A few of his favorite things

Remember when there was no such thing as a VCR or DVD player and you had to wait all year for movies to be shown on T.V.?

As a kid, if I’d been asked to make a calendar, the holidays on it would have been my birthday, Christmas, the last day of school, and the air-dates of  The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, It’s Christmas Charlie Brown, and The Ten Commandments. (Perhaps some of my choices seem odd for a kid, but when spend your formative years with not one but two very religious grandmothers, Moses is the shit.)

Kevin’s personal favorite as a youth was The Sound of Music.

Anyone who has ever been in the same room with Kevin and a musical knows that I am being highly facetious. Let’s just say that if he’d ever been a POW in any of the wars of which he is a veteran, all the enemy would have had to do is give him a bunch of No Doze, tie him to a chair, and make him watch virtually anything with singing in it.¹ Waterboarding? Child’s play.

I’ve never seen anyone more uncomfortable than Kevin when someone sings. Like that time on Pushing Daisies when Olive Snook suddenly bursts into a heartfelt rendition of “Hopelessly Devoted To You.” Kevin closes his eyes and sighs, shakes his head, lets out an indignant “Awwww!”  As the song continues, he shifts in his seat, contorting with increasing intensity until he is nearly writhing. Finally when he can’t take it anymore (about fifteen seconds), he bursts into tears, jumps up and flees the room.

Actually it is obscenities rather than tears, but it is no less moving.

I blame his father for this particular pathology, who apparently inflicted Julie Andrews upon his two sons every year no matter how much they cried. Which is really weird because this is a man who is so bored by movies that he usually falls asleep during them, including for instance such art films as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Shaun of the Dead.

1. OK, except a Grateful Dead show marathon. Then he would probably defect. [↩]

Break

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m taking one. These days to be a proper internet goddess, I need to get a job that doesn’t require being on it all day.

Subtle

I like my job, except for all those other people and stuff.

How Twilight Ruined My Life

All right, that’s a bit of overstatement. I don’t actually have anything against Twilight, per se, though I have heard that it’s not the most feminist story in the world. But I’ve never read the books or seen the movies so I can’t pass judgment on that, and I have nothing against the paranormal or romance. Then why is it the bain of my existence?

Vampires. Everywhere. All bloodsuckers, all the time.

You might remember from previous Rib posts that I am writing a vampire story. I started it prior to the current mania that has everyone panting like Renfield.  All of a sudden there are vampire books, movies, t.v. shows out the ying yang, none of which I read or watch and yet cannot escape thanks to modern advertising. Consequently, I am getting a little tired of vampires.

Yes, Rib readers, I AM GETTING SICK OF MY OWN STORY. This is a crime against nature. It is not supposed to happen until one’s editor demands the 37th rewrite.

It doesn’t help that now when people find out what I’m writing, they immediately think Eddie-Bella-Sookie-Buffy-Anita-Lestat Rip Off. You get the knowing little smile, or the carefully blank expression, or even the eye roll. Those are the polite ones. The more forthright just say it: “Reading Twilight, are you?”

Derivative is a fightin’ word and makes my muse wanna get all up in their face. “Hey, I was writing my story before Edward was a sparkle in Stephanie Meyers’ eye! And my vampire isn’t an emo refugee from Teen Beat!”

But you know, what are you gonna do? Whatever’s going on out there, you have to “fill your paper with the breathings of your heart,” as Wordsworth said.  So I’ll write my story, and eventually when editors send rejection letters that say “Oh, honey, vampires are so 2010,” I will just wait another ten years to resubmit it. And maybe then I’ll get to ruin some other writer’s life.

Friday Funny: Laugh You Will

Pretty much what I look and feel like right now. Not a morning person am I.

Nothing more than feelings

A recent episode of This American Life featured a piece by a guy who lost his long-term memory as a result of anti-malarial drugs he was given while studying abroad in India. (Nightmare scenario or what?)  He “woke up” one day in a train station with no memories, not even of his family.

Some folks helped him get in touch with his mother — he remembered her email address but not her name, her face, or her voice. When he got home, his fiance was one of the first people to greet him. Not only did he not remember her, he did not love her. In fact, he couldn’t even conceive of himself loving her.

Besides being one of the saddest stories evar, it makes you think about the Big Questions. Like, what exactly IS love, then? How can it be that the only thing that makes this life worth living can be erased by a hit of synthetic chemicals?

Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly. ~ Rose Franken

Old Grey Bonnets

This is a video of Kevin and me in a parallel universe where we have been married for 62 years and both play the piano. Note that butt-grabbing appears to transcend space and time.

Friday Funny: Fundamentalists, don’t fuck with ‘Frisco

Merry pranksters holding silly signs and blasting Lady Gaga vastly outnumbered the sad Westboro Baptist Church demonstration in front of the Twitter office in San Francisco last week. Fuckhead Phelps and brood subsequently cancelled their scheduled protest of Fiddler on the Roof (ha! ha! ha!) at the Golden Gate Theater, but that didn’t stop the music - the counter-protesters turned up anyway with signs and rick rolls. Brilliant.

Photo by sandwichgirl at the theater.

Photo by Rubin Starset from the Twitter protest.

Time

So the other day I was having coffee with my friend Mo and we got to talking about how you never seem to notice how those friends that you see all the time are aging. It’s only when you see pictures of them from back in the day that you go “Wow. You look a lot…more mature now.”

And then I started yammering about how the same goes for one’s self… except in my case I really don’t think I’ve changed all that much in the last oh, twenty years or so. Really, I haven’t changed hardly at all. Have I.

My friend Mo just sort of looked at me over the top of her coffee cup.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, as I am standing in the bathroom getting ready for work.

And I notice the grey hairs at the crown of my head, and the lines at the corners of my eyes, and the cheekbones jutting as the collagen drains away, and the skin beneath my eyes that is less elastic, and the tiny broken capillaries on my nose. And I remember how my knees and back and neck hurt more often, and how I have to work out a lot more and drink a lot less. And how I have to wear a hearing aid when I watch T.V..

In retrospect, I think giving me the “Poor girl, I don’t want to be there when the high wears off” look was probably the kindest thing my friend could have done.