Faak!  The other day one of my Facebook cronies had a status: “Bikini season is coming!”  You know the type, the one that always posts that they are at the gym and what they did: “Burpees, squats, and lunges, OH MY!” And then tell you what they eat: “Quinoa is yummy!”  Quinoa is one of those “superfoods” that all the gym rats seem to have in their diet.  It’s magical only because it’s so labour intensive. By the time you figure out what it is, where it is on the grocery shelf, haul it home, figure out how to cook it, boil it, put it in a bowl and make a face, chew it, digest it, explode it out, you have lost 5 pounds.

Dr. Oz is all about “superfoods.” Everyday he has something you are supposed to eat to boost your metabolism:  ”DRINK APPLE CIDER VINEGAR EVERY MORNING AND LOSE 6 POUNDS!”  I tried it and lasted 3 days.  I think it works because your colon puckers up and gets all uptight and won’t let anything make its way through casually anymore, you know, let’s wait until after the morning coffee to drop the kids off at the pool.  Cidered-up colon becomes a GTFO super efficient drill sergeant pushing every half-chewed nugget out the back door almost as soon as it goes in.  There is nothing worse than a wild army of poop going headlong in the middle of the afternoon and having to find a public washroom.   Do not like.

Anyway, bikini season is no joke.  Must take it seriously. The good people at Sports Illustrated have generously given us some swimsuit suggestions. Those bikini designers are so innovative. It’s all about geometry and knowing how to work a couple of isosceles triangles with some string. Two Toblerone-sized pieces of fabric can restrain an avalanche of tit flesh…sheer wizardry! I’m not going to say anything about those bikini bottoms because I have been to Google Beach and I have seen much worse.

I’m a Lady of a Certain Age…I could have given birth to this Kate Upton character, put her in a bacon bikini for all I care, she is no threat to me. I need a suit that holds it all in with more than prayer.  Oh, how I laughed when I googled “swimsuits for cougars” and this came up.  I have been waiting to work this into a post for weeks, it’s my screensaver.  In fact, it’s been my inspiration for bikini season all along:

This cannot be unseen.

So for me, maybe it’s the Land’s End catalogue.  It’s not as Amish as it used to be, some of the suits have a retro-Hollywood glamour, if you squint and conjure up an image of Ava Gardner in your head.  In fact, there’s a scene in one of my favourite movies of all time, “Little Children” where Kate Winslet orders a red one-piece suit from a Lands’s End-style catalogue before she embarks on her steamy, hot affair with the stay-at-home dad, aka The Prom King.  I’m going to peruse the interwebs for more swimwear and leave you the trailer which will get you in the mood for some summer extra-marital affairs at your local public pool:

Do you ever think about the 1980s? Me neither. What horrible decade. It was the birth of vulgarity. A lot of the worst trends we have today you can trace back to the 80s. If we could erase that era entirely, people would be speaking proper English and they certainly wouldn’t be tattooing Louis Vuitton logos on their biceps.

Having said that, the 80s was a major growth period for me. Lots happened. High school, CEGEP, university, moving to Toronto, getting married. I lived in 6 different places. I had more than 10 jobs. I dated lots and put out every time. I made friends and influenced people. Nowdays, the past 10 years at least, have been like moving through quick sand in slow motion….Nothing happens and everything takes so long. It took 2 and a half years to get divorced. Last year, it took me the better of 4 months to finish eating a Toblerone bar and 6 months to change a light bulb.

Last weekend, when Whitney Houston passed away, I was shocked, sad, and stricken with a bad case of the nostalgies. Back in 1986, I had met her at a boutique I worked at in Yorkville. I do find a celebrity sighting super exciting but when I actually get closed to one, it becomes a big deal and I become emotionally attached. Famous people radiate a different energy like they have super powers. Even mildly well-known ones like local newscasters. Once I saw Gord Martineau at the Summerhill liquor store and I was like all “Wow, it’s Gord Martineau…he’s so short!” They are all so much shorter in real life. It makes them them that much more precious.

Back in 1986, when I was new to Toronto, I was obsessed with fashion. It was all about shoulder pads. Looking back with embarrassment, I’d like to pretend I never wore them but I layered them like a cake boss. I’d wear a set under a shirt, then on a jacket, and then a padded coat over top. In the height of the madness, I got a position as assistant manager at Parachute, where the fashion elite shopped. It was a job that I literally stumbled upon when I was walking on Bellair at Christmas time and saw a sign in the window. Had I have not tripped on the sidewalk, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it because it was a grey, blank looking space in the basement below an antique store. I had just moved to Toronto two months earlier and I had already gone through a handful of jobs that I was a disaster at: Cappuccino maker at Le Select Bistro, I fired steamed milk all over a customer and burned my hands. Receptionist, I kept forgetting the name of the company I worked at and still can’t remember: “Good morning….um…Something Something Designs…” Mannequin dresser at Joy Cherry, I snapped the limbs off one of the “brides” trying to put her gown on. Right away I noticed there were no mannequins in the Parachute store, the display outfits were layed out flat on a step. The clothes were austere and unisex in a monochromatic colour tone of greys and blacks. And heavily shoulder padded. Just like me!

There were two guys my age (early twenties) working there when I walked in. Both were dressed in what looked like a uniform, black jacket and black leggings(LOL! Leggings on boys!) They looked like the imaginary fashion police. And they were scary. One looked like a vampire from the 1800s, he had grey skin and shoulder length black hair slicked back, sharp pointy eyebrows and squinty eyes. The other one was equally sinister but more human looking. He was tall and lanky with zits and a goofy bowl cut. They were both named John. The Vampire John, clearly the alpha of the duo, hired me on the spot; “We like you, you are perfect for us.” I didn’t know whether to be flattered or freaked out but I figured I’d go with it. They looked intimating but it turned out they were the nicest, funniest guys. They were from Newfoundland and when they let their guard down, the accents would come out, and oh, how we laughed.

Aside from the two Johns, there were some part-timers who worked there, one was an aspiring model named Michelle. Michelle was nicknamed Zwiggy because she walked with a hip wiggle like the Carol Burnett character Mrs. Wiggins. She was 19 but you couldn’t tell because wore so much makeup and put on a squeaky, breathy voice like Marilyn Monroe. She was Siouxsie and the Banshees all the way, dyed black hair and with heavy white base, blacked up painted cat eyes, red lipstick in a heart shaped bow, she looked like a punk geisha girl. She and I bonded quite quickly and after work, we would go to Bemelmans, that pickup bar on Bloor and Bay. Arab men would fall over themselves wanting to buy us Long Island Iced Teas. One night in February, after a particularly uneventful Bemelman evening, she came to my place (I rented a room in a shared house at Broadview and Gerrard). She wanted to smoke a doobie and crash at my house. She brought out an unfamiliar mothering instinct in me even though I was only a couple of years older.

“Zwiggy, you have to wash off your makeup or it will clog your pores. And brush your teeth, all the plaque forms at night,” I said. To this day, I have never once gone to bed without washing my face and brushing my teeth. Zwiggy didn’t seem to have the same regimented beauty habits. She layered makeup like she was plastering drywall. Her artistry actually distorted her features. When I first met her, I thought she was Asian and then I found out her whole life story: She ran away from her drunken parents (they were Irish) in Nanaimo, B.C. when she was 13, came to Toronto with her 25-year-old pedo-bear boyfriend and was still living with him after 6 years. She was a chubby teenager and then became a skinny vegetarian after she saw a dead pig carcass dangling from a butcher’s window on the Danforth. She lost 20 pounds and Elmer Olsen, modelling scout extraordinaire, saw her on the street and signed her to his agency on the spot. She wet on go-sees and ended up floundering, probably intimidated by all the competition and that was when she started piling on the makeup. The whole facade was a mask she wore to hide her true self.

She didn’t want to wash her face but I forced her and when she came out of the bathroom, she looked so much better, and I told her so. For some reason, she got all sulky, and stomped out. After that, she kind of stopped showing up to work after a while, claiming to have “diarrhea” and soon fell off the radar entirely. A strange little lost soul of the 80′s that I almost completely forgot about and now I wonder what happened to her.

In the meantime that winter, the two Johns, who both claimed to be bisexual began to fully come out as exclusively gay. By default and pure loneliness, I became their fag hag. We would go to 101, a gay bar on Jarvis, and all the gay raves, and gay events.

It was the springtime of my discontent, and I was not cut out for fag hagdom. I became disgruntled and non-supportive any time “Church Street” came out of one of their mouths. One of the Johns took pity on me and set me up with the only straight hairdresser in town. His name was Gideon. He was British, which naturally made him seem gay, and he was fashion obsessed. I was suspicious. He was either a gay straight man or a straight gay man. We went out for 3 weeks but it seemed like 300 years. It was before people had cell phones and he would call me from pay phones constantly. It was weird since I spent most of my other relationships waiting by the phone for the douche to call. I did that thing that men do to women, I treated him like crap until he dumped me. Although I happily kept him as a hairdresser until he ran off and married some rich woman and moved to Vancouver. Another past soul who I actually found on Facebook and trolled but didn’t add as a friend, he probably forgot all about me! I will no doubt troll him some more and then add him in a moment of weakness.

In the summer of 1986, the owners of the store told us they were closing the Toronto location for good because it was too expensive to run. They had locations in Montreal, New York, and Tokyo, so they sent us boxes of samples and rejected merchandise to push to the fashion victims for the next month. There were some really strange outfits that we conjured up. Neon green tshirts and plaid jodphurs that we wore ironically. We had a massive midnight sale one night where we partayed until 3 am. The entire store was pretty much trashed. There was still merchandise, but just the weirdest of the weird and maybe some odd sizes of the good stuff. While we were half-heartedly cleaning up, the phone rang and Vampire John picked up. It was Whitney Houston’s manager calling to request that we close the store down in the afternoon so that she could shop privately with her back up singers before her concert that night.

Whitney was a pretty big star back then and it was rumoured that she was a lesbian. That whole closet gay thing excited the two Johns so they worked furiously to clean the place up. Although Whitney was no Grace Jones, she was diva enough to give them fancy pride and big gay boners.

When she arrived late in the afternoon, the place was spotless but sparse. She was wearing giant sunglasses and stayed close to her butch manager while her back up singers gleefully rifled through the racks and tried stuff on. The two Johns were in Heaven.

They all bought matching mermaid dresses that Whitney paid for with a platinum American Express card. I was the one at the cash register. In our primitive store you had to call in each transaction over the phone for authorization from an actual person at a call centre that I would sometimes have conversations with. Awkward…do I go through proper procedure and call in the card or do I just swish it through like a boss and seamlessly fold the merchandise in the tissue and bag it up?

Flustered, I held her card in my hands and called American Express. She took off her sunglasses and gave me a stink eye so potent, my hand started to shake. When the operator answered all I could say was “Fuck.” And I hung up. But Whitney laughed, “Do what you need to do, Sugar.”

And that was that. A celebrity encounter with Diva Whitney. A week later, the store closed and I was out of a job and she went on her way to even bigger stardom, no doubt charging up her Platinum card with bigger and better stuff. The two Johns went their separate ways and we all lost touch but of course, I kept track of Whitney, my celebrity touchstone. She stayed in my consciousness as we led parallel lives, we both had baby daughters the same year, in 1993. I didn’t get into the rock cocaine though. Couldn’t afford it. But I did have some messy, bloated moments and a divorce. When I went to my family doctor and begged for something like Xanax to help me sleep, she told me to try herbal tea. Lucky me. Poor her.

And with that, I leave you with my favourite version of “I Will Always Love You” which is Lauren Graham as Lorelai Gilmore channeling Dolly Parton. It doesn’t get better, I don’t care what y’all say:

Last week, Pam Grier was in Toronto for Black History Month to talk about her experiences in film and the current state of African American actors’ movie roles.  She’s 62 now and she knows how to age, gracefully and fiercely.  She’s still a goddess.  This is retro 1970s Pam Grier, probably the baddest ass action lady in all of cinematic history.  When you look at a picture like that, you just want to take your bra off and hang yourself with it knowing that no amount of  makeup, Photoshop, Spanx, sweet talk, or self-delusion will make you look half as hot. Even her armpit crack is suggestive, check it out. In the 1970s women didn’t have to apologize for nip-slips, they were part and parcel of the bra-burning era. Pam Grier was a reigning star in those “blaxploitation” and campy Roger Corman women-in-prison films from the 70s. To paraphrase Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard:  They had faces back then…and tits, and they were not afraid to show them.

Pam Grier, who was influenced by Gloria Steinem, was all about woman-power without compromising her femininity.  As Foxy Brown, she was considered a trail blazer, not just for black women but women in general. Nobody was as sexy and strong as her, Jane Fonda looked like Gidget in comparison. Since the 1970s, thanks to the women’s liberation movement, women have come a long way in some aspects like having choices and job opportunities.  But not in film, something seems to have gotten lost in the translation.  Aesthetically, women have to look like a man with boobs.  It’s all about sucking it out and strategically placing parts of it back in: carve out a P90X body, create Pilates abs, stretch out a yoga ass, and insert two Tupperware shaped bowls for breasts.  If anything is out of place, the sloppiness will get you fired. No wonder as she pushes 50, Demi Moore is having a nervous breakdown like Norma Desmond.  Instead of becoming a hermit, poor thing is chasing the dragon posting bikini self-portraits on Twitter. At the same age, Pam Grier, on the other hand, was rockin’ it like a lady in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.

There are very few Pam Griers in film today.  Women over 40 are usually just in supporting roles as the long-suffering wives of dynamic heroes, hysterical mothers of boxers/ballet dancers, bat shit crazy neighbours/co-workers, or stern lady judges.  Meryl Streep doing an impression of a historical female character does not count.  There’s really no one for the sex pot LOCA (lady of a certain age) to identify with. Maybe every two or three years, to placate us, they will dust off the cast members of Sex and the City and slap some on lipstick and make a movie that is actually a 90 minute commercial for Heritage Halston.

Speaking of LOCAs, I watched the Superbowl on Sunday, this is basically how it went:

Of course I watched it for the half-time show and ended watching the entire thing, as I have a secret crush on Tom Brady.  I’m only admitting that to you for limited time only.  He’s not really my type, he is too pretty.  Anyway, the half-time show was good, in my opinion, you cannot fault Madonna for showmanship.  A lot of you think she is the ultimate lady bad ass and I respect that. She is not my kind of LOCA though, her sense of style is contrived by imitating other stye icons and she looks like a veiny penis. Her records, at best, are commercial jingles with lyrics that a prepubescent girl would write in her diary and then burn in Grade 8 out of embarrassment.  Her new song is tuneless and the lyrics are just stupid, talk about chasing the dragon…you are not a “girl,” Madge, and methinks the boy toys are just a beards to validate your mojo.  Sorry, sister, he doesn’t count as a boyfriend if he has to sign a confidentiality clause.

Gisele Bundchen, on the other hand, is a lady bad ass.  Oh horrors, Gisele has a potty mouth…grow up, people.  If I was Tom Brady’s wife, I’d be yelling out expletives at the press, too. Because she is a supermodel, she should just look pretty and keep quiet. Here’s the link to the clip here, it’s not so shocking.

I’d rather leave you with some Pam Grier in action, watch it and learn:

First of all, let me preface this potential mess of a post by saying how much I love my dentist.  I’ve been going to him for 20 years and he may very well be the love of my life.  He is so gentle that I have had fillings done without freezing. If I do need numbing, he does this vibrating massage thing to my cheeks so when he sticks the needle in my mouth, I am so distracted, I don’t feel the jabbing prick. As he digs away, he always tells me how awesome I am in his cute South African accent. I never dread going there and in fact, I sometimes go early because he has the best magazines in town.  He subscribes to In-Style, People, and Men’s Health. I have learned some things from Men’s Health I may have never known from my own field work.  And when I say “field work,” these days it’s restricted to watching “Californication” which I know is worse than a fairy tale and Hank Moody is the fictitious Holy Grail of sexual prowess who would never exist in the real world.  A girl can dream.

Anyway, although I love my dentist, I hate his receptionist.  She is an uptight Leaside mom-type who obsesses over her preschool-age son, named Adam.  She wears a headset and always on the phone talking to her nanny about Adam who is a hellion.  When the kid gets on the phone, she threatens to “punish” him when she gets home for being “a naughty boy.” I’ve been privy to this conversation more than once, and I only go there twice a year. You just know where this kid is going in 20 years, I can picture his ad on Craigslist under “M4W” with a cryptic picture of a wooden spoon, captioned;  ”Spank me.” She is a control freak.  Last year, when I was waiting, the tv was on and Dr. Oz was talking about how to enhance the female orgasm.  She grabbed the remote and changed the channel to the monotonous reel of petty crimes and weather reports that is CP24 and muttered about how the topic on Dr. Oz was “inappropriate.” And I was like, “Bitch, please, I don’t have that nailed yet, I’d like to hear what he has to say!”

Just other day, while Freddy was getting some fillings, I was in the waiting room alone blithely pouring over “The Best Sex Tips of 2011″ in Men’s Health, when a woman and her 3 children plunked themselves down. Now I don’t care about children, I can easily tune them out.  Their inane blathering is often repetitive  and rhythmic so I can translate it into white noise.  It’s parents I hate.  Sure enough, this woman was one of those cows who talk loudly and refer to themselves in the third person: “Mummy wants you to do your homework while you wait, Mummy is tired, blah blah..”  I pegged her for one of those older mothers who miraculously spawned these 3 snotgobblers from her rotting egg farm so she needed to advertise how fabulous her parenting skills were.  At one point her son, age 11, picked up one of those pop-up picture books meant for pre-schoolers.  This one was about “The Creation” as depicted by Adam and Eve. I know, right? Why is this in a dentist’s office?  The receptionist is a religious freak and she probably brought it in from her Bible Study group.  The kid opens the book and up pops a cartoon drawing of Adam and Eve and an apple tree.  Eve has her back to us and Adam is facing her.  Her cartoon bum and his cartoon peen are obscured by a cartoon bush. The boy holds it up, “Look mummy!”  The mother shrieks: “Ryan! Put that away! That is so inappropriate! You’re embarrassing me!”

Now I am the only one within earshot and I am sitting with a magazine spread on my lap of a woman with her real legs up in the air with a man’s real head popping through, obscuring her real bush, and I am thinking that between this lady and the receptionist, exactly what goes on in North Toronto behind closed doors?  How do they raise their sons?  Do they make them shower with their clothes on?  Shame is their weapon, the wooden spoon that keeps their behaviour “appropriate.”

Speaking of which, last week, my daughter and I went to see the film, “Shame” with Michael Fassbender and his penis. And yes, this was our main purpose AND we liked him in Jane Eyre.  We consider ourselves to be “British Celebrity Penis Connoisseurs.”  6 years ago, when she was not much older than that Mummy-whipped boy in the dentist’s office, we took a trip to London to see Daniel Radcliffe, aka Harry Potter, go full monty in “Equus.” Neither of us particularly enjoy live theatre but we got to see Harry Potter’s Arab-strapped penis boner and that is worth the price of admission. And no, it did not scar my 12 year old daughter, it empowered her. My first viewing of a non-relative’s penis was not so spectacular, it was semi-traumatizing.  When I was 10, my friend and I would crash sugaring off parties at the sugar shack on the bottom of my street.  We’d steal syrup taffy from the trough and if we got caught, we’d run into the woods.  Once we saw a drunken French Canadian man with his pants completely down, wang out, taking a slash in a bucket attached to one of the maple trees.  You know, the ones that collect the sap that makes the syrup.  Yes, he was urinating. No, I never eat pancakes.

In “Shame,” Michael Fassbender’s penis is the protagonist of the film. His character, Brandon, doesn’t say much, but his peen keeps the plot going.  It’s not like it gets closeups or anything but it has more screen time than most Actra members.  Usually in a non-porn cinematic experience, you might see a flash of pube and a blur of tubular flesh from afar and the actor is in a fast action mode like diving into a pool in the dark.  In “Shame”, there is a decent sequence of frames that pans it as it sways from the shower to the kitchen, in the brightness of the morning, like an elephant trunk sniffing for peanuts. The film made me sad for the penis, “penis empathy’ if you will, Freud. It’s a bleak and realistic depiction of sexual addiction, and childhood shame is the cornerstone.  This is why you can’t be an asshole as a parent. Respect the penis, it’s got a fragile ego.

On that note, here is the trailer for “Shame,” go see it, take your mom:

When my friends and I were kids, before the interwebs fed us knowledge, we had to fork over our hard-earned allowance for magazines.  We were obsessed with the goings on in Hollywood and we would walk a mile in the snow to the depanneur to get the latest Tiger Beat or Rona Barrett’s Gossip just to find out who Leif Garrett was boning.  I will never forget the utter disgust and disappointment when he was “romantically tied” to Kristy McNichol.  On what planet would that ever happen?  She wore overalls and looked like a boy! How could such a magnificent male specimen date Kristy McNichol when I was available?  Then when she hooked up with Matt Dillon, I began to suspect that Hollywood was trying to scam us. But when Leif and Nicolette Sheridan became an item, I gave up hope for myself but started to believe again if just for this one photo.  This made more sense, when this first appeared in Tiger Beat, I think I cried.  Now, I’m convinced there is actual penetration going on here:

In any given couple from the perspective of an outsider, there is usually someone who seems like the one who got lucky. In Hollywood, any discrepancy seems monumental. There is one who is better looking, richer, smarter, more charismatic, or more famous.  This is why Hollywood types stick together, not because they “understand each other”, it’s because when a big movie star marries a mere mortal, his or her stock goes down significantly.  They need each other to keep up the illusion.  Inevitably, a marriage of egos will implode because it’s exhausting putting on a show. I’ve watched the glitteratti crash and burn for decades and one thing I know for sure, nothing lasts forever.  And it’s better that way.  Keep it moving, spread the love, and the bodily fluids.

But they seemed so happy!  Don’t be fooled again, here are 3 current case studies analyzed by moi:

Seal and Heidi, Hollywood Breakup Case Study #1.  There was a major red flag right from the start. Seal proposed to Heidi when she was pregnant with Italian douche-a-bagga Flavio Briatore’s baby.  Some men actually fetishize pregnant women which makes sense why she had so many back-to-back Seal pups.  More likely Seal, like all modern men, has a Victoria Secret model fetish.  Let’s face it, if Heidi Klum was slinging pints of Heineken in a beer garden, dude wouldn’t have looked twice at her. I’ve seen her without makeup and she’s not all that. The fact that she was pregnant made her vulnerable enough to overlook the fact that dude is super scary looking.  And what if Seal didn’t sing sexy songs, instead he was Randy Newman?  There is no way she would put out for him. The biggest red flag of all was that they renewed their vows every year.  How tedious it must be for their friends and family, one wedding to endure is bad enough. And who over the age of 20 can handle a Halloween party?  Their elaborate annual costume parties was just another disguise or diversion, what were they really trying to hide?

Conclusion:  They say he has a “bad temper” and if that’s the case, who wouldn’t if you had all those children and all those weddings to parade around?  LOOK AT US AND HOW HAPPY AND FABULOUS WE ARE!  Smoke and mirrors.  Truly happy people don’t like to throw parties and wear makeup. They like to stay home and argue in their sweat pants. You know I’m right.

Case Study #2:  Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis.  I know what everyone is saying:  ”But they are such a cute couple, and they don’t live in Hollywood, how could they not stay together?”  And my answer here is a brutally honest no, there is nothing “cute” about these two.  They both look shockingly homeless and without le Photoshop, this woman is just not good.  Especially naked and unshowered on a farm in France. That “jolie-laide” thing doesn’t translate in Hollywood.  Le smoke et le miroir crackay.  There’s the inequality of  all the elements of the glitteratti at odds here:  Looks, money, charisma, and fame.  Duh. Don’t make me say it.

Conclusion: Johnny, call me.

And then there’s these two:

Dear Hollywood:  Stop the fawning. Remember if something seems to good to be true, it usually is. “Mirror, mirror on the wall” and a bunch of pot smoke is what we have here.  Case Study #3:  Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.  You don’t need me to tell you that The Brangelina is a ticking time bomb.  I can envision some time in the near future, she gathers enough strength from eating a breath mint and with her spindly, chicken-scrawl tattooed arms, she picks up a cast iron frying pan and whacks him over his dumb head.  His greasy hair makes the pan slide and creates only enough impact for him to come to his senses and have an Aha! moment:  Juliette Lewis!  She was the one that got away!

Conclusion:  Don’t get me started.

On on that note, I leave you with a clip of the ultimate Hollywood rebel, Jessica Lange as Frances Farmer, and a cautionary tale of what can happen if you don’t comply with rules of Hollywood:

Meh…what exactly is it?  Urban dictionary: “Don’t care.”

Me. unshowered after a work out, trudges over to the restaurant at the gym to see what’s the soup of the day.  ”Meh,” I say out loud to no one in particular, not even bothering to read the sandwich board. Mulligatawny, minestrone, what’s the difference?  On normal days, that are not in January, mulligatawny makes me shriek with glee as I cream my jeans, and minestrone sets me off into a murderous rage.  But January is “meh” month, and nothing seems to matter. But luckily, “meh” is just a gateway emotion. “Meh” should not be confused with the divine detachment that the elite Buddhists have mastered.  A truly pure “meh” is the perfect storm of disgruntleness combined with a low-level frustration that creates a palpable, gelatinous, balloon of boredom which lasts an entire month. As you can see by my rage comic calendar prediction, it breaks in February, when despair takes over.  Thank God!  There is nothing worse than the January “mehs.”

Watching television simmers a meh mood and caramelizes it so thick, you become inert and catatonic on the couch. It’s a vicious cycle. You might want to jostle yourself out of it by taking up an extreme sport. But if that’s too rad, I have 3 suggestions, all involving needles:

1. Give blood.  When you are laying there with a needle in your arm, squeezing a wad of paper towel, imagine you are ridding yourself of meh…you can’t pee, poo, splooge, or even blow it out in a lame yoga class, you have to go to drastic measures to bleed it out, like they did in olden times when they leeched out the consumption. It’s just a metaphor for you to wrap your dull mind around, but ultimately your crappy blood will be going to someone who actually needs it. And that should make you feel at least like you did something good. Smug happiness is better than no happiness.

2. Get Botox.  We’ve been through this before, Botox is not going to make you look like the Joker, those are fillers.  Botox is going to wipe that meh expression off your face, the one that makes your brow furrow and you won’t have to squint when the stupid sun comes out and makes that annoying glare on the salty roads. Fuck the sun. It’s so stupid.

3. Get a tattoo.  You know the tattoo you get when you’re in a meh mood will be the one you never regret because the upside of meh is rationality.  Last night, I dreamt I got a tattoo of a purple owl on my back and when I woke up and realized it was real, for a second I never felt a twinge of smug happiness.  Then I rolled over and went “meh.”  But still.

That’s all I got, just ride it out and wait for the up-beat months like June and October.  Until then, here’s Johnny with probably a worse case of the mehs than you or me:

One week into Juiceless January and I’ve turned into a meth addict by proxy. I have been catching up on the first 3 seasons of “Breaking Bad” on Netflix. I started watching it on Friday, just to shut everyone up and say it’s no big deal, stop harping about it, it’s just a tv show. I hate hour-long shows, too much commitment, and I hate crime dramas, I can never follow the plot lines. But everyone around the campfire on New Years Eve was talking all “yo, bitch, Breaking Bad, yo…blahblahblah..”and I just hate being out of the loop, no matter what the loop is, which is why I pretended to watch “Glee” for so long. I would turn on the tv at 8:00 on Tuesday, put the dog on the couch, film the dog on the iPhone sitting with “Glee” in the background, upload the video on with the caption: “We Are Watching Glee’ and put it on my Facebook wall. I never actually let it pass through my retinas or permeate my consciousness. I can admit it now because the show has jumped the proverbial shark, which I am only assuming because I have not seen that fug fish-faced Lea Michele on the cover of any tabloids recently.

Anyway, I started watching Breaking Bad on Friday afternoon, and powered through all 3 seasons in 48 hours. I could not tear myself away. I didn’t shower. I barely slept. I didn’t even want to make toast because the toaster popping would make too much noise and make me jump out of my skin. Gunshot! In real life, my mom was in the hospital and I drove my sister up to visit her, all the while blathering on about “Walt” and his meth making ways.

“What are you talking about?” She is out of the loop because she PVR’s Young and the Restless which means there is no time for superfluous tv watching.

“Walter White in Breaking Bad. He’s the dad from Malcolm in the Middle. He’s a chemistry teacher and he finds out he has lung cancer so he starts making meth to support his family.”

And on and on I went, to and from the hospital, on both days. Sister’s eyes glazed over.

“Jessie is in rehab after getting hooked on heroin. That Jane was a ho, I’m glad she choked on her vomit. Ladies should not be junkies.”

“Walt’s wife is a bitch. If I had a husband that I supposedly loved, I would totally support him making meth. What the hell, he’s doing it for the sake of the family. See what happens in America when you have to rely on HMO’s. I wish a man would make meth for me.”

“If I was part of this meth operation, I think I’d be a good cook. I did really well in chemistry, I got a 92 on the final exam.”

And so of course out of curiosity, I have looked up meth recipes on the internet and came up with one boneheaded site written with more typos than I put out: METH IS IN THE BIBLE WHICH IS THE MAIN REASON IT IS ALL OVER AMERICA. I’d put up the link but I’m too paranoid I’d get on the DEA’s radar. That’s the Drug Enforcement Administration, for those of you who are out of the loop…but I knew that from watching “Weeds.”

As I wait for Season 4, which is coming in the mail thanks to the benevolence of a Facebook benefactor, I will leave you with a taste of the chard, a montage of Saul Goodman…just in case you are out of the loop:

It’s not even a week into the new year and I’ve already broken my resolution.  Oh, and it’s not NOT Drinking, that is a thing called “Juiceless January” and it’s not a resolution, it’s a lifestyle.  But I also broke that, too, although I figure Juiceless January starts whenever you want because it’s not like you stop drinking when the clock strikes midnight… far from it.  At 4 in the morning, January 1rst, I was sitting in my neighbours’ backyard, making sure the party fire died so the house didn’t burn down, swilling on the last cleansing Corona after a night of sparkling wine.  Needless to say, I needed hair of the dog on the first AND the second….so Juiceless January starts today:  January 3rd.  I donated a pint of blood just to get it all started.  Out with the old crap, in with the fresh hemo-cleanse.

Now I don’t really believe all this “cleansing” because you need toxins flowing inside to keep from being too precious for this filthy world.  It’s the theory of homeopathy and vaccines where a bit of the poison that can kill you, will keep you protected.  I had a friend who told me she drank one glass of wine a day which is the perfect amount to get a little buzz and keep the demons at bay.  I was jealous of her self-restraint because I could never stop at one glass.  Once I went to her house while our kids had a play date.  She offered me a glass of wine and hello, of course I said yes.  The two glasses she hauled out of the cabinet, no joke, were those giant ones you get in Las Vegas for those massive margaritas.  I brought one back from the Frontier Hotel to keep fruit in…it holds a bunch of bananas and a box of tangerines.  She poured us each “a” glass, draining a liter and a half of Jackson Triggs.  I love people and their delusions.

Anyway, I broke my only new year’s resolution:  Don’t worry so fucking much, all the live long day and night, 24/7. Of course the minute I tell myself NOT to worry, I worry.  I pick my nails, I chew and pull my hair.  Then I need a cocktail or 4. I fall asleep easily but wake up in the middle of the night, only to ruminate about my worries.  It’s a vicious cycle and so the need to implement Juiceless January.  If I don’t drink, at least I won’t worry about drinking.

Now I just went to see “Young Adult” which is about a crazy bitch with a drinking problem.  I’m not here to review the movie *per se* because I am biased.  I have two girl movie star crushes where I would unapologetically watch whatever they are in no matter how crappy of a flop according to Rotten Tomatoes.  One is Cameron Diaz, and she is obviously the man in my lesbian fantasy. She is even more masculine than my butcher crush.  The other is Charlize Theron.  I even wanted to lick her as le monster.  In “Young Adult” I can see myself in her character which made me love this film:  a loner with a little dog, consumed by obsessive thoughts, deluded, hungover, and junk food crazed.  I even had a dented Mini Cooper at one point in my life. And Hello Kitty!

My friend, Erin, has a blog where she describes “Time Porn” on tv, like where the characters in “Friends” have all the time in the world to hang out at the coffee shop.  She went on to say “Northern Exposure” was “Geography Porn,” where the small town of Cicely, Alaska, is glorified by the charmingly whacky citizens and their antics.  In reality, nobody has that much time, and small towns are usually not very diverse and full of colourful characters who embrace each other’s foibles.  No, they’re usually a cloister of rednecks who will nail you to a tree if you look a little funny.

Anyway, “Young Adult” is definitely “Alcoholic Porn.” Mavis Gary (Charlize) is a hot mess.  Even when she wakes up in the morning, with smudged eyes and dry mouth, she manages to make it look glamorous.  Swilling hangover liquid from a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke never looked so refreshing.  Matted hair and saggy-assed jeans were as chic as her tarted-up, man-hunter look.  A drunken rant at her ex-boyfriend’s baby shower got a “You go, girl!” response from me.  I said it out loud in the audience and other people seemed to agree:  ”You said it, lady!” someone in the back row hollered.  The movie in the end, really makes you want to try the Star Wars bourbon and have some KFC.  But alas, not during Juiceless January, I’ll have to wait til February the 3rd.

Here’s a trailer from “Young Adult.”  By the way, it’s set in Mercury, Minnesota and I also think there is a thing called “Minnesota Porn” that has me wearing a Vikings hat this winter.  (I’m so susceptible to all the porn of the world, maybe I need to kick the habit):

I can’t get enough of this!  The Gretzky Family Christmas card! It’s my screen saver.  It’s like Vanity Fair meets  Awkward Family Photos all riddled with the sub-text of dysfunctional family issues. No one is actually smiling, the mama is really just showing her teeth, the way mamas do when they are about to bark out an order. The glum little one in the middle is the star of the show, a world-weary 8 year-old whose expression seems to say:  ”Beautiful people have problems, too.”  Lol.

Like most Canadians, I have an affinity to Wayne Gretzky.  I think of him as an older brother because he reminds me of my own. The Golden Child archetype who has to carry the all the hopes and dreams of the rest family in his shoulders. I could never have sibling rivalry with my brother, The Other Great One, as I am completely content living in a shadow. In fact, because I was born way behind the rest of the lot, I always felt like a pet which was awesome. More Milkbones for me!

Anyway, this photo was on the cover of the Toronto Star today with an actual article that went along with it. Paulina Gretzky, the oldest daughter, tweeted it out and then it got REMOVED FROM TWITTER!  Media brouhaha ensued! They are like the Khardashians!  A family of pimps and hos, exploiting themselves for fame and…more fame. And now that it is removed from The Twitter and the bottom-feeding bloggers are posting it, it is a news story. They accuse Paulina of being a Twitter slut. And I am in love with her. She has the untrammeled mojo of  a woman twice her age.  Imagine what she’ll be like when she’s in her cougar years. I bow to her to Greatness. I am following her Twitter and maybe I’ll learn a thing or two.  Buzzkill Wayne made her to close her account in November for a nano second so in case it happens again, luckily there is a gallery of her best Instagrams that you can click on here.

And aside from that, we are on Day Four of Orgy Week and I am hell-bent by this time next year, “#orgyweek” will be a hashtag on Twitter and part of the popular vernacular in general.  In case you are new to this blog, Orgy Week is the week between Christmas and New Years where you do what you want, not what you think you should do.  You would be surprised how much you learn about yourself when you let yourself “be.”  My revelations so far: I am a hermit!  I actually like cole slaw!

And speaking of dysfunction families, Evangeline and I went to see “The Descendants” which made me cry. I like crying, I’m always on the verge anyway.  All is not what it seems from the outside, as George Clooney says in the beginning:

“My friends think just because we live in Hawaii, we live in paradise.  We’re all just out here sipping Mai Tai’s, shaking our hips, and catching waves.  They say we are immune to life.  How could they possibly think our families are less screwed up…our heartaches less painful?”

Maybe it’s the same with the Gretzkys.  Maybe Paulina’s Twitter account is just a cry for help, that kind of hunger for attention is destined for doom. The need for validation is a bottomless pit when you are seeking it from outside yourself.  All that having to suck your stomach in to take a headless shot of yourself in a bikini in a mirror from a hotel room is really kind of pathetic….no, it’s awesome, who am I kidding? That’s just the Orgy Week Cheetos talking.

3 more sleeps and Orgy Week is over, thank God.  I think too much the rest of year and now I am over-thinking everything.  Also I need to put on some lipstick. Soon things will be normal, N*O*R*M*A*L!  Until then, here’s the trailer to ‘The Descendants,” go see it:

I told you I did not make this up.  I’m not sure Whit Stlllman made it up either when making “Metropolitain” but I’m telling you, it exists:  The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is called “Orgy Week” and it is _bar none_ the greatest week of the year.  Today is the day after Christmas, some of you are Boxing Day shopping, others are cleaning up while the rest of you are “going for a walk” just to get out of the house and sneak a cigarette.  Clearly you all need some help.

When it comes to “Orgy Week,” if you are at a loss as to what to do, just think of what it is you want to do.  Most of you are probably thinking:  WWCD? (What Would Caligula Do?)  But don’t fret, you don’t have to run to salon and get waxed, that is extreme orgy.  Personally, on Day One (Boxing Day) while some of you were trolling the aisles of the malls, all sweaty in your winter coats, carrying bags of crap, praying for a meteor to hit, I was in my pyjamas.  All day!  I shopped on-line!  I don’t care what anyone says, it’s cheaper to shop on-line because you focus on what you want, not the extra crap that catches your eye when you are at the check-out.  All the stores have on-line shopping and you don’t even have to travel to other cities to get there.  Simons, the coveted department store in Montreal, has on-line shopping and Boxing Day sales, check it out here.  I spent the morning perusing, while drinking mimomas.  And then I watched my Boxing Day traditional movie, Metropolitian, while drinking straight champagne. GIF prooof:

Then I ate a box of crackers. And a wedge of gorgonzola. And some chocolate.

Freddy, also in his pyjamas, ate two McCains Delissio Rising Crust pizzas. Caligula in training.

I couldn’t even finish writing this post yesterday, I sugar-crashed mid-afternoon.  Somewhere in the haze, I watched Jane Eyre with Evangeline which actually gave me nightmares last night.  I was Rochester’s crazy wife, locked up in a room without tv or interwebs.  And I woke up with the intense urge to go to Walmart and stock up on toilet paper and toothpaste.  It is orgy week after all, 6 more days to go!

I’m going to check in with you later this week and see how y’all are managing.  Right now I’m going to get some proper air. I will leave you with this, my favourite YouTube video of the year.  If Tim the Tambourine Man doesn’t make you happy, no one will: