Project Me!

Convalescing/Convulsing

Yeah, I know this was probably a sickness-related barf (do spinal injuries make you puke?) but I like to believe that it was induced by the inner turmoil of realizing that he will longer being able to be "properly married." Also, I just wanted a place to talk about Matthew's broken dick. Neither Twitter nor Facebook are right for that.

And I can't believe I finally got sucked into Downton Abbey. I also kind of hate to admit that I do find the actor attractive and it's for the reasons that I see some women don't like him: he's weak chinned and slightly doughy. Obviously, he's not fat (oh my, apparently he was fat-shamed into losing a stone-and-a-half, whatever that translates to) but the first time I saw him on the show I was surprised that was the romantic lead because in America he would be more chiseled and a little firmer.

Give it a few years (how long was it between the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and ours?) and we'll have our own Downton Abbey with Channing Tatum or Chris Evans--or Taylor Lautner if it took another decade.

Opkast Is Danish For Vomit

James pays for streaming Netflix even though we probably don’t use it more than once a month because we watch cable and nothing I want on demand is ever on streaming Netflix. To rectify this, he chose a Danish dark comedy/crime movie, Terribly Happy, the other night. Murders take place, a bog where bodies get hidden (and cats are threatened to be thrown into) plays a role, and at some point the big city cop transferred to rural Denmark as punishment vomits. I don’t even remember the context, though it didn’t make Jutland look like a pleasant part of the world to visit.

Speaking of vomiting (in a less cinematic, though no less dismaying fashion) have you ever puked so hard you pissed yourself? I can now firmly say that I have. And it started at my company holiday party where I should’ve been celebrating, enjoying myself since things are not bad at work and I’m doing pretty well for myself lately.

The sweating, incoherence, and nausea came on fast, like those random inexplicable spells I occasionally get when I’m a car passenger to New Jersey. One minute I’m being a typical big mouth, saying too much in front of coworkers, a tendency I just can’t seem to tamp down despite the increasing demands for tight-lipped maturity in my life (this non-private forum is all I have left) next thing I know I’m about to heave my guts up.

I would blame alcohol, but by my standards I hadn’t ingested that much, only three drinks (maybe a poor combination—Manhattan, Chardonnay, champagne, and ultimately a glass of pinot noir, which I couldn’t drink because started literally throwing up in my mouth). I ran to the bathroom only to find a line. I heard a “I like your dress,” which was nice, and after the complimenter went into the bathroom, I puked all over the ground and down the front of my fancy emerald green Kate Spade dress, chunks gathering in the bow framing the collar. I played cool, cleaned up, and had to leave.

I only made it, and barely, two stops on the F train to Dumbo when I had to run onto the platform and heaved so hard that a visible stream of urine trickled leg to toe in my turquoise tights. I couldn’t get back on the next train to go the extra three stops to my neighborhood. Instead, I unwisely decided to walk the two miles home from Dumbo in heels because I was too scared to get back on a subway or hail a cab and I needed the air. Blisters ensued, the shoes were half-destroyed, and I woke up with severe pain in my left hipbone socket because I guess I am aged and can’t walk on tiptoes for 45 minutes straight.

There is no moral to this story other than that I should stick with flats and Old Navy clothing, only drink water, and never leave the house or talk to anyone.

This is a great photo that appears if you Google Image search opkast, though clearly these are Americans not Danes.

Spelunking

The Descent, a horror film that I inexplicably watched one-and-a-half times this week, is the only movie I can think of that ends with a vomit scene. Being the sole survivor of blind, albino Appalachian, cave-dwelling cannibals can be rough on the nerves. Except that that’s not how the movie is supposed to end. Apparently, the US version lopped off the last minute where the escape was all a fantasy…and she’s still in the cave. Nooo!

Either way, there’s still vomit involved.

I wasn’t paying attention when The Babysitter came on right afterwards and looked up to see either Jeremy or Jason London (I can’t be bothered to check) was puking in a convertible. I chalked it up to underage drinking, though I could be wrong. I didn’t take the time to find out and flipped the channel. Ok, it was the kidnapped twin.

Mildred Pukes

I like those green tiles.

I have never read Mildred Pierce, though I’ve always admired the paperback with the cover by Robert Jonas, one of my favorite last-century illustrators. He did another version, as well.

So, I didn’t know the story line and wasn’t expecting part one of the HBO miniseries to end with a vomit scene (business done tastefully off-camera). I guess it’s traumatic to realize you’ll have to work for a living to support yourself? If I thought about it too much, I might throw up daily, myself. Mildred was forced to take a job at a diner after being told there were no jobs for telephone operators and being humiliated at a live-in maid interview, and after admitting as much to her friend, she threw up.

Also, I did not know that chicken and waffles were a popular thing to eat in Depression-era LA. Roscoe's didn't even open until the '70s and I think they were appropriating a dish found in Harlem.

I threw up numerous times last night, four times at a bar called Molly's (no, I had not even been drinking--it was near the restaurant I had reservations for that I had to cancel and seemed like the kind of place where vomit in the bathroom wouldn't cause a stir) and then held more the 40 minutes home by subway (a cab wouldn't take us to Brooklyn druing rush hour) and made it safely to my own bathroom by some miracle. I only ate clementines, almonds, butternut squash soup and crackers yesterday, hardly items one would associate with potential to poison. I still have a headache and am not dressed (it is 4pm). Definitely not a bout of emotionally induced vomiting. I will never come to understand how it works.

I also some some nice seeing-dead-people-induced barfing while watching part one of The Stand on Netflix the ohter night, but was too tired (I ended up staying up till 2:30 watching that crap and the really kind of good, What Alice Found, even though I already saw it on TV when it first came to cable. IFC gives away the whole twist in its synopsis, though that transgression is almost made up for by the appearnce of Rainbow in the film) to take a picture.

Does Workers' Comp Cover Emotional Vomiting?

A city employee was so traumatized by his sadistic superior’s alleged verbal abuse that the mere sound of her voice caused him to vomit. Now he is suing.

An unnamed coworker told the sour-stomached superintendent that the berating boss had said “‘I did not know that I made men throw up’ — and then laughed hysterically.”

No direct correlation has been made between this hostile work environment and the employee’s bleeding prostate.

Blood & Guts

It’s been 24 hours so I’d love to spoil the shit out of last night’s The Walking Dead finale, but that’s not what I’m here for. I’m just reminiscing about the second episode (how lame is a six-episode season?) where survivors swaddled themselves in zombie entrails to blend in. I guess that’s foul enough to make an Asian kid hurl (offscreen, sadly).

I still have no trouble eating my dinner during each putrid saga. Chinchulines, anyone?

Miami Devices

In the world of emotionally induced vomiting cliches, there are many sub-genres. Rookie Mistake is a big one.

(There was a barf scene in The Social Network, which I only saw over Thanksgiving weekend. The movie is already vague in my mind, but someone puked while doing that outdoor hazing thing to get into a prestigious club. Nerves. They also employed the furiously scribbling lots of numbers on a surface—in this case a window—to show genius. What they didn’t resort to were any scenes of jumping into a pool to escape life’s complexities. Misogynistic nerds don’t do such things, but Stephen Dorff did appear to be partaking in that cinematic device during the trailer of Sophia Coppola’s new film.)

On Dexter, when a new Venezuelan cop schools Miami metro on Santa Muerte (which I thought was Mexican) she seems like she knows what she’s doing. But that doesn’t mean she’s immune to maggot-filled mummies left in a bed. Heaving up arepas on a porch? Totally a rookie move.

Hurling Through the '60s

I am aware that Don Draper was the victim of a stress-induced vomit—his past is catching up with him!—two episodes before the finale, but I haven’t had the energy to go back, re-watch the scene and photograph it.

Instead, I’ll have to make do (or is it due? I hate these idioms that could make sense either way. A few weeks ago I was traumatized by "baited breath" being used in a certain hideous blog that can't stop reading and then this site semi-defends that usage even though it's wrong) with the puke-stained aftermath.

Photo from Culturephile

Married With Children

I don’t 100% know the premise of Sons of Anarchy other than that there are bikers, they’re tough—and that it must suck for Katey Sagal to always be thought of as Peg Bundy.

From a snippet I caught the other night, her character and another woman had another woman tied up and kidnapped in the basement and after she escaped Katey Sagal stabbed and killed her prompting the other woman to throw up in a sink with a plastic bottle of bleach next to it. Um, and then “the cleaner” turned out to be Stephen King and I was all, “What the hell kind of show is this?!”

Also, I couldn’t help thinking that I must have overestimated Katey Sagal’s age during Married With Children because she still looks youthful (maybe it’s those bleached biker streaks in her hair) and she’s got to be in her 50s. At least I think she looks good, and her career has certainly had more longevity than her sisters, the twins who peaked with Double Trouble. Long live the ‘90s fan page!

Yes, she is 56. I got baffled for a second by Wikipedia mentioning she had a child in 2007 because even though I know older parenting is a thing, that doesn’t seem biologically sound. She used a surrogate, and good for her—old moms don’t bother me the same way as old dads.

I’ve grown accustomed to the women like I saw on the subway today: silver bobs, deep creases around the eyes, Whole Foods bags and grade school-aged kids in tow. It was jarring to hear James’ sister when we saw her Santa Cruz earlier this month talk about how at 41 with a four-year-old she’s at least a decade older than the other moms at the preschool. “Everyone’s young and has tattoos.” West Coast/East Coast or just Santa Cruz/Carroll Gardens?

Bark, Plunge, Barf

Sometimes when you’re writing a book, it’s irresistible to include the sound of a dog barking in the distance. Can’t deal with life? Film a scene where the overwhelmed character escapes to the bottom of a pool. 

Nerves, dread or horror? You puke your guts out. I’ve been sleeping on the job. There’s only so much time in the day and posting random occurrences (I’m not fixated enough to actively seek out these scenes) of my favorite cinematic cliché has taken a back seat (ha, the clichés won’t stop). Here, I have two pay cable examples from the semi-recent past.

Beheading, I’d have trouble watching. That’s certainly a far more antiquated method of execution than a firing squad. I honestly don’t understand the uproar with the recent Utah execution. Killing is killing; it’s horrible all around whether you use a violent method or something seemingly humane like lethal injection. Though she probably wouldn’t remember saying so and I can’t even imagine the context for this conversation, I recall my grandma saying when I was a kid that she’d want a firing squad if facing the death penalty.

Anyway, all I’ve learned from half-watching The Tudors is that Henry the VIII was kind of a dick. Fifth wife, Catherine Howard, was young, flirtatious and a cheater. Therefore, she eventually got the axe. But first went Culpepper. Henry liked him and his indiscretions with Catherine occurred before she married the king so he just got his head chopped off. Dereham, who was about to get the whole traitor shebang: hanging, drawing, quartering, beheading, puked while watching Culpepper meet his end. You know, this might actually be a situation where I’d lose the contents of my stomach. That much less to disembowel. Watch the whole scene.

I’ve only seen two corpses in my life, both properly embalmed and in a casket: a coworker and former classmate with a heroin problem and an uncle who succumbed to diabetes like just about everyone on my dad’s side of the family including him (so far, no dialysis or amputations for me, just a nice insulin resistance).

Neither involved Mormonism, compounds or being frozen and carted all around Utah before falling out of a casket, so it’s hard to say how I’d react to a situation like Roman Grant’s funeral on Big Love. I’d likely scream, not barf. Sadly, Big Love is no longer available on demand and no one is obsessive enough to post video clips on YouTube.