Mah Stories: America in Primetime

 Did you watch America in Prime Time? I loved it. It's a 4-part documentary about TV with interviews from TV writers and actors. Each one of the four episodes focuses on a TV archetype: The Independent Woman, The Man of the House, The Misfit, and The Crusader. The writers and showrunners have the most interesting insight about their characters and stories, but it is also really fun to hear Hugh Laurie, Edie Falco, and Michael C. Hall weigh in. The series touched on many intriguing points that I like to think about such as,

Where is feminism now? I maintain that TV is doing a better job of exploring this than movies. And Mary Tyler Moore, you are Laura Petrie and Mary Richards? That's like how Sir Ian McKellen gets to be Gandalf and Magneto.

And what about men? Do they need their own specific movement to rescue them from ineffectual apathy and meaninglessness? Or will Madmen and it's romanticizing of misogyny forever mire the sexes on different planes: Men yearning for their manly, button-downed past while women look forward with hope to an egalitarian and humane future?

I think Hawkeye Pierce was as formative an influence on me as some of my teachers were. As one writer explained, you can't watch two thirty-minute episodes of M*A*S*H every day of your life and not be affected by it. It's true. Ima get real here: I've spent more time with Alan Alda than I've spent with my dad. I almost voted for him when he ran against Matt Santos to replace Josiah Bartlett! Almost. But YOU KNOW Hawkeye would have voted for Matt Santos. (Bleeding heart. Sigh. Me too.) (Which is why Barack Obama is now president.) It was a baby, not a chicken!

And one of the writers from Freaks and Geeks basically explained the meaning of life to me. He (a freak or a geek, presumably) said, "If you were popular you were in the center of the action and you weren't observing it and you weren't having thoughts about it really because you were living it." This explains everything that doesn't make sense on Facebook about why people don't remember that they don't know me and that I hate them! This explains everything.

He went on to say, "The envy and resentment and all these emotions make the creative person want to do a satirical take on it." Thank goodness for these unpopular TV writers. Feeling shunned gave them time to make some pretty interesting observations about life. Not being a joiner frees up a lot of time. Or so I hear.

Also, the guy who writes for The Wire can't abide the violence in Dexter. Is this similar to how I can't bear to watch Law and Order SVU but The Walking Dead doesn't phase me? I don't think so.

And finally, interviews with Carl and Rob Reiner pretty much prove the 80/20 Principle which would indicate that 80% of the best TV comes from 20% of the Reiners.

I Am Grateful for Gratitude

I can't believe it's been two years since I have been thankful. I am still thankful, especially for Tivo. I am thankful for other things, too:

I am thankful for Clinique's Happy. I am thankful for washers and dryers. I am thankful for neighbors with gardens. I am thankful for full shade. I am thankful for Ellen's exuberance. I am thankful for Ben's compliance. I am thankful for Sam's valor. I am thankful for Maggie's compassion. I am thankful for jobs that pay regularly. I am thankful for my dog, who I hate. I am thankful for non-pointy logs to sit on. I am thankful for the tireless service and thoughtfulness of bishops. I am thankful for LDS Philanthropies. I am thankful for Benadryl and Tylenol and modern medicine in general. I am thankful for fetal monitors. I am thankful for morticians. I am thankful for my husband's hair. I am thankful for my children's health, well-being, emotional intelligence, good looks, and existence. 

I am thankful for this blog. I am thankful for at least 100 people every day who read it. I am thankful for compliments. I am thankful for the Tipsy Baker who recommends my blog to people. I am thankful for Carly's late-stages-of-pregnancy candor. I am thankful for iChat. I am thankful for Google. I am thankful for iPhones. I am thankful for Steve Jobs. I am thankful for carbs. I am thankful for seat belts. I am thankful for a fridge that dispenses ice and cold water. I am thankful for the benefit of the doubt. I am thankful for Pinterest. I am thankful for normal people. I am thankful for daylight savings. I am thankful for Big Lots. I am thankful for a mother who never criticized my appearance or gave me issues about food. I am thankful Christian likes to make dinner. I am thankful for the liberal leanings and moral fortitude of the unflappable Jordan Ferney. I am thankful for mommy bloggers. I am thankful to be a mommy blogger. I am thankful for the good women of Utah county and their acceptance of me as a working mom and then as a stay-at-home-mom and as a blogger and a writer and as a person who likes to go out to lunch and not can.

I'm thankful for the great sacrifice of Severus Snape. I am thankful for enduring selfless love. I am thankful for real wands. I am thankful for magic. I am thankful for the priesthood. I am thankful for the foresight of Dumbledore--and for his foibles. I am thankful for the forbearance of the Weasleys. I am thankful for Neville's heroic rhetoric. I am thankful for my own fully-constructed non-serpentine nose. I am thankful for movies and books and TV shows that are good and awesome. I am thankful a zombie apocalypse is not happening right now. I am thankful for NPR and PBS. I am thankful for Sherlock Holmes.  I am thankful for the PHS Cross Country team. I am thankful for trustworthy, non-perverted coaches. I am thankful for Ben's teacher, Mrs. Stutz. I am thankful for people who do their church callings. I am thankful for people who accept church callings. I am thankful for people who put up the flags on holidays, take down the chairs on Sundays, and clean the church on Saturdays. I am thankful for the beautiful dresses available at Ross for $11. I am thankful for undemanding friends. I am thankful for flexible book clubs. I am thankful for funny anecdotes that aren't boring. I am thankful for nude fishnet tights. I am thankful for straight teeth. I'm thankful for discretion. I'm thankful for generosity. I'm thankful for pizzazz. I am thankful for people who make tamales.

Approaching 40: My Rules

Today my husband turns 40. I turn 40 next year. I would like to approach middle age with a modicum of dignity--just a modicum. So I can go into that good night real gentle-like.

I don't have it all together yet. I think I might get it together by the time I'm 50.  For now I just have a few rules to live by. If you are much younger than me you might want to start working on these things. If you already do them--good news! You can coast until you hit 40. And if you are older than me (how do you even know about blogs and how are you reading this right now?) please let me know where to focus my efforts over the next 10 years.

I have to make my bed every day. Devil-may-care at 29 becomes slovenly at 39.

I can't wear pants that are too short or too long. This is a hard one, but unkempt at 29 becomes scroungy at 39.

I go to bed at midnight unless I'm out partying, which I'm not. When you see 40 year-olds trolling around on the web at 2am you feel sorry for them, don't you?  I don't want your pity.

Know your binge: Some people are sweet and some people savory. I am savory, which means I eat as much potatoes and gravy on Thanksgiving as I want. If I'm too full for pie I don't feel sad. (No regrets.)

I have to use self-tanner all year. Hey, if you aren't rich or thin and your personality isn't great you can at least not have white legs. It's for the world I inhabit as much as it is for me.

I don't swear. By the time you hit 40 you have either fostered a salty sophistication or you haven't. I haven't and it's too late to start. Swear with creativity and verve or don't swear at all but you can not swear only when you get angry because WHAT KIND OF A PSYCHO ARE YOU? We aren't the Hulk, ladies.

I can't push out loud gas. I know, right? It was such a great gag for so long.

I can still wear Converse but they have to look new. This rule might be different for lesbians. I don't know.

I can't be in love with Edward Cullen. I'm not, but if I were I'd squelch it. People should squelch more, generally.

I can't eat suckers. I can still live a full life and have fun--I'm just not going to eat suckers. Eating a sucker after age 40 makes some kind of weird statement that I'm not interested in making.

There you have it.

Picture Pages

Skeleton say, "I know the scriptures are true, man."

The 10th doctor and the 11th doctor, obviously.

Look who just came out of the Tardis!

Look who's going into the Tardis!

Mime, Ladybug, Cowboy, and Santa say, "Happy Halloween, man."

Mime say, "Oooops!"

I really hate it when people throw costumes together at the last minute.

In our family we weigh our candy, then sort it, then make a rainbow out of it, and then the children lay under it. Often the children will "trade" their candy in at the dentist's office: We bring in our cavities and swap them for fillings. KIDDING! We "trade" them in at the doctor's office: We bring in our obesity and swap it for insulin. KIDDING! We "trade" them in at school: We bring in hyper-activity and swap it for No Child Left Behind initiatives. I kid--we eat it.

Ellen took this picture of herself and I think she might be a goth now.

Don't you wish you had a big brother to paint your fingernails?

Have a nice day!

Books I Read in October: 2011

I was excited about the new Fall TV season, but I've already given up on so many shows. Sigh. I really don't care about anything new except Up All Night. I've also started watching The Walking Dead. I love to imagine the actors who play zombies being all actorly about their craft: "I love working with Shane. He's a very, very generous actor and never wastes bullets." "I inhabit my character completely. It's what I do. I can't not pull out veins and gobble them up." "People probably think it's easy to stumble around moaning and staring and hungering for human flesh and to be completely honest with you--it is easy--but it's surreal, too."

I have demoted a few shows to "watch while reading" status. After that it's just a few clicks away from "Cancel Season Pass." That's life.

So I read 4 books last month. For those of you keeping track, that's 61 books this year. Here's how I read so much: I'm really, really smart. (Unlike a zombie! FACIAL BURN.) Just kidding. I'm not that smart. But I do make time for reading by having very few friends, hobbies, or interests. It is, obviously, a trade off. 


The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

This is a pleasant and well-written book about a family with three sisters and all the weirdness between them. It's good. Not great, but good (in my estimation). And they're obsessed with Shakespeare, which is fun but something you might hate in real life.

Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe

I LOVE post-rehab Rob Lowe. He knows everyone and has led a surprisingly interesting life. This is a very entertaining book. I think Rob Lowe seems like a great guy--still married, kind of funny, thoughtful father,  lit-rally one of the nicest guys I know.


Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese

This is such a cool cookbook. It tells you what is worth making from scratch and what you should just go ahead and buy. It's written by our beloved Tipsy Baker and when I say "written," I do mean that she writes the heck out of this book which I read cover to cover. It's interspersed with essays and descriptions of food and mishaps and obsessive chicken and goat acquisition. Hailing from an LDS, northern-Utahn grandmother, Jennifer Reese proves that there is a Mormon mommy blogger in all of us.

See further proof here:

Oh Brandon! Get a Mormon Mommy blog already, would you?

And I just finished A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

This is a clever book. It's smart and well-written and compelling despite it's R-rated nature which is usually a turn-off for me. I don't necessarily recommend it because its depiction of the human condition is just a little bleak for my taste. I don't love this book, but I admire it. It's interesting and modern--it's more modern than post-modern. It's post-post-modern. One whole chapter is a PowerPoint presentation which is super meta. Cool. The book is a series of stories about different people, all somewhat linked, which revolve around youth culture and the music industry.  There's a lot of depravity in it which I don't tolerate well--it gets me down. But it's remarkable in its way.

Plus, Jennifer Egan beat Franzen for the Pulitzer with this book! I hate that guy so, HOLLA.