One little Indian

Bonus

Poor, dear, old Elizabeth Edwards. She was not perfect. She made some mistakes. But she was a living example of how people don't get just cancer. They get all the shit everyone else gets, PLUS cancer.

A dreary media binge

I've been on another media binge, gorging on 1) the book Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen; 2) HBO's In Treatment; 3) Showtime's This American Life; and 4) HBO's The Comeback. And I have to admit I'm perplexed and saddened.

Is it true, as Freedom and Comeback would lead you to believe, that men are interested exclusively in sex? Is it true, as Treatment suggests, that life is pain and even the best analysis cannot buy happiness? And is it true, as Comeback and one installment of American Life declare, that no one cares what old people think, and in fact they're seriously annoying to everyone around them?

Re the last question: At first I dismissed Comeback as a one-note, funny-only-because-it's-relentlessly-annoying show that wasn't particularly funny. But as I've mulled it over, I realize that Lisa Kudrow's character is ... me at work (and perhaps in other venues as well). The oldest and most senior member of my department, I'm invested in the old ways but struggling to master the new, working hard to keep a smile on my wrinkled, age-spotted old face, sadly aware of younger folks avoiding me in elevators and hallways ("Ach! What if she tries to talk to me?" I can hear them saying to themselves). Is this how life ends—with total irrelevance and humiliation? No wonder people opt for retirement homes. It's just too dispiriting trying to stay in the real world with all the pretty, young people who wish you would disappear.

Downsize 'em!

Mostly, package downsizing is a bad thing: Pay more, get less. But there's one grocery-store item that is ripe for downsizing: cranberries. The turkey's been hashed, souped and sandwiched. The stuffing's long gone. The pies are a distant memory. But the cranberry sauce lingers forever. And there aren't many ways to dish it up as something new. It comes out of the fridge the same as it went in, just a little more congealed than the previous night. Or worse, stays in the fridge until it's discovered months later in its still gelid state or with a thatch of gray fuzz. Even if you make cranberry bread, you never use the whole package, and the berries left in the bag are never quite enough for the next loaf, so you keep on buying and buying and buying and never come out even. Is this a marketing oversight? Or a marketing strategy? And what the hell can I do with this stuff?

Half full or half empty?

I've been feeling a little sad about how much my yoga practice has fallen off over the past couple years. I used to take yoga classes five or six days a week. But changes in my work schedule and class schedules have whittled the frequency. I mentioned this to Other, and as I was saying how much I regretted the diminution to only four a week, maximum, I listened to myself and thought, Gee, if someone told me she was upset because she could get to soccer practice only four days a week, I'd think she was crazy. That's plenty! And so it is. Saturday at Integral Yoga, Sunday with my favorite teacher at Crunch, Monday with an Anusara teacher named Ellen Saltonstall, possibly a Tuesday-night class at Crunch. Good! Not bad!

The stinkwood in winter

I know these narcissuses will be beautiful one day ...

... but right now they're kind of gross, don't you think?