There's no vanity in Halloween

The people at my open pit hell had a Halloween party today complete with a costume contest. Halloween is a trigger for me. When I was a vulnerable, tender 23, I got invited to a costume party hosted by some frat pigs I'd gone to college with. I dressed as a hobo, which is what we used to call homeless people. I messed up my hair, rubbed dirt on my face, put on a baggy, old coat of my dad's, and carried a big bag of empty beer cans. (I know it doesn't seem very politically correct -- I was young and it was a LONG time ago, back when being a hobo and riding the rails was kind of romantic.) There were a lot of other girls at the party and not one of them thought to come as a hobo. Whatever they did come dressed as, "sexy" was in front of the title: sexy nurse, sexy witch, sexy vampire. I never felt so ugly in my life and, although it took me a while to figure out, I smelled bad, too. Apparently, my dad's old coat hadn't been laundered since he shoveled truckloads of horse manure in it and my cans still had beer in them which hadn't finished fermenting. Ever since then, I've never wanted to be the ugliest, smelliest girl at the party and must dress as something sexy, or at least pretty, for Halloween. And yet, I hate girls like me. (The ones who put on ears and tape a tail to their black bikinis and go as cats. Cats don't wear bikinis.) There's nothing amusing or charming about sexy Halloween costumes. It's just vanity.

Also, I think that the way people dress for Halloween is an expression of their true, inner self. Do I want people to think my real self desires to be a sexy cheerleader/geisha/go go dancer? I don't think so. And yet I absolutely couldn't bring myself, no matter how fabulous the results, to glue on a beard and chest hair and go as a hairy lady which a friend of mine did last  year. Come to think of it, I don't want people to think I even think about any of this. Here's what I'm considering for this year's costume:

sexy sixties Mad Men character
sexy hobo (brown bikini, dirt on body, bag of washed-out empty diet coke cans)
sexy dead poet Sylvia Plath (just have to chip a tooth)

This book review gets personal.

I just finished Franzen's Freedom. It deserves the hype. He has this way of writing about the background hum that drives us humans. His books aren't about actions or fables (and therefore won't translate to the big screen) but about themes (in this case: "freedom") and that is a hard thing to pull off. I'm impressed. (Then again, I'm fascinated by the way people interact and how they can hurt each other.)

I devoured the first 7/8 ths of the book in ten days and dragged the last 30 pages out over a week because I didn't want it to end. I finished the last page at my desk in my big, open-pit of cubes and hid my tears behind my reading glasses.

The story: it's about a family and it's about a marriage that falls apart and so it was poignant to 50% of the rest of the U.S. but especially to me.

SPOILER ALERT:
The characters: The withdrawn, but adoring husband who is overly dedicated to his career and acquiescent to his wife. The morally-wavering wife who never gives her career a chance and stays home to raise her children only to discover a deepening boredom and depression which manifests itself in alcoholism and an affair.  (Um, sound familiar?) It's like watching a train headed for a wreck for twenty five years. But here's the thing. After the inevitable separation which lasts for six silent years, the couple gets back together. That's when I cried. The Berglunds get to spend their retirement years hiking and communally witnessing the continued growth and successes of their adult children. That's what brought the tears.

A part of me still believes/hopes/wants to get back together with ex just for continuity and because we both love our boys equally fiercely. Shamefully, a small part of me hopes for a reunion so I won't have to imagine that -- like when my mother used to warn me that if I crossed my eyes they might get stuck that way -- sitting in this ubiquitous advertising-agency Aeron chair and proofing copyright lines in monitor toppers for Intel might become permanent. And there is also a part of me that will always love ex. He was a good guy and helped make two good kids.

Danger signs your relationship is a risk of affairs. (Or just don't marry a guy who works in Silicon Valley.)

This is from Mira Kirshenbaum, a relationship expert and author of Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay and Women and Love. I'm reposting an excerpt from her blog. She is being interviewed about how to tell if your partner is cheating.

Mira: Here are the three big, real danger signs that your relationship is at risk of one of you having an affair.

1) Things aren’t good between you. The two of you are distant, disconnected, fighting, not making love as often as you used to, and not having fun when you are together.

2) You’re leading very separate lives. You’re not spending much of your free time together.

3) Even if you’re not fighting and even if you are spending time together, if you start having the feeling that your guy just doesn’t care about you that much any more, that there’s a ‘whatever’ quality to how he treats you, then there’s a real risk that he is having an affair. (Note here she uses the masculine assuming the man will be the one out trying new ice cream flavors while the long-suffering woman sits home wondering what's wrong with her. Mira's a bit sexist, no?)

Why was I reading this? Slow morning at work. Ex did not cheat on me with another woman. He's not wired that way. He's too noble, has too much integrity and he's way too shy. However, #3 still rang true for me. Ex cheated on me with his job. (And this socially sanctioned; when I mentioned how much he worked, our marriage therapist said "that's how you get all that nice shit you have" -- or something like that.) He was mute and distracted and up all night in the other room typing away on his hot, little laptop. He claims to have hated it. He hated it so much he couldn't talk about it. I still don't really know what he does. More on this topic tomorrow after my computer gets fixed. Typing without a functioning track pad is painful. It turns out I'm the one without any integrity.

I need a wife.

Somebody to buy cat food and make dinner and put out my recycling. And massage my son's head which I've just had a request for.

Apparently I'm one of those types who needs a lot of down time to stare at things. And putter. I like to putter. Without my putter time, I get pull-out-my-hair irritable and little things --  like the fact my semi-new laptop's trackpad is on the fritz -- make me want to pull out my eyebrows.

DVD review: The Killers

First of all, I do not like Katherine Heigl as an actress. (I don't know her personally but I do think that, given the roles she chooses to play I probably wouldn't like her as a person either.) I saw this movie to keep peace between me, Mario, and Big Guns -- it was the only thing we could agree on. Like most politics, it was a least common denominator choice.
Ashton Kutcher plays a hit man who keeps his career a secret from Katherine, his cautious, conservative love interest. It's the old opposites attract/sparks fly plot. So what happens is she finds out about his line of work and sparks fly. There's a little plot twist that I won't spoil for you in case you need to see it. A still-fine Tom Selleck plays Katherine's dad and, here's why I'm even writing this review, Catherine O'Hara plays her mother, who is obviously an alcoholic and plays it for laughs, dumping half a quart of vodka into a pitcher of tomato juice while breakfasting with Tom and chatting with her daughter on the phone then picking up the pitcher and drinking it. Ha ha. It's a dysfunctional family in extreme; no one seems to even notice her problem or even asks her to leave them some Vodka. It's hard to imagine this happening if she'd been walking around covered in open sores or riddled with cancer. I'm ashamed to admit that I laughed at her a few times but it was really off putting and strange.
There was The Ugly Truth, now this. That's two strikes against you, Katherine.

Marriage is like a tangled ball of thread

My ties to ex are slowly breaking. I see, or feel it, now. Our relationship was like a huge, hopeless ball of tangled thread, the kind you leave in the bottom of the sewing basket thinking that someday you'll tackle it when you have the patience and time and a good magnifying glass so you leave it there where, miraculously unassisted, it continues to grow and gather lint fluff and stray buttons and pins.

I am slowly pulling our tangled nightmare apart. The difficult thing is that I have to examine every knot before I can untangle them: that was my part, that was his part, that was my part, ok, done. Of course, the threads are never the same; they're all wrinkly and twisted and will never wind up smoothly.

After more than a year, I am starting to see us as two separate, messy piles and not one big one. Yes I can imagine living without him for the rest of my life. (Not that it isn't still weird.) But everything I do -- go to reading, visit a museum, buy a pair of shoes -- isn't accompanied with a jealous take that! you bastard. Sometimes I do things and don't even think of him at all. Progress, not perfection.

Odds and ends.

Does anybody else hate the overly sensitive tracking pad on their MacBook so that when you inadvertently brush your hand across it the windows on the screen go large or small and you think that there's something wrong with your eyes? No?

I got my first paycheck from the second agency. They use a service, a sort of temp agency, since they hire so many freelancers and the temp agency takes out all the taxes and what not and over half of my check went to the government. Ex never complained about taxes -- he lived on grants and government loans and assistance for so long -- seriously, he didn't have a real, full-time job until he was in his 30s! -- that he was happy to give back and give more. He was grateful for good roads and stuff like that. I'm trying to channel some of him right now.

One week down.

Seven to go. Everybody in this agency, save for five or so big shots, works in a big, open pen outfitted with long tables, which are like desks for three. There aren't even cubicles. It makes it very difficult to play my Scrabble turn without the whole office seeing they're paying me to beat my friend B with another "QAT" on a triple word score. So. The work. It's just not that interesting -- Sisyphean in fact. I'd open a vein if I thought this is what I'd have to do for the rest of my life but I'm sure all will be forgotten as soon as I get my first paycheck. It'll certainly help pay for the $5 grande latte I have to suck down at 3 every day to make it till quitting time. I try a different flavor everyday! Pumpkin spice lattes are back! It must be fall.