Author: the outside lane

I’ve never dated dum-dums.  Looks and material goods were always secondary to brains for me–brains and a good sense of humor.  The dumbest man I ever dated was still a college graduate with a good grasp of his area of expertise.  The smartest man I ever dated, I married.  I think we have reproduced one that will at least match his intellect and his wit.  The Boy is better looking than both of us, so some girl is going to be very, very lucky once he gets over the whole cooties thing.

I studied Spanish from 6th grade through college.  In my early 20s, I used Spanish in my line of work, so I spoke with what I would call a working level of fluency.  I haven’t needed to use it in years, so it’s nearly all gone.  I understand better than half of what I hear and what I read, but I can’t speak it anymore.  It takes so long for me to retrieve the vocabulary and conjugate the verbs in my brain, that anyone trying to have a conversation with me has fallen asleep.  Don’t even get me started on how my accent has slipped.  I use French Rs, Russian vowels, and Italian Cs.  (Don’t take 4 languages at once.)

My husband and the majority of his friends are economic/political savants.   I used to be neck deep in politics and stayed well abreast of policy.  Now?  Well, I understand what they are talking about, but I’m no longer informed enough to carry on a conversation.  They may as well be speaking Spanish.  I can smile and nod (or look grim and nod, because no one smiles when talking politics, save for politicians), but I can’t contribute anything worthwhile.  It makes me feel like Penny from Big Bang Theory.

Ask me about shoes!

Don’t even do that.  I haven’t been up on shoe designers in 10 years.  I lost interest in them when the designer name became more important than the artistry of the shoe.  *cough*manoloblahnik*cough*

Ask me about makeup.

Does it bother anyone else that Rene Lenier is dating Snow White’s daughter?  I mean, Pam as Maleficent…okay.  I don’t buy it, but okay.  It’s still two angry, powerful, magical women.  But Rene?  He was a sociopath and serial killer, who tied a dead cat to a ceiling fan blade.  Rene cannot date Emma Swan.  This is what keeps me up at night.

In a similar vein, I have never read any of the Twilight books, or seen any of the movies.  I’ve seen the last 15 minutes of one of the movies on tv.  That happened when I walked into the living room and found Bryan sitting on the sofa, squinting at the television, his head tilted like a puppy who is trying to understand you.  I asked what he was watching, and he had no idea.  I sat down to try to make sense of blue-washed fight scene, realized what we were watching, and had to watch it out because…awful.  So very terrible.  The wigs even.  The wigs were just…I don’t even know.  Terrible.

If you watch tv at all, the press tour for the latest and last of the Twilight movies is unavoidable.  I’ve seen the trailers and was very happy for Kristen Stewart because they finally got her a pretty wig, and looks lovely.  Then, I saw a shot of the rest of the vampire family and laughed out loud.  How hard is it to get a good wig?  Someone from their makeup department needs to call Cher and just ask a girlfriend who does her hair pieces.  Cher is a lovely, generous woman.  I’m sure she would be happy to share.

There was an equally terrible wig on True Blood last season.  The character Salome looked like she’d grabbed something off the hair rack at the Dollar Store, teased it up and used eyelash glue to work down the front.  Wigs aren’t rocket science.  It isn’t hard to find one that doesn’t look like a doll factory reject.  I know–I grew up with women who wore them on the regular.  I grew up with women who took their wigs to the beautician for a set whenever they got their own. 

Maybe what these people need is a sit down with Lenore, of Lenore’s Hair.

Happy No More Campaign Commercials Day!  I live in a solid red state, so campaign advertising didn’t really affect me much, but I have friends in Florida and Ohio, who were just inundated with tv, radio, door-to-door and phone call ads warbling, “vote for meeeee!”

I actually got really cranky about the idea of how much it was costing to fly candidates all over the country in the past week.  The physical cost to fly, and I was cranky about the environmental cost.  I’m not even particularly Green and I felt my forehead wrinkling.  But you know what?  In 50 years, when candidates are beaming themselves into my living room at dinner time to beg me for my vote, I am going to miss the days when they had to get on a plane and fly.

At any rate, congratulations to President Obama, and congratulations to my guy, Gary Johnson, on running a good campaign.