bust the button last night on my pair at home? And did I not die just a little on the inside when I couldn't fully sit down on my bed with my jeans on? What was going on? I huffed for a split second and rang the bell for the salesgirl to bring me another pair in my usual size.
"Isn't that the best?" she said from the other side of the door as she handed me the next size up. While I couldn't see her face, I imagined her nose scrunching up and her eyes twinkling as she said this to me. There was that warm cameraderie in her voice that magically happens between two women who are perfect strangers when it comes to matters of jackasses, mother-in-laws, and going down (or up) a jean size. Such exchanges, sadly, are rare today for me. I'm forced to get my fix by rewinding and replaying certain beauty parlor scenes in Steel Magnolias.
The jeans slipped on beautifully. Unless I sleptwalked around the block about, oh say, 10,000 times last night in my sleep, I thought to myself...something is very very wrong.
Which brings me to my next point: vanity sizing
While the marketing Einsteins behind the rack will never admit it, there is a quiet conspiracy going on across the country. Tiny white tags with misleading information are being sewn into pants, skirts, jeans, and dresses. The genuiuses concerned with the bottom line know that studies have shown that American women are more likely to part with their moola when they fit into a smaller-than-expected size of something, anything. Vanity sizing cannot be merely written off as just another duplicitous maneuver part and parcel to capitalisim. It is impossible not to imagine something a little more sinister.
Think about it. In the name of a buck, someone has gone and changed the rules. It used to be that the fit of our jeans were a reliable marker of where we stood when it came to pounds and inches. Putting on our old jeans from college was a trusted method of gauging just how long ago we fell off the wagon. And--doing so was much less humilating or harsh than stepping on the scale, and allowed for a little sensible rationalization.
I, like any woman, would go through the normal battery of excuses when my jeans didn't fit:
Did they shrink due to repeated washings?
Have my underwear grown thicker?
Am I just bloated?
Denial of course only ever lasted for so long and soon I had to face the cold hard truth: abstinence from eating anything that may qualify as good and doubling my efforts at the gym were the only options. And, after many miles, and many paltry salads and (seemingly) many sober weekends, my prize was fitting back into my jeans.
Now, the free market place, which is more than happy to feed our hunger for quick fixes has made it entirely too easy on all of us. I can pop over to Gap or Nordstrom and voila, I'm a 26 again. I can wait one month to a half a year--all the while eating cake and kicking it on the couch--knowing that my favorite designer will increase the girth and decrease the size on the tag of the very jeans that are hibernating in my closet. At first this sounds dreamy, yes. But then you go to Europe for Spring Break. And, as you are trying to get your calf in the hot black pants you found on sale at a little Milan boutique surrounded by svelte Italians who are eating cheese with a little pasta sprinkled on top, you realize damn the truth hurts.
Dear Mr. President Elect-I think that we need is a little less change.
Healthcare wouldn't be nearly as big of an issue if our jeans told us the truth. We wouldn't spend money on food full of high fructose corn syrup and trans fats if it meant eventually we would have to sit in Micky Ds naked.
Knowing that it will take at least a month of zero Christmas cookies before I shimmy gracefully back into my normal size, I need a little tiding over. I handed over most of my Christmas money in exchange for the biggest bag I saw. My Vegas chums, I know, will insist on scoffing and making rather boring remarks about carry-ons and Mary Poppins, but these are women who have never left their apartment at 7 a.m to hit the gym, the office, the power lunch, the after-work cocktails, the after-cocktail dinner and the grocery store before returning to their apartments just past midnight. Without a car.
Every smart New York woman truly keeps her life in her Birken. Where's my lipstick? In my Birkin! Where's my running shoes? In my Birkin? Where's my dissertation? In my Birkin! And every really smart New York woman knows that THE BIGGER YOUR BAG, THE THINNER YOU ARE. It is an undeniable axiom of truth in the same golden vein as water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit and the more money you have to blow, the less likely it is that you will find anything you like.
I moved on to the designer denim area of the store and begrudingly grabbed my favorite cut in the next size up. In the dressing room I was surprised that the jeans seemed a bit...loose. What the...did I not nearly bust the button last night on my pair at home? And did I not die just a little on the inside when I couldn't fully sit down on my bed with my jeans on? What was going on? I huffed for a split second and rang the bell for the salesgirl to bring me another pair in my usual size.
"Isn't that the best?" she said from the other side of the door as she handed me the next size up. While I couldn't see her face, I imagined her nose scrunching up and her eyes twinkling as she said this to me. There was that warm cameraderie in her voice that magically happens between two women who are perfect strangers when it comes to matters of jackasses, mother-in-laws, and going down (or up) a jean size. Such exchanges, sadly, are rare today for me. I'm forced to get my fix by rewinding and replaying certain beauty parlor scenes in Steel Magnolias.
The jeans slipped on beautifully. Unless I sleptwalked around the block about, oh say, 10,000 times last night in my sleep, I thought to myself...something is very very wrong.
Which brings me to my next point: vanity sizing
While the marketing Einsteins behind the rack will never admit it, there is a quiet conspiracy going on across the country. Tiny white tags with misleading information are being sewn into pants, skirts, jeans, and dresses. The genuiuses concerned with the bottom line know that studies have shown that American women are more likely to part with their moola when they fit into a smaller-than-expected size of something, anything. Vanity sizing cannot be merely written off as just another duplicitous maneuver part and parcel to capitalisim. It is impossible not to imagine something a little more sinister.
Think about it. In the name of a buck, someone has gone and changed the rules. It used to be that the fit of our jeans were a reliable marker of where we stood when it came to pounds and inches. Putting on our old jeans from college was a trusted method of gauging just how long ago we fell off the wagon. And--doing so was much less humilating or harsh than stepping on the scale, and allowed for a little sensible rationalization.
I, like any woman, would go through the normal battery of excuses when my jeans didn't fit:
Did they shrink due to repeated washings?
Have my underwear grown thicker?
Am I just bloated?
Denial of course only ever lasted for so long and soon I had to face the cold hard truth: abstinence from eating anything that may qualify as good and doubling my efforts at the gym were the only options. And, after many miles, and many paltry salads and (seemingly) many sober weekends, my prize was fitting back into my jeans.
Now, the free market place, which is more than happy to feed our hunger for quick fixes has made it entirely too easy on all of us. I can pop over to Gap or Nordstrom and voila, I'm a 26 again. I can wait one month to a half a year--all the while eating cake and kicking it on the couch--knowing that my favorite designer will increase the girth and decrease the size on the tag of the very jeans that are hibernating in my closet. At first this sounds dreamy, yes. But then you go to Europe for Spring Break. And, as you are trying to get your calf in the hot black pants you found on sale at a little Milan boutique surrounded by svelte Italians who are eating cheese with a little pasta sprinkled on top, you realize damn the truth hurts.
Dear Mr. President Elect-I think that we need is a little less change.
Healthcare wouldn't be nearly as big of an issue if our jeans told us the truth. We wouldn't spend money on food full of high fructose corn syrup and trans fats if it meant eventually we would have to sit in Micky Ds naked.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
Coffee as Savior
Confirmed--the honeymoon is over.
There is nothing less sexy than being in a room full of 15-year-olds at 6:59 on a Monday morning.
Nothing.
At least half of them were still in Vail coming down with an upper respiratory infection, which will be duly noted by their family physicians in the attendance office tomorrow.
Considered grading one of the 150 essays that have been sitting on my desk for over two weeks. Last year at this time they made it to the overhead bin on my flight Back East and that's where they stayed. For good. So, I learned my lesson and decided this year not to pretend that I was going to do any work over my break and read smut and fluff for the duration of the 2200 mile flight.
Am watching the season premier of The Bachelor instead, and the transition from Hamlet to mindless fake romance and shameless rose ceremonies is surprisingly easy. One woman introduced herself to Jason as a native of Idaho. He said he had never been, and the woman looked shocked. "Really? Never? You've got to go there. You know, potatoes!"
Reminds me of the countless times I told people in the city that I was from Ohio and they replied on cue--"Ohio! Ah! Potatoes!" It took me many months to figure this out.
Anyway, found another upshot of being 30. I think I'm too old to be on the show in much the same way I am too old to donate an egg. Potentially happy endings both, but irreversible and unpredictable consequences in the wake. You never know when someone will dig up an old youtube video to show your fiance how you slipped a laxative into one of the other contender's fat free salad dressing on the afternoon of her one-on-one date with the bachelor. And, you never know when an 18-year-old boy named Curtis will knock on your door while you are at spin class and tell your husband that he came to meet his mother.
The show reminds me, too, of the boy I dated in the city who was (unbeknown to me) a contestant on The Bachelorette just months before the two of us were sitting at Coffee Shop in Union Square discussing mutual contempt for stale marshmallows in hot chocolate. That evening his cell phone blew up with calls from enthusiastic friends who were at home watching the premier of the pre-taped show. After my inital surprise wore off, I said, "Well, I guess I don't have to ask how that went for you."
There is nothing less sexy than being in a room full of 15-year-olds at 6:59 on a Monday morning.
Nothing.
At least half of them were still in Vail coming down with an upper respiratory infection, which will be duly noted by their family physicians in the attendance office tomorrow.
Considered grading one of the 150 essays that have been sitting on my desk for over two weeks. Last year at this time they made it to the overhead bin on my flight Back East and that's where they stayed. For good. So, I learned my lesson and decided this year not to pretend that I was going to do any work over my break and read smut and fluff for the duration of the 2200 mile flight.
Am watching the season premier of The Bachelor instead, and the transition from Hamlet to mindless fake romance and shameless rose ceremonies is surprisingly easy. One woman introduced herself to Jason as a native of Idaho. He said he had never been, and the woman looked shocked. "Really? Never? You've got to go there. You know, potatoes!"
Reminds me of the countless times I told people in the city that I was from Ohio and they replied on cue--"Ohio! Ah! Potatoes!" It took me many months to figure this out.
Anyway, found another upshot of being 30. I think I'm too old to be on the show in much the same way I am too old to donate an egg. Potentially happy endings both, but irreversible and unpredictable consequences in the wake. You never know when someone will dig up an old youtube video to show your fiance how you slipped a laxative into one of the other contender's fat free salad dressing on the afternoon of her one-on-one date with the bachelor. And, you never know when an 18-year-old boy named Curtis will knock on your door while you are at spin class and tell your husband that he came to meet his mother.
The show reminds me, too, of the boy I dated in the city who was (unbeknown to me) a contestant on The Bachelorette just months before the two of us were sitting at Coffee Shop in Union Square discussing mutual contempt for stale marshmallows in hot chocolate. That evening his cell phone blew up with calls from enthusiastic friends who were at home watching the premier of the pre-taped show. After my inital surprise wore off, I said, "Well, I guess I don't have to ask how that went for you."
Sunday, January 4, 2009
To assuage the guilt I am feeling regarding all of the small, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-sensitive goals I did not make as New Year's resolutions, I decided to revisit all of the small, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-sensitive goals I made the morning of my thirtieth birthday post party while staring at the ceiling in the bed. I I immediately countered each goal with a perfectly valid excuse. I repeated the points and counterpoints many times as a stalling tactic. I reasoned that I was not officially thirty until my feet hit the ground. The truth is--it was only the undeniable need to vomit that got me out of bed that morning. Otherwise, I'd probably still be 29 and composing a bestselling novel in my head in the same fashion of J.K. Rowling while she took that long, boring train without a pen.
Anyway, I'm hoping that a jaunt down memory lane will remind me of the futility of making lists of goals on arbitrary days of the years.
The B-list
Point: Quit smoking
Counterpoint: What would I have to look forward on January 1, 2009, as this is my favorite annual resolution to break? And no, the irony is not lost on me.
Point: Have Botox
Counterpoint: Pretty certain a year of teaching at the Las Vegas version of 90210 would render my 31st birthday a more appropriate occasion. Plus, I needed something shallow to look forward to when shock of turning 30 would wear off and depression would perhaps set in.
Point: Calling a truce with Candy as an outward sign of my newfound thirtysomething maturity.
Counterpoint: Um, no. Just no.
Point: Deleting all of the awful 80s songs on my ipod.
Counterpoint: Bananarama's Cruel Cruel Summer just feels so apropos. Yes, I knew and will always know who sings Cruel Cruel Summer.
Point: Reintroducing refined flour, sugar, partially hydrogenated oils to my diet.
Counterpoint: What then, I ask, would I have to look forward to when I got pregnant?
Point: Join eharmony
Counterpoint: Dr. Phil
Point: Tracking down one of those Thunder from Down Under guys shown on various billboards by the airport or any guy who can't read for some feckless, non-verbal summer fling.
Counterpoint: Clearly the most probable winner. In addition to skipping sunscreen for one day.
So there I was in bed hungover and clearly defeated. At least I would be tan.
Anyway, I'm hoping that a jaunt down memory lane will remind me of the futility of making lists of goals on arbitrary days of the years.
The B-list
Point: Quit smoking
Counterpoint: What would I have to look forward on January 1, 2009, as this is my favorite annual resolution to break? And no, the irony is not lost on me.
Point: Have Botox
Counterpoint: Pretty certain a year of teaching at the Las Vegas version of 90210 would render my 31st birthday a more appropriate occasion. Plus, I needed something shallow to look forward to when shock of turning 30 would wear off and depression would perhaps set in.
Point: Calling a truce with Candy as an outward sign of my newfound thirtysomething maturity.
Counterpoint: Um, no. Just no.
Point: Deleting all of the awful 80s songs on my ipod.
Counterpoint: Bananarama's Cruel Cruel Summer just feels so apropos. Yes, I knew and will always know who sings Cruel Cruel Summer.
Point: Reintroducing refined flour, sugar, partially hydrogenated oils to my diet.
Counterpoint: What then, I ask, would I have to look forward to when I got pregnant?
Point: Join eharmony
Counterpoint: Dr. Phil
Point: Tracking down one of those Thunder from Down Under guys shown on various billboards by the airport or any guy who can't read for some feckless, non-verbal summer fling.
Counterpoint: Clearly the most probable winner. In addition to skipping sunscreen for one day.
So there I was in bed hungover and clearly defeated. At least I would be tan.
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