Archive for February 2011

Was it the Cheese? (Pulling Pectoralis)

February 28, 2011

Was it the cheese?

Some things sound better than others pulled.  Taffy or a leg or, even perhaps, pork are more inviting, for example, than “the plug,” or, as I found out last night, a pectoral muscle.  (Maybe forget the pork.)

I think it happened at the gym.  My tendency to rush around goofily is not particularly healthful when applied to weight machines.

I didn’t notice any problem when I was actually on the machines, but about an hour later, an intense pain began in the upper left side of my chest.

The pain was initially met by disbelief.  (The words “angina” and “vegetarianism” just didn’t seem to fit.)

Then involuntary tears took over.  (Did I mention that the pain was intense?)  My protests of vegetarianism were pretty quickly replaced by all the full-fat yogurt I have eaten, the whole (rather than skim) milk that I put in my tea, and the heart attacks suffered by grandfathers.

(Yes, I was macrobiotic for a while and religiously used soy milk, but that was years and year ago.)

Agh.

In the hours of pain (did I mention that it was also kind of unrelenting!? ), I learned several important things:  (i) it is hard but not impossible to tap the stopwatch button on an iPhone while also keeping a finger on one’s pulse;  (ii) practically nothing in the world short of draining blood loss will induce me to go to a New York City emergency room;  (iii) I have a truly wonderful husband;  (iv) soy milk really doesn’t taste that bad in tea; (v) if you want to change your life, it is important to take actual concrete steps sooner rather than later.

Thankfully, I am quite a bit better today and am pretty sure that the pain was all muscular.

(What was that about changing my life?)

Hurray For Academy for Awarding The King’s Speech Best Picture – Boo to the Academy for Using The King’s Speech as Best Picture Background

February 28, 2011

I gave in and watched a lot of the Academy Awards.  (I’m a sucker for ball gowns.  Anne Hathaway did her beautiful bubbly best to satisfy this weakness.)

The King’s Speech was a terrific film and one of the few I’ve actually seen so I was really glad that it swept up so many awards.  As a less- and-less secret tapdancer, I was especially happy to hear Colin Firth’s eloquent references to joyful bodily impulses.   (And as a long-time fan of Colin Firth–Team Darcy all the way!–I was really very pleased for him.)

But the use of George VI’s actual early World War II speech as a background to the difficulties of choosing a Best Picture winner was truly appalling.    Who came up with that idea?  What were they thinking of?    Is Hollywood really so solipsistic (and tone-deaf) as all that?    I have to hope that it was a small committee, a completely tasteless few.   Pretty goofy.

Update re Hydrofracking – Good Luck to Josh Fox!

February 27, 2011

For a chilling update on the dangers to the water supply raised by hydrofracking, or hydraulic fracturing, a high-powered form of natural gas drilling, check out today’s New York Times article by Ian Urbino.  For my old post on whether or not we need clean drinking water in a fracking new world, check here.   Finally, good luck to Josh Fox, writer, filmmaker, moving force behind the documentary Gasland, which has brought so much attention to this issue and is up tonight for an academy award.  (The film would be a shoe-in if the Marcellus Shale were located in California.)

Not Much of a Moviegoer – Can I blame it on the computer?

February 27, 2011

Not Me Of Late

As followers of this blog know, I have spent the last several days posting images of little (or big) elephants inserted into stills from past Academy Award winning movies or current contestants.  I have to confess that I am much more into elephants than Oscars.  I haven’t actually seen many movies this year and I don’t know that I’ll even watch the awards tonight, or not for more than a short snatch.

It’s not that I don’t like movies or even awards shows.  Time just feels very short to me, and in our digital world, I find myself increasingly impatient with entertainment that I can’t control–speed up, browse through, dip into as I please.   (Even with an old-fashioned book, I can flip through/scan the boring parts–but a movie in a theater, or a tv show, without a TIVO, must be sat through.)

ADHD is mainly supposed to be a disease of children, but it also seems to becoming an ailment of rushing adults.

Some (i.e. my husband) blame it all on computers.

Computers certainly make it easier to entertain oneself in fragmented snatches.  But I really don’t think that we can blame them for the frantic quality of many of our lives.  The rigors of making a living today, and then of making a life once one has (more or less, for the moment at least) secured that living, seem  to make rushing almost mandatory.

Of course, one can take the point of view that it’s all process, and that whatever one does (job, commute, shopping, cooking, cleaning) should be slowly savored;  that each activity should be granted an equal sense of possibility.  (Even movie awards shows.)  My problem is that I am just not that enlightened.

So I rush, scan, multi-task.  And in the midst of it, draw little elephants.

Could be worse.

Lead-In To Oscars (With Elephants). Buzz and Woody and….

February 26, 2011

Bullseye?

 

Lead-In To Oscars: Black Swan (Elephant)

February 26, 2011

You can find them anywhere.

 

Lead-Up To Oscars: Not Rooster Cogburn

February 24, 2011

True...?

Lead-Up To Oscars – “The King’s Speech” (With Elephant)

February 23, 2011

"You truly believe.... I can do this?"

(For more on The King’s Speech with elephants, check out this.)

Lawrence of Arabia Sans Camel. (You Can Find Them Anywhere.)

February 22, 2011

Even in the Sahara?

The Sting (With Elephant). Surprise surprise….

February 21, 2011

You can find them anywhere.