Welcome back to me! It’s been a bit of a slog these past few months, and I’m sure the spotty columns I’ve written since February must have revealed as such. I was newly pregnant then, and mustering more than a slight shoulder shrug and disinterested “meh” was about as much effort I could put into writing and this site. Something happened in those first few months wherein just surviving, just breathing in and out without gagging, just making it through the day without throwing up all over my desk, was utter success. I didn’t need, or care about, or get excited about any form of pop culture: writing, music, TV, movies were all dead to me. Everything I loved was ignored while I learned how to live with another person sharing the same space, and it was being a right dinkus about the shared accomodations.
BUT, oh yes, the second trimester has brought me back! It’s also brought peeing like a human being has never peed before, and swift wild swings between impatience, tears and joy that nearly gives me whiplash. But, I can smell without tasting bile, eat things without worrying, “if this comes up, I can kiss this food goodbye forever” (almost RIP avocado – that was a close call), and I’ve made it out to movies past 10 pm and enjoyed them, and HBO is my buddy once more, and basically all is right in the world again. Except for the hormones. I guarantee they will play a large part in my writing for the next little while. But, they have also given me a set of boobs I never had before. So, you lose some, but you win a cup size, friends. I call that an effing fair trade.
Every Sunday brings the magnificent ‘The Pacific‘ (I haven’t seen ‘Band of Brothers,’ so this is my first HBO war exposure and, man, war was dirty and hard and thirsty) and then ‘Treme.’ This is lame, but I cannot watch it, and not think of ‘The Wire,’ and wish I was watching new episodes of that instead. I know that’s shitty, and not responsible, and not fair, and not even sensical, but BUNK and FREAMON are there! I cannot help myself. I miss ‘The Wire’ so much sometimes it hurts, and that is frankly ridiculous. And the stories and characters and acting in ‘Treme’ are exceptional. I don’t even like Kim Dickens, but I like her in a kitchen cooking in a shitty bandana, and Steve Zahn is practically perfect. The atmosphere and sets and cinematography are as authentic and dirtily beautiful as you’d expect from this team, and even though the music lovingly showcased isn’t my cup of tea, it’s still done right. So, this beef is on me. (And my brother, the only other nerd who wants Jimmy to pop into frame and then fuck a woman up against a car, and then have Stringer Bell just sit shirtless on a couch. Ok, that last part might be just for me..) I will just have to shake these silly thoughts from my head and enjoy the show as it should be, prejudice-free. I can DO THIS.
I recently had a hankering to listen to Mitch Hedberg again after reading (check how random and nerdy this is) a John Laroquette tweet of one of his best punchlines. So, I got all his albums and listened to them at work today, while doing mindless stapling and stickering, and man, he was HIGH. Not every joke was as funny as the first time I heard them (buuuut I was probably also high then), but it still made me laugh and melancholy, because talent that dies young is just the worst. The guy, no matter the stimulus, had such amazing takes on the simplest things, and he could laugh at his own jokes without making you crazy. And mumble his way through a set, and you still hung on every word. My favourite bit of his, that I think about all the time after leaving, or before entering, a music venue is this one: “Whenever I walk somewhere, and someone hands me a flyer, it’s like they’re telling me, “Here, you go throw this away.”
So, a few years ago at another office job, I went through a bit of a Lindt obsession. A co-worker was amazed I’d never tried their chocolate, but any chocolate sold at London Drugs, well, I just assumed it would be waxy and horrific. Well, it’s not. Due to some silliness in ingredients, I can’t eat their milk chocolate, but I can and did eat the shit outta the Lindor Stracciatella chocolate balls. They’re basically a white chocolate ball with teeny chunks of cocoa nibs embedded, with a softer inside mix of the same ingredients. And the only way to truly enjoy the harder shell with the insides being all soft and moan-y good – you have to sit on them first. The crotch is like your natural microwave for purposes such as this. Pop a single ball right in between your legs (there is NO OTHER WAY TO WORD THIS FOLKS) for about a minute, take out, unwrap the foil, and pop it in your mouth and hold onto an available surface because it is so good and so sweet and melty good, you may get wobbly. Two days ago I found them on the top shelf at LD, and guess what I was sitting on when my boss’ boss came to talk to me Friday?
The best thing I’ve touched recently is actually my crazed expanding gut because every day, twice a day without fail, I have been slathering on Cocoa Body Butter from The Body Shop. I started my love affair with the line using the moisturizing stick, but I realized I needed a quicker, less deodorant-y way to give the middle finger to any shred of a stretch mark, so I grabbed a couple of tubs of the butter. It smells lovely and light, doesn’t leave any residue that makes your pores angry, and has kept my stretching itchy skin from falling apart.
I got the most stupid cold last week, and when you’re trying to be virtuous and Earth Mother and not take drugs, the commonest of colds can bring you to your freaking knees. And it played with me. One day bad, next day better, following day mildly shitty, last day GARBAGE TOWN USA. My throat was shot, the ooze coming out my nose and up out of my lungs after annihilating my sinuses and eye sockets was disgusting, and the fatigue (a state of being I have been well acquainted with over the last few months) was brutally brutal. Basically there is no glory or pride in abstaining from modern medicine. The only saviour I had was a trusty small tub of Vicks VapoRub that I used in every way possible, short of eating it. Slathered all over my throat, chest and back, I poured hot water over it and steamed my head every night, and now that smell will be with me always. It wasn’t the best thing I smelled all week, but it was the smell that allowed me to breathe through my nose for a few nights, and that smells sweeter than a factory of waffle cones and cinnamon buns combined.
