I've been so fascinated and self-absorbed with middle age that I hadn't bothered thinking ahead to future horrors, uh, like being called elderly before your time. If I'm still blogging here when I hit elderly territory, god help us all.
Since I consider 45 the start of middle age (yes, I know I'm alone in this) than I would say 65 is the beginning of elderly-ness.
Why does Nurse Jackie get so much action? She is an
abrasive, average-looking (though very fit--Edie Falco has mightily toned arms,
despite the character being gym-avoidant) late 40s Queens mom and
recovering drug addict. The day her divorce was finalized she got asked out by
a cop who was a firefighter on Rescue Me and then ended up humping Bobby
Carnivale. It probably has something to do with not going to bars where the men
are all under 30 and parties where men may be age-appropriate but all married
or otherwise coupled-up. There are lessons to be learned from Nurse Jackie.
Why is the kid from Skins the object of teenage
girl desire in two eras on two shows simultaneously?
I don't watch contemporary Law & Orders,
whatever is left of them, with any regularity, but occasionally when I flip I
see a suity guy, grown-up, conservative, beginning to jowl that I find mildly
attractive. The character is Rafael Barba who is played by Raul Esparza and
kind of reminds me of a less burly Sasha Roiz (whose name I didn't actually
know, just that he was a tough guy on Caprica). These are respectable adult men that grown
women would like. Or maybe younger ladies too--there is a Fuck Yeah Rafael
Barba Tumblr, a.k.a. The Suspenders Appreciation Club, after all.
I noticed Esparza last week on Hannibal with more
facial hair. And the actor, himself, doesn't work at all in this way for me.
He's a theater guy, openly bisexual, which I usually take to mean gay (sorry,
genuine bisexuals). Also, speaking of Hannibal, which I like but don't love, I
don't find Hugh Dancy hot at all. Just don't get it. And to think that's the father of Carrie Mathison's baby.
But who I really like is Kevin Rahm, but strictly as Ted Chaough on
Mad Men (I've never watched Desperate Housewives where he played a gay
neighbor, I think). The liney, pouchy eyes (ugh, like gray hair--why do guys
get to make a "flaw" of aging look good?) swoop of a nose, slicked
hair, always with the turtlenecks.
So hot, and yet I've never come across a similar
sentiment online, and yes, I read a recap or two. I finally felt vindicated
with the minor make-out (yeah, I'm starting to warm to gifs) and subsequent fantasy sequence by Peggy. It's probably
not a great idea to cheat with your older married boss, but anything's better
than her proto-hipster boyfriend who spurred her to become a gentrifyer with
human poop on her stoop.
Kevin Rahm, the person, I'm whatever on. Dude's a
Mormon who married a surgeon last year. And their Macy's wedding registry is public and
full of lots of gray, white and ivory towels and 800 thread count sheets. Also, stemless wine glasses, which I was gently forced to box away at my previous apartment but can use with abandon now.
He also gets married in a 2001 Apple commercial.
And then is involved with another wedding in a VW
Jetta Super Bowl ad from the same year.
Because I have nothing better to do (ok, I have
twenty million things I should be doing, um, like watching lots of TV and getting
no real work or writing done) I started another Tumblr just to collect photos I
come across of all the gray-haired men and the non-gray women in their lives.
Are we to believe that women's hair remains chestnut for life? It must be so.
I’ve stopped having to shave my knees. At first I
thought it was just a trick of the light, or the lack thereof, in my shower
(there is a burnt out bulb that needs replacing) but no, I barely have hair
above my shins now, which is great on one hand, but creepy on the other because
that must be a sign of deterioration. I can recall seeing old men in shorts
with legs that were all shiny and hairless like a prosthetic and that must be
what’s happening. (ChaCha claims otherwise.) In middle school, I got made fun of (well, for countless
things because it was middle school) for having hairy knees while out in the
sunlight on concrete bleachers during recess. I hadn’t really noticed the problem
then in bathroom light, which is why I wasn’t convinced this time either. Or
maybe it’s my eyes that are going.
I can now make a ponytail, one of those one-inch
horrible ‘80s man ponytails (that may be preferable to the 2010s man bun, ugh) but
still. So, at least my hair hasn’t ceased growing altogether.
Three episodes into Top of the Lakeand there have
already been two barf scenes. Thai mom of the missing pregnant 12-year-old and
Elizabeth Moss...I actually forget why she threw up.
Ok, I already watched all seven episodes before I
got around to posting this. I've turned into one of those Netflix bingers that
I find distasteful. It's not the marathoning that I hate, but that it tends to
be non-TV-owners or people who say they don't watch TV (you're still a consumer
if you're watching Netflix, Hulu or something similar) and then they are
seasons behind on everything so you can't even talk to them without being a
spoilsport. I want to talk about TV! (I have no one to talk to about this
show.)
I have a expensive-to-me cable package that still
doesn't have the Sundance Channel, so I watched this through a borrowed Netflix
login (which apparently they're about to abolish?). I do now see the beauty of
watching a series unfold one episode after the other instead of waiting a week
for the plot to develop further.
Top of the Lake is like The Killing if it were good,
creepier, more violent and heavier on the womyn. Plus, New Zealand instead of
Seattle. I do find Joel Kinnaman more attractive than Thomas M. Wright, whom I think ladies are supposed to like.
One thing you don't think of when looking at a top
floor apartment with a communal roof deck in the middle of winter is that
eventually windows will be opened and residents will head outdoors. No wild
parties to date, just forceful daytime dude conversations. Luckily, this has
been a non-spring so I've staved off this situation until nearly May, and now
that NYC only had two seasons, hot and cold, it will be back to windows shut, air
conditioning on, in a millisecond.
It's still preferable to eye-level, ground-floor
living.
I've come to the conclusion that my best photos are
the speckley, washed out temp IDs. I also have both a BJ's and a Costco card
somewhere with the similar effect. Always more flattering than the DMV-style
sweaty-looking shots. You don't need me to remind you about my horrible Pratt
ID (to add insult to injury, I paid for a year's gym membership--cheap, sure--that
I can't even take advantage of now) that I'm not even going to link to.
* * *
I felt weirder about finding barely-teen Carl on Walking Dead increasingly hot because
he's a horrible douchey brat of a character (99% of teenage boys on TV suffer
from this affliction) than because of the fact that he was born in 1999 (?!). Pedo
blog, this will not be, though there's this thing where I find men my age and
older attractive (ugh, though I've been poking around OKcupid because I'm
stupid-curious, and have been so grossed out by all the 40+ men who won't date over 38
because they forgot to have kids at a reasonable age, or are maybe just
delusional) as well as the super young (what do you think about that new kid
with visions on Game of Thrones? Also? Noah Taylor!) but not twentysomethings
at all. They're the worst.
* * *
I'm going to Copenhagen in early June. Booked a ticket, an apartment, and a restaurant. I have no idea what one does there, but have been antsy and jealous of everyone else's vacations. So there.
I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I have little awareness
of the overlap between who this, Goodies First, Facebook and Twitter. Anyway, I
started a separate blog, The Middle Ages
(not to be confused with the category here) to specifically deal with drinking in
public while old. I have been doing quite a bit of research in the past month.
I'm pretty sure that Bates Motel isn't a very good
show (it's trashy like American Horror Story, but less entertaining) even though I've made it to episode three. In fact, it's pretty horrible.
Vera Farmiga, Norman's mother, gets raped within days of buying a nice motel in
coastal Oregon and kills her attacker, a disgruntled townie, and teen Norman helps deal with the body.
The next day at school he notices a drop of blood on his sneaker--and barf in
the trash can, as boys do.
Of course my interest in the show initially stemmed from Henry Thomas once playing a teenage Norman Bates. A commercial glimpe also made me think that the kid in this rendition was kind of cute (he was Charlie in the Johnny Depp version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) but it turns out that he does nothing for me. And I really hate that he's supposed to be troubled and awkward, yet the popular girls at school pay attention to him. Please.
On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't judge a show by
its reliance on vomit as an emotional indicator because even Enlightened, whose
demise I'm still mourning, used the visual. I love Mike White, like most fellow
INFJs, and therefore, trust his writing ability. I'm too distraught (and lazy)
to dig up the Amy Jellicoe vomit scene.
