obsession * the sticky tv romance

Tonight is season premier night for two of the best unrequited love driven comedies on television; Ugly Betty and The Office. I officially like watching both of these shows because they are loaded with uniquely crafted and expertly portrayed characters. I am officially addicted to these shows because of the romantic tension between the characters. I had a dream a couple of weeks ago where The Office premier was ten minutes long, consisted of Jim and Pam kissing after declaring their love for one another and was the end of the series.

I almost wish something like that would happen because it would be immensely satisfying for these characters that are so easily relateable to get together and whisk themselves away leaving us with our imaginations of their happily ever after. I understand that a show about Betty and Henry being easily in love would be excruciatingly boring, but maybe there can be a show where every three weeks we meet two people, watch them overcome obstacles to ultimately end up together and we get to move on to the next set of soon to be lovers. It can be called The Chic Flick Show and there will be no brunette Carrie Bradshaws allowed.

that 70s show

I was just watching Let's Make A Deal and noticed that one of the producer's assistants was named Richard Tugwell.

the reminder

the reminder,
originally uploaded by mcnewsletter.

This was carved into the table at the coffee shop I was at today. I don’t know if it’s in reference to the Holocaust or 9-11 or that one must specify skim milk if one wants their latte to be fat free.

surviving perfection

My cousin was almost selected to be a contestant on the new Survivor China. After making it to the final round of auditions the producers saw that, even through the most biased editing, it would be impossible to make her appear one dimensional. My cousin's lives in Hawaii and was voted back to her own island. It would have been kind of cool for her to be on the show, but what's even cooler is the fact that I won't have to watch another season of Survivor.

A couple of years ago I saw a Survivor contestant's profile on one of the morning shows. The woman's story made me cry and that made me feel very strongly about watching her on the show. While she got voted off the first episode, I stuck with it to the end. I'm like that with most all reality shows. Weather they are about backstabbing roommates or room make overs, once I start watching I won't stop till its over.

The single mindedness that reality TV brings out in me is, I believe, an example of my perfectionism. I'm not the kind of perfectionist who has to dust the knickknacks every day, I'm the kind who hasn't dusted the knickknacks ever because I don't want to do anything if a can't do everything perfectly. You know, the kind who gets on the Oprah show because of the massive amounts of crap they have horded over the years.

I am most definitely slow to start projects, especially those of the household variety. On one hand this means my bathroom is never unexpected guest ready, on the other I've yet to paint a room and be disappointed in the color. I have painted two rooms. I don't feel a great compulsion to hold on to things (when i do hold on to useless junk it's because it takes me a while to get around to getting rid of it) but that isn't to say that I'm not a hoarder. What I find it difficult to take action on and move on from are my ideas.

I write a lot and I used to hold on to the pounds of paper I'd generated. My thoughts were something I needed to keep close and reference often. When I threw all of that old material away a year ago I felt a whole lot lighter and was surprisingly inspired to work on projects I'd long before believed to be lost causes. Since then I've made it a habit to throw out most everything I hand write within a week of when it was written. I've slowly started to see what were once simply ideas transform into tangible end products. I've come a long way over the past year and I am reaching out to others as I keep my mental mess clean.

There have to be more idea mongers like me out there. While watching a reality show about hoarders I learned that they are expert at hiding their condition. If people can keep tons of stuff a secret keeping tons of ideas a secret has got to be a snap. At this point I don't know why that's important. The sense that there are others out there who share this neurosis is comforting to me and my be to others. Right now what's most important to me is that I allowed this idea to escape in all it's imperfection.

this would be sooo single white female if i weren’t married

When Britney Spears shaved her head a couple of months ago I told any one who would listen that she was trying to be like me as I shaved my own head many years ago while going thru a stressful time in my life. I now have more proof that she is sweatin my style.

This is Britney’s signature:

This is what my signature would look like if my name were Balux McNewsletter:

Oh, and another thing, I hear she’s got a blog too!

back on my game

I like to improvise when I cook. Not all improve is good, but with the aid of a few stiff drinks can usually be tolerated. I've been bombing so often recently that I'm keeping rubbing alcohol on hand just to disinfect my mouth. The other night my cooking was so bad we had to order take out.

While it is slightly embarrassing to admit that, as of late, my culinary skills have produces nothing to rival the cuisine of even Pizza Hut, I have persevered. I haven't had to throw away food simply because it tasted bad in years, and in a way it's kind of cool that I've had to do just that three times in the past three days. It's nice to make a new mistake, one you are excited to learn from.

I'll revisit some of the dishes I tested for the first time this week, and I'll remember never to try some of the others again, but today I decided to play it safe with an old standby; chicken noodle soup. For the past five years I've roasted chicken for this soup on a baking sheet. Today I had the bright idea to roast the chicken in a saute pan from which the drippings could be easily deglazed and added to the broth. I'm sure that thinking about how my failed experiments went wrong and how I might get them right in the future led to this revelation.

I'd like to remember this outcome when ever I'm thinking about not doing something for fear of being less than perfect.

I'd like to look at failure not as an end point, but a tool that can be used to find the right direction.

I'd like to ask that no one teach my grandmother how to use her computer, because if she found out how much food I've been throwing away she would kill me.

obsession * music from a commercial

I first heard the band Hem while watching television in real time, unable to skip commercials, and saw this Liberty Mutual ad featuring the song Half Acre.

After my first exposure I would stop scanning between program breaks each time I noticed the commercial (and was alone), listen to the song and try not to cry. When the ads stopped airing I had to go out on a limb and get the album.

When I love one song by an artist listening to their entire album is always risky. If the rest of their songs are horrible of course I am disappointed, and sometimes the other songs are so horrible that I end up liking the original song a lot less. Fortunately Hem’s album Rabbit Songs was so good that I got their album Evening land as well. The songs I like the best sound like once loved lullabies, forgotten until they are heard and all at once become familiar.

At the moment I’m obsessed with listening to them while drinking coffee in the morning. Starting the day with lullabies feel decadent and a little sneaky, like eating cake first thing after waking up.

time for coffee

At times I feel (the same way I’m sure every one has felt) that I was born in the wrong era. Usually this manifests in a deep awareness that I belong in the 70s. I’m almost positive that due to some sort of cosmic mix up I was supposed to be 25, instead of just being born, in 1977. Then again, I can never decide if I would have been into disco or punk so things probably all worked out for the best.

I was struck be this sense of being in the wrong generation this afternoon at a coffee shop. A guy, who identified himself to the girl working as a high school senior, ordered a skim latte. He looked like a normal kid, not too jockie, not too emo, just normal in kaki shorts and a ball cap (and he was also wearing a shirt). Suburban Kid Orders Espresso Drink is by no means going to make the headlines, but up until his order I’d been taking the proliferation of fancy coffee for granted.

I started drinking coffee when I was ten and by the time I was frequenting the only coffee shop within a five mile radius of my house. As a young woman my relationship with caffeine tinted my ideas about relationships; my ideal man would love espresso. Thing was, not many guys my age drank coffee at all. Today I realized that had I been born as little as five years later I would have had a wide range of coffee loving guys to choose from and may have never ended up spending six months with the only one I could find.

I am really not sure what I saw in this guy beyond his love of coffee, I truly allowed my priorities to overshadow my standards. Most of the things I could list as being wrong with him were things I overlooked and never should have put up with, but you don’t want to read about my personal flaws… you want to read about the outrageously lame, totally his fault thing he did to me.

My first name is rather peculiar, especially for a girl. For all intents and purposes I may as well be named Rumpelstiltskin. My first true coffee loving boyfriend went out and found the only other girl also in our town who shared my name and dated her at the same time to simplify his playing ways. It just occurred to me that this guy may have been dating the other girl before he and I met, and the only reason he showed up in my life was because he met another Rumpelstiltskin. All I could see at the time was the possibility of a coffee drinking boyfriend.

I haven’t identified myself by name on this website because of a fear of being found. I’ll be fine with posting pictures of myself until Google comes out with face recognition searches. My insight into my former boyfriend’s possible intentions makes me realize I must be diligent about my anonymity. Because I am weak and I don’t plan on giving up coffee.

growing up: it isn’t just for children anymore

Today is September 6^th, the second day in a row of 90 degree temperatures. In keeping with the cliché that bad things happen in threes tomorrow looks to be a scorcher as well. Obviously our society is to blame for the every climbing temperature, society and its relaxed rules of fashion etiquette. There is a natural order to things, and when you insist that it’s OK to wear white after Labor Day be sure that Mother Nature will see fit to bathe your winter whites in bathing suit weather!

Unseasonably warm temperatures aside, I’m glad to be on the other side of the unofficial end of summer. Maybe it signifies the death of my inner child, but I’m quite happy that autumn is upon us. Summer can get to be too much with all of the merriment being made; the patriotic holidays, the impromptu cookouts, and worst of all, the summer birthdays.

I’m sure that being born outside of the school year can be very damaging to a child. Missed out on classroom cupcake celebrations are made up for, however, with raucous affairs starting when daylight has just begun to burn and lasting until all the beer is gone and can no longer be legally purchased. Since I feel it important to be with friends on their birthdays, and nearly a quarter of the people I know were born in the summer, I attend many of these type parties.

What it really comes down to between me and summer is the idea that it is to be a time to relax, but all too often the only thing I relax during those lazy days are my principles. I take living each day to the fullest too far and after a three month overindulgence in food, drink and downtime, autumn’s structured safety can’t fall on me soon enough.

So maybe my anticipation of the end of summer isn’t about growing up at all. Maybe when I start acting like an adult and take control of my life I will actually look forward to summer like I did as a child. Maybe. I’ll try and remember to use the holiday season to test this theory out.