Monthly Archive for September, 2008

Page 2 of 4

The post where I talk about how far I have come with the lack of baby issue

Published on September 22, 2008 in Childless Not By Choice. 59 Comments Tags: Childless Not By Choice, Infertility, Introspection, La Belette Rouge.

1. I was actually able to laugh at the new Brooke Shield’s Volkswagen commercial.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qL_9Gmonuo]

2. I have been able to hear about my estranged sister-in-laws children without needing to go into the bathroom and cry. This is real progress.

3. I no longer have to pretend not to like children—I am in a new stage of actually finding them unlikable. Sorry to all of you mother’s and father’s. I feel sure one day I will like children again. Lately I just find them loud and annoying. I am the woman who is unsympathetic when your child cries and throws a scene in a restaurant. You can feel the energy I am sending you with my eyes, ” can’t you get that child under control and if not could you please leave.” Please remember that I spent over $100,000 and went through countless procedures to have such a screaming, squirmy, and sticky thing of my own. So, some of my animus is my own issue and it is best to view my antipathy towards your toddler as pure envy.

4. I did not look at our new medical insurance policy to see if they would pay for me to go to Cornell and go through some painful and horrible procedures that would ultimately…not work. I did briefly look at their adoption benefits and then hurriedly moved onto what kind of psychotherapy benefits they provide.

5. I was able to finally read Petite Anglaise’s book. I had long been unable to even hear the word Tadpole with out sobbing that I would never have my own baby weasel. I didn’t even have to skip the paragraphs in which she described sweet and tender mother and child moments that would have usually unleashed a storm of tears.

6. I am at the point that I will take any one down who will tell me now that He-weasel has a good job and that I can relax that I will get pregnant. I mean, I cannot be responsible for what I do if you say this to me. What that will look like will be me screaming and making crazy eyes. But, this is a long ways from me wishing it were true. So, um, progress not perfection. Right?

7. I just recently paid off my last IVF cycle. And, it only was excruciatingly painful to pay money for something that didn’t work. It was not torture. The difference between excruciatingly painful and torture may seen insignificant to you. However, there is a difference.

Ermine Awards

Published on September 21, 2008 in 365 things that don't suck about L.A. and Quotidien. 56 Comments Tags: Award, Bloggers, Fashion, Friends, La Belette Rouge, Self-Indulgent.

Welcome to the 2008 Ermine Award Ceremony. Please don’t go getting all zoologically correct on me now. I know ermines are not exactly weasels but they are very close and I couldn’t think of an award show that created an alliteration that went well with weasel, hence this is the Emmy’s for and from ermine.

I wish I could have gotten John Stewart or even Billy Crystal so do ten minutes of stand up before the show began—but this is a very low budget award show. Much like the arts and science awards at the Oscars. However, the awards and the bestowers and receivers of these awards are of the highest caliber and they deserve to walk the red carpet and be asked questions from Joan Rivers and Ryan Seacrest.

Award Number One
May I have the envelope please. Tatting Chic kindly awarded me with “The 5 blogs that make my day” award. She gave me this award way back when this blog was shut down for my nervous breakdown and so I am sorely remiss in thanking Ms. Tatting for this incredibly kind honour. I am really honoured to make it onto your list and I am truly delighted that I am even one of the 5 blogs you read everyday–let alone one of your favorites.

I would like to thank my mother and father who made me so neurotic that I needed someplace to vent. I would also like to thank my agent. Oops, don’t have one. Um, and a special shout out to Target for dressing me for the ceremony. Thanks for asking, I am wearing the pink squirrel pajama bottoms and the matching pink tee shirt. My slippers? I am not sure who made them. They are zebra acrylic fur mules that have been worn so frequently that the words on the label have worn off. I know what they say about not mixing animal prints but I am daring like that.

I would like to pass this award on “The 5 blogs that make my day” to 5 of my favorite fashion bloggers who make me feel like a shlumpa lumpa as I sit and read their lovely blogs in my sweats. No, really, they make me want to be a more fashionable person and for that I thank them.

1. Observation Mode
2. Make Do Style
3. Couture Carrie
4. My Wardrobe Today
5. Of a Certain Age

Award Number Two
This category is the “Kick Ass Blogger” award. I happily accept this award from the lovely and talented kick ass blogger, Ne je ne regrette rien. NJNRR is the epitome of kick ass. She approaches blogging, her life and all she does with an enormous and infectious spirit of “no regrets.”

This award is a bit complicated, but us kick ass bloggers do not let that stop us. So, I am bringing in the accountants from Ernst and Young to explain the rules to you. No, you may not use your Ti-vo to fast forward through this part.
Rule #1. Select five bloggers who “kick ass”.
Rule #2. Blurt out why you think they are deserving of this award–must have some kick ass in the description.
Rule #3. Link them all together in some slightly sexual way.
Rule #4. Acknowledge the originator of this award and also the lovely, generous, beautiful kick ass woman who is sending it your way.
Rule # 5. Make this one up as you go along.

I nominate the following 5 bloggers for the Kick Ass Blogging Award:

1. La Vie Quotidienne. She kicks ass on so many levels. She is fiercely intelligent and brings incredible insight and thoughtfulness to everything she writes. The more I learn about her and read her blog the more I feel slightly intimidated. Her blog often makes me want to pursue a PhD and I mean that in a good way.

2. Wendy Brandes Jewelry. This one is so easy. Oh the multitude of way this gal kicks ass is so varied that I hear that the film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was based on her fierce ass kicking ways. I love how Wendy brings together her passions for history, vintage fashion, her jewelry, and the tremendous support and encouragement she gives to all her bloggy friends. And, then there is the amazing fund-raising she is doing for NieNie. Even when not in latex leggings and spiked heels, WendyB is a super-hero blogger.

3. Stuff Parisians Like I love this blog and only recently found it. Who ever you are who writes these delightful Bon Mots about Paris, Parisians and Paris life, chapeau off to you. Your blog, how do you say, coup-de-pied derrière. C’est vrai? I adore the wit and intelligence that oozes off the monitor each and every time I visit.

4. Paris Breakfasts This kind of passion and commitment to painting the macaron and all the patisseries of Paris must come with enormous personal sacrifice and yet you never hear Carol complaining about serving up a piping hot bowl of Paris to her hungry readers each and every day. Paris Breakfast kicks healthy breakfast in the derrière.

5. Materfamilias writes, and Passage des Perles and Une Femme de un Certain Age. I am sorry but sometimes three way ties do happen. And, all three of these bloggers do a great job assuring me that intellect, wit, wisdom and the love of a red handbag are not at odds. There are not many role models for fabulousness in our 50′s and beyond–we are lucky to have these three lovely ladies on the blogosphere. I fear all three would kick ass on anyone who told them that being in their 50′s meant they must find their fashion at Chico’s. These women kick stereotypes in the derrière. Love them!!

I am sorry, I am not tying these bloggers together in some kind of sexual way, this is a live show and the censors will not allow
it. Suffice it to say that each and everyone of these bloggers kicks ass.

The next award of the evening is in the international category.
It is the Proximo award. I was delighted to receive this beautiful butterfly award from both Observationmode and Searching the Inner Me. I was given this award by two bloggers who exemplify the spirit of Proximo. And, I really am delighted that they believe I am a blogger who deserves this award as it is really important to me that blogging is a dialogue and not a monologue.

This award that originates in Portugal is given to bloggers who create a sense of community with their blog.

According to Seeker, “the “Proximity Award” (or “Closeness Award”)is to promote closeness between bloggers.” Seeker translates for us: (this) “BLOG has been made to achieve people, showing inspiring things and to create bonds of friendship, to invest and believe in PROXIMITY (Closeness).Many bloggers receive messages and don’t care in answering or return them. So then what happens?The friendship ties are broken. And we don’t want that to happen, do we?An union between Reader/Blogger is needed. So let’s visit those who visit us also.Then, we will be closer; we will be Bloggers in the true meaning of the word.”

I am passing on this beautiful blogging award to 5 bloggers whose early and long standing support of my blog has inspired me to keep showing up at the page even when I thought I had nothing to say. I wish I had more of these awards to give out. But, really, I want you all to know that without your early and constant encouragement I doubt I would be here today.
1. Style for the Stay at Home Mom
2. L’ennui Mélodieux
3. My Inner French Girl
4. A-line Skirt
5. Shallow Coffee

The final award of the evening is the I” Love Your Blog Award”. And, I am delighted to receive this award fromSearching the Inner Me, Of a Certain Age and from Not Supermom. I do love your blogs too! Thank you so much for this really lovely award! I am honured.

I would like to nominate the following blogs that I love:

1. Badaude
2. I Heart Fashion
3. La Femme Couture
4. L’air du temps
5. Indigo alison

Seriously, I want to thank you all for these awards. They really do mean a lot to me. And, I am proudly displaying them on my right margin for all to see. I do wish there was a way to keep them on my night stand. And, I also would like to thank all of you who entertain, inspire, encourage and delight me with your fabulous blogs.

Please tune in next year for the 2009 Ermine Emmys.

Fridays with Freud

Published on September 19, 2008 in Psychology. 71 Comments Tags: Childless Not By Choice, Desire, He-Weasel, Infertility, Introspection, Jungian, La Belette Rouge, Los Angeles, Memory, Psychology, Writing.

I am thinking about calling my old psychoanalyst and I don’t know why. Well, I sort of do. He was as close to a healthy father/daughter relationship that I have ever had and I am home and there is a part of me that wants him to know I am back and that I am better than I was when I saw him last. I want him to know I am happy and not happy. I want him to know that I didn’t have the baby. Yet, that old feeling of failing comes back. That feeling that it is something wrong with me and that this speaks of some kind of intrinsic and unchangeable flaw in me. I want him to know that I am writing as the reason I started analysis was that I couldn’t write and my father had just died. I feel somewhat ashamed to say that I am not working and that I am not getting paid to write. I would like to go back to him in total triumph.

I saw him in a brick building in Santa Monica, California, just blocks from the beach, for ten long and transference filled years. I will never do the math on how much I paid him, no good can come of it and should you want me to collapse into a catechismic depression I suggest that you do the math for me. Superman has kryptonite and I have the balance sheets on my student loans and the paid amount of money I paid to my analyst. Now, if you asked him, and I suppose you can’t because he is not legally allowed to talk about me with you, but if you did and he could, he would say that he was way underpaid and that is true. I was not an easy client. I was secretive, highly sensitive and somewhat passively aggressively angry. But, that said, it was and is a lot of money to me.

I went Wednesday’s at 11 a.m. and Friday’s at 10 a.m. I would drive on the 405 freeway to see him and sit in traffic. I would search the streets of Santa Monica for someplace to park. I would see celebrities and would-be celebrities buying organic fruits and veg at the Farmer’s Market. I would walk blocks to his office among tourists and trendies who walked Third Street with an egalitarian lack of urgency. As I always feared I would be late I would weave and race to get past the men-children, who seemed to be a cliched array of screenwriters and homeless men who sipped Starbucks and sack covered bottles as they sauntered down Santa Monica, and the waitress-actresses who occupied Ocean Avenue.

I would sit in his shabby waiting room that looked like it was a 1962 Smithsonian time capsule of “Psychoanalyst Office, USA.” I would flip through his antiquated copies of Utne Reader and Psychoanalytic Journals that sat on his dusty oak credenza once I had flipped the light to let him know I was there. As I read about “The 50 most charitable companies to work for in Berkley” I would plan what I would tell him. When he would come out of his office with his 10 o’clock client we would begin our well orchestrated routine. I would avert my eyes so I would not see his last client. I don’t think I wanted to share him with anyone else.

Once his client departed he would give me a quick nod and somehow silently indicate that he was going to the washroom( his language, not mine). He repeated this ritual for 10 years which always made me wonder if he actually went to the bathroom each and every time or if he washed his hands or did some other psyche clearing ablutions in the men’s room. He would return and greet me as enthusiastically as his Nordic heritage and analytic training would allow. Then he would do the international hand gesture for “come on in.” I would rise and avoid eye contact with him as I carefully walked past him so that there was no danger that we touched. Not one thing about this changed in the 10 years that we met. He did update his furniture and eventually got a better clock radio that served as the privacy filter. Classical music was the only thing that kept me from eavesdropping on his 10:00. And, it was Mahler that kept his 12:00 from hearing about my mother complex.

I am not altogether sure if I can articulate what I got out of this therapy, well at least not in the context of this post, but I know that it gave me the experience of having a father like figure and there are times when I long for that again. At year ten of analysis I felt like I had worked on my father relationship adequately and that it was time to begin to deal with my mother. My analyst encouraged me to stay and I think he was genuinely sad to see me go. But, I felt a strong desire to start seeing a woman analyst and ultimately desired to quit analysis altogether and instead spend my free cash on important things like manicures and massages.

Before we moved to Chicago I saw him to tell him that I was leaving L.A. We briefly talked about my move and our work together. I talked about how difficult the work had been for me and how I imagine at times it was for him too. He didn’t disagree with me and that little sting has stuck with me the last few years. What I took with me from that session was that I was a difficult child. That was not an unfamiliar message for me. It was a painful one to get from my shrink.

Shrink? I am not sure why I called him that. I never called him that before. I think I did that for you. It was a way to minimize his importance and to show you a casualness about it that is completely at odds with the amount of time I kept going to him.

I called him a shortened version of his name that I added a “y” to for a little more casual irnoy. No, not to his face but when I would speak about him outside of the session. And, speak of him I would. I concocted entire narratives about his wife, his daughter and even what he did when he was not so lucky as to listen to me talk about my father and my mother and the “you won’t believe what she said this time(s)”…that filled our sessions.

Last night when He-weasel and I went to dinner I was reminded of a story about my father and for a moment I genuinely and actually missed him and for a moment I wondered what he would think of me. This may not sound uncommon to you. People do, after all, miss their deceased relatives. I, however, can count the times I have missed my father on my fingers and toes. That is when I think I started to move from random free floating desire to call my old analyst into a clear and conscious thought. I want to pick up the phone and dial his number, the number I still know by heart. I want to call him because I cannot call my father and I might want to have my state of babylessness, joblessness and dependency mirrored by him. Geeze, I could really could use some therapy.

Radio Silence

Published on September 18, 2008 in Quotidien. 55 Comments Tags: Bloggers, Food, Hair, Self-Indulgent, Shopping, Weasel Tale.

The first few hours in our new home we had Internet and telephone and then something went terribly wrong and we had none. And for nearly 48 hours I was without the ability to blog, email, Google, check Jcrew’s website every few hours to see if they had any new bracelets that I could not live without, or Twitter. It was a dark period. There were shakes, sweats, and desperate OCD like checking to see if somehow magically it was fixed.

I laid about on our leather sofa and discovered that our air conditioning has bi-polar bear disorder, it was either too hot or too cold—never just right. I watched John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Zoe—and none of these were as satisfying as I was not able to multi-task. I think it is best to watch the Rachel Zoe show the way one does a solar eclipse, do not look directly at her or one’s body dysmporphia may be triggered and one may need even larger bug-eyed glasses to compensate. I grew bored and went to the gym and worked at avoiding eye contact with any of the gym rats and was crestfallen that I had not checked the battery before I left the house—so half way through my workout I had no more musical accompaniment and I was stuck listening to two TV’s blaring and gym rats grunting.

When I returned home to Chez Nouveau I felt the need to blog, the way a smoker needs a cigarette with a cocktail. I could have written a post and saved it for another day, but the inability to post it only exaggerated my suffering. So, I went shopping, as one does, when they are trying to sublimate their suffering. I went to Whole Foods and spent $120 and did not buy the ingredients for a meal. For the price of a J Crew bracelet I got raspberries, sparkling water, pesto, cheese, a Tibetan altar candle, chicken salad, roasted beet salad, and Pirate Booty.

While shopping I saw an older woman with the most beautiful white hair and I was desperate to come home and blog about how every time I see a women with beautiful white hair I cannot stop myself from complimenting her and yet that is the colour hair I have underneath all this dye. And, then I remembered that I had no way to blog. More sublimation was clearly called for.

So, I did what I used to do when I needed to be distracted I went to a book store and bought a book and I read. It was okay. But, the bad thing about books is that if all of a sudden you are desperate to know the best products to use to make wavy hair curly there is no Google bar on the side of the page that will allow you access to do a quick search.

As each hour without Internet passed I grew more and more frantic until I finally flipped out on the property management people and made it clear to them that it was vital to the national security for my Internet to be restored immediately. I will lie, exaggerate and throw a temper tantrum to get my Internet. When I saw they were unmoved by my outbursts I brought out the big guns and asked for the phone number, email, and address of their corporate office. If I wasn’t going to have Internet I was going to see if I could make someone else as miserable as I was, i.e. try to get someone fired. They seemed to respond to my final threats. By the time I got home last night not only did I have Internet and phone service we had been given a gift certificate for dinner at a wine bistro across the street. They are so smart, I was planning on going on Yelp and Citysearch and complaining about the horrible customer service at these condos. We had a lovely dinner, a bottle of Pinot Noir and I have Internet. All is forgiven.

I would love to end this post with some heartwarming moral about what I learned from not having Internet and that in hindsight it was such a great experience—but I have no such moral for you. I am addicted, I admit it. Must run, have lots of blog reading, shopping, emailing, Twittering, and Googling to do.

Infinite Jest*

Published on September 15, 2008 in Quotidien. 44 Comments Tags: Home, Literature, Los Angeles, Memory, Monsieur Inkey, Psychology, Self-Indulgent.

Today we are done being house guests. As of today, I can leave a dish in a sink, take a nap on the sofa, watch Weeds again without comment, go without a bra, and wear no makeup without someone asking if I am tired. Yet I feel sad.

It started last night when I found out that David Foster Wallace killed himself. He is the second on my list of favorite contemporary writers who has committed suicide (the first was Spalding Grey). And, after discovering that such a great literary genius has been unable to find happiness in his achievements, his family, and the resulting life that comes with being a literary giant my sadness grew.

I imagined what I was doing Friday night as he was conspiring his death. I was lamenting over my hair. I watched some news. I did a little on-line shopping. He-weasel came home and took me to dinner. And, at the same time David was so utterly and hopelessly despondent that he hung himself. I searched on line for answers on why he killed himself. Yet, there were no answers. There are no answers to this kind of question. I imagine he had suffered a major depressive episode, or suffered a horrible loss or discovered he was ill—yet I don’t know any of these things to be true. And, even as I attempt to answer the question myself I am no better resolved to the fact of it.

I thought I had put David’s death behind me for the moment, as I was shopping for shoes on Zappos and sunglasses at Bloomingdales.com, yet quite unexpectedly another kind of unspeakable sadness came in. No, not the boo-hoo kind of sad and not even sad about David, Spalding, or my Father being dead, or even my hair. Rather it is the kind of sad that feels like having an itch only you don’t know where it is to scratch–all vague and distant like. Every time I searched my psyche to try to get at it only moved farther away.

In the middle of the night as I was a sleep and I no longer was looking for the answer the answer came, it was Inkey. We came to He-weasel’s family habitat with Monsieur Inkey and we, today, are leaving with out him. I grew anxious that if Inkey’s spirit does exist and he was off wandering the neighborhood and later returned to find us gone he might not know we are we are and he might think that we had left him. Let me say in my defense that this thought was a thought that came in the middle of the night when I was not quite awake and that there had been Ambien involved.

This was supposed to be a happy day and maybe it will become one. But, this morning as we come to the end of another chapter I am aware of death and loss and the grief that results. I mourn for a man whose words I have loved and for a cat who was my constant companion for 12 years.

*Infinite Jest was the first book of David Foster Wallace’s that I read. Another of my favorites of his was Another Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. Girl With Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays are also worth your attention. When I read Infinite Jest for the first time I envied the Joycian mind of the author and now I wonder if that kind of brilliance doesn’t come with an awareness that is unable to find solace in the simple things, like shoe shopping or even, in the big things, like a MacArthur Genius award.

Harper’s has put up a memoriam to David Foster Wallace in which they have all of his essays that he published with them.

WendyB kindly posted a link to his obituary that I would like to link to here.

Please lie to me and tell me my hair will be okay

Published on September 13, 2008 in Quotidien. 72 Comments Tags: Hair, La Belette Rouge, Self-Indulgent.

My ex-colourist had me come in yesterday to fix my light-blondish red roots. It took two weeks for me to get in, due to his busy schedule and my more relaxed and groovy schedule. So, he told me we have to make all of my hair a level darker in order to for me to get the red I used to have. I told him in no uncertain terms that I don’t want to go darker. Darker means brown and I do NOT want brown. He ignored me and talked to other clients about Sarah Palin. I was feeling scared, but remembered that in the past he had done a good job. I put the fear out of my processing head and flipped through Bazaar.

When the colour was washed out I saw that the roots were still very light and that the rest of my hair seemed really dark. I tried to tell myself that it is the light in the salon. He assured me, or should I say, he lied to me and said it would be better when we dried it. It wasn’t.

So, here is when the fun started. I went to check out. I thought maybe he wouldn’t charge me for the blow dry–which I don’t think I should have paid for as I have had to come back in every time I have had my hair coloured for the last three months. Not only was I given a bill for the blow dry, Rat Bastard had the nerve to charge me to fix my colour. I told the girl at the desk that this was colour correction. She went off and talked to him. I was standing and waiting to hear that all was resolved. Nope, he made me pay as I did not get in within a week of the initial service. I was fuming. I was so mad I could not speak. I was on the verge of tears. I told the receptionist that he was not getting a tip for what he should have done right the first time.

I go to my car and I looked in the mirror and saw that in light my hair is so brown it is nearly black. That is when the tears came and actually all I have to now to get myself in tears is to go look at my hair in a mirror. I will not be going back to Rat Bastard again ever. I am calling today to have them take me off the book for all the appointments I had scheduled. I will tell the receptionist that I am extremely unhappy with my colour and that I am going to have to go to a colour expert to get this right and this is going to cost me a whole lot of money. I am going to quietly and without tears tell her that I am very upset and how I don’t think I should pay for something he not only did not fix right the first time but that he made much worse the second time.

Now, is where the lying comes. Dear readers, please tell me my hair can be red again without bleach and stripping and serious damaging. I need you to lie to me. Lie to me like you have never lied to me before. My hair is black, my eyes are red and I am terrified of sitting in another colourists chair ever again—however as I look a little like Priscilla Presley in the 1970′s I am going to have to seek professional help, either that or become a Scientologist.

Monthly Archive for September, 2008

Page 2 of 4

The post where I talk about how far I have come with the lack of baby issue

Ermine Awards

Fridays with Freud

Radio Silence

Infinite Jest*

Please lie to me and tell me my hair will be okay

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