That's Empress to You

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to barrage you with penile enhancement ads.

I read a recent piece by some San Francisco tech guy in which he presents a mathematical equation that compares the attractiveness of San Francisco women to that of San Francisco men, and seeks to plot, also mathematically, why women pay him and others like him no attention in bars. His conclusion seems to be that because there are more men, unhot women get to hook up with hot men, like himself, even if the women’s attractiveness quotient doesn’t come close to the hot men’s.

Problematically, from a scientific standpoint, he never defines attractiveness. That aside, my reaction, after, “I’m sending this to Jackson to see if the math is correct,” was to lament the fact that when so many brilliant, beautiful, and interesting women hit the sell-by date of 50 (tops) so many men suddenly decide their own hotness is best appreciated by much younger women.

Next, following my natural scientific bent and exercising my keen reportorial skills, I Googled  “older men dating younger women bay area.” What popped up were paid sites like EstablishedMen.com, whose tagline reads, in part, “The Only Site With A 6:1 Girl Ratio,” and Craigslist ads like “Any young girl (of legal age) that likes to be seduced and used?” I immediately closed my browser window and slammed my laptop shut. 

Like that’s going to help. I am really looking forward to the ads that are going to start popping up on my Facebook feed and in other corners of my internet world. I think I will Google prostate massagers next. 

We’ve Moved! The seventh circle of hell is now located at the Potrero Center Safeway.

On the Monday before Thanksgiving, they have one regular checkstand open. There’s an express line for the crackheads buying a 40-ounce and a pack of gummy worms; and several self-checkout stations, which invariably require the assistance of an employee anyway. The checker at the one open stand slams a bag filled with bottles into this poor guy’s cart as we hear over the PA system, “Emergency cleanup in the women’s room.” Another employee walks by, reaches out, and flips the braids of the woman standing behind me on line. She’s peering at her smartphone and doesn’t notice and I elect not to tell her. An old lady keeps punching in the wrong Club Card number, and the checker, instead of scanning his own card, which they keep near the register for just such occasions, lets her continue for 10 minutes, then tells her she has to stand on the interminable customer service line to get a new card number. He spends a full 30 seconds trying to read my name off the receipt, not listening at all as I politely try to help. As he’s gagging on the admittedly difficult letter combinations I see that at least, thank God, they lock up the dandruff shampoo.

Sour

I was told two nights ago that I am sour. Which made me cry. And also made me want to take a poll to see who was actually sourer, but that would be highly impractical and would not exactly prove my point. Instead I’m going to show how I am filled to the gill with cheer, stuffed fat with positivity. And in keeping with my recent post, in July 2012, when I was also overcome with gratitude (the commodity that trades so high on Facebook) I am going to list all the reasons why.

My new organic face cream goes on thick and gloppy as school paste but smells of coconut, so I spend an hour every morning smelling like a Mounds bar. Which smell better than they taste, but I’m not planning to take a bite out of my own nose or anything. That would be very negative.

My new acupuncturist/bodyworker told me that until his needles and bodywork have worked their magic on my sacroiliac joint I shouldn’t do the daily physical therapy that involves four separate Therabands (each with unique clever knots), a basket full of taped-together balls, two yoga blocks, a yoga mat, a chair, a huge rubber ball, a timer, and over an hour. He says I should surf instead.

Plus, I think he’s a miracle worker and I’m talking back-from-the-dead, loaves-and-fishes level miracles.

Bernie Sanders.

This happy lamp, which I have just started using again to treat seasonal affective disorder. It’s set up on one side of me though, so I’m only half happy, but saying so is sour, so we’ll focus on my right side, which is jumping up and down with joy.

The guy who called me sour, because even though he’s crazy enough to marry a sour person, and um, forthright enough to tell me about it, he still lets me read the front section of the Times first, even though I don’t have to clock in to work at 8:15 AM anymore*, and he now folds it neatly after he’s read it because sour people don’t like it when their newspapers look like they have been used to clean a windshield. Plus he’s handsome and brilliant and he loves me.

*See previous joyous post.

Why hello.

I'm back. I’ve staggered out of the catacombs of the gainfully employed back into the warming light/searing glare of the quote writing life and back to the novel whose badness makes me sweat and mutter “I hate myself,” which yes, I do on occasion. And thanks for the suggestion, but no, I can’t afford a shrink, because I’m unemployed.

Three years ago I signed up for a dream job, the best possible place an ex-dancer with a working knowledge of the dictionary might land. As an associate editor at a dance education–focused magazine, I was shocked and thrilled to be appreciated for the two things I know even a little about. But the eight-hour days at a desk were brutal on my body. In the end the gainfulness part wasn’t gain-y enough to keep up the daily and continuous compression of my bones and muscles and ligaments into what would surely be a tuna can–sized mass at the end of my time here on earth. Which would make for a quick and easy burial, but not much of a life.

So armed with John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story, I’m determined to give that novel some plot legs, chiropractically adjust its spine, and infuse its shriveled little veins with a quart or two of blood.

I’m also going to check in here once in a while, because I know my 1.4 readers have missed me. Please keep those comments coming, in particular the ones in Latvian, or Irish, the translations of which are usually something like, “You certainly have some agreeable opinions and views. Have you thought about introducing some social bookmarking buttons to these blogs.” Yes, I've always been in it for the adulation.