(continued from last night's list of ways to deal with dieting)
5. Your favorite restaurant does have something you can eat on the menu without ruining the diet. If you don't find it the first time, don't give up.
The only exception I've found to this rule is sonic. I've scoured the nutrition information for sonic numerous times and the answer pretty much is: don't eat at sonic. However, every local restaurant I've been to so far, I've found something that works. It usually takes a few tries to find the thing that really works well and works with the particular diet you're on, but 99% of the time, there's something there. After a few somewhat eyebrow raising visits to panhandler pie, I discovered that they have two meals on the menu that are great tasting and low calorie, and they have good soup and salad plates. The restaurant that almost made me give up was the Italian restaurant. I love arlo's, because it's some of the best Italian food I've ever had and one of the waitresses knows us by sight, but every time I went there, I ended up paying for it for the rest of the week. Yesterday, I found a thing that works! They have a plate that's basically spaghetti with white wine marinara and shellfish of various types. If I can break myself of the nasty garlic bred habit, I can go there for dinner now without having to worry about whether or not I can eat the rest of the week.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Let's try this again...
As pointed out here , my last couple of blog entries may sound discouraging to those trying to lose weight. My intention is not to discourage people from losing weight, which is why I thought about it and felt that way for at least a couple weeks before I posted it here. There's one reason for me posting this here, but it's twofold: validation-both for me and for other people. It's validating for me because in theory someone out there could see what I'm writing and understand. If I tell my husband or mother that I want to be fat again or I don't like my body they just say things like "you look great and you're just upset because you couldn't find butterfly pants today". This response is extremely well intentioned, but not very validating. Validation for others because I know that I am not the only person who feels this way. Somewhere out there is another woman watching herself change in the mirror going "damn, who is that?" and then wondering what's wrong with her for thinking that way. The truth is that there's nothing wrong with her thinking that way, and it's quite normal. While most people's experience with weight loss does not involve tearful fits ending in "I want to be fat again", it seems quite normal and rational to have a minor identity crisis when your body and your clothes, two things that define a large part of your identity, are changing so fast.
I learned to be comfortable with my body and see myself as attractive no matter how big I was. I was fat and attractive. My body has changed so much since February that Now I'm _____________________ and ________________. Thin and attractive? Gangly and ugly? Thin and one of those people who really looks better fat? Hell if I know. All I know is the image in the mirror has changed so completely that I have to look in the mirror twice before I realize who's body I'm looking at and that all these physical changes have necessitated a new wardrobe.
Most people probably don't kiss their clothes before they put them in the donation bin, but I don't doubt that other people get attached to the things they wear. As I said, this is part of what defines you as a person, not so much because the clothes dictate who you are, but they help transmit to others who you are. Clothes show off both your personality and your body. When your body is changing as much as it does when you lose weight, the clothes no longer show off your body correctly, which then means you need more clothes. Buying more clothes can be a good thing, but it can be really frustrating if the thing that you think speaks of your personality isn't in style or isn't available in your size. Shopping also feels difficult because you can no longer hold up an item of clothing and have any idea how it will look on you or if it will fit, not to mention being between sizes.
I've calmed down since Sunday and have started to realize a few things that help with the "who the hell is that and why does she have ugly clothes?" syndrome, so I thought I'd post them here in case anyone ever reads this and needs a little encouragement.
1.Clothes that fit properly.
To some degree, this goes without saying. If your clothes don't look right, then you don't look right. However, I have a lot of days when I th ink "damn I look terrible" and later, I realize that it's the clothes that are off. Often, they technically fit fine and don't really look all that "off" until I see myself in another similar item of clothing that fits more the way I like it to. For example, I have tight tank tops that I wear to dance. Something tight like that fits for a long damn time. However, if they are not skin tight, I look in the mirror and see either a gangly mess of twigs or a slouchy icky body. If I wear the skin tight shirts, all of a sudden, I think I'm attractive.
2.Diet sweets. These are controversial but I couldn't do it without sweet food, I don't like most fruit, and most fruit I do like is not made out of chocolate.
3. Realizing that chocolate is not the answer to everything.
I get stressed, I eat chocolate. I've always done this. When I'm stressed the chocolate I eat usually consists of a big milkshake, a huge ice cream cone, a multi-layered dessert, a whole candy bar or several pieces of candy. However, there actually was a day where I was craving chocolate ice cream because of stress levels where I occupied my time with something else for an hour or so only to find that my craving was cut in half-- I still wanted the ice cream, but I didn't feel like I was going to die without it.
4. Learning to be patient. After the teary eyed "I want to be fat" on Sunday that was brought on by not finding cool clothes and not being able to eat ice cream, we found a ton of clothes in the last store we went in and I was able to get a banana mango smoothie at Applebees which worked just as well as a sundae as far as I was concerned (on that day anyways). So, in the end, I got what I wanted, but it was really hard to make it through that whole day long enough to get what I wanted without saying "FUCK IT" and eating an ice cream sundae and not stopping until I was 195 pounds again.
Which brings me to something else I would like to talk about. Right now for me, Ice cream is almost as dangerous as heroine to an addict or a gun to someone who's suicidal. No, the ice cream isn't as lethal or damaging to my body as heavy drugs or bullets could ever be, but between life in general and my minor identity crisis, I feel like I've got a lot of problems and I'm in a lot of turmoil and the thing that could fix it all is sitting right in the freezer. This makes it really hard for me to see someone else eating ice cream, which in turn makes it miserable for them because I whine and pout and then they get upset and then I cry and get all kinds of dramatic because between the stress of not being able to eat and the stress of having someone upset with you, I'm about a breath away from walking in to the kitchen filling a bowl to the top with ice cream, pouring some syrup whip cream and sprinkles over it, eating every last bite of it, then licking the bowl clean and not going back on the diet ever again--which kind of scares me. Just like a drug addict, I know deep down that indulging will ruin lots of things I've worked hard for and will disappoint those around me and will make me feel like a failure, but sometimes it just feels like it would fix everything. The hard part is, I'm not sure what to do in this situation. Those around me don't need to be miserable or subjected to my drama because they want to eat ice cream, but I need some way to deal with the way I feel. The only things I have come up with are to go in another room, leave the house, go for a walk, etc. but that could be kind of disrupting to life, so I'm not sure those are the best coping skills for the situation. Anyone got any suggestions for how to handle stressful situations that involve food?
I learned to be comfortable with my body and see myself as attractive no matter how big I was. I was fat and attractive. My body has changed so much since February that Now I'm _____________________ and ________________. Thin and attractive? Gangly and ugly? Thin and one of those people who really looks better fat? Hell if I know. All I know is the image in the mirror has changed so completely that I have to look in the mirror twice before I realize who's body I'm looking at and that all these physical changes have necessitated a new wardrobe.
Most people probably don't kiss their clothes before they put them in the donation bin, but I don't doubt that other people get attached to the things they wear. As I said, this is part of what defines you as a person, not so much because the clothes dictate who you are, but they help transmit to others who you are. Clothes show off both your personality and your body. When your body is changing as much as it does when you lose weight, the clothes no longer show off your body correctly, which then means you need more clothes. Buying more clothes can be a good thing, but it can be really frustrating if the thing that you think speaks of your personality isn't in style or isn't available in your size. Shopping also feels difficult because you can no longer hold up an item of clothing and have any idea how it will look on you or if it will fit, not to mention being between sizes.
I've calmed down since Sunday and have started to realize a few things that help with the "who the hell is that and why does she have ugly clothes?" syndrome, so I thought I'd post them here in case anyone ever reads this and needs a little encouragement.
1.Clothes that fit properly.
To some degree, this goes without saying. If your clothes don't look right, then you don't look right. However, I have a lot of days when I th ink "damn I look terrible" and later, I realize that it's the clothes that are off. Often, they technically fit fine and don't really look all that "off" until I see myself in another similar item of clothing that fits more the way I like it to. For example, I have tight tank tops that I wear to dance. Something tight like that fits for a long damn time. However, if they are not skin tight, I look in the mirror and see either a gangly mess of twigs or a slouchy icky body. If I wear the skin tight shirts, all of a sudden, I think I'm attractive.
2.Diet sweets. These are controversial but I couldn't do it without sweet food, I don't like most fruit, and most fruit I do like is not made out of chocolate.
3. Realizing that chocolate is not the answer to everything.
I get stressed, I eat chocolate. I've always done this. When I'm stressed the chocolate I eat usually consists of a big milkshake, a huge ice cream cone, a multi-layered dessert, a whole candy bar or several pieces of candy. However, there actually was a day where I was craving chocolate ice cream because of stress levels where I occupied my time with something else for an hour or so only to find that my craving was cut in half-- I still wanted the ice cream, but I didn't feel like I was going to die without it.
4. Learning to be patient. After the teary eyed "I want to be fat" on Sunday that was brought on by not finding cool clothes and not being able to eat ice cream, we found a ton of clothes in the last store we went in and I was able to get a banana mango smoothie at Applebees which worked just as well as a sundae as far as I was concerned (on that day anyways). So, in the end, I got what I wanted, but it was really hard to make it through that whole day long enough to get what I wanted without saying "FUCK IT" and eating an ice cream sundae and not stopping until I was 195 pounds again.
Which brings me to something else I would like to talk about. Right now for me, Ice cream is almost as dangerous as heroine to an addict or a gun to someone who's suicidal. No, the ice cream isn't as lethal or damaging to my body as heavy drugs or bullets could ever be, but between life in general and my minor identity crisis, I feel like I've got a lot of problems and I'm in a lot of turmoil and the thing that could fix it all is sitting right in the freezer. This makes it really hard for me to see someone else eating ice cream, which in turn makes it miserable for them because I whine and pout and then they get upset and then I cry and get all kinds of dramatic because between the stress of not being able to eat and the stress of having someone upset with you, I'm about a breath away from walking in to the kitchen filling a bowl to the top with ice cream, pouring some syrup whip cream and sprinkles over it, eating every last bite of it, then licking the bowl clean and not going back on the diet ever again--which kind of scares me. Just like a drug addict, I know deep down that indulging will ruin lots of things I've worked hard for and will disappoint those around me and will make me feel like a failure, but sometimes it just feels like it would fix everything. The hard part is, I'm not sure what to do in this situation. Those around me don't need to be miserable or subjected to my drama because they want to eat ice cream, but I need some way to deal with the way I feel. The only things I have come up with are to go in another room, leave the house, go for a walk, etc. but that could be kind of disrupting to life, so I'm not sure those are the best coping skills for the situation. Anyone got any suggestions for how to handle stressful situations that involve food?
Monday, June 19, 2006
The usual family drama
My parents were here Friday through this morning and they'll be returning Wednesday evening after a lovely stay in glacier national park in Montana. Things have actually been great. My parents have been accommodating and I have managed not to get upset over knives being left on the counter or similar minor things that usually make me grimace. I do however remember some grimaces over my mother setting a limit of "a couple of outfits" for when she took me clothes shopping (to help defray some of the insane cost of replacing clothing when losing weight). I also remember a couple of tearful visits to fashion bug and the ice cream shop respectively that ended in me blubbering "I want to be fat again." I really do try not to create drama with my parents and I try not to create drama in general, but let's face it, I'm dramatic. That's just it. I am not inentionally overdramatic, but I have dramatic emotions and therefore I act like a drama queen. I try really hard to tone this down, but at this point I either accept that this is the way I am, or I go find a sympathetic nurse who's familiar with potassium chloride injections (talk about being dramatic...).
Anyways, I think the issue that led to "I want to be fat again" bears addressing again. Weight loss is hard fucking work and for me it's been rewarded with lots of compliments from other people, a body I don't like, giving up every cool item of clothing I own and not being able to find replacements, and watching everyone else eat ice cream sundaes (or pie or doughnuts) while I sit at the table with nothing because I have to save points for the calorie laden dinner we are planning to have (or just had). Sometimes (especially to someone as dramatic as me) it seems like it would be easier and more fun to just gain back to 195 pounds (20 pounds lower than I started) and stay there forever. Of course, my orange flowered dress wouldn't fit, and everyone else would secretly think I looked horrible, and I really would look horrible because I wouldn't gain the weight back in the same places. I stick with it because I know that in the end I will be glad I did it and that I will look in the mirror and not see a gangly fucking monkey who moves like a series of broken twigs held together with bubble gum. For now, I just kind of have to suck it up and hang in there, which is no easy task for us drama queens since we always need results yesterday to keep us from slitting our wrists.
Anyways, I think the issue that led to "I want to be fat again" bears addressing again. Weight loss is hard fucking work and for me it's been rewarded with lots of compliments from other people, a body I don't like, giving up every cool item of clothing I own and not being able to find replacements, and watching everyone else eat ice cream sundaes (or pie or doughnuts) while I sit at the table with nothing because I have to save points for the calorie laden dinner we are planning to have (or just had). Sometimes (especially to someone as dramatic as me) it seems like it would be easier and more fun to just gain back to 195 pounds (20 pounds lower than I started) and stay there forever. Of course, my orange flowered dress wouldn't fit, and everyone else would secretly think I looked horrible, and I really would look horrible because I wouldn't gain the weight back in the same places. I stick with it because I know that in the end I will be glad I did it and that I will look in the mirror and not see a gangly fucking monkey who moves like a series of broken twigs held together with bubble gum. For now, I just kind of have to suck it up and hang in there, which is no easy task for us drama queens since we always need results yesterday to keep us from slitting our wrists.
Monday, June 12, 2006
The things people don't tell you about weight loss.
When you go to weight watcher's or talk about weight loss with anyone with half a brain, they tell you how great it is to feel thin and how nice it is to be down two pant sizes and how much healthier it is to not be waaaayy off the doctor's weight charts and how much more energy you have and how much your risk of disease is lowered, and how you can fit into clothes you haven't in 8 years. What they don't mention are the grief and loss issues. Yes, I said, "grief and loss". I know that I'm not the only person who has looked in the mirror and gone "who the hell is that? The person who was in that reflection a few months ago was attractive, I don't even know this person" I also am absolutely positive that I am not the only person who lets out a little sigh every time a cool item of clothing goes in the donation bin. Sure, it's great that I now need thinner clothes, but goddamnit I loved those dragon pants, and layne bryant doesn't make them anymore. And it's not just one item of clothing. I had tons and tons of stuff that I loved. Sure, some of it's getting replaced with stuff I love just as much, but some of it isn't and won't be for at least a while. How much sense does it make to buy something for $30-$50 if you know you're only going to wear it for a few months anyways? So, yeah maybe eventually I'll replace the dragon pants with something cool, but 1. it won't be the same and 2. for now I have one fancy pair of jeans (not as cool as the dragon pants)which is rapidly getting too big and 2 plain pairs.
As much as it is good that I need new things and am getting new clothes and a new body, I can't ignore the part of me that says "damnit, I liked those things." I don't like them enough to make myself unhealthy to have them, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly who the heck that person in the mirror is. She certainly doesn't look like me and she certainly doesn't wear my clothes.
I know i'm not the only person who feels this way, but no one talks about it because weight loss is such a positive thing and no one wants to jinx it by saying "damn, what's going on with my body and my clothes?". I'm not jinxing it; I will lose the weight, but I've certainly been saying "damn..." for the last month.
As much as it is good that I need new things and am getting new clothes and a new body, I can't ignore the part of me that says "damnit, I liked those things." I don't like them enough to make myself unhealthy to have them, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly who the heck that person in the mirror is. She certainly doesn't look like me and she certainly doesn't wear my clothes.
I know i'm not the only person who feels this way, but no one talks about it because weight loss is such a positive thing and no one wants to jinx it by saying "damn, what's going on with my body and my clothes?". I'm not jinxing it; I will lose the weight, but I've certainly been saying "damn..." for the last month.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
it's been 8 long years...
Like a typicial college kid, i ate alot of ice cream and french fries and hamburgers and egg rolls. This extended into young adulthood when I had even more of a selection of decadent and yummy food and society's normal sense that faster is better, even when it comes to eating. At some point, this ended up with me being 250 pounds. I gradually meandered my way down to 195 through a combination of exercise and medecine (not weight loss medecine, but a side effect is weight loss). I meandered my way back up to 215 pounds through changes in jobs and a fondness for the m&m jar that used to sit on the desk next to mine in birmingham.
Let's back up a little bit...
My aunt has always had a fondness for buying me clothes. Every couple of years, she would take me shopping and buy me extravagant amounts of clothing that I picked out. One year, I picked out several rather cool things including a patchwork broomstick skirt, a tie-dye jimi hendrix shirt and a short and sassy black dress with orange flowers all over it. This dress has stuck with me through all the weight changes and all the new lives and new jobs... in the closet. I was no longer able to wear the dress at about the age of 20, but i stuck it in storage and said "i will wear this again." Through the years, my mother gave away other clothing that i had "outgrown" because of my fondness for chocolate to people who needed it, but I made her promise never to give away this dress. Every couple of years, i would think to myself "you know, this dress is still in the closet, and I'm not any closer to my goal... maybe it should go" but I always decided I wasn't ready to let go. This december I had almost given up hope because after going from a size 22 to an 18 a year and a half prior, I was back up into a 20 mainly due to my love of the incredible food at disney.
So, I started going to weight watcher's. A couple of weeks ago, I realized that I was halfway to my final weight goal and had barely lost a full size. I am in an 18 and the dress is a 14. If I lost 30 pounds and barely went down a full size, then it would make sense that another 30 pounds would be another size at best. So, i had to sit with the realization that my dress may never fit again and I may have to finally drop it in a trash bag and take it to the thrift store.
One morning after trying on something almost brand new only to find it was too big already (thank god for thrift stores when you're losing weight), I grabbed the dress and said "I know this won't fit, but I haven't tried it on in a couple of months."
So I tried it on and it fucking fit. My eyes teared up and I danced around the bathroom at 7:00 in the morning like a moron. After EIGHT fucking years, it fits MOTHERFUCKER!
Let's back up a little bit...
My aunt has always had a fondness for buying me clothes. Every couple of years, she would take me shopping and buy me extravagant amounts of clothing that I picked out. One year, I picked out several rather cool things including a patchwork broomstick skirt, a tie-dye jimi hendrix shirt and a short and sassy black dress with orange flowers all over it. This dress has stuck with me through all the weight changes and all the new lives and new jobs... in the closet. I was no longer able to wear the dress at about the age of 20, but i stuck it in storage and said "i will wear this again." Through the years, my mother gave away other clothing that i had "outgrown" because of my fondness for chocolate to people who needed it, but I made her promise never to give away this dress. Every couple of years, i would think to myself "you know, this dress is still in the closet, and I'm not any closer to my goal... maybe it should go" but I always decided I wasn't ready to let go. This december I had almost given up hope because after going from a size 22 to an 18 a year and a half prior, I was back up into a 20 mainly due to my love of the incredible food at disney.
So, I started going to weight watcher's. A couple of weeks ago, I realized that I was halfway to my final weight goal and had barely lost a full size. I am in an 18 and the dress is a 14. If I lost 30 pounds and barely went down a full size, then it would make sense that another 30 pounds would be another size at best. So, i had to sit with the realization that my dress may never fit again and I may have to finally drop it in a trash bag and take it to the thrift store.
One morning after trying on something almost brand new only to find it was too big already (thank god for thrift stores when you're losing weight), I grabbed the dress and said "I know this won't fit, but I haven't tried it on in a couple of months."
So I tried it on and it fucking fit. My eyes teared up and I danced around the bathroom at 7:00 in the morning like a moron. After EIGHT fucking years, it fits MOTHERFUCKER!
Sunday, June 4, 2006
when did TV stop sucking?
I remember when Whitey and I would follow 2-3 shows per week and fill in the rest of the time with episodes of "dexter's laboratory" and "garfield and friends" that we recorded on the replay because we knew we would have hours and hours on end that we would want to watch TV, but would be unable due to the suckage that was television.
Now we watch so many shows we can barely keep up. I'll go through some of my recent favorites (including some that are now on DVD).
1. "Battlestar Galactica: the new series" on SciFi - This show is absolutely riveting. It is written by some of the head writers from Star Trek deep space nine, and they were allowed to take all the good things they did on that show, and do them even better here. They do tons of character development, and I think my favorite part of this show is the human element. These people are smart, cunning, strong, emotional individual and flawed. There is no utopic overtone with this series. It's a bunch of real people stuck on a bunch of space ships running from a relentless enemy trying to find a home. They don't all say please, thank you, and "captain, it could be a reasonable hypothesis that the cylons might attack at 23:32 because 23:32 is a significant number in the programming of the cylons" They say "move it", "frak you", and "Damnit, i'm telling you the cylons are going to hit in five fraking minutes and you're gonna kill the whole fleet because you're so sure I'm wrong." Great fucking series.
2. "Lost" on ABC - It surprises me that this show ever even got approval to be on network TV because it's so unorthodox and so good. It's a show about some people on an island. The way they wrote the show was to cast it first and then write characters around it. When they started out, they didn't know what the show was going to be about other than "some people crash on an island". They go nuts with the character development and how that plays out in people's interactions, actions and reactions. They also have thrown some nice, bizarre, but not ridiculously contrived twists in there. Actually, this show really throws out some drama and some craxy plot lines without it being ridiculously over the top. The writer's have found an incredible balance between keeping you guessing and not turning the show into an evening soap
3. "Black. White." on A&E (or maybe it was bravo) - This was a six week series where they took a black family and a white family and stuck them in a house together, and through the use of "revolutionary makeup techniques" (air brushing most likely), they were able to make them the opposite race when they went out into the real world. The star of the show turned out to be a 17 year old girl with the determination of a mack truck and a wonderful open attitude. It's worth it to watch the series just to watch her blossom and to see the world through her eyes. Everyone else on the show has interesting perspectives and conflicts as well. It's really intriguing to see their path of discovery (or non-discovery in some people's cases) and the way they go about it. I'm socially conscious because of my career, so this naturally appealed to me, but my husband, who works in computers and not social work, loved this show too.
4. "Wonderfalls" on DVD - Fox screwed this one over royally. They didn't advertise it hardly at all, and they put it in a horrid timeslot and then they pulled it after three episodes. This is a show that needed some time to get word of mouth out because it's not the type of thing alot of people would watch at first glance. IF they had run the whole first season twice, they would have been swamped with letters saying "omg when does wonderfalls season start? tell them to hurry" in between seasons. But as it stands, there was only one season and they were lucky to get it released on DVD. The series is about a Smart ass gen y slacker who starts being spoken to by god. I know, it sounds campy, but it's not. It's dramatic and funny and speaks to anyone with a heart, soul, and a cynical sense of humour.
5. "House, MD" on Fox - House is a brilliant doctor who works on all the near impossible hospital cases and solves them all while arguing that he is right regardless of how stupid it sounds, making buttsex jokes about his colleagues and breaking into his boss' office to snoop through her trash. The combination of mystery, drama, and off the cuff humor in this show keeps you on your toes the entire hour.
The music is also awsome in most cases because thomas neuman (of american beaty fame) writes most of the cues. Like nay other popular show, they use the occasional bad pop song or soft rock ballad or whatever (i wish they wouldn't), but overall it's some of the best music i've heard on a TV show.
The only bad thing about house is the promos. If you've ever seen the promos, you probably think it's a cheap ripoff of ER because they say things like "A mother is ill, a baby is dying, and you will NEVER. GUESS. WHAT CAUSED IT." This is a stupid promo for a show like house because the show is about the doctors and the process they use to figure out the tough cases and the nasty remarks that fly around the room when they are. The baby is a plot device to keep the show going, not the focus of the show.
6. "the Henry Rollins show" on A&E - If any of you know of Henry Rollins recent spoken word tours, you're probably already hooked on the idea of a TV show by him. For those of you who don't know, Henry rollins is a pretty famous musician who was the lead singer of black flag and the rollins band and he now does spoken word tours nationally, internationally, and for the USO. He gets up on a stage and talks for two hours about being a musician, the stae of politics, or whatever it is that comes to mind, and he is INCREDIBLE. So now he has his own show on A&E where he has guests on including Chuck D, and Oliver stone. He Chats with them about their achievements but not in a "so, i heard you're in a movie" sort of way but more in a "your latest movie, 'cinnamonhead' is about the war in the middle east. Tell me about your views and a little bit about the process that lead to you making this movie" sort of way. He also snidely pokes fun at modern technology and public figures and has some incredible (and not necessarily well known) musical guests on the show such as frank black and death cab for cutie.
7. "My name is Earl" on abc(?) - This is a quirky, funny show about a guy who was a complete asshole to a lot of people and has made a list of all his wrongs and is trying to correct them. We haven't actually been following this one very well, mostly because we follow so many other shows right now, but when we do happen to catch it, i'm usually pretty entertained. Jason lee is absolutely perfect for this kind of show because he balances just the right amount of cynicism, cunning and dubiousness to make earl a believable character and earl's world a believable place. Everyone on that show does a bang up job of keeping the quirky little world right where it needs to be.
There are others, but i'm drawing a blank, and i need to get to washing the dishes so we can move them to the new house(damnit). I'll see you guys in a few weeks.
Now we watch so many shows we can barely keep up. I'll go through some of my recent favorites (including some that are now on DVD).
1. "Battlestar Galactica: the new series" on SciFi - This show is absolutely riveting. It is written by some of the head writers from Star Trek deep space nine, and they were allowed to take all the good things they did on that show, and do them even better here. They do tons of character development, and I think my favorite part of this show is the human element. These people are smart, cunning, strong, emotional individual and flawed. There is no utopic overtone with this series. It's a bunch of real people stuck on a bunch of space ships running from a relentless enemy trying to find a home. They don't all say please, thank you, and "captain, it could be a reasonable hypothesis that the cylons might attack at 23:32 because 23:32 is a significant number in the programming of the cylons" They say "move it", "frak you", and "Damnit, i'm telling you the cylons are going to hit in five fraking minutes and you're gonna kill the whole fleet because you're so sure I'm wrong." Great fucking series.
2. "Lost" on ABC - It surprises me that this show ever even got approval to be on network TV because it's so unorthodox and so good. It's a show about some people on an island. The way they wrote the show was to cast it first and then write characters around it. When they started out, they didn't know what the show was going to be about other than "some people crash on an island". They go nuts with the character development and how that plays out in people's interactions, actions and reactions. They also have thrown some nice, bizarre, but not ridiculously contrived twists in there. Actually, this show really throws out some drama and some craxy plot lines without it being ridiculously over the top. The writer's have found an incredible balance between keeping you guessing and not turning the show into an evening soap
3. "Black. White." on A&E (or maybe it was bravo) - This was a six week series where they took a black family and a white family and stuck them in a house together, and through the use of "revolutionary makeup techniques" (air brushing most likely), they were able to make them the opposite race when they went out into the real world. The star of the show turned out to be a 17 year old girl with the determination of a mack truck and a wonderful open attitude. It's worth it to watch the series just to watch her blossom and to see the world through her eyes. Everyone else on the show has interesting perspectives and conflicts as well. It's really intriguing to see their path of discovery (or non-discovery in some people's cases) and the way they go about it. I'm socially conscious because of my career, so this naturally appealed to me, but my husband, who works in computers and not social work, loved this show too.
4. "Wonderfalls" on DVD - Fox screwed this one over royally. They didn't advertise it hardly at all, and they put it in a horrid timeslot and then they pulled it after three episodes. This is a show that needed some time to get word of mouth out because it's not the type of thing alot of people would watch at first glance. IF they had run the whole first season twice, they would have been swamped with letters saying "omg when does wonderfalls season start? tell them to hurry" in between seasons. But as it stands, there was only one season and they were lucky to get it released on DVD. The series is about a Smart ass gen y slacker who starts being spoken to by god. I know, it sounds campy, but it's not. It's dramatic and funny and speaks to anyone with a heart, soul, and a cynical sense of humour.
5. "House, MD" on Fox - House is a brilliant doctor who works on all the near impossible hospital cases and solves them all while arguing that he is right regardless of how stupid it sounds, making buttsex jokes about his colleagues and breaking into his boss' office to snoop through her trash. The combination of mystery, drama, and off the cuff humor in this show keeps you on your toes the entire hour.
The music is also awsome in most cases because thomas neuman (of american beaty fame) writes most of the cues. Like nay other popular show, they use the occasional bad pop song or soft rock ballad or whatever (i wish they wouldn't), but overall it's some of the best music i've heard on a TV show.
The only bad thing about house is the promos. If you've ever seen the promos, you probably think it's a cheap ripoff of ER because they say things like "A mother is ill, a baby is dying, and you will NEVER. GUESS. WHAT CAUSED IT." This is a stupid promo for a show like house because the show is about the doctors and the process they use to figure out the tough cases and the nasty remarks that fly around the room when they are. The baby is a plot device to keep the show going, not the focus of the show.
6. "the Henry Rollins show" on A&E - If any of you know of Henry Rollins recent spoken word tours, you're probably already hooked on the idea of a TV show by him. For those of you who don't know, Henry rollins is a pretty famous musician who was the lead singer of black flag and the rollins band and he now does spoken word tours nationally, internationally, and for the USO. He gets up on a stage and talks for two hours about being a musician, the stae of politics, or whatever it is that comes to mind, and he is INCREDIBLE. So now he has his own show on A&E where he has guests on including Chuck D, and Oliver stone. He Chats with them about their achievements but not in a "so, i heard you're in a movie" sort of way but more in a "your latest movie, 'cinnamonhead' is about the war in the middle east. Tell me about your views and a little bit about the process that lead to you making this movie" sort of way. He also snidely pokes fun at modern technology and public figures and has some incredible (and not necessarily well known) musical guests on the show such as frank black and death cab for cutie.
7. "My name is Earl" on abc(?) - This is a quirky, funny show about a guy who was a complete asshole to a lot of people and has made a list of all his wrongs and is trying to correct them. We haven't actually been following this one very well, mostly because we follow so many other shows right now, but when we do happen to catch it, i'm usually pretty entertained. Jason lee is absolutely perfect for this kind of show because he balances just the right amount of cynicism, cunning and dubiousness to make earl a believable character and earl's world a believable place. Everyone on that show does a bang up job of keeping the quirky little world right where it needs to be.
There are others, but i'm drawing a blank, and i need to get to washing the dishes so we can move them to the new house(damnit). I'll see you guys in a few weeks.
where'd she go?
I just wanted everyone to have a head sup that I won't be around much for the next two to four weeks. Right now, we are in the process of moving to a new house. Once we are moved into the new house on monday, we will not have internet access for 10 days. On day 11, my mother and father get here to visit for a week. So, I won't be posting anything for 10 days, and then I won't be posting much, if anything for the next 7-10 days after that.
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