Once in a while, if I’m waiting in the line at the grocery store long enough, like others, I scan the covers of magazines.  I glance past Gourmet, Bon Appetit, and Food & Wine, because I have those and others at home in some state of being dissected, stickered and splattered with my latest gastronomical creation.  Instead, Style, Town & Country, or Vogue coerces me to lift it from the rack after a silent argument with myself about not needing another magazine in the house, a five-dollar magazine, a magazine that has absolutely nothing to do with me.

But right before the clerk grabs the last item on the conveyor belt, I throw the glossy — and not quite as thick as the September issue will be — August issue of Vogue toward her, and avert my gaze from her glance as she correctly sizes me up as the poser I am.

I have succumbed to “The AGE(LESS) ISSUE,” it seems which is “Vogue’s Guide to Looking Amazing at Every Decade, On any budget, Through Every Season.”

And then there is always that piece on “Beauty Fixes for Your Knees & Arms.”

Knees, maybe, since I’ve always thought I had knees that resembled a cow’s.  But I’m sort of speechless over the whole idea of someone being insecure about a flap of skin on her upper arm.  Not the one in the back, or the one that sort of waggles when your arm isn’t flexed.  The one on the front.

Come on.  Go to a mirror right now and look.  Look at that place right where your chest meets your arm.  You know — in front of your armpit.  Yes, there.  Poke it.

You have a fold of skin, right?  Sure, yours may be larger or smaller than mine, but it’s there most likely.  Or, maybe not.  It seems it has little to do with weight considering the venerable Vera Wang believes that, “The armpit is nasty, nasty.  Even young girls can have this problem.”  How sad considering young girls already have so many far more important problems with measuring up to others’ standards.  But evidently, this armpit debacle is extremely disturbing to some women — or the men who live with them and who tell them halter tops shouldn’t be worn.

The MoH is far too intelligent a human to even consider suggesting that I should or shouldn’t wear a particular item, not only because he knows I’ve already scrutinized myself a thousand times over, but that my heat-seeking missles would in an instant vaporize his tongue before his brain could transmit the thought.

The article, which to be fair, is written with some self-deprecating humor (the author tells of being obsessed about one part of her body or another — her fat thighs, nasolabial folds, elbows, but just wasn’t ready for the armpit), but I don’t think it’s all that funny.  I’m stuck on the concept of the armpit flap and how women can’t see what is lovely about their bodies, and unique.  Individual.

I try to understand that as much as I search for the perfect light cast on an artistically mussed salad or perfectly shaped peach,  some women obsess about armpit folds.  They do exercises for their armpit folds, and search for designers whose style works to hide that apparently unsightly flap of skin.  They wonder whether there is a procedure or treatment to rid themselves of its offensive presence.

Who.  Knew?

I’m still looking at my arm pits and wondering — not about my armpits, but about women who routinely have something nipped and waxed, sanded and plucked, injected or tucked — and pay handsomely for it.

Supposedly, it’s all the rage to make small adjustments along the way so no one notices.

Somehow, I can’t take any of it seriously.  Another article illustrates how women should dress in each decade of their lives is unrealistic, that is unless I want to spend a fortune to look great on my leg of carpool duty, or when I pop the garage door open to roll in the trash cans.  Surely my neighbors would talk if I appeared to be too fashionable on these quotidian occasions.

Or would they simply not notice, distracted by my armpit flap and wanting desperately to recommend me to their plastic surgeon?

Last week, one of the bloggers I’ve come across in foodland wrote a post inquiring about what readers like or don’t like in a blog.  Although I always enjoy this particular person’s posts because she’s extremely smart, very opinionated, and an excellent writer, they’re unusual in that they aren’t always about recipes and food porn shots.

No, not THAT kind of food porn.  This kind.

She attracts tons of comments, also unusual for much of foodland. No, not the sheer quantity, which is quite impressive, but the quality. Nearly every commenter has something substantive to say about whatever she has written.

I know I’ve been hooked more than once to chime in — whether it’s in response to what she has written, or to what one of the commentators has mentioned.   And although I’ve taken liberties before with her generous space (she allows 3000 character comments…whoa!) to respond in a near post, I’ve waited on this one, just to see if the slow burn that I developed reading that day would dissipate.

Nope.

Maybe it’s because everyone has an opinion and that’s annoying.  No, that wouldn’t work since I’m the leader of the pack.

Or, it could be that a blog is such a personal thing as compared to a magazine, or a newspaper, and, well, it’s free. So as much as we all wonder at times who reads our blathering and who doesn’t (or why), it isn’t like we’ll go out of business and stop the presses if no one reads.  We just hobble pathetically along, right?  Uh-huh.  Whatever.

I think my favorite comment had to do with “lengthy blog posts” which is probably why I’m still simmering.

When have I NOT done a lengthy post? Excuse the hell out of me, but Hell would freeze over first.  I found it quite ironic, since the person making the comment was doing so on a blog that publishes lengthy posts. Excellent posts, mind you, but lengthy.  Glad I’m in such good company.   In much the same way that there are political cartoonists who turn huge issues into a few words and an image, some choose to write, far too many talk whether anyone is listening or not, and some joke.  I’d rather not read blogs that only publish one short silly post after another.  What’s the point?  They didn’t invest any kind of thought, so why should I?  *Tsk, tsk.  Cranky, aren’t we?*

A few comments had to do with changing things on the blog. They were concerned that something would change.

News Flash.  Things Change.  You know, like the planet?  Or haven’t you noticed?  Half the fun of having a blog is to CHANGE things.  What?  It’s difficult to read the words and the thinking behind the words if the font changes?  Or the header?  Or the widgets…wait, I need to fan myself…

Some of the commenters groused about music players on blogs — you know, where you open a blog and the author has a favorite piece playing?

I’m thinking that it’s not TOO CHALLENGING to lower the volume if you choose not to listen.  But perhaps for those individuals, finding the volume button is.

Even better?  Some mentioned that since they read blogs while at work, the players were on loud and that others might hear.

WAIT.  Let me get this straight.  A person is reading blogs at work instead of working, but she wants YOU to not have a music player on your blog so HER coworkers can’t hear it...  Okay, the line forms to the left for egotistical maniacs.  Seriously.

Another chimer-inner and subsequent dittoers voiced their complaints about blogs and awards. That they’re tiresome.  That they know the only reason people give out awards is to get credit for links.

Actually, at least from my speck of perspective, when I pass on an award that someone has given me, it’s because I believe that person deserves it.  Go back to the point about investing time in reading blogs.  When you do that, you can actually say thanks to someone else, and recognize that effort in a meaningful way.  Oh, but wait.  That would be a long, involved post, wouldn’t it?  And you’d actually have to be able to say why you enjoyed someone’s blog for a reason other than it’s short. But what do I know?

This one’s the doozie.  Some mentioned that the only time people comment on their blog is after they’ve posted, and only because they want that individual to come comment on theirs.

Huh?  You’ve got to be kidding.  And then some people defended themselves over this crap, like they actually needed to dignify it with any kind of response other than bull*hit.  So let’s see.  I spend my time writing which is no small investment of time, and then my reward is to visit those I enjoy reading AND look around for new ones, and that’s categorized as fishing for comments?  Bear in mind this is BEFORE I do my housework for gawdsakes. What if I read other’s blogs first?  Wait.  I do my email first, and that actually takes a while.  So if I read blogs first, and commented — which I almost always take the time to do — I’d never get around to posting.  Who are these people and why are they so whiney?

Last, but not least.  Advertisements. I bet you knew this was coming?  Several people mentioned the ads and how annoying they are.

Fine.  Ever looked at a magazine?  Newspaper?  Watch television?  I know.  I don’t like commercials, either, which is why TiVo exists, or why I wait to go to the bathroom on the commercials — you know, to piss off the advertisers.  Except for Target.  I love their ads.  Where was I?  Oh yes, advertisements on blogs.  Guess what?  Don’t pay attention to them then.  It’s really not that difficult.  Sure, if a site has ten pop-ups then it’s a problem, but you should have figured out how to block those a long time ago.  Tune into this Bat Channel, yanno?  As for the sites that run lots of those square tech ads?  Hell.  Click on them once in a while.  They actually lead to sites that have good information if that’s what you’re looking for.  It’s not like some boogie man will pop out and bite your head off.  But now that I’m thinking of it, that’s not a bad idea.  At least it would spare us the inane comments.

And while I’m on the subject…my ads pay for my hosting service.  Would you bend over and pick up that check if it blew up against your shoe?  Now it would be swell if they paid for all the time I spent writing and managing, cooking, shooting, and editing.  But it doesn’t.  The MoH pays for that, and I’m sure he’s wishing I’d get off my butt and actually write something that involved an advance and some sales.

But he’s a very patient man.

So, what’s your take on all of this hooplah?  I’m being overly sensitive, right?  I should just shut my mouth and get back to work?

Pass you a slice of that cake?

Hell, I’m relieved none of them said they were sick of people who plastered stoopid photos of themselves all over their blogs all the time.

Heh.

Have you spent time with wordle yet?

It’s fun if you don’t have anything better to do. In fact, it’s perfect if you do have things to do, but just can’t seem to motivate yourself to do them.

Cleaning the house seems more attractive by comparison considering the dark mood I was in after spending some time pencil writing last evening. I actually accomplished something while sitting in the late afternoon sun, thinking, remembering, questioning. And then my neighbor came home and wandered over to talk.  This would be the neighbor who feigns neighborliness until one’s out of earshot.  The one who puts his trash out on Sunday morning to sit for an entire day so the rest of the neighborhood can enjoy its loveliness.  The one who who seizes any moment to mention that our dog barks when she doesn’t.  And who lets the spindly trees that are supposed to be a hedge grow without trimming them.  Robert Frost had something to say about good fences making good neighbors, didn’t he?

Sometimes, I like to think that things happen for a reason, and the exercise was enough to make me really wonder about whether some aspects of our lives need to be put down on paper — even if they’re fictionalized. And if they actually happened, then why the need to fictionalize?

I’m just not sure.

But my mood was with me through the night, and it wasn’t until after I returned from my early walk with my friend that I realized the mood was gone, my spirits lifted.

That’s what exercise, non-stop blathering about everything under the sun, and laughter will do.

Of course, finding more interesting ways to distract myself also works.  I haven’t been able to decide whether I look best in Mucha,

Modigliani,

or Botticelli, 

but I’m leaning toward the latter since we saw La Primavera, The Birth of Venus, and other beautiful works while we were in Italy.

Well, and the eyebrows are right.  Nonexistent. Or very nearly.

In my next life, I will have eyebrows.

Perhaps I will write about that.

Finally.  A new, peaceful theme.

I wasn’t truly loving the orange in my last digs, but something odd has happened as a result of that recent having to live with it for as long as I did and survive.  When I’m out and about, all things orange catch my eye.  And I have been doing a bit of shopping since our vacation is looming…

…in twelve days.

So why am I messing around with my blog theme, you ask?

I’ve been wondering that myself all afternoon.  Actually for quite a few days now.

I have this tendency to procrastinate when I least should.  Like there’s actually a good time to procrastinate?  Obviously, it’s some misguided passive aggressive behavior my subconscious has manufactured to lull me out of my humdrum existence.

Sounds good, right?

But back to the shopping and the orange.  I’d notice a sporty Carmen Ghia in a parking lot, patterns on furniture featuring a light rust.  Or cute cotton tees of a rich cantaloupe. And bright orange patent leather sandals.  I knew I had a fetish for red shoes, but orange?   Mmmmm….cute little summer sandals with little clicky heels.  Straps.  A smart bow.

Like I said, orange.  Did I actually buy them?  Sadly, no.  And that’s too bad, because they looked like a seriously good time waiting to happen.  I would not expect to have a good time walking about in Italy wearing them.  It’s so not worth the pain and scars.  Okay, so maybe sometimes it is, but not this time.  Does it count, however, that I now own an orange Mario Batalli lasagna pan?  And two — not one, but two orange tee-shirts?

When I was little, each time that I received a brand new box of Crayola crayons, first I’d inhale their waxy fragrance, then notice that two of those crayons fit right in in my “ugly color” category.  Purple.  And orange.

Who knew that I’d end up thinking about orange? Actually liking it.  And purple?  Hell will freeze over before I even think about liking purple.

So which came first?  My orange blog theme, or the fashion industry cajoling me to think about all things ORANGE?  If I learned anything from Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, it would be that.

Who cares.  What does matter is that I also noticed I wasn’t keeping up with my writing here, and when that happens, I sort of begin to wilt a bit.  Sure, I’m spending more and more time in foodland, and…well

How could I get away with writing something as stoopid as this in foodland?

Nobody likes orange.

Do they?

It’s interesting, this new writing venue of mine, no longer in our office since my mother’s taken up residence there. My used to be vanity is now my desk, positioned in front of one of my bedroom windows, allowing me a gauzy view of the palms outside, and my neighbors, an unearthly glow sometimes after twilight.

Today, the palm fronds are damp and tossing about in the stiff breeze that Mother Nature has put upon us, taking the June Gloom we’re accustomed to in Paradise to a new level. It’s cold and grey, the street is actually wet, and I’ve had to shut all my windows or freeze my ass off while sitting here, pretending to be pithy.

But I couldn’t pass up Nearly Wordless Wednesday, so decided I’d let you know what I’ve been learning about my new camera, trying to get it figured out before we leave on vacation.

If ever.

But that’s like life, isn’t it?

Besides, you never know when an opportunity to take a macro shot of a stone from a crumbling ruin may arise. Or a poppy, fluttering in a field. As much as I can say that I’ve figured out quite a bit in the last couple of weeks since purchasing it, I have a long way to go getting it all right and think maybe, just maybe I’ll take an extension class at the university in the fall.

I think I’d enjoy that.

And maybe some writing, too.

One of the entertaining aspects of being completely incapable of getting a good night’s sleep these days is being able to remember the dreams I have. I’m actually awake long enough to acknowledge them, think about them, and give each a kind of evaluation. Nothing complicated. Just a sort of, “Whoa. That was interesting…” and it crops up through the day as I’m putzing around. A doozie will actually garner a mention of the dream to someone.

Like yesterday.

I was in my less than lovely lounging attire: flannel and beyond silky soft with wear jammy bottoms, a grungy blue tee, and an old Eddie Bauer oversized so not matching blue plaid shirt. It’s day time, or as much daytime as my dreams ever are. It’s my mother’s old neighborhood. The one we lived in the longest in the house right next door to my best friend’s house. I actually wonder whether her mother still lives there in all of this strangeness. There are lots of people standing behind yellow plastic Do Not Cross tape and a tall thin man in a great suit is striding away from where I’m standing with the crowd in the street. They’re cheering and pointing at him as I walk toward him, never quite seeing his face.

No one tries to stop me as I approach him, catching up.

I reach around from behind to embrace him as one might someone they care about and haven’t seen in a while completely unaffected by the oddness of this situation I find myself in.

“I missed you,” I say to him, wrapping my arms completely around until they meet and I clasp my hands at his waist.

“Why?” he answers softly. “I’ve been here all the time.”

“Because I spend all day reading and thinking about you,” I tell him, picturing time spent on the Internet seeing his face in a story here and and an article there.

How romantic, but it’s a bit strange when I consider that the man is not the MoH, it’s Obama.

Excuse me?

I had a dream about Barack Obama?

Okay…

So, first of all, I don’t spend my day reading about him on the Internet. In fact, I’m quite bad at reading news on the Internet period. My “homepage” is Google. So I see bits and pieces of news on the television in passing if the news is on, or hear snippets on NPR in the car while running errands and shuttling kids to and from school. I do keep my eye on the goings on and do tune in when yet another primary is approaching just so I can make sure I’m still as sick as I was of the pundits and their crap as I have been all along.

It sounds like a big fat load of excuses, doesn’t it?

And couldn’t I just dream of maybe seeing him? You know, in passing after a speech or something? That might be a tad more normal, don’t you think? Slightly?

I actually remember thinking in the dream that I could, clad as I was in my beyond tacky house potato attire, shed a poor light on his quest to be our next president. That people may not vote for him because some deranged woman, who surely must know that Michele Obama would be kicking her ass for touching her man, was, erm, touching her man. Embracing him. In public. With a crowd standing by.

Of course I had to consult with a dream interpretation source. I filed through the alpha list of “characters,” impatiently looking for what character Obama might represent while on my way to the “P” section. Politician, right?

Celebrity…Godzilla…Hero…Lawyer…Mummy…President…Wet Nurse? But no politician.

What does it suggest when one can find dream interpretations for a wet nurse, pervert, or a zombie, but not a politician and I’m dreaming about one?

Okay, so maybe it’s more about a feeling and not a character. The source mentions that dreaming of love denotes “intense feelings carried over from a waking relationship. It implies happiness and contentment with what you have and where you are in life.”

Whew. It had me going for a while to think that maybe my subconscious had the hots for the next President of the United States. Let alone that I’d be stoopid enough to go out in public in my slovenly comfies. After all, he does have very nice suits. I would only look that much worse standing next to him.

Or embracing him.

Obama.

Baby.

In case you were wondering, I’m alive. I did go out on a couple of early morning walks this week, smartly attired in my plaid flannel pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt. By the time Thursday rolled around, though, I was on auto pilot and made a nose dive back into bed. Rude.

But today is Friday, and you know how I feel about that under normal circumstances, but today? It is my very first non-working, permanently retired if I feel like it Friday. Okay, so retired from working for others work. Payroll work. Having to get dressed and go to work work. So how did I celebrate?
I broke in my new ball.  I sat on it all day and tried valiantly to do something about the organization of this pathetic looking blog of mine.  Nothing has improved on the blog, but at least I’ve rolled and swirled and bounced myself toward a firmer core.  Yes, you, too can burn calories while you blog!  Of course we may not be able to get out of bed tomorrow, but still.

What else is new?

Not much, but yesterday when I was coming out of the grocery store with one of my green bags I finally remembered to remove from the trunk, a young man with a nice smile and a multitude of those disks inserted in his ears and a few other places I can’t remember right now, looked in my direction. He had a clipboard and a purpose.

“You want money, right?” I began since I’m not very good at beating around the bush when I talk. His eyes even smiled.

“Do you know about Greenpeace?” he began.

“Of course I know about Greenpeace,” I told him, flashing on images of news footage years ago of ships with nuclear reactors being prevented from entering a port in Australia or something like that. “But do you have any idea how many requests we get each week for contributions? It’s out of control. Even NPR hasn’t been able to peel my money out of my fist yet.” Who do you give money to when everybody wants it? His smile never left his eyes as he let me blather on until I asked if I could make a donation on line. And when he began to respond, I interrupted him realizing that he wouldn’t get credit for the donation.

“I need to be able to show something for my effort her today,” he told me.

“So fine, can I give $15?”

“No, we’re only set up to take monthly contributions,” he told me, explaining that it helped the organization have a more steady stream of cash instead of having to wait until the end of the year for a lump sum.

“Okay. Okay. Okay. Where do I sign? Can I do $10 a month?”

“No, I’m sorry, the minimum is $15. That’s only $5 more,” he added as I looked away from the form I was already filling out, and making it easier for those leaving the store to escape my fate.

“I can add. The math’s not that challenging,” I mouthed off, and he laughed good-naturedly, most likely thinking I was nuts.

“Do you want a sticker?” he continued as used the side of a brown crayon to rub an impression from my credit card on the form.

“Sure. I need something to show for my money, right? And if someone steals my credit card number, Greenpeace will be paying the bills. Make sure you tell them that, okay?” I called over my shoulder after picking up my green bag to walk away. “I’ll blog about you…”

“Thanks!” he said, still grinning. Talk about job satisfaction. Jeez. But I always wonder when I send off a contribution to any organization, just how much of it is eaten in administrative costs.

So when the MoH got home, I asked what he knew about Greenpeace since I joined.

“Great. They float around on a boat and cause a lot of problems,” he mumbled, partly in jest.

I’ll have to work on him a bit more. He’s no where near to being green.