PunkKittyDiddy

Want To Be "Plucky"? What About "Unflappable"? Just Add A Thesaurus-Toting Publicist To Your Entourage!

I have read and loved Vogue magazine ever since I was 12 or so, mainly thanks to the in-your-face, eyeball-gouging aesthetics of its haute couture and high fashion photography.  I actually think there is some artistic merit to be found in a well-constructed ball gown.  Now, in Vogue, generally the fancy frocks are displayed on models who are doing something silly and incongruous, like, say, frolicking with a well-greased bowling team in Brooklyn, but no matter.  Photography is a recognized art form, too!  So me thumbing through such a magazine might not be the exact equivalent of spending an afternoon at the museum, but I can at least tell myself I'm soaking up a wee smattering of artistic residue of some sort when admiring the handiwork of wildly creative designers and photographers.

Then I go and read the ubiquitous celebrity profile, which not only twists my insides into a highly acidic pretzel, it counteracts whatever iota of art appreciation karma I might have otherwise managed to acquire had I just stuck to looking at the pretty pictures. I know I'm a mug for losing ten minutes of my life to even reading a celebrity profile in the first place.  But I had a quiet moment this morning, made possible by some crayons and a stack of scratch paper that managed to capture Z.'s attention for a spell, so I decided to catch up on my back copies of Vogue that I had only skimmed through since their arrival........ 

You couldn't really miss the headline on the cover that accompanied the picture of a particularly gleaming Kate Hudson.  "You Can't Keep A Good Woman Down:  Now A Single Mom, Kate Hudson Comes Up Smiling!" the cover proclaimed.  Wow - a movie star is somehow summoning the strength to smile through single motherhood?  (Surely the entourage, household staff, also-a-movie-star mom and giant bank account help a tad?)

Don't read it, I told myself.  Don't read it. You'll only whip yourself into an indignant lather.  Actually, you're already in an indignant lather....if you read this, your head will finally explode in outrage.

I should mention that Vogue is the very same magazine that irritated me years ago with a profile of another female movie star, and specifically with mention of how, following her father's death, this woman went into self-exile at a dear friend's Italian villa to mourn.  When she emerged months later, she was touted as "brave" by the author of the article.  Now, of course, the death of a parent is soul-crushing, gut-wrenching stuff.  But how many people have the luxury of going into exile at a friend's Italian villa for months on end in order to deal with their grief?!  What about the people who only get a few DAYS bereavement leave from their job?  For which they have to ask permission?!?

Ergh.

Not surprisingly, once again I got what I deserved by reading another bootlicking piece about the miraculous *resilience* of celebrity.

This article about Kate Hudson was subtitled, "Sunny Side Up!"  See, this is because Hudson is plucky!  And spirited!  And zany!  Yes!  This is a young woman who is sooooo upbeat, she "cracks herself up watching her scenes in playback"!  And all these happy hijinks despite enduring a divorce from a rock star and subsequent ill-fated romance with a handsome fellow movie star! 

Awwwwwwww.

Actually, should we chalk it up to chutzpah, or to the fact that Hudson has a personal assistant who travels around with her on errands, and another assistant at home who doubles as a nanny, and security, and assorted other household staff (many of whom are mentioned in the article), and let's not forget the fabulous beach house in Pacific Palisades where she can escape from the insanity of it all.....?!??  Maybe I'm a jerk for taking some easy potshots at "this generation's Meg Ryan," but I think even I could squeeze out an ounce or two of sunny, sparkling, glass-half-full effervescence from my otherwise steeped-in-sour-grapes guts if I had a fulltime staff to help me out with life's little chores and obstacles.

What about my sister in law, M.?  She just gave birth to her third kid not too long ago, and has a 15 month old and a four and a half year old already under her belt to tend to.  No, unlike Hudson, M. hasn't launched her own eco-friendly hair product line in her *spare time,* but she has managed to not have a nervous breakdown or kill anyone, which impresses the hell out of me.  Where's her photo spread in which she's wearing Gucci while being lauded as "plucky" or "vivacious" or "self-possessed"?!   

Perhaps having a publicist with a well-worn thesaurus is this season's accessory du jour.

This was still on my mind today as I drove home from grocery shopping, trying to find curbside parking outside our apartment building.  After 20 minutes of driving around and finally landing a spot, I got to unload the car, which was parked a block away from our front door, and navigate our building's stairs one heavy grocery bag at a time, with a wriggling toddler under the other arm the whole time.  If a photographer had been on hand to capture this little adventure, I'm pretty sure the accompanying captions wouldn't be utilizing descriptions like "exuberant." 

Dude, I wouldn't mind taking a stab at being "unflappable" in Dolce and Gabbana while my butler unloads the car instead, but such is not my lot in life.  Though feel free to check me out looking "disgruntled" in last season's Old Navy, or "a little irritated" in something from the clearance rack at Ross, while I tackle the household chores and toddler wrangling sans support staff. 

I should probably also lay off reading any more celebrity profiles in my free time, lest my imaginary caption of, "huffy hot-tempered hostile homemaker" becomes permanently typeset..........

Me Eat Pretty Again One Day

Z. and I met B. for lunch on Friday.  About halfway through the meal, I began to feel sorry for the ever-brave B......because eating with Z. and I can cause just about anyone to lose their appetite.  Food by the fistful is shoveled into a gaping piehole, with the mouth inevitably proving too finite a space for all that saliva and soggy mush, especially when yammering attempts at simultaneous conversation are underway........excess food oozes back out of the mouth, down the chin, over the cheeks, sometimes landing with a wet, gooey plop onto the table, only to be sucked back up again in a greedy gasp of gluttony......and the sounds that accompany this?  All that slurping, gulping, growling, gagging and sucking? I can admit it's gross.

And that's merely how I roll.  I look refined next to my kid.  Although Z., on the other hand, has a more socially acceptable excuse for her paltry table manners - being a toddler and all. 

Yeah, my once-passable dining etiquette has taken a nosedive, but in my defense, I have no choice.  I'm hoping it's just a phase, but lately, there's a very short time frame during which Z. is willing to sit (relatively) cooperatively at any restaurant table.  By "very short," I mean four minutes. And if I don't consume MY entire meal within that four minute window, most likely I won't get to eat.  Period.  Thing is, I like to eat.  In fact, I get reeeeeeeeeaaally cranky if I'm hungry, so forgoing food is not an option, lest I otherwise be forced to turn to serial killing as a means of easing tension.  So it's either me feeding like a lion after the hunt, or me unwinding with a machete, some plastic tarp and a windowless van.  Comparatively speaking, I think I've chosen the more socially responsible option.  But it's not any prettier, as far as options go.

Let's take Friday's lunch as an example.  What do you do when faced with a good-sized cheeseburger, a side of fries, and a diet Coke, and four minutes in which to consume all this? 

Well, you don't chew, for starters.   I've had no choice but to borrow a page from National Geographic - specifically the one on which the reticulated python has unhinged its jaw in order to swallow a yak whole.  Of the python in such a scenario, at least people are often generous enough to say something along the lines of, "Isn't it a miracle to watch nature in action?"  In my opinion, my newfound ability to swallow an intact cheeseburger is just as (a) miraculous, and (b) imperative to my survival, but I'm rarely on the receiving end of open-minded admiration from bystanders.....if anything, my little parlor trick triggers all but the most stalwart of gag reflexes.   

All I can say is sorry - especially if you have to eat at the same table, or nearby.  If I may paraphrase David Sedaris:  me eat pretty again one day.  Just not any time soon.

The Green-Eyed Monster Not Only Attacks, It Gives Lap Dances.....

OK, OK, I confess......ever since I saw her on the Oprah show, I've been more than a little envious of Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody's recent success.  I don't begrudge her that success.....by all accounts, the movie is brilliantly written - adding it to my Netflix list is the best I can do at the moment in an attempt to one day confirm this. In the meantime, I checked out her blog, and yes, she's an incredibly funny and saucy writer.  See, her blog got the attention of some power agent type guy (or someone of similar influence - they were a bit hazy with detail here), who helped her land a book deal, and he further encouraged her to write her first screenplay, which he shopped around for her, and voila - Juno has since hit the big screen. 

I can take the time to temporarily swallow my pride and throw a heartfelt, "You go, girl!" in her general direction.  But yeah, of course I'm envious.  I've been schlepping screenplays around for several years or so, and pitching novels a bit longer - alright, fine........ not consistently, no, but there've been some concentrated bursts of near-ambition on a semi-regular basis.  And I'm still trying, damn it!  It's not like success is a finite resource, either.  (Well, maybe measurable success is in limited supply if you're an Olympic gymnast specializing in twisting yourself into a pretzel while balancing on parallel bars, and you don't win the gold medal given out for the best pretzel-twisting parallel bar performance, because there IS only one gold medal doled out every four years in that particular example, but besides that......there's enough success to go around for those of us with slightly less specialized talents.)  So, one day, victory can be mine as well! 

The thing is, how did this power agent type guy find his way to Cody's blog?  Please tell me it's sheer coincidence, or some sort of innocent mix-up, that her blog happens to be entitled, "Pussy Ranch." I mean, maybe this guy is a cat person, and was surfing for pictures of cute fuzzy kittens, and he naively but understandably believed that "Pussy Ranch" guaranteed a good time perusing pics of cute fuzzy kittens in chaps and cowboy hats, or with ponies, at the rodeo, or something.  That could be the case, right?   

On the other hand, Cody did used to be a stripper, and began blogging about her experiences - with tremendous wit and a unique voice, absolutely, but it can't hurt to be describing lap dances instead of dirty diapers or bad television when looking to expand readership.  It's hard not to be further disheartened by the fact that this agent who discovered her might very well have been one of only five power agents on the planet who was spending his online time actually going to the trouble of reading about stripping, instead of just cutting out the middle man and surfing porn sites directly.

Maybe I should change the name of my blog to Big Titty Diddy?

Come on, admit it - that's catchy......

Adventures in Channel Surfing: "Make Me A Supermodel"

Convalescing has its perks (albeit few).  More leeway to catch up on viewing television instead of dusting it, for one thing.

Make Me A Supermodel starts where America's Next Top Model left off, and the world is a far funnier place because of it.  I happened to catch my first episode last night.  Geez, I needed that.  Kind of hard to believe that a whole sub-genre of elimination-based modeling competition reality shows has emerged, but whatever.

Added bonus that this show goes where ANTM feared to tread, on a number of levels - for one thing, they've thrown himbos into the mix!  Oh yeah!  Upon initial contemplation, you might assume that the words "genius" and "male model" could never peacefully or convincingly co-exist in the same sentence, but watch and learn: it is genius that Make Me A Supermodel has seen fit to shove some male models onto the catwalk, along with the requisite skeletal 19 year old girls, for our viewing pleasure.   I guess it just appeals to my feminist side to have dim-witted boy toys to poke fun at, too.

Frankly, it's always gonna be amusing to hear aspiring models of either gender waxing eloquent about how they're NOT just modeling because they are, as Ben Stiller's Zoolander once so eloquently put it, "really, really, really ridiculously good-looking," but also because they, like, want to inspire other young people out there to follow their dreams and believe, like, that anything is possible.  Heck, anything is possible if you are really, really, really ridiculously good-looking, and your only goal in life is to be photographed appearing really, really, really ridiculously good-looking, right?

Beyond the oft painful attempts to wax eloquent, there's the more literal pain associated with the waxing of assorted body parts, which again has become something of a mandatory scene in the modeling show sub-genre, but at least the boys breathe some new life into it.  In last night's episode, the pack of himbos twitter nervously amongst themselves after being herded into a beauty salon for a waxing session.  We then proceed to watch one lad with Farrah Fawcett hair get his nipples waxed, and he giggles like a demented Cro-Magnon schoolgirl when asked to describe the experience.  In fact, he lifts up his shirt to reveal the hairless nipple, and even though he was actually there at the salon for the waxing, he seems stupefied all over again as to how his teats came to be naked.  No, really - you have to see the expression on his face.  This scene so beautifully encapsulates the most perfect possible use of the word "stupefied."  It's like Tarzan was whisked out of the jungle by an army of spa aestheticians and dropped into a vat of hot wax....you can't help but want to stay tuned in order to watch poor Tarzan react to that magic picture-taking box that flashes like lightning when it's time for the photo shoot!

Then you have the panel judges who engage in lengthy and dead-serious analysis in order to decide which really, really, really ridiculously good-looking nitwit should be placed on the chopping block and voted off the catwalk. The somberness employed is reminiscent of the current crop of CNN pundits discussing the merits of assorted presidential candidates:

Judge #1:  I don't know....Krista is a really striking looking girl, but....I just don't know ....

Judge #2:  Totally!  These pictures from the photo shoot....

[The judges mutter sadly amongst themselves.....)

Judge #3:  Yeah, she just didn't bring it this time.......

Bring what?  The laxatives?  The cocaine?  The Yorkie in a handbag?  (One downside of this show is that for those not fluent in modelspeak, it can be a bit difficult to follow at times.)

And last night, they actually made the models dress up as S&M circus clowns before facing the elimination judges!  I kid you not.  As a general rule, I don't want to be the sort of person who gets her kicks by watching another human being, even a reality show contestant, having a full-fledged nervous breakdown on television in front of the whole wide world, but surely I can get some sort of karmic pass if there are models involved, and if they furthermore happen to be wearing leather harnesses and clown make-up at the same time.......I mean, in the midst of the economy tanking and endless warfare and rising crime rates, isn't it OK to secretly be the teensiest bit delighted when a really, really, really ridiculously good-looking person is sobbing because they have not been voted THE most really, really, really ridiculously good-looking person in the room?  Where's the harm in that?

Maybe it's the Pepto Bismol talking, and/or maybe what little common sense I had left was expelled from my body along with everything else during this unpleasant bout of Volcanic Butt and Mouth disease, but this was the most fun I've had in ages.....bear in mind that I rarely leave the apartment, so the bar is set pretty low.

Anyhoo, back to changing nappies and scrubbing the kitchen floor.  More soon!

Verily Did I Worship The Porcelain God and Bore Him Many, Many Gifts

So it turns out that Volcanic Butt and Mouth Disease is highly, unbelievably, exceptionally contagious.  How did I learn this?

Yep. The hard way.

Poopapalooza

Poor Z. has been oozing sludge from every major orifice for several days now.

Oh, the irony of the "well baby checkup."

For the non-parents reading, well baby checkups are recurring doctor's appointments during which your healthy wee one is prodded, peered at and into, stripped naked and placed on a cold metal scale, and often jabbed with needles while one or both parents are given pop quizzes on a host of random topics such as, "Did You Know Pacifiers Are Eeeeeeeeeeevil?" or "Why Are You Acting Like Getting Your Baby To Sleep Through The Night Is So Difficult, You Idiot?" (Topics can vary wildly from doctor to doctor, depending on the pediatrician's personal belief system.)  All of this excitement is in the interest of maintaining good health - if not good cheer - on behalf of the patient.

Of course, in order to have your healthy baby so examined, you have to spend an average of one hour in the waiting room - at our pediatrician's office, this consists of a 4x4 container in which every available surface and toy has been dripped on by a heavy stream of sickly tots leaking slime from their mouths, noses, eyeballs, ears, butts and any open wounds they may have at the time.  Sure, there is an "isolation nook" for ailing patients, and we've sat there ourselves many a time.  During one such not-so-well-baby visit, when Z. toddled a mere two feet out of the isolation nook, alarms blared, barking guard dogs materialized and a squadron of nurses beat us back into the enclosure using their stethoscopes as bullwhips!  But hey, I appreciate the importance of maintaining a sanitary waiting area, so I complied and kept herding Z. back into the enclosure. 

Alas, this isolation procedure is not consistently enforced.  When the front desk staff is busy, or simply bored with lassoing any more kids with their stethoscopes at that point, then the sick ones are let loose on the healthy population, and furthermore allowed to swing from the chandeliers while disgorging phlegm and using their remaining body fluids as fingerpaint.  Time spent in a busy pediatrician's waiting room offers highly compelling fodder for Darwinists - the parallels between monkeys and very small humans are eerie, and equally messy.  Such was the case on Monday when Z. had her well-baby checkup.

Now she is NOT so well.  Quelle surprise!

P.S. With all the volcanic activity in Miss Z.'s general butt region, yes, this was INDEEED the perfect time for our clothes dryer to start emitting mechanical sounds comparable to those made by twelve-pack-a-day chronic smokers...........

Watch this space for updates on Diddy Dryer Death Watch '08.

Spammers Got My Back!

Well, they're looking out for my feet, more specifically.

Ever since I let loose with a litany of woes about the giant gunboats attached to my ankles, I've been getting spam ads that try to boost my morale in this department. 

Some web-based snake oil salespeeps that go by the name of Urban Nutrition have been on the case ever since.  First they started off with gentle queries, slithering into my Inbox with a smile and a pat on the shoulder, calling me by my first name and then quietly asking, "Are you embarrassed by the way your toe nails look?"  I can't really scoff at the personal nature of such a question, since I'm blogging in front of God and everyone.  I just chalked it up to fungus-antidote-peddling faux concern, and was all prepared to move on with my life, but they've taken their game to the next level. "This stuff will make your feet more attractive!" they're now insisting, in bold type and everything.  I guess it's sweet, in a weird way.  They're trying to make the world a better, or at least prettier, place.  And/or stop my whining. 

Urban Nutrition, I do appreciate your altruism, but sadly, the only thing that will make these piles of footmeat more attractive is to lop about four inches off each one.  Not that bloody stumps would be more attractive, but at least I could cram some cute shoes on 'em.

How Neurotic Was My Valley

The word "matriarch" popped into my head today.  I was pondering what the future holds for me beyond the obvious and delightful prospect of raising Z. - particularly once she starts pre-school, which granted is still over a year and a half away, but regardless.....I want to make sure I'm leaving no stone unturned in considering my options.  Now, "matriarch" is a particularly impressive promotion that awaits some moms, but I'm thinking it's not in my future. 

One of the more obvious stumbling blocks for me on the road to matriachdom is that it's highly unlikely I'll be hatching any more chickadees.  This saddens me a tad, but it's just probably not gonna happen, and in order to be a matriarch, you need a whole clan to preside over - a small army of offspring ready to do your biding.  No go here.  Just one solitary toddler whom I have any sway over, and that influence is dwindling by the hour as she grows more enthusiastic in her ability to say, "NOOOOO!" 

I'm no Barbara Stanwyck, either.  I think you need a certain Stanwyckian quality in order to send your offspring out into the oil fields and demand that they not return home until they are successful oil barons who will support you in style in your twilight years.  Although, in Big Valley, I think one came back from the fields a lawyer.........how impressive is that?!  Point being, I won't be sending Z. out into any field.  There are birds in fields (Hellllooooo?  Bird Flu?!?!), and fleas and ticks (Lyme disease), and skin-cancer-causing sunlight, and besides, sometimes perverts drive their windowless vans around fields, and bullies walk through fields on their way to spend stolen milk money in pool halls, and what about those ramshackle old sheds that are barely standing (leftover forts from the carefree kids of yesteryear, who seemingly didn't have to worry about any of this stuff) in the middle of fields, not much more than piles of lumber with rusty old tetanus-propagating nails protruding from 'em, and.....look, my kid's not going anywhere near a field, OK?  I just decided she's not even leaving this living room, ever.  Forget it.

Where was I going with this?  Oh, right.....I'm pretty sure Barbara Stanwyck wouldn't have all let this stuff fester in her head, which is what freed her up to be all confident and imposing and matriarch-y. 

Nope, that whole matriarch career path definitely isn't for me.  I'm too riddled with neuroses, with hands calloused from hand-wringing instead of horse-wrangling and what have you.  I'll keep pondering more appropriate career options.

They say there's a lid for every pot....and apparently there's a wall for every velvet painting, too.....

Miss Z. and I are back in L.A. for the time being.  We'll leave it at that for now. Life's sure complicated sometimes.

Anyway, seeing as how it is awards season (albeit a curtailed, scaled down version of the season due to the writers strike), I.G. seems to be vying for Most Amusing Description of Tasteless Home Decor for 2008.  Yeah, I had rather hoped I might be a contender after my coverage of that whole dishwashing liquid cozy experience in Arizona, but he's providing some solid competition..... 

See, there's this guy who lives down the block from us, and he's a bit off his rocker.  OK - he's barking mad, truth be told.  Sometimes he walks outside to pick up the newspaper or take out the trash wearing only a fez hat, a button down shirt, and his underwear (briefs, at that).  He mutters a lot.  He occasionally holds "garage sales" which consist of him placing a grotty old blanket on his lawn and plying the most bizarre wares imaginable......like dirty spoons caked with peanut butter, and ceramic clown ash trays.  A month or so ago, he'd called up one of those portable storage bin services, and he loaded the bin up with rags and old towels.  Just to clarify - he wasn't wrapping more valuable things inside these rags and old towels.  He was just throwing them inside this storage container in a big heap, and then had the container carted away.  To be stored.  Kept.  Enough rags and old towels to fill five or six Volkswagens. 

Yesterday I.G. walked by this fellow, who was sitting on his porch, and for the first time ever, the guy had his front door wide open.  I.G. naturally peeked.  You can't not peek inside such an abode.  It's impossible. 

When I pounced and plied I.G. for a description, he said, "Liberace on a budget."

I'm a sucker for succinct yet vivid description.  Brevity does not often come naturally to me, so I can't help but admire it in others.   "Liberace on a budget"?? 

Damn, that's good.    

Kan We Speak Kandidly?

The other day, Z. had her first formal portrait taken.  I guess it's another Grandma thing. 

I hadn't rushed Z. down to the local kid's portrait studio prior to this because (a) I think I'm a pretty good amateur photographer and have captured a few hundred breathtaking-if-I-do-say-so-myself candids of my wee one, and (b) my brother and I were forcefully photographed a lot at Sears and Olan Mills when we were kids, and that whole series of 70's catalog poses (you know, resting the chin in the hand while smiling unnaturally.......sitting next to your sworn enemy/sibling on a mini-park bench with your arm (the arm normally reserved for punching and hitting him or her) resting woodenly on his or her shoulder, a glazed expression on both faces) is forever embedded in my memory as something phony and highly unpleasant.  Of course, my mom standing behind the photographer screeching, "Smile or I'll whip you good!" never helped the atmosphere, either.

Fast forward to present day.  Grandma wanted a group shot of all three granddaughters, and a picture of Z. wearing the same dress I wore in my one year old portrait.  OK, having a formal portrait taken is probably not as bad as introducing Z. to crack, and besides, it would be on Grandma's dime.  I relented.

They say getting there is half the fun.  Not in a minivan with two toddlers and a four-year-old, it isn't.  During the drive (about an hour in length), I tried texting dear friend P.S. with a plea, requesting that he perform euthanasia via cell phone (he's super-extra-smart when it comes to technology....if anyone could do it, he could - and P., if you are reading this, it turns out I was texting your land line, which just goes to show that your knowledge in such matters eclipses mine a hundred times over). 

But I digress.  We somehow survived the drive (physically, if not mentally), and arrived at Kiddie Kandids.  If there's anything that bothers me more than the word "kiddie," it's a cutesy and deliberate misspelling for alliteration's sake.  And on top of that, there is nothing "candid" OR "kandid" about the work of your typical mall-based portrait "photographer."  So admittedly I walked into the joint with a bit of  a chip on my shoulder.

However, I did learn a few things about kid portraiture:

(1) The photographer needs to have cat-like reflexes.  Our photographer didn't.   The window of opportunity for getting two toddlers and a four year old to sit calmly, in close proximity to each other, for more than five seconds is.....well, uh......five seconds.

(2)  If I wanted a picture of Z. sitting inside an old-time wash tub (or should I write, "olde tyme wash tubbe"?), I would have been born in 1800, and Z. would have been born shortly after that.   Hopefully I would have had the good sense to marry a wealthy industrialist who took a liberal view of women's rights, but that's neither here nor there....

(3) When the clerk offers to digitally "enhance" the portrait by adding an NFL border with the words, "Grandpa's Little Cheerleaders," it's best to decline. 

And......uh.........well, I must have learned more than three things from that whole experience, only the drive back from the mall, with two tired toddlers and a reeeeaaally cranky four year old, was so traumatic, items (4) through whatever have been obliterated from my memory forevermore.

The portraits turned out OK.  Z. looked adorable, but she always looks that way.  And I'm not convinced the experience was $140 worth of OK.  Again, I wasn't paying for it, so it probably doesn't matter, but if I opt to dish out big bucks for Z. to have a formal portrait taken in the future, I think I'll hire an actual photographer to do the job, versus some minimum-wage mall employees who are looking to push my kiddie off the podium as fast as possible in order to accommodate the next kiddie and make their quota for the day.

Your mileage may vary.