First the mouse, then the girl, now the camp

People, I just joined a gym. Sorry. I should have broken it to you more gently. Are you okay?

For a brief moment many years ago, I had a quasi-regular thing going with swimming and then I discovered that I had way more in common with Netflix. So, as is the way in these matters, I broke up with kinda-fitness and devoted myself exclusively to movies. It was going really well until I recently almost had a heart attack walking up the stairs from the box office to the balcony of the symphony hall. Bad sign. I don't need to be an Olympian, but I do need to be able to get to the cheap seats without having an episode.

And so. My "I'm a real swimmer" no-frills bathing suit (in which my Netflix belly will be unattractively prominent) will once again be reunited with water. I haven't told it yet, but I think it's going to be pretty excited. I have no idea how this will go, but having access to a pool is a first step. Please cross your fingers for me. I have trouble with this sector of life.

This is one aspect of a larger project that could be entitled: Stop Thinking Endlessly about Things and Actually Do Them except that that is not a very catchy title. I am going to Camp Mighty in November and I am terribly excited about it. I am not much of a goal-setter or a big-dreamer or even a list-maker, but Mighty Girl said I had to make a list in order to go have cocktails with delightful people and so I did. I will probably put it up here eventually (although, frankly, some of it is none of your bee's wax). The remarkable thing is just writing things down and knowing that I'll be talking about them in a few months has made a difference. I'm trying to be better about the blog; I'm going to renew efforts to not let my body totally atrophy; I got a cookbook with some inspiring vegetarian recipes; I am even taking an Italian class starting on July 12. Good lord, I'm already crossing things off the list and the list has only existed for about two weeks. She might be on to something.

Presumably the self-actualization will not continue at this frenetic pace indefinitely, but for now, I admit it. I do feel mightier.

Tell me no secrets

If the enemy captures me and gives me a mammogram, I am going to tell them everything I know. Immediately. Even if it means they will kill your entire family. When I was living cheerfully in ignorance an hour ago, I would have thought your secrets were safe with me, but I am now living on the other side of the dark curtain of mammography and I know different.

If anyone tells you that a mammogram will cause "some discomfort," punch them in the face. If someone says, "It will hurt more than you can fucking believe and you will wonder how this ludicrously ham-fisted procedure is the best we can do in a time when the iPad exists" thank them for being the only honest person you have ever met.


I wish, like a private eye of yesteryear, I had a bottle of whiskey in my desk drawer. Alas, I will have to wait until I get home to try to drown the memory.

Crank it up

From an NPR review of Gillian Welch's new album:

"Some of the territory is familiar: fear of the unknown, desperation, exhaustion."


Yee ha! Don't just stand there; ask me to dance.


*******

And then there's this from Netflix.

"More like Strictly Ballroom: Little Voice; Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Cosi; The Piano..."

Excuse me? Did you just say The Piano? The PIANO?
That's certainly a double feature just waiting to happen.

Love letters

I send Marja an email telling her I'd just received the most depressing email of my life. Subject heading: We miss you!
Sender: Linens N Things.

An hour later I get an email from Marja.
Subject heading: You're my soulmate
Email message in its entirety: Bev Mo


Proving once again, boys and girls, that life without Marja would be merely a hollow, meaningless trudge toward the grave.

Open letter

Dear gentlemen of the Mission,

Please shave.
There are some indications that you may be quite handsome, but how could anyone be sure?

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
A concerned citizen

By special request

I am deriving some small pleasure from turning up Tom Waits to (attempt to) drown out the much-loathed upstairs-dwelling kinder. Not as much pleasure as I would derive from learning of their imminent plans to attend boarding school in Switzerland, but since it is a bit of a straw-grasping scenario, I'll take whatever pleasure I can get.

Now then. It has happened once again. The conversation that goes like this:

Other person: you should have a blog.
Me (sheepishly): Um...I do have a blog. I just don't tell people about it much. And I'm really bad about updating it.
OP: ??? [general bafflement at what sort of purpose a secret blog with no actual writing on it would serve]

Anyway, I provided this latest individual with the blog address, thinking that I might get more praise out of him (after all, there are more than 300 posts that he's never read), but I have just received an email that includes this. I shall quote. Ahem.

My dear, you really need to pull it together in the next four days and get a new post up there so there is not a big goose egg for June.

The nerve.

So here I am. Folding under peer pressure. Though, to be fair, he also suggested yesterday that I should take a bong hit, and I declined, proving that I am still in possession of at least a bit of spine. (There was no bong present for the conversation. It was more a theoretical bong hit of the future. Possibly, though not necessarily, in Yemen. He has a lot of goals for me, apparently.)

It is Pride weekend and though my instinct was to basically avoid all Pride-related things and zones of the city, that's not to say I'm not proud. Also, I would like a drag queen to teach me to apply eye makeup, so that I too may be glamorous. If you happen to be a drag queen with some spare time, do get in touch.

I came home from my sunny expedition having purchased a remaindered Mollie Katzen cookbook--yet another attempt to jump start a legitimate interest in vegetables and/or cooking--and, in related news, a bunch of radishes, which I am tempted to affix to the front of my frock, corsage-style. However, wishing to wear vegetables is not quite the interest in them I was trying to generate, unless wearing vegetables promotes slimness and good health as much as eating vegetables. If so, stay tuned for some sort of fetching cloche fashioned from kale.

June is no longer a "big goose egg." I hope you are all satisfied.