Lane Bryant can bite me

I haven’t worn dresses much in the last couple of years. I’ve done skirts a lot, because I’ve got some good legs and it’d be a shame to hide them all the time. But I had some badly fitting dresses, or the dresses that were on trend at the time just weren’t right for my body type. And it made me think I just couldn’t wear dresses.

Recently, I’ve warmed up to them again, partly because of the blog of a dress-obsessed plus-sized lady like myself. One thing I haven’t found yet – because shopping in the plus sizes leaves you fewer options and you have to look longer and be dependent on fewer stores – is a cute simple knit dress that’s classy and on trend.

Exhibit A of what I don’t want is in the photo.

Now, this doesn’t look so bad in the photo, I know. But what you can’t see is that this is made of their default knit in their default colors. It could be cute in a slightly finer knit and in on-trend colors. But they’re using the exact same colors they’ve used for all their knits for about the last twelve years. The same “Berry”(do a purple or do a pink, but pick one!) and “True Red” (which could be deeper and richer or even, god forbid, a burgundy) and “Blue Velvet” (VELVET? blue viscose for all the depth it has) and Black (there are other neutrals! Give me a dove gray or a true chocolate brown). It’s lazy and I won’t put up with it. So this dress was the right length, and the cut wasn’t bad. It’s even on sale (hmm, maybe because no one jumped on it? Wonder why). But I won’t buy it. I’ll check on what they have at Avenue, Macy’s, or Old Navy.

Attack of the Girls

Odds were good that I wouldn’t appreciate any woman that George Clooney dates publicly. At least in his public persona, he’s pretty much the perfect man (the looks, the voice, the talent, the suave, the humor, the politics) and almost no woman would be good enough. Plus there’s the precedent of what I like the say about another member of my list, that Jon Stewart’s only fault is he didn’t wait for me.

But of all the women in the world Clooney could get serious enough about to bring to a public event like the Oscars (which he’s never done before,) does it have to be this little girl?!? Someone over at TwoP said they were worried about the awards show going over time because Sarah Larson had homework to finish.

Sarah may be a perfectly nice girl, and I’m trying not to slam her personally. Just because she’s been on Fear Factor and met Clooney when she was a cocktail waitress at the Palms doesn’t automatically mean she has no substance but, the few words I've heard her say didn’t show me anything of substance and move us past the cliché. (I mean, really, he’s dating a cocktail waitress?!?) And she’s the latest example of a depressing trend. It makes me sad when men who seem to really have a brain go for girls instead of women. (See also: John Mayer and Jessica Simpson). Is this really what men of substance find sexy?

Can’t George please take a hint from Matt Damon who married a real woman, or better yet from Brad Pitt, who has actually gained gravitas and a focus on the world outside entertainment by being with Angelina Jolie? I was always Team Angie over Team Jennifer because even when she was an ingénue, Jolie was a woman. Can you imagine her with a vacuous, vacant giggle? No, you cannot.

I’m not sure how to explain that this is part of the same irritating trend, but it feels the same to me. Some of the mis-casting of supposedly sexy and strong young women with gamine girls. The first two examples that come to mind (examples that, granted, don’t say much for my viewing tastes) First, Deanna Russo as an academic and scientist in the new Knight Rider. I work with academics, and while they’re a more varied group than most people know, she is not it. I absolutely do not believe she could understand a bit of the nano-science she was pseudo-babbling. Just because its pseudo doesn’t mean you don’t have to sell it. Second, Anna van Hooft as Princess Aura on the new Flash Gordon. In a part that in its many incarnations has always been about an intense sensuality and steamy sexuality, van Hooft just seems coltish and awkward. And maybe that’s it. I do not find coltish to be sexy; it looks unfinished, girly and childish. Third example, which I don’t lead with because it’s been said by so many for years, is Calista Flockhart. Ally McBeal was such a silly fantasy that I never got too worked up about this, but in Brothers & Sisters the idea of her as a political operative is literally laughable. And when she’s matched against the womanliness of Rachel Griffiths you want to shake your head. Griffiths is less steaming sexuality in B&S than she was in Six Feet Under and I think that’s partly because Calista would never be able to keep up!

So, Mr. Clooney. I understand why you guard your romantic life so zealously, and I think it’s wonderful that you’re finally willing to share a tiny slice more of your life with the world. But throw this one back, she’s not fully formed. Go find a woman. Plenty of them will go out with you. Trust me. I can think of at least one right off the top of my head.

Eat, Pray Love

I didn't expect to like this book. I knew it was a travel memoir, and the author had been on Oprah. When something becomes as successful as this book has been (how many weeks on the best seller lists?!?!) I get a little snobby and decide anything so mainstream is probably too least common denominator for me.

What I didn't expect when I started reading it for my bookclub is how honest Elizabeth Gilbert is about where she was emotional and spiritually at the start of her travels. I almost said "at the start of her journey" but Andy always insists that the books we read for bookclub are "a woman's journey of self-discovery." He's right this time, but it's better than the cliche, so I'd like to resist using it.

It helps that Elizabeth Gilbert's approach to spirituality is a lot like mine, believing that we can take the pieces of different traditions that speak to us. I was talking to a co-worker about the book yesterday who said she thinks it's a book about transitions and how they're a process instead of like flipping a switch. I like that take better than Andy's.

My 50 Books Project

Since this is likely to be the only year for a while when I can do this (the plan for law school is on, but not to start for another year) I'm trying the 50 books in a year challenge!

I'm pretty sure I usually read more than 50 books a year, but I've never counted. And I'm not going to count books I'm re-reading, and may not count random trashy romance novels that I pick up and read in an evening or two. I'm not a snob about books; I believe those technically could count, but I want to do this to make myself feel well-read again and Nora Roberts isn't really going to fit the bill there.

January started off pretty strong. I read the four books listed to the left. I was a bit disappointed in 1776. I didn't realize it was, per the Powell's website, a "companion" piece to McCullough's John Adams biography. Which left it free to be an almost entirely military history. I kept waiting for more on the Continental Congress, but apparently that's all in the Adams bio. Well, with 46 to go, I may have to pick that one up in the next few months! I did learn a lot about the siege of Boston. Like, for example, that there WAS a siege of Boston. I thought I had a pretty good U.S. history education, but I'm pretty sure we didn't cover that at my high school.

Of course, I grew up in Virginia and my knowledge of the colonial era and the revolution are kind of focused on the history of Virginia. My family did a summer vacation one year where we visited the homes of all the presidents born in Virginia (except one, at the time it wasn't open to the public - I think the birthplace of Zachary Taylor). I don't remember it, but apparently the trip was my idea. I guess I'm just a born geek. Of course, it was also part of family tradition. When my Aunt Pat had to write a paper on Yorktown when she was in high school, my grandparents packed up the car for the weekend and drove down to Yorktown so she could see the site in person.

C is for Cookie!

Our bookclub’s annual cookie exchange is Saturday and until tonight I had given exactly zero thought to my cookie recipe. You may think I could just go with whatever I made last year but au contraire, I cannot. Two reasons, the first of which is one of general principle. I have never repeated a cookie in the seven or eight years of this cookie exchange. Even in the years when my fellow bookclubbers were popping out the kiddies (an activity inversely proportionate to the time available to bake Christmas cookies, reason #473 to stay childfree) and occasionally brought store-bought cookies, I came with a new recipe ever year. I figure if I can’t entertain my married-with-kids friends with any kind of exciting singles social life, I can at least rub in how much free time I have for baking.

The second reason is a more practical one. I have no idea what I made last year. Except for the almond lace cookies two years ago and the coffee/chocolate cookies from the first year of the exchange, I don’t really know what I made any year. I like the variety. I usually pick one or two kinds of cookies each year and make them multiple times – for the exchange, for my co-workers and (if it’s a really great recipe) for the family once I get to my mom’s. And then I am done with them. Perhaps I am a cookie whore (see above re: substituting baking for a dating life).

I think I’ve found my two cookies for the year. And yes, there usually need to be two kinds, my bookclub includes a woman who has given up all forms of caffeine (which is sick and wrong, but I still love her) and another allergic to coconut. This seriously cuts down on my options, but if I make at least one non-chocolate or non-coconut cookie, I can just gift each woman with a double set of the one cookie she can eat. This year’s chocolate option (assuming I can find cocoa nibs by Friday night) is Clotilde's Very Chocolate Cookies, found on the website of the excellent David Lebovitz, but originally from Chocolate and Zucchini by Clotilde Dusoulier. After reading David’s blog, I want to add a whole bunch of cookbooks to my Amazon wishlist (this is nearly as senseless as giving up chocolate – I cook as little as possible and I only bake recreationally).

Number two, which could perform alone if I can’t get my hands on those nibs(dirty!), is off my go-to baking site, Martha Stewart online. I love her for baking, though I find some of the entrees I’ve tried there in the past kind of bland. So I’m trying the Lime Meltaways and hoping I don’t end up with a dough that’s too dry, since this seemed to happen to a few folks in the comments section. Cross your fingers. I’ll post pics once I’m done with the baking on Saturday.

Why WGA Writers Are On Strike

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This seems like a pretty clear explanation to me (you'd almost think these guys are professionals). And it's REASONABLE, people.

ps. I've thought of one more thing I can do. Until writers get more for DVD sales, no more buying DVDs. Since the holiday season is coming up soon, maybe that's one way to hit the corporations in the one place it'll hurt.


eta: Other folks are talking about boycotting DVD’s and internet streams of tv and movies. As was pointed out in an interview by my favorite comedy writer Pam Ribon, we need to make sure that any effort like this needs to include telling the networks (and I’d guess the press and WGA since the networks aren’t going to share that info) why we’re doing it. Otherwise they could just use any dip to support their ridonkulous* argument that the streams are too new to have profits they can share.

*I first learned this word when a WGA writer put it in an episode of How I Met Your Mother. Credit where credit is due, ya know?

I love TV. I probably watch way too much of it, but those folks who say (in a tone I always hear as snotty whether they intend it or not) “we don’t have a television” or even just “we don’t have cable” have a high bar to get over if they’re ever going to be my friends. TV is the dominant creative artistic medium of our time (even if some of that dominance has diminished in the last few years). At its best it can fun and informative. At its worst, I change the channel or turn it off. TV is not perfect, but it can be inspiring (The West Wing), soothing (Dancing with the Stars), exhilarating (The Amazing Race), gut-achingly funny (30 Rock), even intellectually challenging (Battlestar Galactica). The writers of most of this brilliant entertainment are set to go on strike at midnight tonight.

Most of the coverage I see of the potential strike has a “what it means for viewers” angle, which I guess makes sense given that most of us are viewers and not creators. But it really misses the point. I’m probably going to be inconvenienced by this strike. My favorite shows will go away for a while (some of the newer ones may never come back). I’ll NetFlix, and I’ll read, and I’ll spend more time online.

What I will try not to do is just mindlessly consume whatever crap the networks put on in place of my shows. Because I value what the writers do. All of it (okay 99.9%) comes out of their amazing creative and hardworking brains. These are thinking people, and I like to believe I have some kinship with that. I like to think I’m more like the writers than the studio execs who spend their days thinking about financing and marketing and such (there’s a reason I’d never get a business degree).

As thinking, creative people it was ironically the Writers Guild of America (WGA), not the bean-counters, who realized back in the 1980’s that the VCR was going to change how people watched TV and movies. So they got residuals for videotape sales added to their contracts. The amount was miniscule, but it was a start. As DVD sales have sky-rocketed and begun to count for a larger piece of the profits they’re asking for more. And they’re asking to add residuals for internet airings of their shows and movies. The principle behind that is the same as in the 80’s; here’s a new medium that is changing how we consume their product and they should share in the profits of it. The studios say they can’t figure out how to count those profits. Seems like it’s pretty easy to say “we just sold that episode for $1.99 on iTunes, here’s how much of that is profit and here’s your share.” It’s not that they can’t, it’s that they don’t want to. The network heads are under pressure by their own corporate bosses (GE, etc.) to raise their profits. I get that. I just don’t think that’s the writers’ problem.

That principle I mentioned actually goes back way before the 80’s, to the days of radio. Unless the studios want to walk away from residuals altogether (which I’m sure they’d love to do) it’s unconscionable to try and leave the internet out of it.

So as a viewer I will do what I can to show that I’m not on the studios’ side here. It isn’t much and it’ll go against the grain. I’ll watch my shows until they run out of union-generated scripts. I will try to keep track online of when those run out, and I’ll stop watching if they bring in scabs. I won’t go so far as saying I won’t watch reality TV, which is what they’ll fill the schedule with (the WGA has GOT to get those “editors” in the union one of these days to strengthen their position) but I won’t watch reality crap (either pre-existing crap that we all know is just on because it’s cheap to produce, or new crap they start filming now to fill time slots). As I said, it’s not much and maybe I should say I’ll just turn off my TV. But I’m trying to be honest; I know I won’t do that.

This matters to me for lots of reasons. One I wouldn’t have been able to predict a few years ago is all about the influence of the internet on TV. Several years ago, I was surfing around, looking for websites about a show I had just fallen in love with but that none of my friends were watching – The Amazing Race. What I found was Television Without Pity (now a part of that crazy GE corporate family, but still fabulous). Turns out that several of the funny creative people who were writing about TV on that site are now funny, creative people writing for TV (Pamie, DJB, Stee, AB Chao, just to start with). These folks don’t know me, but I feel like I know them, at least a little. I want this strike to work out for American labor, and for principle, but also for these good people. I believe in this strike because I believe in them. I want them to be able to make their rent, and car payments, and mortgage payments even when they might be between gigs. And the way that happens is if they get a tiny piece of the money that studios continue to make years later from their work. I wish them luck. And I hope there’s a deal coming quickly, for their sakes more than for mine.