This Post is for You, Tony...

I was all ready to write an entry with profound reflections on life, instead, you are going to get a rant on “Lifetime” (“Television for women”). Now, with the exception of the odd “Frasier” episode on a Friday morning I make a point of avoiding Lifetime like the plague. This past Saturday night was an exception, when, after admitting to self that I hadn’t done any real studying for almost an hour, I joined my roommates on the couch.

“What’s on?”

“Love Sick: Secrets of a Sex Addict”

“Oh! Goody!” Interest piqued poured myself a glass of wine and asked Elizabeth budge up on the couch.

My issues with this film are numerous. First, I will confess, I felt deceived. “Secrets of a Sex Addict”’ – how very titillating, how progressive! I was impressed: Lifetime you are joining the Oh! Channel century! This is no longer your grandmother’s station; this is more like Talk Sex with Sue Johanson. I was expecting something more along the lines of the brash and honest I-TV series “Confessions of a Call Girl” or Sex and the City but with soft lighting and bad shoes. Check on soft lighting, check on bad shoes and many chiseled jaws and fluffy hair, missing much on the honesty.


How to describe this film? Anyone who has flipped past the Lifetime channel should have no trouble imagining the set up. The men were so very bad, the women so very good (so very patiently victimized) and the dialogue just painful. At several points I had to stop myself from flinging my – empty – wine goblet at the screen (it may be necessary to be soused to watch a Lifetime movie but you run a risk of property damage). Described as the “true story of a married woman with a shameful secret” the movie is based on the memoir of Sue William Silvermen, Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction, which document’s the author’s 28 days in a rehab clinic for a sex, or love, addiction. Now, I say based on, but I am actually finding it rather difficult to summarize the plot of this movie as it is so far from accurately depicting the events and emotions recounted in Silvermen’s memoir (which I hastily read afterwards on Google books). Briefly, in the film Sue is presented as a woman unhappy in a stagnant marriage and career. In response to this dissatisfaction she begins a series of exclusive affairs; one with her architect, another with her firm’s client etc. From each of these interactions Sue believes she will find the love she craves. These interactions are hardly the sterile, frantic and frequently anonymous and “dangerous encounters” described in the memoir.
Consider for example, Sue’s opening sentences of her memoir:

“Every Thursday at noon I have sex with Rick in room #213 of the Rainbow Motel. Today, even though I promised my therapist I wouldn’t come here again, I pull into the lot and park beside Rick’s black Ford Bronco. I cut the engine and air conditioner and listen to stillness, to nothing, to heat.”

Instead, we have Lifetime’s soft lighting and music and soulful sex scenes belonging to a romance novel instead of a film on a destructive compulsion and rehabilitation. Much more “English Patient” than any other kind of patient. This 2 hour movie didn’t even dedicate 28 minutes to Sue’s time in the clinic. This distortion of the purpose and focus of the memoir is only the beginning of my complaints. In true lawyer-ly fashion let me itemize these:

(1) It minimized the author’s past trauma and the roots of her compulsive behavior. Sexually abused by her father as a young child (think age 5) and later as an adolescent, this history is only alluded to in brief flashbacks and in conclusory statements from her therapist. Accepting that sex addiction is an addiction (and that one is responsible for one’s own actions and decisions) is one thing; however, the film (ie the character and her psychiatrist) completely failed to address the root of the character’s compulsion or confront her past trauma.
(2) It romanticized her sexual interactions. My assumption is that this was done to make the character more palatable, safe, and likable to the perceived Lifetime audience.
(3) Finally….oh dash it. I have worked off all my ire for now. Long story short: down with Lifetime; check out Sue Silverman’s memoirs; and I am off to polish off some Ben and Jerry’s….

That Time of Year Again!

“April is the cruelest month, breeding….” fodder for my allergies. To further abuse literature and literary allusions: “It [is] the best of times, it [is] the worst of times.” It is gorgeous outside, but I can’t breathe; I am not sure how I feel about this trade-off. This recent allergy attack, coupled with the worst cold and flu season of the last five years and subsequently feeling like I’ve been sick for the last two months led me last week to conclude the worst…

We all have some secret (or not so secret) focused form of hypochondria; some illness out there that is somehow worse than all the others and we somehow, perversely, are so much more likely to contract. For my mother this fixation changes with whatever Newsweek article she has read most recently (our household has equipped itself for every passing epidemic from Mad Cow to Bird Flu). For others, this fixation is, well, fixed. For example, a friend of mine in college felt this way about herpes. Every few months there would be a panic attack precipitated by the fear that a pimple around her mouth indicated infection. A trip to student health would clear this up and bring things back to normal operation. However, I always found it funny how this very specific STD managed to inspire such terror, and a terror that was not shared over other potential diseases. More serious infections such as Hepatitis B, syphilis, Chlamydia etc. didn’t raise a thought, herpes simplex was simply all.

I teased my friend, but I am not much different. For me, this fear is mono. Every time I get a cold a part of me (that unreasonable voice in the back of my mind) attributes it to mono. And its not only the cold symptoms: “Gee, my shoulder really hurts, hope it isn’t mono” or “Gosh, I just can’t pay attention in class, I must have mono”. All this to say that when I woke up this past Thursday dizzy, fatigued and with a drippy nose I came to one diagnosis: mono. I just needed a doctor to corroborate.

So I made and appointment and in the interim attended classes and a conference and enjoyed the feeling of martyrdom as I reconciled myself to the idea of the dreaded disease.

Naturally, during this time I was getting quite accustomed to the prospect of enforced bed rest (ha! Forget the bar!), and enthusiastic that I would have such an excuse for my laziness over the last month, so imagine my disappointment when the Doctor came back with the diagnosis: allergies. So much less dramatic and I don’t think that I can use this as an excuse to the same effect.

Ah, Spring. Much can (and has) been said of the season: “Nothing is so beautiful as spring – When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush” (Gerard Manly Hopkins); when “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love” (Tennyson). This brings me to my next topic: “A little madness in the Spring / Is wholesome even for the King.” (Dickinson). Let me share with you my little madness and why I think it very wholesome.

Having gotten the clean bill of health I went out that night with two of my roommates, Kitty and Elizabeth.
Before I continue further, I would like to stop and advise my Uncle Tim, who I ill-advisedly (considering the direction of this blog) supplied the address to a month ago, to stop here. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. In the name of Thanksgiving, and sweet potato pie and all things holy and familial do not continue to read this entry. Jump to my rant on Eliot Spitzer and other people’s scandalousness…

………………………………………………………………………………………….


Okay, the rest of you, are you still with me? Are you seated comfortably? Good. After all that build up (I invoked Sweet Potato Pie for goodness sakes!) I am afraid that this is going to be a bit anti-climatic.

Anyways, I went out with Kitty and Elizabeth. Topo was full that night. Apparently our rival University was hosting an MBA rugby tournament that weekend. Now, I’ve been kicking myself since last year when up in NYC for my cousin’s graduation, I called an early night (we were going to the Met! I wanted to be rested!) and missed the opportunity to, how does one say, Mack (?) with visiting Irish rugby players with my cousins. Let’s just say that “The Cloisters” with my parents the next day was paltry consolation. Ah, but here, a second opportunity!

Long (or rather, not so long as it really should have been) story short, met an interesting fellow from Stanford. This ex-physicist/current MBA provided the opportunity to experiment with some basic principles of physics. For example, let’s look at Newton’s Laws of Motion, in translation:
1) Bodies in motion are gonna stay in motion.
2) “Acceleration of a body is proportional to, and in the same direction as, the force acting upon it.” (ie: you know where this is headed and you have to be prepared to exert your own force)
3) For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. – I think that speaks for itself.

Yes, simple, basic stuff. And I can see a number of you (most particularly you, Tessa) rolling your eyes at my geekiness in comparing hook-ups to Newton’s law of inertia etc, but I think it applies. It was a valuable experience – nothing like hands on experiments!

Spring indeed.
Never mind “The Waste Land,” Eliot, this Profrock is going to dare to eat a peach!

The End of an Era

I am writing you while sitting through the last class of my formal education. It is a little hard to process; I've always been a student, I don't know that I know how to do anything else (not that I have done this very well of late, as demonstrated by my lack of attention to class)! This is the end of an era. So long, farewell, auf weidersehen, adieu.

Let us have a moment of silence.....

Actually, it is definitely time that this era passed, given the lack of motivation I have had for my formal education over the last semester. I am rather proud that I even made it to this class, truth be told. I had to call friend and fellow classmate Mya en route to confirm that the fact that it is rainy and limited parking are NOT sufficient reasons to skip the last class of Trusts and Estates. Tempting , yes, understandable even, but not adequate.

So I am here in my back row seat, present only out of a vague sense of duty and nostalgia and googling pictures of ocean liners for this blog and manifestly NOT paying attention. The words "beneficiaries," "trustees," and "fiduciary duties" filter through from my professor's lecture every so often so I am assured that he at least is on topic and on track. He may be the only one. One of the benefits of a back row seat is you get to observe the monitors of all the students in front of you. Of the four rows ahead of me only one is open to notes (but she is a 2L so that really can't count). Even the conscientous Mya is less than engaged in the lecture; helping me in same search for blog images! (By the way, I should include here that Mya thoroughly approves the one selected. I am much gratified by this much coveted commendation).

All this to say that it is time that this chapter closed and this class ended.

A Good Bra is Hard to Find...

It’s been an eventful two weeks: house-sitting, fender-benders, losing the mock court-martial (and more distressingly, losing a measure of faith in the integrity of some of my class members) rejected by PMF selection committee…and yet I am going to write about the really incredible thing that happened…I found a decent bra. Hurrah! And there was great rejoicing throughout the land. I may be unemployed and have rising car insurance but the girls are in peak form.

Before I continue, let me explain my enthusiasm. I have the same relationship with bras that most women have with jeans: ie I just can’t seem to find them in my size. This is frustrating; I feel left out and singled out, but I am not. Apparently, (as reported on Oprah) 85% of American women wear incorrectly fitted bras. This is unfortunate, as nothing puts a bounce (or, rather, maybe a little less actual bounce) in your step than knowing you are wearing a really awesome bit of lingerie. Somehow the sun shines brighter, the sky is bluer when you know that you are all tucked in and trucked out. To illustrate this point, I give you: a day with my bra:

7:00 am: Woke up, rolled over, went back to sleep
8:00 am: Repeat
8:35 am: Replayed and elaborated on pleasant dream – reality eventually intrudes (damn reality) – start running through list of ‘things to do.’ Wonder if I am really interested in accomplishing any of these things….
8:40: Ponder this for awhile…
8:45: After considerable deliberation I decide that there’s no place like bed and I can’t think of one really good reason to leave it (having accepted that when I leave bed bad things happen – as my car’s back bumper attests)…
8:46: About to snuggle down, shut it out and return to afore-mentioned fantasy-land when my eyes fall on it…my one good reason (in my self-indulgent and semi-depressive state) to get up and be happy about it: my shopping bag containing my new bra.
…..
8:47: “Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh what a beautiful day! I’ve got a wonderful feeling, everything’s going my way.”
…..
8:50: The Bra is lovely: white lace, balconet cut, scalloped edges and the obligatory tiny bow in the center. I feel like a 1950’s bombshell – the good variety.
9:00: I can’t decide what shirt to wear. I try on several and discard them summarily as unworthy for The Bra’s Inauguration day.
9:05: BBC News Hour on NPR: Mugabe loses election in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe suffers inflation at 100,000%, future uncertain; Ukraine’s petitions to enter NATO, Russia not happy; American recession; Bush on Afghanistan….and the headline at our house: Shirt selected for office (summit leaders reach universal consensus that it is a damn shame that there must be a shirt at all).
….
11:30: Still really excited about The Bra. It is wonderful
……..
1:05: Meeting with clinic professor on pending projects.
1:06: Professor and my partner discuss an upcoming speaker series at the University. I smile and nod beatifically and think about the awesome-ness of The Bra.
1:08: I wonder if I should order multiples? They say when you find a good product you should buy multiples. I wonder if they have it in blue?
1:10: I think balconet cut may be the most flattering on me. I wonder if I can find a balconet cut swim-wear.
1:11: Oh, Professor wants an update on our client…
...
2:30: In cubicle trying to draft policy paper but am, once again, distracted by The Bra. It happens. Start blogging on the bra instead of writing paper. Resist urge to escape to changing room to check out bra again.
2:45: Attempt to concentrate on paper
3:00: I stop resisting.
...
3:10: Trusts and Estates Class
3:17: Professor lectures on the “Dynasty of Perpetual Trust” – I start fantasizing about Chinese food.
3:31: I receive formal email notifying me that I was not selected as a Presidential Management Fellow finalist. I am bummed.
4:10: Class ends. Still bummed. Even The Bra fails to uplift and separate self from woes.
5:15: Bummed, bummed, bummity bummed. The lark’s on the wing, the snail on the thorn, God may be in his heaven but all is not right in my world.
6:00: Mom emails an encouraging note and an invitation out to dinner. I suggest Chinese. Things are less bleak.
6:15: Class ends early – definitely looking up!
6:40: Poor a glass of wine, Kick my shoes off, strip off my shirt. It is still a damn good bra.

Finis.