Um, I Don't Understand How to Operate Your Shower...

I'm one of those who travels for the holidays; not to anywhere interesting but to the homes of friends and family who put me up in the spare bedroom, on the couch, or who kindly kick their small children to the floor so I have a place to sleep. These small children still seem to like me, because I'm their Aunt who they don't see that often and so I have the advantage of always being a novelty to them. Kids between the ages of 5 and 14 have a kind of instinctive caution about talking back, rolling their eyes, using the kind of foul language reserved for the bowels of slave ships, and borrowing my clothes, which they reserve for their parents and those who they see regularly. In fact, as long as I show my face only once a year, they actually roll their eyes TO me, in a conspiracy against their parents, and how "dumb" or unreasonable they are, especially when those parents ask them to eat vegetables, turn off the video games, or not to have sex with the goth guy in homeroom.

So all in all, it's great, except for the problem of the shower. I live in NYC where, on the Upper West Side where I live, the shower valves haven't changed since 1941 and therefore have a "Hot" device and a "Cold" device, clearly labeled, separated by a natural distance and incredible in their logic and simplicity.



I mean, just by looking at them, you know: 1) how to turn the water on, 2) how to make the water "Hot" or, alternatively "Cold", 3) how to get the water to come out of the overhead valve onto your head, 4) how to turn it all off at the end of the event. You can also figure out fairly quickly what to do if the water is: 1) scalding and your skin begins to redden and peel off, 2) freezing so that everything made of flesh rises in self-defense, 3) brown with chunks.

Let me be the first to report that this is not true outside of Manhattan. Apparently everyone else in the world lives in a house that was built post WW2, and at some point, some smart-ass engineers decided that having separate faucets was "too much trouble" or maybe simply not cool, and started building these things into one unit so that the person of average intelligence, and perhaps even people with advanced degrees, cannot figure out how to take a shower without being injured or asking a 7 year old for help.

This phenomenon is most obvious at the gym, where a shower needs to be fast, not only because other people are waiting, but because there’s always a chance that the naked girls with the “buns and abs of steel” might shove you out of the way because, let’s face it, they’re stronger and worked out harder and need showers much, much more than you.

I don’t live far from my gym, so usually I work out and walk home and shower there, with my normal, logical shower that leaves me confident and cheerful at my ability to operate something mechanical without breaking it or having to call in professionals. But sometimes I have to shower at the gym because I’m headed somewhere other than home and I don’t want to have people do that sideways-shifting-away-on-the-subway-bench that I do sometimes when people are… let’s say, unfragrant. So at my gym, here is what I’m faced with:



Now I get the color scheme, ok? I get it. Red is hot, and blue is cold; this is common most cultures and I don’t want to visit the countries where it’s not. But… please. What the hell? There is no way to figure this thing out without getting in there and just – doing it. This means, in my case, getting alternately scalded and frozen, at least twice, until I find the mid-point of water comfort. Those shrieks and whoops coming from the third stall? That’s me, and I’m alone and there is in absolutely no sex involved. The small crowd that gathers around the extra towels awaiting my exit exhibit the collective expression of a group that is concerned, but maybe not enough to risk their own lives to find out what is going on in that glass chamber. And of course, upon my exit, I act like I don’t know where the yelling came from either and walk out shrugging blithely at the be-toweled clique.

And the problem only gets worse outside of Manhattan. This is Cleveland. House of Brian. Nice house, modern, many bathrooms.



There’s an “H”, a “C” and an “Off” which you’d think would make things oh-so-obvious, but is it hot when the faucet handle is pointed at the H or when the handle is pointed at the C? Why isn’t there an arrow? Where’s the color scheme? There are many teen-agers at this house and if you think I’m asking their help, when I’ve already been humiliated not only playing Wii baseball, but even the low-tech board-game “Risk”, you’re nuts.

My family is a “Four Christmases” kind of a deal, so from Brian’s house, I went on to Alison’s (his ex-wife and my friend), also built in the era of the ambitious engineer. This shower is in the redone basement, and so it’s super special, and makes even less sense.



It’s a kind of diamond shape (and tastefully, looks like an actual diamond! Your guests will actually think you have the Hope Diamond in your downstairs bathroom!) and comes to a point, leading one to believe that if you point the point at one of the key letters (H, and C), you’ll have Hot or Cold water. Getting started here is the issue. You pull it out and then you have to dodge that spray until you can snake your hand in there and adjust it until you can safely get the whole body in there. A flushing toilet somewhere in the house can add layers of confusion and trauma, trying to understand whether it’s you controlling the spray, or some outside agent, and whether you should passively wait until things settle down, or go bold, adjusting wildly as armies of 13 and 14 year old girls dab their make-up upstairs, tossing little tiny pieces of toilet paper away, flushing each time, in their quest for Bratz-like slutitude.

I also visited Kelly who just redid her bathroom (what’s wrong with having an old, functional bathroom? People: leave your showers alone!).



This one stumped me utterly. The Barbie was ecstatic: I was glum. What’s that long metal thing over there? What does that do? How can that help matters? Why do we need extra devices protruding from the spigot? It was getting late and people were waiting for me for yet another blended family walk by the water. I tried, I honestly did, but ultimately I had to open the bathroom door and call for assistance. Her 7 year old, with an expression reserved for people who visit regularly (that is: disdain, annoyance), showed up and said, “Let me do it” and she did, getting it right the first time as I towered above her, wrapped in a towel, reminding her that I had a Masters and a driver’s license and also many boyfriends and my own apartment, which didn’t seem to impress her. This one required doing something under the faucet at the bottom, which I pretended I understood (like when I took Chemistry and stared dumbly at the blackboard for a whole semester), just so I could preserve some dignity and not let the little girl get the upper hand. “Oh yeah,” I said, “that’s what I thought, it’s so simple, much easier than mine at home,” I suggested.

The holidays are over and I’m back home and I’ve been taking showers with no problem at all, and planning my trip to Miami in March, hoping against hope that either the retro-rebuilt town hasn’t touched the showers since 1941 or has redesigned them for the simple-minded, or perhaps, that a smart 7 year old is down the hall.

Fingernails: I Don't Get it. They're Dead and Yet Still Giving Me Problems

It’s an internal conflict from which all women suffer - one that forms one of the basic struggles of female identity. It’s not dress size or hairstyle, career path or marital status. It’s our fingernail length.

Some people trumpet their identity via the buttons they wear on their lapels. Others have bumper stickers. When it comes to women however, fingernails are a crucial barometer of the female self. I am them and they are me: the truest bellwether of a transient identity.

In my life they've been long and polished (the "Young Business Woman" era) or short and dirty ("The Artist Years"). They've been a different length on each finger like a ragged graph of the stock market (“The Happy Gardener”). There have been periods where 9 were long and one short (snapped it using trying open a CD), or the left hand has been short and the right long (learning the guitar). They've had 6 coats of $15-a-bottle polish during some phases and gone stark naked during others. Every once in a while, I go through a period where I don't think about them at all. It doesn't last more than a week.

I have traveled extensively and bravely between the most extreme territories of fingernail length. I have explored the rugged inner realm of nails bitten-to-the-quick, and I have journeyed to the outermost regions of nail length, exploring the netherlands of practical fingernail possibility with talons extending a half inch beyond the tops of my fingertips.

In college as an art major I wore them short. I had to, of course: I was an artist. I wore overalls and clogs and wore my hair long and wild. My fingers were serious and functional and even if my paintings were mediocre, I was to be taken seriously.

A few years after I graduated however, I found myself curious about the world of women with beautifully done nails. Sometimes, wishing I were that kind of a woman, I too would get my nails done, and for a time, I would be one of those women. My posture would be better. I would toss my hair. I'd use my fingers more, to point at things that really didn't need to be pointed out; to run my finger down lists; to touch-tone dial. I would handle things gingerly, with the pads of my fingers. It affected my whole physical self: when I ran with long nails, I'd run "like a girl". Breaking one would induce dismay and anxiety. Sometimes I'd catch myself admiring them as if they weren’t attached to me: watching them twinkle as I pushed elevator buttons or set the dial on the washing machine to Permanent Press.

My fingernails have been an Almanac-like measure of my mood at various times in life. At one point in my dating past, a date could look across the dinner table at my hands and know approximately what his chances were for an extended evening (shaved legs were an equally reliable measure). If they were painted at all, that was a good sign. To know my fingernails was to know me. Sometimes, in the biblical sense.

Most women will tell you that their fingernail consciousness was raised initially by their mothers who typically guide their daughters from: “For heaven’s sake, that dog can dig his own holes!”, to our first introduction to the proper way to use a nail file. Not baked in a cake to break out of prisons like my four brothers insisted, but gently, on one's finger tips, in one direction only, at first making the nails pointed and then rounding them, carefully pushing back the cuticles so the "moons" show. That was then.

Things have changed, fingernail-wise. Like everything else that can adorn a human body, the decoration of the fingernail has come to mean something. These days you have moody colors that are mixed in blenders, mostly dark, from deep burgundy all the way to the very popular black. There are deep purples, dark blues and rich greens with glitter mixed in. You can have nails as metallic as the side of a toaster or striped like a zebra hide. If you put plain pink on your nails and still frequent the lower East side, you're saying something about who you are... and who you aren't.

Culturally, there are fingernail differences as well. Black and Hispanic women seem more likely to sport exotically long nails, painted with patterns that would make Juan Miro envious, perhaps imbedded with a jewel. There's the classic "French manicure": the white-tipped, flat-topped style which prime-time TV actresses and female newscasters seem to favor, representing both approachability and responsible journalism. And then there are the bright red claws of porn stars and men's magazine models, meant to both intimidate and entice.

I always thought having someone else do one's nails was a silly luxury -- until I had mine done. It’s like handing over one part of your body to the curators of a particular wing of a museum. Your nails become the fine canvasses a staff of experts are trained to restore.

My informal research (conducted across countless manicure tables) has revealed that most nail operations are run either by rows of small, lovely Asian girls, or in spas and hair salons by middle-aged Eastern European women with oddly smooth skin. When we sit down before them and extend our hands, what do they think? It’s a question that kept me away from the table for years. What must they think of a woman who can’t do her own nails? Now, I assume they are just waiting until I leave so they can get their own nails done.

Unlike hair salons, we don't walk in and ask their advice; generally women know what they want in a fingernail. Frankly, I've always been afraid that if I did ask for advice, the news would be bad; that I'd be nail-cast: "Honey, bright red just isn't you. You're just not the type. Here's a nice pink." You mean you don't see me with a jewel? It's that obvious I'm not a "Purple Passion" person? Can I at least have a darker shade of pink??

These days, my nails are plain: unpainted, mid-length, kind of between here and there, sort of 5'5", brunette, Midwestern average. Sort of like me. And for now, I'm content. But I see blue on the horizon. And it’s called “Midnight Sky Metallic”.

The Book Club: A great place to discuss Angelina Jolie's upper arms. And, oh yeah, books.

I was incredibly flattered recently when a friend whom I consider one of the most sophisticated and intellectual of my circle, invited me to join her book club. It's not that I don't already have many other intellectual things to do with my evenings (as long as "The Simpsons" is over), it's just that I was thrilled to participate in what has become the urban equivalent of sorority rush. So many of my friends had started or were already in book clubs that I began to fear I wasn't going to get asked to "pledge". In cities across America, large and small, book clubs are taking the place of extra-marital affairs as distraction for intelligent urban women, and if you haven't yet been asked to join a book club well, either you're a Foreign Legionnaire hiding out in a distant, sand-locked outpost of the desert, or more likely, it's only a matter of time.

For the present generation of women, book clubs became popular when Oprah began reading and promoting books on her daytime television show. This was of course in the days when first-time book authors were poor and grateful for any crumbs of attention that might be tossed their way, unlike the present, when 21-year-old authors are annoyed if they are the second guest on Leno. Soon after author Jonathan Franzen became irrationally insulted when Oprah read his book "The Corrections" and lifted it from the oblivion wherein it would have most likely lingered, Oprah decided she herself didn't want to be in a book club, complaining that there just not enough "good books" (perhaps she meant "humble authors").

The book club baton was passed to Kelly Ripa, which had the potential to make even the most bookish of us give up the whole thing for periodicals. But instead, the reading thing has become a newly found old pleasure that has sort of wafted into our collective unconscious like the smell of fresh bread through an open window. Book clubs provide today's over-extended women an acceptable way to socialize without the guilt of it being purely leisure.

Many people talk about how they used to read all the time when they were young and how much they used to love it. I for one, remember getting books for Christmas, usually Nancy Drew mysteries, and spending all that day reading, not speaking a word to my brothers (who were busy outside in the back yard with their own Christmas gifts, attempting to put each other's eyes out). Even then, girlfriends would pass beloved books to each other: mostly sweet, girlish stories about girl sleuths or clever airline stewardesses. These were supplemented of course by books we considered "sexy", by Erica Jong or Philip Roth, found on our parent's bedside tables or more likely, under their beds. A book that had a scene where two people disappeared into a bedroom or any mention at all of anyone's "panties" would send us into red-faced paralysis and would be passed around with guilty terror at slumber parties for the whole slumber party season.

(I could top even those by pulling out one of my father's medical journals, wherein photos of bizarre genital afflictions were guaranteed to send at least one girl screaming out of the room. These were met not with titillation but with wonder and would change the party dynamics so that instead of talking about sex, we'd end up discussing seriously tangential topics like, "What would you do if you didn't have any eyebrows?")

But most people find they just don't have time to read. It takes a certain kind of a commitment, not unlike exercise or marriage, all of which ultimately make you feel good but are awfully hard to start. So I was extremely pleased when my girlfriend Pam called me and asked if I would be willing to join her book club to which each core member had invited one friend. "How does it work?" I asked. "'How's it work?’ It's a book club!" she responded. "We choose a book, we read it and then we get together and talk about it. How hard could it be?" Not so easy as it turns out.

First of all, when you join a book club it means you actually have to read the books. No kidding, there's no way around it. And not every book is going to be one that you want to read or would even enjoy using as a paperweight. At these moments, when you see the nine hundred page life history of Moses Cleveland held up for your approval, you must either say "Yeah", "Nay" or "No way, Sister"! Of course the latter is generally considered rude, and reserved for gigantic leather bound books with dictionary sized print and tissue paper leaves, pulled out just as summer is starting and it's all we can do to finish our "OK!" magazines. To ensure that no one goes away thinking they'd rather have joined a knitting circle, the book decision process is a fairly democratic one.

The first thing we do in my book club is weigh the book. By that I don't mean we weigh its length against the time we have available or weigh it against other books of its genre, or weigh its educational value versus its entertainment ratio. I mean we actually weigh the book. Each of us in turn gets a chance to heft the book, holding it in one hand or both hands, lifting it up and down slightly, turning it over, seeing if it gets any lighter if we split it open and heft it again.

We utilize our own personal sense of weights and measures: "light" weighs about as much as a single fork: that would be your Penguin paperback and your pithy-quotes-at-the-cash-register type books. "Not too light" would be the approximate weight of a pair of strappy sandals in a shoe box, like for example, your latest Abused-Intern Tell-All, or the: I'm-A-Married-Woman-Who's-Having-Trouble-Having-It-All novel. A middleweight book might balance the scales against a wooden cutting board, depending of course on the thickness of the cover; those would be your "Memoirs of a Geisha" or a biography of someone with very little to say like, perhaps, Larry Birkhead.

"Heavy" as far as we're concerned would be the approximate weight of an empty clay casserole dish: those would be your original hardback editions of a typical Tom Wolfe novel or any one of the recent Looking-Back-At-the-Last-Century-By-an-Attractive-Newscaster tomes. "Too heavy" would be the weight of a full casserole dish, with maybe lasagna in it, which would include Webster's dictionary, anything by Salman Rushdie or any biography of a philandering politician from the '30s. It's not precisely that these books are "too heavy" in content but that they are in fact, just too heavy and have the potential of spraining your wrist if you try holding them with one hand, and will, in fact, demolish anything below them in your purse. They can be used effectively for self defense: one can always throw them at a mugger.

So now you have your assignment, and the first thing you do is look at the calendar and count each of the days between now and the date you have to finish the book, figuring in several days of trashy magazine reading, one or two Sunday papers, a couple nights of reality TV, and at least one indecipherable instruction manual for yet another digital product.

And then comes the reading. Not every book makes you long for the moment when you'll be alone with it, to crack its spine and dive into its world. Some of them sit on your nightstand like a fat Buddha, arms crossed, glaring at you, wondering when you're going to pick them up and get to work. Some of them make you so depressed by the third page that you have to rush out to a magazine stand to buy a "Vogue". There've been afternoons when I've sat among piles of laundry and dirty dishes, one eye on the clock, reading frantically to finish before the meeting that evening.

But every once in a while there's that one you'd never have picked up on your own: a book that is utterly enchanting or hypnotically interesting, or which makes you giddy with its observations and glad that there are writers like these. At those moments, you remember your love of reading, happy to be an explorer once again.

Our meetings are held at each member's house in turn about every six weeks. The reunion itself usually takes a good thirty minutes before we even get to the book, as follows: 4 to 5 minutes of telling each other how fabulous we look, 2 minutes denying how fabulous we look, 3 minutes complimenting each other's home furnishings ("Is that new?"), 2 minutes discussing how difficult or how easy it was to find the furnishings, 12 minutes talking about our spouse, child or boyfriend (or lacking those, the cute guy we rode up with in the elevator), and then roughly 8 minutes where we tell each other how we're doing ("I don't know; lately I've just been in a funk. Do you think I should get my teeth whitened?" to "We have finally concluded that my sister-in-law is an idiot," to "I've decided to get implants."). These are crucial bonding moments and are essential to the expediency of the actual meeting. Without them we've found the group tends to get distracted during the book discussion, breaking into subgroups to discuss shoes and Angelina Jolie's upper arms.

Like I assume most book clubs brag, our membership is made up of women who are strong, smart, independent thinkers who are, more importantly, very, very funny, capable of hilarious and pointed opinions. The discussion of the books is always interesting. A book we all love is rare, translating into an hour of favorite moments recalled and favorite lines reread aloud with reverential enthusiasm. More frequently is the book we all hate, for which the evening turns into a trash fest of the author, his or her beliefs, and the book jacket photo. The most passionate discussions erupt around book endings: half the group disappointed that for example, it didn't end happily; the other half insisting that it couldn't. After we've dissected the book to our heart's content, we eat (fattening food at a friend’s house doesn’t count), drink (lots) and chat, sometimes about topics the book has generated, more frequently about how unbelievably expensive it is to get a hair cut these days.

Once the selection of the next book has been made, our evening, for all intents and purposes, is over. Reluctantly we gather our stuff and head out, but the rate of chatter that starts up as we're nearing the door is like last call at a singles bar. We say our good-byes like we're standing on a dock watching a ship pull away, as we leave one world to reenter another.

New friends were not the point when the book club was started; we have barely enough time for our own. But being with new people, discussing things outside of the realm of redundant days and predictable conversation has been a powerful thing; an opportunity to use our intellect for more than figuring out how to gracefully exit a department store after our kid has thrown up on the clerk. It's not the books that keep us juggling our schedules, it's the whole package - the camaraderie, the conversation, the pure haven it provides in the context of lives filled with errands. For me, it has become a necessity for health and well being: like an aerobics class for the brain.

If you haven't been asked to join a book club (yet), start your own. The way I look at it, it's an organization devoted to the protection of at least one natural resource we can all get behind: our minds.

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Where Did They All "Vanish" To? A Mystery.

Have you noticed, as I have over the last few years, the abundance of articles with the phrase "vanished" in the title, along with "disappearing", "dying", and "perishing" (simply I suppose because writers are just getting tired of the word "vanishing")? Here's a small sample:

"Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril"
"Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace"
"Saving the World's Vanishing Shark Species"
"Vanishing Chilean Sea Bass"
"On Emptying Seas, A Vanishing Way of Life"
"Vanishing in the Wild, Mountain Gorillas"
"Louisiana's Vanishing Wetlands"
"Coral Reefs Vanishing Faster Than Rain Forests" (they're winning!)
"Vanishing of Frogs, Toads Tied to Global Warming"

and of course,

"The Vanishing Middle Class" (whose relation to Global Warming is the fact that those who control and blindly support big industry are out-sourcing and down-sizing at such a rate that your kids will be the only thing not vanishing, because they'll be living with you, never having found a job.)

More recently I've read about:

"Northeastern Bats Are Perishing and No One Knows Why"

and an update on the frog situation:

"Link to Global Warming in Frogs' Disappearance is Challenged"

The frog article makes the case that perhaps global warming plays a part but in fact it's a fungus that's killing off the frogs. Yes, Virginia, in many cases of these "vanishings" it is true, a mysterious fungus, or a mysterious cancer or a mysterious virus is what is killing off these species (check out the recently documented decimation of Tasmanian Devils).

But that's like saying it's not global warming that is flooding the low-lying parts of the world, it's water! Or it's not global warming that's shrinking glaciers, but excessive heat! It's part of the game that has even purportedly "intelligent" people dodging the issue entirely. "Having lost the argument about whether in fact life forms are disappearing, let's debate about what's making them disappear and make absolutely sure that we don't get blamed for this!" (they cry). "Whatever it is, it's not us!" (they cry) "...and who gives a hoot really whatever it is, as long as we don't have to change our lifestyles or admit we were wrong!!"

I know a few people who have, on principle (the same principle that guides those who believe it is impossible for man to have walked on the moon as well as the principle of "someone else will pick it up"), refused to see the Gore documentary "An Inconvenient Truth". These people believe it to be full of political propaganda and hysteria, and perhaps also, the truth, which, once commonly accepted, won't help any of those who still want to buy a Hummer. And insisting that they will never view the film, they have missed out on the indescribable fascination of watching as, systematically, almost all the catastrophes that Gore predicted 5 years ago when he first started to give his presentation, have come to pass. (If only he could predict the moves of the stock market as accurately!)

I don't know a better argument against the idiocy of denying that global warming is going to cause us some big hurt (and by us, I mean the world, and even rich people who are in another part of the world but whom we still bump into at Starbucks), than the fact that scientists on the side of the deniers never even heard of Global Warming until Gore and the world's environmentalists started yelling about it, and when their predictions started coming true, well, the naysayers (generally the political right) had to get some guys from the same think tank they hired to keep the tobacco companies in the black ("smoking is GOOD for you!") to start saying that Global Warming is natural, periodic, inevitable and has nothing to do with Greenhouse gases, and man-made pollution.

But if that's the case, and now, even these GW deniers say that GW is going to cause problems in the future, then why didn't these scientists (or "scientists") start warning us about it long before Gore? You've noticed that now even some conservatives (e.g., Michael Gerson of WaPo, and The Heritage Foundation) are conceding to the fact of GW. What they won't admit is that it's man-made.

But why, if it's a natural occurrence, did not one scientist on the conservative side predict the destruction of coral reefs, increasingly severe hurricanes, and decimating heat waves that were foretold ten years ago by Global Warming scientists and which we have been seeing the last few years? Wouldn't that have been helpful? I mean, the scientists who deny it now, could have as easily denied it then when the facts emerged and the reasons for the facts were just being promulgated.

Why didn't they (these climate change deniers) notice or predict, as Gore et.al. has and did, that there would be disastrous economic consequences of GW, along with preventable loss of life (remember the 2003 heat wave that killed 14,000 in France alone?), and suggest that perhaps we ought to worry about neighborhoods in low lying areas, along with our record albums stored in the basement?

Doesn't that seem odd?

Why were environmentalists who believe GW is man-made able to predict and warn about the problems that we face today, 40 years ago, but those scientists who are trying to sell us on the "natural cycle theory" totally silent, and caught off guard? Maybe they’re not good scientists.

But the reason, unfortunately, is more than simple incompetence. It’s because these anti-GW "experts" are pushing a theory purely to protect conservatives' investments in big industry. You don't hear them reminding us that they predicted melting glaciers and poles and killing heat waves, and that these phenomena were all completely expected in the grand scheme of things. Because those who deny global warming now, or even those who admit its reality now, never saw it coming.

It was the environmentalists who noticed that glaciers were receding, heat waves were becoming more frequent and increasingly lethal, droughts, devastating fires and floods were increasing in severity, and suggesting that, even if you lived on the prairie you might still consider investing in a row boat to tool around main street. The average environmentalist has been predicting issues related to GW for about 40 years. And in the last few years, the only brakes on this environmental juggernaut have been applied by those crazy tree-huggers and their insistence on truth.

Those nuts!

So what can you do with naive ignoramuses who continue to ignore and downplay this issue? Same thing you have always done - argue as much as you can stand, and then when they start getting all emotional and start attacking your virtue, your patriotism and your hairstyle, walk away.

Unfortunately sometimes you're sitting across a dinner table from them and although you may have the impulse to pass the mashed potatoes - to their heads! - you must not, because that's rude and not worth the loss of perhaps a very good side dish.

And you know what eventually happens? As much as these deniers argue and huff and puff and make fun, they quietly come around. They come over to our side of the argument so surreptitiously that we who have been warning and doom-saying never get to gloat (darn!). But that's OK, because even better than gloating is to have people convinced that this is a real issue and has to be addressed.

And people who were once in denial, once they "get it" become really passionate! People who convert (to anything) are typically even more devout than those who were raised with a certain set of beliefs. You know how people who quit smoking are absolute vigilantes when it comes to smokers? And become much more hardline than people who never smoked? Well that's how converts to environmentalism are. Guilt, more even than greed, is good!

So I welcome naysayers. I have to. I know they will eventually see the light (one more violent hurricane or drought or devastating flood in the red states ought to do it). Now we just have to work on the ones who don't believe in evolution. Forget about the ones who don't believe we walked on the moon. Let them hold onto something!

I Can't Get This Fucking CD Open...

In keeping with my theme of not being able to understand anything anymore (your shower, my thong), I explore the American specialty of sealing things so that you cannot open them without breaking into tears.

It’s a typical day at dcvdickens’ house. I rise and head for the kitchen where I put up water to boil for the coffee and figure out how I want to break the fast (sleeping being the only way I can manage that particular diet strategy of not constantly eating).

A box of cereal (purchased on sale – perhaps a “remainder”) so that instead of the usual $4.95, I got it for $2.99 – a steal when it comes to a box of flakes, let me tell you. Why the price of cereal follows so closely the price of a gallon of gas I don’t know, but it certainly seems to. But I digress. Because that’s sort of what I do. Sometimes my mind wanders and I forget the whole thread of what I’m trying to discuss as I find a pile of cracker crumbs on the cutting board and go to brush them off and notice that I don’t have any paper towels and start looking for the grocery list to add it and then realize I also need Cumin, which is a great, versatile spice that you can put not only in Indian food but many other… anyhoo.



The cereal box looms large, protective. It seems to sense I’m going to try to open it up and separate its contents from its container and it’s going to do whatever it can not to let that happen.

Somehow, since approximately 1998, cereal makers have decided it’s not enough just to want to have a bowl of cereal – you have to really, REALLY want it – and they now use a sort of Super Glue on that top seal that impedes easy entry, so much so that you have to be wiling to wrestle that plastic interior bag to the ground and pummel it to get to the goods. This is what happens.



So you end up opening the bag from the side upwards, rather than from the top down, leaving a giant cereal bag rip on the side. This wouldn’t be so bad in itself IF the cereal makers glued the bag to the inside of the box keeping the bag in there while you poured. This no longer is the case. They need all that glue for the top of the bag, so when you pour your cereal, the whole friggin’ thing slides out into your bowl.





Now you have enough cereal for 9 people. If there aren’t 9 people waiting for cereal, you must shovel the extra 8 servings of those flakes back in the ripped bag and stuff the ill-fitting bag back into the box (use your foot if you have to).

Milk.



The American fashion of hermetically sealing everything but your Stock portfolio continues when you try to get that milk carton open.



My “Milk Carton Open” knife. Can be found in most hardware stores.



Now that it’s open, it will easily pour, and I mean everywhere because the spout is totally deformed and weird, so make sure you have some of those paper towels handy!

How about some bacon and eggs?



Forget the bacon. I thought by “going Canadian” I’d have packaging that made sense. Nope. Their culture may have provided us some great comic talents, but we’ve exported our Super Glue.

After breakfast, I decide to blow my nose. This is not inevitable, but for purposes of this blog, must fall here.



The arrow indicates to pull up, easily tearing open the little pack just along those handy perforations. The perforations turn out to be decorative and the arrow is not a separate piece of material that might help with leverage but also purely decorative.



Therefore, ripping it open like you would rip apart a head of lettuce is the only alternative.



Especially if you have allergies and need a tissue before fluids overcome your ability to sniff them back up into your nasal cavities.

Later that same day, I attend a friend’s child’s school play performance. Outside, immediately before the show, we get the camera gear ready. This requires a DV tape.



The kids are massing we hear, it’s about to begin. “Can you get it open?” my friend asks, panic rising.

Not really. Where the fuck is the strip? Is there a strip? Are these corners vulnerable??
We hear the kids starting in the auditorium. This is not as urgent as some things, like say, toilet paper, but it’s up there and my friend is depending on me. Hurry!



As my friend started to get hysterical, I resorted to my teeth. Sparing you the picture, mostly because we didn’t take one as it wasn’t even funny anymore.

Back home, how about some music? This was a good movie, and I got the CD for free and why not load it into iTunes?



Why not? Because I can’t get the thing open. There’s no easy way to open a sealed CD. CD manufacturers have perfected the art of sealing their product, which is the real reason the music industry is in trouble and the reason people have resorted to downloading; because they can’t get their fucking CDs open.



Can't use my special "Milk Carton Knife" because they don't allow us any sharp weapons at work.



And of course, inevitably, later that day:



*Sigh*

Reading is highly underrated and my brother got me a subscription to “Wired”, sort of the last magazine I’d ever want a subscription to (unless they had a special feature on “Getting Your Electronic Products Open Without Losing A Fingernail”), but of course it’s the thought that counts.





That looks promising.



But this is really how I feel.



But you know, reading takes a distant second to having sex!!!



Oy. Remember what I said about toilet paper being an emergency? THIS is an emergency.

Please tune in next week, when I’ll explore the connections in back of my TV set and demonstrate how easy it is to figure out which speaker has blown.

Merry Christmas to all from the world of "House and Garden"!

My Boyfriend is Waiting But My Hands Are Still Wet: a Tragedy in the Theater Bathroom

T'was a date that I wanted to happen and did

With a man whose attentions for which I did bid

Using sweetness and batting of eyelids so coated

In make-up that friends of mine nodded and noted,

I couldn't lift up my own eyelids to see,

The person across in the mirror: it was me.



The lipstick I wore was so pretty and pink,

It said on the advert there'd ne'er be a kink

In approaching a man for his favor to seize,

For as soon as they saw it they'd ask me to "Please,

Kiss me, I beg you!" it said "Guaranteed!"

(And cost me just twenty-two bucks, a small bleed).



So ready I was for the man of my dreams,

That I shaved my legs twice with a number of creams,

And my underarms too, so that they were as bare

T'was if I'd made use of that product called "Nair",

Which stunk to high heaven if one can remember

And always left fuzz on your grill and your fender.



So next up was choosing the outfit to wear,

Something sheerly seductive to lure to the lair,

This man who I'd wanted for more than a week,

Since the first time we'd met and I'd had just a peek

At his talent at kissing which made my face blush.

In fact, in 8 days, I'd developed a crush.



So into the closet I plunged with a passion,

To find the right outfit, no slave me, to fashion!

For when it is up to a girl to seduce,

The clothing one picks must not bag or be loose.

The tighter it fits is the key to the night:

If you cannot breathe, then you've got it just right.



And find it I did! This white blouse made of cotton,

For peasants intended, but that was forgotten

Since women of urban adventure did pick

This pattern for access so blatant and quick,

That neither of you had to wait for too long

To begin the concerto where sex is the song.



I paired it along with a skirt that was slim

(even though my lush hips made the look somewhat grim),

But paired, the two bits set me up for the role;

The sum of these parts, just as great as the whole.

And the very last touch was just that: of perfume,

Like a Siren, this man was to face me: his doom.



The doorbell did ring right on time; I did note

That perhaps he was as happy as me to be smote

By a partner whose skills were so obvious to see,

That perhaps he'd spent 8 days too, thinking of me,

Because that's the best way to approach the first date:

With a hunger and wonder and lust that can't wait.



So open I did (just the door - don't be crude),

Since the guy was outside, and not one to be rude,

I invited him in (the apartment - you pervs),

Having had two white wines just to settle my nerves.

He had eyes just for me (I thanked God, since I noted

The dining room table with dust it was coated…).



And thus it began just as well as I'd hoped

For it seemed into trouble we'd gladly been roped.

It almost seemed pointless to go out to the show,

Since watching most everything else we would know,

That the hero and girlfriend would bond at the end.

Let's just stay home! For themselves they could fend!



But no, the whole point is sweet torture of course;

All the petting and leaning and sexual Code Morse,

(Or at least that's what women are wont to pursue;

For the best way to keep the attraction brand new

Is to drag it as long as one possibly can.

And that is the difference twixt woman and man.)



So off we did go, to the subway we entered,

But toward one another, our eyeballs were centered.

And even though people did bump us and shove,

If you'd looked at we two, you'd have thought "They are in love!"

And finally to the theatre we came,

With hands copping feels (that's the name of the game).



So for hours (just two), we sat close in the dark,

Sharing popcorn and bloodlust and fire and spark,

Touching elbows and fingers and shoulders and thighs,

But respectably so, noting neighboring eyes,

As Solo and Kylo did banter and weave,

And explosions and battles did rumble and heave.



(Just as much as our hearts in our mutual chests;

If they'd read our two minds, we'd be under arrest.)

And so finally, FINALLY, credits do roll,

'Cause the heat and our passion have taken their toll;

He can barely stand up, and me too, I'm not well

(If we're Catholic at this point, we're going to hell...).



So wanting to wash up (from popcorn, my dears!),

I head to the bathroom, to check out the mirrors,

And fix my ridiculous hair since I know

That my partner has mussed it (we were in the last row),

And to pee and prepare for the evening to come,

Anticipation for which caused my body to hum.



And so I did all of those things that I said,

Left my stall to wash hands and to check out my head,

When the worst thing a person can see in that room,

Did appear in my sight, dragging me into gloom.

Instead of the towels of paper you see,

Were those fucking hand blowers that really irk me!



They show up in bathrooms; the last thing you'd wish

For they are as useful as bikes to a fish.

You can stand there with only two drops on your hand

And the blower will blow it all over the land,

But it won't dry you off, because that's not its job

For it only makes noise, like a torch-bearing mob.



And so, there I was, holding hand into space,

Cooking flesh for no reason, as always the case,

And waiting and waiting for drops to disperse,

Which is part of the battle and part of the curse.

Just amazed at the ultimate nothing it dries,

And resenting the option to wipe on my thighs.



So now it's been minutes and longer I fear,

I've lost track of time, in my battle in here,

With the man of my dreams tapping toes right outside,

Yet I can't come out til my hands I have dried.

I'm mad at these things! Wreck my life, will they now?

For decades they've dithered, and I've made it my vow…



… to not let this thing get the better of me,

Yes, I'll stand here as long as the bathroom is free,

Wasting energy, time and the patience of folks

Gathered round with their own hands, awaiting for pokes,

In the air blast which nothing it does, take my word!

So long have I stood there, I feel like a nerd.



And slowly the bathroom does empty of others

No sisters are left (and there never were brothers),

Still shaking and waving my hands at this thing,

‘Til tears in the corners of my eyes do sting.

For I realize that 45 minutes have passed,

And who wouldn’t wonder why his girl is last.



And think as I do of this handsome young man

With blue jeans and white shirt and lovely firm hand,

A-waiting out there as concessions do close,

And he’s getting bored now, and beginning to doze.

But still in the palm of my hands I do find

That the moisture is clinging; to me it does bind.



And finally lights flicker off in the halls,

And all the employees depart with fond calls,

To each other, “is everyone out of this place?”

“Ah, no,” they respond, “there’s a nut in no haste,

To retreat from the bathroom where her hands are wet

From the useless devices in there, I’ll just bet.”



And just as the last light is ready to dim,

I give up the battle so hungry for him

And that body be-clothed in that fitted white shirt,

That I wipe off my hands at the end of my skirt.

And so I emerge worse for wear and still damp

To an empty theatre, a-glow with one lamp.



For my date has decided that this was enough,

After waiting one hour, he's left in a huff,

Thinking I was the one who had cast him aside,

When in fact in my mind I’d imagined the ride

That I’d hoped we would share to the end of the wire.

And so this is the reason I hate the Hand-dryer.