Debra Galant Explains the Universe

Um, thanks, I think it's a compliment

So I find myself on a new blogroll today. And unlike Mike, who lists me under Women I Love, or Ricky, who has me under People Who Are Not Scum, But I Like Them Anyway, in this one I'm simply lumped in as a member of the Older Bloggers.

Oh, why thank you very much. What's next? Showing up on a list of fat bloggers? Boring bloggers?

But what did I expect? I'm the one who signed up on The Ageless Project, which says "we're sending the message that the personal, creative side of the web is diverse and ageless." I even gave the actual year of my birth *gasp*: 1955.

It turns out that Times Goes By: What It's Really Like to Get Older is, in addition to being the latest notch on my Technorati belt, a pretty cool place. It's written by someone named Ronni, a veteran journalist, and to start with, the banner consists of 10 pictures of her, starting as a child, and continuing through adulthood and decades of bad hairstyles (include a 70's-style 'fro), to a photo that one presumes is current. But what's really original about this blog is its subject. It's about aging, for goodness sake. It doesn't pretend to be young or hip. It's just funny and intelligent.

Like many of us geezers.

Last weekend, when my husband and I went to see "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," someone outside the theater was giving out yellow slips of paper advertising a free screening of "An Unfinished Life," which is apparently an unfinished movie starring Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lopez. The screening was to take place on Wednesday, and though we didn't go, we briefly considered it. Wouldn't it be fun, I thought, if we could all go, the kids too. So we looked to see if the offer came with the requirement that attendees be at least 18.

It did.

It also required that nobody be over 54, either.

We were, to say the least, shocked. I mean, no, we're not yet 54. But it's like those scenes in Logan's Run, the movie in which anybody over the age of 30 is, well, not welcome to be alive anymore. 54 is coming, and for one of us it's coming fairly soon.

So, what are they thinking? It's not like people over 54 don't buy anything. They probably have more disposable income than anyone. They're the ones with second homes and golf-club memberships. Supposedly it's that the over-54 crowd's consumer preferences are so calcified that advertisers gain nothing by flashing their wares at them. Or maybe it's that nobody over 54 has any worthwhile opinions about the movies.

That would include Robert Redford, right? He was born in 1937.

So it's time to talk about age and aging and our society's fixation on youth. And Time Goes By seems a good place to start.

Unless, of course, you'd rather just take us all out and shoot us.

Children are like really bad house guests

You know the kind, never cleaning up after themselves, always eating you out of house and home, going into your bedroom to borrow steal your make-up, tying up your phone, demanding to be driven to and fro.

Sure when they arrive, it's exciting. I mean, what could be more fun than the appearance of a good-looking carefree kind of guest who promises to turn your humdrum little life into an endless adventure? You get all jazzed for their appearance, even going to the trouble of decorating a room for them, never imagining that this honored guest will one day yell shrilly at you just because you tell them one of their friends is on the phone. For example.

Oh right, and meanwhile, halfway through their stay, they declare themselves a vegeterian, which requires that you prepare an entirely different menu for them.

Plus, they never know how to do anything around your house.

"Mom, the internet's not working."

"WELL WHY AM I THE EXPERT ON FIXING THE INTERNET?" (You're getting a little irritated.) "I MEAN, YOU'RE A KID. KIDS ARE SUPPOSED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT COMPUTERS THAN GROWN-UPS!"

Blank stare.

But thy're fun-loving creatures, these kids. They think everything's a game, one long opportunity to play one-on-one basketball. Say you're sitting on the porch, paying bills. "Can we play basketball now?" Or you're answering e-mail. "How about some basketball?" And finally:

"Can I have a sleepover?"

Don't you love it when your guests invite other guests? Other guests who won't eat the salmon you're making for dinner?

Or they say, "What are we doing tonight?" Like, excuse me. Do I look like a cruise ship entertainment director to you? I'm sorry but the programming for this evening is: GET YOUR OWN LIFE.

You know, I like guests who stay for a weekend, but when they stay for a whole week -- the week of spring break to take a hypothetical -- and they're underfoot all day long, day after day after day, it's time to double up the Prozac.

Wine, somebody, bring me wine! (Oh I'm sounding like one of them.) Wine, tranquilizers, a stun gun.

Monday's a school day again. The guests will be leaving -- for seven hours at any rate. Hooray!

Hey Rox. Look!

Just after Rox made me get rid of the bright yellow banner because it was frying her retinas, I discover this:

you are yellow #FFFF00

Your dominant hues are red and green, so you're definately not afraid to get in and stir things up. You have no time for most people's concerns, you'd rather analyze with your head than be held back by some random "gut feeling". Your saturation level is very high - you are all about getting things done. The world may think you work too hard but you have a lot to show for it, and it keeps you going. You shouldn't be afraid to lead people, because if you're doing it, it'll be done right. Your outlook on life is very bright. You are sunny and optimistic about life and others find it very encouraging, but remember to tone it down if you sense irritation.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

"You have no time for most people's concerns." What? There are other people?

Well, maybe subtle, mellow, buttermilk yellow counts. Found (where else?) over at Spanglemonkey's.

Malaise and dysfunction spreads from coast to coast

In addition to the made-for-TV destructo viruses going 'round, and the ones you get through e-mail attachments, and the ones they didn't find in Iraq, Bakerina seems to have contracted an existentialism virus, the main symptoms of which, I gather, are that you don't give a shit about anything. Or, in Bakerina's case, about anything but dessert. Meanwhile, Jo is writing a novel with a plague-like toxin with the potential of wiping out the human race; not to mention the fact that she's grumpy and bored. And Roxanne has outrage fatigue.

Me? I hate to spoil the fun, gals, but I don't even have a pollen reaction. It was glorious out all day; I sat on the porch and talked for three hours with a new friend; I got a bike ride in; and the kid across the street completely reformatted the downstairs computer and now it's good as new.

Wait! I was just about to post a pretty picture of the cherry tree in our front yard shedding its little blossoms on the grass, when the phone rang and we discovered that the second cordless headset phone I've gotten from Circuit City (having returned the previous one) is also a piece of crap. So I have to go back there again to return it and I have no idea if I saved the receipt.

Now are you happy?

Guess who just called

So I'm walking around the kitchen, putting away groceries and thinking there was somebody I'm supposed to be calling. You know that feeling? I know there's somebody I have to call.... calling, calling.... come on now addled brain... who could it be?

And the phone rings. Well, methinks. Maybe this is the person now, reading my mind.

Caller ID is unhelpful, managing only an OUT OF TOWN.

"Hello?" I ask expectantly.

"This is John Kerry."

And yes it was! Well, a recording of him anyway. Press 1 if you plan to support us in the fall. Then a second menu. Press 1 if you want to give money. Press 2 if you want to help in some other way. Press 3 if you can't help now but still plan on voting for me.

And please leave us your e-mail. Say it slowly into the phone.

Interesting. Man, I've got to blog this! Then another call comes in. Just the friggin' Salvation Army. Back to groceries. Take Margot to the high school. Come back. Groceries. Oh yeah, I was going to blog the Kerry call!

But I still don't know who I was supposed to call. I know there's somebody... come on, addled brain....

Maybe it was just the call to the husband, telling him I was going for a bike ride, and preparing him for a kitchenful of nonperishables still in bags.... maybe....

UPDATE: Ok, I remembered.

Oh yes, and don't burst a blood vessel. The Salvation Army is a very nice organization that just happened to call when my mind was on something else.

Movie recommendations, anyone?

Partly in answer to all you iPod users who put your playlists on your blogs, I've added a new feature to my sidebar. Introducing: my Netflix queue.

For those of you who don't already have or know about it, Netflix sends you DVD's by mail. You keep a list, and you can have any three at a time. They send you mailers. As soon as they get one back, they send out the next available movie in your queue.

But that's only half the fun. The other half -- dangerously addictive for someone who logs as much internet time as I do -- is the software which tells you which movies you'll like based on your rating of movies in their database. Hours of fun, I tell warn you.

So, here's my queue. Tell me if any of these flicks are stinkers. Maybe I'll delete them from the queue. And, based on my preferences, recommend some other movies I might have missed.

To make it even more fun, let's institute a 1-5 rating. But why stars? Why not... Universes? I give Being John Malkovich (1999) a 5-Universe rating. What about you?

Guilty pleasures

Rox is trying to launch a new meme and hoping that the traffic will catapult her higher into the blogosphere. Well, the more power to her, because she links to me.

All Rox wants is for you to confess five guilty pleasures. Go help her out.

Mine were:

1. Blogging when I should be... (anything)
2. Mee Krob (it's nothing but noodle candy dressed up as Thai food)
3. Watching "The Apprentice." (With apologies to my mother-in-law and everyone else who thinks more highly of me)
4. Trying every interesting-smelling upscale handcream in every interesting-looking yuppie store
5. Visiting museum gift shops (and enjoying them more than the real exhibits)

Netflix says

We just got our first shipment from Netflix today, and we've learned one thing already. We'll probably have to get a new DVD player. Noah wanted to watch Season 2 of 24, but we booted him off the main TV so we could watch The Magdalene Sisters. Unfortunately the Play Station II's DVD feature doesn't seem to be working, so Noah couldn't watch 24 upstairs. He had to go back to writing song parodies.

But the Magdalene Sisters. Wow. Powerful. Or, as Warren said during one particularly harrowing scene: "the feel bad movie of the year." Boy does the Catholic Church come off bad in this movie. Hard to believe it really happened.

So what does Netflix recommend now? Enjoyed by members who enjoyed these movies:

-- Shattered Glass
-- Capturing the Friedmans
-- Mrs. Brown
-- The Hours

Well, Netflix, I've seen all of them. Tell me something new.

Still, I'm excited to see what shows up in my mailbox next. It's kind of like Christmas, um, I mean Chanukah every day.

Weapons of mass destruction: found

Right here, in Prime Time. The Cordelia virus on 24. The Plague, tonight, on West Wing. Maybe they couldn't find anything in Iraq, but I wouldn't count on an Anthrax-free finale of Friends.

The Al Franken weight loss plan

From Audible.com: 9 hours, 40 minutes of Al Franken making you laugh so hard that other people in the gym give you strange looks.

Yes, the elliptical trainer is so boring that you want to slit your wrists, but on the Al Franken Weight-Loss Plan you'll laugh so hard you almost won't notice. Calories burned per 30 minutes: 323. Calories burned for total play time: 93,670.

Well, a girl can dream, can't she? Besides, I'm gonna need a publicity photo for "Rattled."

Of course, if that doesn't work, there's this:

Body Wrap at Home to lose 6-8 inches in one hour. With Bodywrap we guarantee: you'll lose 6-8 Inches in one hour 100% Satisfaction or your money back

(spam)