Comfort/Non-comfort

There are comfort foods that always stick with you. Chocolate. Mashed Potatoes. But then I also have comfort foods that vary from week to week: my Trendy Comfort Foods. This week's Ginger Ale. Mmm. Would definitely pass up a big bar of chocolate for Ginger Ale right now.

I think it's because I equate Ginger Ale with being taken care of. Growing up, whenever I was sick, my Mom gave me a nice glass of Ginger Ale. It didn't matter whether I had an upset stomach (Ginger Ale made sense) or a cold (no sense at all). Now that I'm 23 (ew), when I get sick, I have to take care of myself. But with Ginger Ale, I can still capture the feeling.

As my friend R says, "I believe in the healing powers of Ginger Ale."

Last night, at 1:30 AM (which means it was pretty good), I finished a book called "Rachel's Holiday" by Marian Keyes. It was a chick lit novel about a 28 year old in a rehab center. And it made me panicky: Do I drink too much? Do I drink too much?

I don't. I know I don't. But it gets in your head and swirls around in a scary way. Something to think about, at least.

I don't know what would happen if I read James Frey.

I drank something called liquid cocaine and everything went fuzzy...

This Indian became my good friend last night.

Apparently, the outcome of a night out drinking with my cousins involves me hanging all over a wooden indian and then enjoying a solo fifty minute taxi ride back to my house while I make my friend Matt sing to me on the phone.

My cousins have always been a part of my social life. Growing up, they were an important part of the baby pool/peanut butter sandwich routine that was my summer. I've always looked forward to holidays so we could all hang out. And since I can remember I've spent a week at the beach with the entire family, swimming and walking and gossiping with my cousins. Good times.

And now we're grown up and, for the first time, many of us live close to each other. So the social activities have grown and morphed a bit.

I could keep up with my guy cousins swimming. I could keep up with them playing softball on the beach.

I cannot keep up with them drinking.

Hence the intimate relationship with the wooden Indian.

Movies and the Big Sick

Things that have gotten me through the past week:
- Lemon Sorbet
- Mashed Potatoes
- Sudafed
- Knock off Vicks Vapor Rub
- Iced Tea (preferably teany tea)
- Television

I have been ill, my friends. Ill to the point that each tiny breath burned deep within my chest.

I'm feeling much better now, thanks.

I've been seeing some movies lately- before the Big Sick. Here are my thoughts:

Brokeback Mountain:
If you read the short story, it is exactly the same as the script, so really Annie Proulx deserves more credit than the film makers. I think. That said, I found the film both shocking and moving, but I don't think I will see it again. While it was good, it was not quite entertaining. I hated the soundtrack (twang, twang, twang). And I was surprised by the people that walked out after the sex scenes. This film has been advertised as the gay cowboy movie. Did they think that Jake and Heath were going to be fighting Injuns and taming the Wild, Wild West? Of course there was gay sex! Get over it. Or don't waste your money and go see Cheaper by the Dozen II or something.

Tristan and Isolde:
If you've ever read any incarnation of this story, the film was totally different, so place heaps of blame on the filmmakers. I feel the cast was as good as they could possibly be in the film: Franco and the Irish girl actually had really good, edge of the seat chemistry until they consummated their relationship. But everything else...well, in my critical opinion, it sucked. Don't read any further if you are planning to see it. But ISOLDE DIDN'T DIE! THEY ONLY KILLED TRISTAN. What? It was like that horrible King Arthur movie where they killed Lancelot.

I just wish Hollywood would stop distorting beautiful old legends (King Arthur, Troy- which I actually liked, Tristan and Isolde) and making them just about sex and war. Tristan and Isolde is about honor and courtly love and they drink the poison of love/death and it's BEAUTIFUL. But Hollywood killed it, sigh.

Okay, this is a crappy post. I'm blaming it on the fact that I am still sick. Goodbye.

Subscribe Now! And Save!

I get The Writer's Almanac in my Inbox at work every day, an electronic newsletter that includes a daily poem plus general info. about writers who were born on this day in history. When I come in on Mondays, I have three all lined up and waiting for me. They bring me great joy, and I think everyone should subscribe. To entice you, here are some nuggets currently residing in my Inbox:

Things

There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
there are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.
It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.

~ Fleur Adcock

"[Human beings] are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special."

~ Stephen Hawking

"Most writers are secretly worried that they're not really writers. That it's all been happenstance, something came together randomly, the letters came together, and they won't coalesce ever again."

~ Nicholson Bakers (I find this one very relevant to my life)

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth."

~ Umberto Eco

It's nice to get literature and wisdom into your every day routine. Also? It's free.

Parents: ‘My’space can be yours, too!

Before I sat down to write this, I had to reconcile myself with what I am doing and why. I believe in privacy: am I infringing on this right? I’m only twenty-three, and I have some skeletons in my shallow closet: can I point a finger at people only half a decade younger? I’ve never had kids: can I criticize parents who turn a blind eye to their offspring’s behavior? And finally: do I really care what the younger part of my generation is doing with their lives?

Since the answer to the last question is an emphatic ‘yes’, I had no choice but to write this piece.

It is no newsflash that a large portion of this country’s kids are partaking in far too much alcohol, drugs and sex to make most of us comfortable. Everyone’s looking for someone to blame: the media, the schools, the country, the parents.

Parents are in the best position to correct individual behavior. Certainly it is a difficult position. Teenagers don’t generally confess their illegal behavior. And many parents believe that their kids deserve privacy. No one wants to be the Mom or Dad who rushes up to search the bedroom the moment a child leaves for school. Privacy is important. Trust is important, though not always earned. And in the end, the main enforcer of justice in a child’s life must be the parent. But how do we discover if a crime has been committed?

Mothers and fathers of America, may I direct your attention to the internet?

The internet is an easy tool for your teenager, and it is oh-so-public. In all probability, your child has been using it for years to chat with friends on AIM, record personal thoughts publicly in a blog, or post pictures taken on a digital camera at the latest party. All of these tools have come together on myspace. Those of us who can’t get enough of airing our privacy like it because it’s extensive and easy-to-use.

It’s easy for parents to use as well.

I’ll give you a step by step introduction. Go to www.myspace.com. Click on ‘Search’. Type your child’s name in Friend Finder- first and last. Sift through the results, noting clues like photos and location.

Once you find your teenager’s profile, you will be able to view personal photos, comments from friends, blogs and much more. It’s not spying. Neither is it impeding on your child’s privacy, as this is the same information he or she makes available to millions of strangers every day. It’s good parenting.

It is possible your child doesn’t utilize this site, but with almost fifty million users just in my network alone, it’s worth a look. Perhaps your kid’s best friend or boyfriend is a myspace user. There are also other blog sites, such as blogger and livejournal, and sites where your teenager can post digital pictures. These are all harder to search through; with myspace, all that’s required is a name.

My little sister just turned eighteen and is a high school senior. We both have myspace profiles. She is my myspace ‘friend’. Through her high school career, I never found anything inappropriate on her profile page. Her seventeen year old friends are a different story. I see pictures of them with bottles of alcohol in their hands and comments about how drunk they were on New Year’s Eve. They answer survey questions about drug use and sex.

Most teenagers think their parents don’t know how to check up on their internet activities. Most teenagers are correct. However, this tool is available to you. It is possible to see what your child is doing with his or her free time without looking for a diary or drug traces or violating the private sanctity of the bedroom.

None of this matters if parents don’t use this information. There’s no site where your peers can check up on how you raise your children and if you discipline them for bad behavior. That’s your freedom and your choice. This piece is for those of you who care and who will act.

This has been my public service announcement.