I’ve been feeling crappy for several days (mentally now, not physically, though the one does have power over the other if you recall yesterday’s post) so I’m trying one technique which is to do things “outside” (put on a happy face, as the song says) that might then bleed inside and improve my mood. I’ll let you know how that goes. For now, it’s a very fleeting respite from the crap-storm in my head.

One goal was to get some exercise tonight (because we know that exercise and a routine are as good as, if not sometimes better than, anti-depressant medication), so when my friend from the rock gym said he’d be there and willing to belay for me, that cemented my evening plans. Even if it was only an hour of climbing, it was a solid hour, I did some good climbing, and broke a crazy sweat (and now I am cold and need to shower). Having that sense of accomplishment helped improve my mood a little.

Before I left, I changed my Facebook status from something a little sad to the following:

I was referring to the fact that the last two times I climbed, I tore holes in the palms of my hands. The original time was painful enough, but tearing the partially healed “flappers” was even worse. That time (last Monday) when I went to rinse the ick off my hands in the bathroom at the gym, I actually cried because the water hitting my hands stung so badly. I normally have a very high tolerance for pain - but that was just too much. My hands aren’t as tough as those of my climbing friends; they’ve been at it for years and have rough hides, like so many forest creatures (or hippopotami.) So that experience for them is a distant, faded memory… as some woman say childbirth becomes.

Either way, thinking about my bloody palms called to mind the stigmata and -boom- I’m moderately irreverent. I’m hoping most people just find it confusing, that those who should get it do, and that I don’t horribly offend anyone. Considering that the only comment on that status so far is, “Um, what?”, I’m not sure which I’ve done. Hopefully #1.

So, other things I’m going to try to do include climbing again tomorrow since I have a visit with the doctor on Thursday night. I’ll bring my camera to work to take some photos since I’ve noticed that the view outside of the office looking out over the Hudson River and the NYC skyline is quite lovely in the twilight hours (since 5pm is quite dark these days) and I should capture that now. I’m going to count down the days until this weekend when I’ll get to see friends. That should carry me through.

And tomorrow is Wednesday already, after all. I hate to be “working for the weekend” because it’s such a ridiculous cliche, but there’s a reason it’s cliche. That said, it’s still a shitty realization.

Now, warm shower before my muscles start hurting.

I’ve had a post drafted for a few days now - political in nature - but I’m still working on it. In the meantime, allow me to share another reason this country is going to hell; I saw this on the evening news:

Car GPS blamed for train accident

“Jose Silva of White Plains told police that “he did what he was told” by his global positioning system.”

Because the computer is always right. Trust the machine. Common sense be damned. DAMNED!

When it tells you to turn right ONTO the railroad tracks, and into the path of an oncoming train, just do it. I’m sure it will have you make another left or a right soon thereafter to steer you out of harm’s way. It’s just the way the GPS device likes to keep itself amused, see? Playing little tricks on people. “Tee-hee!”, it titters.

Ugh. He’s not the first and he won’t be the last, sad to say. Insert comment about Darwin awards. Insert comment about people relying blindly on technology. Insert comment about how lazy we’ve gotten that now we don’t even want to think for ourselves and think we’re excused when we use “I just did what I was told” cop-out.

Though it does remind me of this clip from “The Office” (it’s a bad clip recorded from a TV, but still - a clip of this segment wasn’t available from the NBC site):

So I have this nifty plugin installed in WordPress that automatically filters comment spam from the blog. Honestly, I get more comment spam than actual comments - and that’s sort of OK and expected. This isn’t Dooce (as in, not crazily popular - or at all) and I’m well aware of that.

The comment spam I get is pretty entertaining. Today’s selection was “Shakira porn shakira hips don’t lie naked porn video.” Please. At least keep it current. Or marginally modern. (Hey - let me drop some really hip and timely references to Paris & Nicole fighting or to the whole file sharing/Napster thing so I can be equally on the ball!!)

I had a shitty-ass day. Non-stop crappy nonsense that added up (along with hormonal ickiness and such) to major stress and me sitting in my car when I got off the train, resting my head on the steering wheel, breathing deeply and trying not to cry out of sheer frustration that the day was not yet over. But then I got home, ate some leftovers, and baked some brownies (Ghirardelli, from a mix) and had a hot brownie and mint chocolate chip ice cream sundae. All better.

Also nice was opening up my email to see a request from an academic who’s making a documentary and requested permission to use some of my photos of the Schuylkill River in Philly (which he found on Flickr) in the documentary. No money, of course, but photo credit and a copy of the DVD if the photos are used in the film. That’s pretty cool. I’ll take it.

And now it’s late and I should be getting to bed. The stress tension in my shoulders and neck never quite went away, so I’m going to have a rough time of it tomorrow morning.

So I did it. I left work early today (after getting in early) so that I could make my way to downtown Montclair before 6pm to stop at the London Food Company.

I walked in with my wallet in my hands. I meant business and I think the woman working at the counter could tell. I walked past the Walker’s Stem Ginger Biscuits (which I also love but which I can find at my local supermarket for a few cents cheaper) and straight to the shelves in the back - directly across from the cans of treacle pudding and spotted dick.

In about 60 seconds, I grabbed three (3) packages of Crawford’s Garibaldi biscuits, two (2) Cadbury Fruit and Nut bars (straight from the UK; none of this Hershey processed crap for me!) and one (1) canister of McVitie’s Hob Nobs with chocolate.

Twenty one dollars and 80 cents later, I am a happy happy girl. With a tummy full of Garibaldi biscuits.

I’ll have to do some food porn photography tomorrow to help express my love of the biscuit. And of the packaging. There’s something fun about that, too. I must also mention that I am forever indebted to my friend Sara for introducing me to the “squashed fly” biscuit in the first place.

And now, sleep. I have another one of those headaches coming on, so it’s probably best to take some painkillers now so I can sleep through the night.

(Never let it be said that I don’t follow through.)

And another contribution from the Harriet Carter catalog.

Oooh, I had some fun scanning products from the Harriet Carter (”distinctive gifts since 1958″) catalog that was in the junk mail pile. Here’s the one I’ve chosen to share with you tonight.

holy creepy masks, batman

Photoshop has done this for me lately:

On the left, the original untouched photo. On the right, the same photo with some increased saturation and a fun multi-layer effect consisting of Gaussian blur on one layer, the “multiply” effect applied to the other layer and the brightness increased on the total package.

Eez very different, no? It gives it a surreal effect I enjoy. Maybe I’ll get craziness printed up and framed. Hrm.

Also - in the category of f’ed up things parents can say to their fully grown children, the following is a portion of a phone conversation I had with my father last night while I was on the train back from work. Said he:

“How much are you earning now? I’d like to be able to brag to everyone about how much money my daughter is making. The more you make, the prouder I can be.”

I wish I was kidding. This is quoted verbatim; uncharacteristically, he spoke this entire bit in English instead of Polish. There was no humor behind it (he doesn’t joke about salaries); he was quite earnest about making this a compliment for me. It backfired; I was dumbstruck and just said I’d talk to him later.

Below are some choice bits from the initial reviews of the Sex and the City movie. I was spitting a little vitriol at work yesterday when asked if I was going to go see it. The answer, in short, was “FECK NO.” Except I wasn’t saying those words like Father Jack on “Father Ted.”

Important to note also is that I did tell my friend Theresa that I would see it with her as a matinee because she is a huge fan of the series and her show/movie-viewing buddies are in New Hampshire and England. Theresa is my dear friend and this would mean a lot to her. I also believe in knowing thine enemy. Therefore, I might end up seeing it. But I’ll have to sneak in a little airline bottle of rum (or 2), pour it into my Coke, and enjoy it that way. Because, DAMN. While I’m not a drinker per se (the last drink I had was at a business dinner a few weeks ago; before that, it was my birthday in April), desperate times call for desperate measures.

For professional reasons, maybe I should’ve been more neutral in my response at work and said that I simply don’t care for the series. But this and the Super Bowl both elicit visceral reactions from me. Visceral, angry, “no wonder the rest of the world thinks we’re stupid” reactions. I’m just not very good at hiding my emotions when they’re strong.

Anyway, despite shitty reviews, many of the theatres in the NYC metro area were sold out and experiencing ridiculous amounts of group ticket sales (no, I am not surprised - just sadly aware). Here are some of the review bits I liked:

This movie provides no good reasons to revisit “Sex and the City,” except to fulfill fans’ desires for one more for the road and add millions to Time Warner’s coffers. Be careful what you wish for.

Yes. Well said. “One more for the road” because people just cannot get over the loss OF A TELEVISION SHOW. The phrase “beating a dead horse” comes to mind.

Montage after montage after montage with each and every problem finding a solution by the fabulously dressed four getting together, squee-ing in a pitch that will deafen dogs and neuter most of the males in the audience, and realizing that friendship will get you through any bout of rampant self-absorption. Oh, so this is what happens when you leave Bratz dolls in the sun too long.

Ha ha! Bratz dolls reference = key. It’s the same market - except 10, 20, 30 and 40 years older. And with more money to waste on cheap plastic shit, like knock-off Coach purses because you KNOW you have to have the insignia print. You just do.

In need of some serious tightening up, the flabby picture does what the old Samantha would have never done: It keeps hanging around, pushing for a long-term relationship.

Again, “beating a dead horse.” When has this series NOT been about hanging around and pushing for a relationship? For all the fans’ pontificating about how empowering it is, how can they not see that it’s always been about a “happily ever after”/”GET THE RING!!!” ending? Who else was around for when The Rules was a runaway self-help bestseller? I was a bookseller in those days and I remember railing against it then. I rail against it just as much when it’s dressed up in Vivienne Westwood and on the TV/silver screen.

It’s as long as five series episodes, a big sweet tasty layer cake stuffed with zingers and soul and dirty-down verve (it’s not above having one of the girls poop her pants). Given the running time, though, not that much happens, and what does has several shades more gravitas

“Stuffed with zingers and soul”? “Dirty-down verve”? Oh, one of the girls poops her pants, huh? I heard a woman on the radio yesterday (NPR was interviewing people who had gone to the premiere) say she loved the series because it made her see that all these incredibly successful, well-dressed NYC women were “just like us”, accessible and also had problems. That they worry about the same things that “we” do.

I pity her. I don’t think she’s ever fully realized that the things she sees on TV and the movies aren’t really real.

Sigh. I’m going to do some of the glamorous things that real women sometimes have to do - take my car for an oil change! Put some laundry in the wash! Change the sheets on my bed! All while wearing these sexy-ass pajama pants I bought at Target. That’s right. I’m living the glamorous life.

I’m finally getting a bit caught up on my RSS feeds. I haven’t had much time or desire to read through, so there are literally thousands of posts to read. Some are just getting skipped since they’re from before I went on vacation in late April. However, here are some things I found interesting, compelling, or otherwise worth sharing:

1. A three-dimensional exploration of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica.
2. Craftzine’s instructions on decorating office supplies with fabric.
3. A product that appeals to me in so many ways: a gizmo that creates perfectly spherical ice “cubes” - or, um, ice spheres, I guess.
4. An article in The New Yorker (via Bella Sugar) about how even Dove’s “real beauty” ad campaign makes liberal use of photo retouching done by a premiere photo retoucher who works for all the big magazines and ad agencies. Not surprising, but f’ed up nonetheless.
5. A post from BiblioAddict about buying a book for its cover. It’s saying basically what I was going to say about Michael Chabon’s Maps and Legends. I bought this book for the dustjacket (or jackets - there are three, ingeniously designed and cut to produce a stunning package). I also really liked The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and the first 60 pages of this (his first non-fiction) book are phenomenal. I’ll pick up The Yiddish Policeman’s Union next week since it’s in paperback now and is supposed to be fantastic, as well. But really, look at Maps and Legends: