Mindless Topic #1

I never used to watch all that much TV, but lately, I've been in front of the tube a lot more than usual--something I've found tends to happen when I have a nursing infant around. Long story short, I have carpal tunnel, it's sometimes hard for me to hold a book with one hand, and I need the other hand to keep poor Marin from rolling off my lap and onto the floor. Ergo, I watch TV while Marin nurses.

I was supposed to take an online BN.com readers' group class on Great Expectations this month to keep my mind from completely rotting away, but between the online class I'm giving, hanging out with the kids and Jose, work, and trying to at least make an attempt to pay attention to friends, I haven't gotten past the first chapter. (I've been meaning to read Great Expectations for-freaking-EVER. And given how much I love David Copperfield--the book, not the magician--this should not be a problem, other than that it's an oversized trade paperback I can't hold with one hand. This year, I am still resolved to read this book, despite the fact that I'm flunking the free BN.com online class at the moment.)

Anyway, since I'm busy allowing my brain to degenerate, here are my current guilty television pleasures:

* BONES: OK, I confess, I started watching this Fox forensic drama because I'm carrying over a mad-hot crush on David Boreanaz from Angel, which was tragically canceled. And, at first, his acting (and OK, his looks--color me superficial) was all that made me watch. With dull performances from the lead actress; an irritating, recurring line ("Don't call me 'Bones'"); and bizarre subplots including one revolving around a supporting cast member's indigestion; I wasn't sure how much longer my crush would allow me to waste away an hour of my life each week. If it weren't for Marin, I'd have given up after two episodes. However, I've kept watching, and it's grown on me.

Basically, the plot revolves around a group of forensic anthropologists who help Boreanaz's FBI agent solve homicides where the victim's body has become too decomposed or destroyed for standard methods to work. Yes, it's another CSI-like series, but it's slowly developed a heart and humor that most of its contemporaries seem to lack.

FAVORITE RANDOM MOMENT: The Christmas episode, where the cast was quarantined in their lab over Christmas eve after accidentally releases a potentially fatal virus into the air. They all were allowed a visitation (through plexiglass) with family members, and forensic artist Angela warned her colleagues that they would recognize her dad, but she didn't want to talk about it. So when one of the singers from ZZ Top walked in as her dad in what had to be the most random television moment I've ever seen, I nearly died laughing.

AMERICAN IDOL: Who's not watching this show? (OK, people with lives, probably, or more intellectually stimulating pastimes.) Anyway, I'm obsessed, and I pick Paris Bennett to walk away with the title or, at least, the most lucrative recording contract.

MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT: This is for me, not the contestants. Because when blonde, pixie-voiced Kellie Pickler walked in and they did that shameless, manipulative montage about how her mother left her when she was two and her father is a drug addict and currently in jail, and then they showed her cute little smiling two-year-old face from a picture presumably from around the time her mother left her, I nearly lost it. OK, I did lose it. Seriously. American Idol made me cry, and during a sappy montage, no less. But you know, every little girl should be loved as much as mine are, and it hurts to think that there are some who aren't. I would love to see Kellie end up with a recording contract, even if she's destined to lose to Paris. She not only has a lovely voice, but she has nice manners--which is amazing since she had very little parental guidance. Good for her. (God, I'm SO turning into my mother.)

SKATING WITH THE STARS: Another mindless, guilty pleasure. But I'll watch anything that has to do with figure skating. However, I am so glad I have Tivo, because who wants to sit through Summer Sanders' incessant blathering and Scott Hamilton's shouting? (Is it because he's short that he feels he has to shout every word that comes out of his mouth? I'm short, and I don't shout. What's up with that?) Not to mention Debbie Gibson's whiny excuses whenever the judges comment on her less-than-stellar skating. Now I remember why Debbie Gibson used to irritate me.

You know what? I'm not a star, but they should have asked me to skate with Kurt Browning. Because really, I would have been the Best. Figure skater. EVAH. If I'd only had lessons.

That said, I'm enjoying Skating with the Stars, but not as much as I'll enjoy the real thing when the Winter Olympics start. Despite the new judging system that has unfairly handicapped Michelle Kwan by de-emphasizing the artistic element and relying too much on jumps. Stupid Marie Reine-LeGougne. (And if you know what I'm talking about, welcome to Nerd-dom.)

FAVORITE MOMENT: Don't have one yet, though it will be fun to watch Debbie Gibson get kicked off sometime in the near future. Or fall on her head--whichever comes first.

THE OC: The further I get down this list, the more I realize I need to watch something a little more edifying if I'm going to insist on spending this many hours in front of a TV. Anyway, I love the OC. It's completely mindless, but the dialogue is funny, and I've always loved the quirkiness Peter Gallagher brings to any character he plays. And it always provides good material for making fun of Mischa Barton with my brother Troy.

FAVORITE MOMENT: Watching Johnny get run over. Could the dude BE any more annoying? Unfortunately, this didn't result in the "Tragedy comes to the OC" storyline I was hoping for, but a Johnny-centric story arc where the actor shows his egregious lack of comedic timing and any acting talent whatsoever. Mr. One-trick-pony needs to go brood somewhere else, preferably on a show I don't watch, like Freddie.

Fat Woman Sad

Here's why today is probably going to suck:

Whenever I'm procrastinating, I have this ridiculous habit of either Googling myself (to see if there are any odd reviews of my books out there), or playing with the SiteMeter on my blog to see if anyone bothers to read this mess. (FYI, I'm not narcissistic, I swear! I'll do anything to avoid writing, and Googling yourself is fun when you have a weird last name, because all sorts of weird things come up.)

So I was checking out the Referral section of SiteMeter, and to my horror, I discovered that SOMEONE happened upon my blog while searching Blogspot for "fat woman sad."

FAT WOMAN SAD?!?!?!?! What the crunk is that? First of all, I'm not sad. Snarky by nature, yes, but I have a lot to be grateful for and I'm grateful for it every day. Given that, I couldn't be sad if I tried. Second, sure, I'm a woman, and sure, seven weeks after having baby number two, I could use an extreme stomach makeover. But does Blogspot have to slap me in the face with that fact by putting me high up on a list of sad fat women? For the record, Blogspot, I had a c-section and COULDN'T exercise for six of the past seven weeks. And I had to take that extra week to catalog my exercise video collection--because everyone knows you can't start exercising with an unalphabetized exercise video collection. It just wouldn't be right.

Not to mention, Blogspot, that playing upon the insecurities of a woman who's recently given birth and is dealing with enough post-partum crap is mean and not good business. And furthermore, Blogspot, segregating blogs by weight smacks of discrimination. You should be more preoccupied with my mind, Blogspot, my mind. Not the junk in my trunk.

Fat woman sad. Feh.

It's enough to make a girl switch to LiveJournal.

Seven and the Ragged Tiger

Mari LaCroix tagged me with this Seven Things thing, and as is the case with most surveys of this type, I feel compelled to fill it in. (BTW, there is no ragged tiger. The oddball title up there is the title of an old Duran Duran album--in which I don't believe there was a ragged tiger, either--in case you're not a huge groupie like I was. OK, still am. Because puffy hair and eye makeup or not, how hot was Simon in the "Hungry Like A Wolf" video?)

Seven things to do before I die:
1. Go to Africa
2. Scuba dive the Galapagos
3. Write and sell the big suspense and the big women's fiction books I have in my head.
4. See my girls settled and happy.
5. Go back to New Zealand and spend a few weeks there, if not build my summer house there once I find a pile of money.
6. Read all the books in my TBR pile (unless they suck, in which case I'm not reading past page 100).
7. Learn to do a lutz or a salchow, so I can continue to delude myself that I could have been the Best. Figure skater. EVAH. had I only had lessons.

Seven things I cannot do:
1. Ballet dance
2. Jump in the spider tank on Fear Factor without completely losing my mind.
3. The back of my hair. It simply will not cooperate.
4. Quantum physics. Physics frightens me.
5. Understand really complex mathematics. A Beautiful Mind frightened me. My brain is so little and simple.
6. Cook without a recipe. Well I CAN, but you wouldn't want to eat the results.
7. Stop being stubborn.

Seven things that attract me to my spouse:
1. His innate sweetness.
2. Watching him play with Maggie and Marin.
3. Those big brown eyes.
4. Listening to him speak Spanish, even if he gets things wrong from time to time.
5. His sense of humor. Because even when I don't get his jokes, watching him crack himself up is hilarious.
6. His intelligence. Even if we can't really discuss books because he'll only read sci-fi--and only a SPECIFIC type of sci-fi. No space opera, no fantasy elements, no weird aliens that look like animals, no cyberpunk, no humorous sci-fi, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. Must be Very Serious Sci-Fi with believable and intricate scientific explanations for the world that was built, and a storyline that is both edifying, suspenseful, and intriguing. Sigh.
7. Oh, and he's hot.

Seven Things I Say (or Write) Most Often:
1. Dude.
2. You're kidding me.
3. Whatever.
4. Jose, go get the baby.
5. Maggie, don't squash your sister.
6. Maggie! Rose! Fernandez!
7. I'm telling you....

Seven Books (or Series) I love:
1. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
2. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. O Pioneers by Willa Cather
4. The Sevenwaters Trilogy by Juliet Marillier
5. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (Yeah, Jose made me read it. It rocked.)
6. Garden of Beasts by Jeffrey Deaver
7. The Eight by Katherine Neville

Seven Movies I Would Watch Over and Over Again:
1. The five-hour BBC version of Pride & Prejudice. (And don't tell me to get a life unless you've seen it. I dare you to start watching and not stay up until 3 am to finish it. Keira Knightley, I'm talking to you, you miserable excuse for an Elizabeth Bennett.)
2. Strictly Ballroom. In my next life, I want to be in a Baz Luhrmann film. (Just not Romeo + Juliet.)
3. Casablanca (I know, everyone loves Casablanca. But there's a reason for it.)
4. Rear Window
5. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. All hail the marvelous Peter Jackson.
6. The Saint. Sure it has plot holes and a million endings, but Val Kilmer is hot.
7. The old-school Star Wars trilogy, even if you won't release the final three parts, George, you wanker.

Seven People I Want to Join In (Be Tagged):
1. Oh, heck if I know. If you read this and feel moved to do your own version, consider yourself tagged!

One that I Finished

In my last books post, I forgot to mention that I also recently finished Patricia McLinn's THE GAMES, which centers around four women participating in the Winter Olympics. Given that Patricia writes a powerfully emotional book with spot-on research, and given that I am a Winter Olympics junkie, this book was like my own special brand of crack. Loved it, couldn't put it down until I finished it, highly recommend it. Though she's a long-time veteran of Silhouette Special Edition, Patricia published THE GAMES with independent Delphi Press, because the larger publisher she submitted to "didn't think anyone would care about the Olympics." Losers.

So if you've ever wanted to know what it would be like to be an Olympic-caliber biathlete, figure skater, or alpine skiier (while meeting the hockey-playing love of your life for the first time, reconciling with the former Soviet skating powerhouse who broke your heart after you won the gold medal in your own event, or avoiding verbal sparring with your prickly skiing coach with whom you might just be falling in love), then go here for information on ordering this fab book: http://www.thegames2006.com .

Speaking of books, WHY am I reading A YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING? An attempt to appear literary? An experiment in mental masochism? Post-partum hormonal psychosis? Again, it's so well-written, but I have long been firmly in denial about my family's mortality, and I don't want to have to confront it like I'm finding myself doing while reading Didion's painfully sad memoir. We're immortal, my girls are going to have long and happy lives, and Jose and I are going to be together and healthy well past our hundredth birthdays (because, after all, medical science is making such huge advances, people of our generation should start routinely living past 100. I read that in Popular Science, so it must be true).

Maybe it's time to put AYOMT down and turn to some fluff. Mindless, shiny, happy, unadulterated fluff to read. Like Vanity Fair's interview with Lindsay Lohan, or the latest trivia-filled issue of Mental Floss magazine, or Curious George Lives Forever. Color me a coward, but I like denial.

More books

My reading has slowed to a crawl lately, mostly because I tend to go all narcoleptic instead of reading whenever a free moment presents itself, thanks to the newborn who likes to party at midnight, and 1 am, and 3 am, and 3:30 am....

But I have managed to read a little bit. I was so impressed with Karen Rose's HAVE YOU SEEN HER? that I picked up another one--her Rita-winning I'M WATCHING YOU. I am over the moon about this book--loved the characters, and I especially loved the villain, a vigilante killer who targets remorseless rapists and child moleste rs who somehow beat the justice system. You couldn't help but feel some sympathy for what he was doing, even if it was illegal and intrinsically wrong. This book was an original, first-rate thriller that I highly recommend to anyone.

I still haven't started Diana Gabaldon's A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES, because I'm gravitating toward lightweight paperbacks I can read with one hand while feeding the baby. You know, I would really love it if someone would give me a book stand with a robotic page-turning arm so I can multitask without aggravating my carpal tunnel. Why don't they sell these in stores?

So given my regrettable lack of a bookstand with a robotic page-turning arm, the latest lightweight paperback I've started Meg Cabot's SIZE 12 IS NOT FAT, a chick lit mystery centering on a has-been 80s rock star who works in a college dorm and apparently tries to solve the murder of one of her students. I say apparently because I haven't gotten very far. I love Cabot's sense of humor and her writing, but I think I prefer her straight chick lit or young adult books. Probably because I have no sense of humor when it comes to mysteries/thrillers and not through any fault of Meg Cabot's.

I've also started Joan Didion's A YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING. I tend to get quite morbid after having a baby and can worry myself into a complete frenzy considering my own mortality, my husband's, and the precious little lives of my daughters. So why not read a memoir about a woman trying to cope with the sudden death of her husband and her daughter's long-term hospitalization to cheer myself up? Sometimes, even I don't understand myself. Maybe I'm indulging in my own kind of magical thinking, and figuring that if I read Didion's painful journey through what to me is unimaginable grief, it will somehow grant me immunity from going through anything like that in my own life. Or maybe I'm just weird. But difficult as the subject matter is, Didion's writing and her observations of what we go through when coping with the unimaginable are amazing, beautiful, and very, very sad....

Abruptly shifting gears, because I'm too tired to think of a proper segue, I also still have Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's book on deck (it being a large hardcover that can't be read with one hand), as well as a chick lit/women's fiction paperback featuring Indian characters by Anjali Banerjee called IMAGINARY MEN. I met Anjali a few years ago--she's incredibly nice, so it's great to see her succeed. Her book was in Target's "handpicked recommendation" section as of yesterday. And, because I have a book-buying disease that causes me to purchase books to read at at least four times the rate at which I can read them, I also have Kate Atkinson's CASE HISTORIES, which is reputed to be amazing. The reviews pretty much say that it blows other suspense novels out of the water with its original premise and beautiful prose, so I'm looking forward to getting to it in the next decade.

At the speed I'm going, this will probably be the last books blog for awhile. Which is probably fine, given my nearly legendary inability to write a decent book blurb, even if someone were dangling millions of dollars in front of me, or a box of really high-quality chocolate, for that matter....

I am Jean Grey.

You scored as Jean Grey. Jean Grey is likely the most powerful X-Man. She loves Cyclops very much but she has a soft spot for Wolverine. She's psychic so she can sense how others are feeling and tries to help them. She also has to control her amazing powers or the malevolent Phoenix entity could take control of her and wreak havok. Powers: Telekinetic, Telepathic Most Comprehensive X-Men Personality Quiz 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

Things I'd Like to Forget from 2005

Ariana Huffington just did a list of things she'd like to forget from 2005 on her blog, http://www.huffingtonpost.com , and I thought it was such a spiffy idea, I thought I'd do my own version (though with less political content, out of respect for the fact that I have no clue what the political bents are of the three or four people out there who actually read this blog).

THINGS I'D LIKE TO FORGET FROM 2005:

• This whole "Happy Holidays" vs. "Merry Christmas" thing. (Can't we all just get along?)
  
• "You're glib, Matt. You're glib."
  
• My husband going to Baghdad for six months. And VOLUNTEERING to go on convoys. Freaking men....
  
• Harajuku girls, as interpreted by Gwen Stefani. (Any harajuku girls who are just out doing their thing and NOT posing or dancing around Gwen Stefani and allowing her to "dress them wicked and give them names," I salute you.)
  
• Gwen Stefani. (Except for the "Hollaback Girl" video, which my daughter Maggie loves and has created an intricate and exceptionally rhythmic dance to, thereby showing the world once again how dizzyingly gifted she is. )
  
• Gas prices.
  
• The lack of urgency in the US about reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
  
• Britney and Kevin: Chaotic. (And thanks once again for making me watch the sleazy, drunken train wreck that was the premiere, Troy.)
  
• Jean Schmidt calling Jack Murtha a coward. I don't care where you fall on the political spectrum--that was just creepy and out of line.
  
• The state lab losing or jacking up my daughter Marin's newborn screening test samples twice, thereby delaying these critical tests that need to be done immediately by six weeks. As Napoleon Dynamite would say, "Idiots!"
  
• My going postal on the very nice nurse who called to tell me I'd have to bring Marin in a third time to get her heel gouged for said newborn screening tests. It really wasn't her fault.
  
• My first post-pregnancy attempt to get into my old jeans.
  
• That whole mess surrounding Jack Abramoff, The Lobbyist Without a Soul.
  
• That my one-year-old iPod is now considered "bulky" and "obsolete."
  
• Denise Austin. Girl, you are way too perky. Especially while exercising.
  
• Brilliant actor and ubercad Russell Crowe throwing a phone at a hotel employee and then JOKING about it a few months later. Note to Russell: Assault and battery is never funny.
  
• That Ron Howard's lovely (if a little schmaltzy) film Cinderella Man suffered at the box office because its star was unable to contain himself.
  
• Taradise. How can one little girl be so drunk and gross? Who is paying her for this? Where are her parents? (Oh, God, did I really just type that? I'm SO turning into my mother.)
  
• Michael "Brownie" Brown and his figurative fiddling while New Orleans burned. (OK, drowned, but that didn't go with the metaphor.) CBS News Brown: 'Can I Go Home?' November 3, 2005 21:30:06
  
• Dancing with the Stars, the Rematch. John O'Hurley, you are a sore loser.
  
• The preview for Saw II. Who is the twisted wingnut who dreams UP these things? BLEH!
  
• The ending to Million Dollar Baby. I was expecting a triumph of the human spirit, people.
  
• People who question the patriotism of those who dare to ask questions.
  
• The interview I read in Entertainment Weekly where George Lucas admitted that he has outlines for Star Wars episodes VII, VIII, and IX locked away somewhere and is Never. Going. To Release. Them. George, you are a creepy little man.
  
• Mariah Carey telling People magazine that Glitter was "ahead of it's time."
  
• My sad addiction to People magazine.
  
• That the "right" to torture our POWs was ever the subject of a debate.
  
• That there was no new Lord of the Rings movie this year. (I'm also still working on forgetting that from last year.)
  
• Keira Knightley, especially her snotty dismissal in an interview of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in the five-hour BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries. The five-hour BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries rocks the free world; Colin Firth seems like a nice guy who certainly never blasted Keira Knightley in public; and no whinyass, snaggletoothed stick insect who talks out of her nose is ever going to be a respectable Elizabeth Bennett.
  (I think I need to go lie down now....)
  
• Angelina Jolie. You're a black widow, Jolie....
  
• That little girl I read about who told a newspaper that Angelina Jolie is her hero. ARGH! Where is her mother!? (Oh, God, I did it again....)
  
• The fact that thousands of soldiers who've done their tour of duty in Iraq have had their assignments there involuntarily extended. Again, I don't care where you fall on the political spectrum--I can't help but feel frustrated and sad for them and their families.
  
• That excerpt the media released from Scooter Libby's novel. :::shudder::: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/051107ta_talk_collins
  
• The Pussycat Dolls. It's 14:59, girlfriends. Get over yourselves.
  
• The Runaway Bride. Those eyes! They're watching me!
  
• The phrase "bodice-ripper." Or anything that puts down an entire genre of fiction created primarily by women. Intelligent women write romance, and--judging by the friends I have and the letters I get--intelligent women read it. (And certain Hollywood scriptwriters should take notice of how its done, because the romantic comedies I've seen on film this year have been appalling. Do it for Kate Hudson, people!)
  
• And finally, the thing I'd most like to forget at the moment was that horrible, melodramatic "Nooooooooo!" in what SHOULD have been a powerful, moving scene at the end of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. That's no way to end the greatest film series ever, George, you wanker.