Lookin' good

I haven’t seen this movie (Bridesmaids). Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. Looks funny. Depends on what mood I’m in.

But can I just give it kudos on one point?

See the picture above. I’m not seeing anything any of these women are wearing that is unrealistic. It bugs the s-n-o-t, SNOT out of me when most movies about women put the lead actresses in fantasy clothes. Stuff like the girl who is supposed to be a dog walker for a living is wearing $200 jeans and a silk t-shirt. Uh, no. It’s like some sort of rule that Jennifer Anniston, Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway can’t be in a romantic comedy unless they are wearing designer clothes. And not just like Ralph Lauren or Michael Kors or somebody I’ve heard of. Freakish over-priced stuff from boutique labels that only Jennifer Anniston can afford to by. The real Jennifer Anniston, not the dog walker Jennifer Anniston.

These women are all dressed like women I know. Okay, the hair is probably 10 percent better than most normal women. But I give it a pass.

I think the reason it bugs me so much (the main reason) is that it’s just bad storytelling. Like Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Audrey Hepburn is wearing clothes that she can’t afford, but it’s because she’s been getting paid to go the powder room. If Kate Hudson is supposed to be playing a single mom with a baby, how are you supposed to believe it when she’s wearing an Italian wool sweater that not only doesn’t have baby barf on the shoulder, you can’t even imagine a baby who would have the nerve to barf on it in the first place.

Come to think of it, maybe I should go see this movie. Just to support truth in costuming.

Not all that surprising

http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/09/korean-study-suggests-rate-of-autism-may-be-underestimated/

I just find this study so completely un-alarming. In fact I think it’s probably a good thing. There’s no boom in autism folks. It’s not an epidemic. These people have always been with us. It’s just when you and I were young, we (not to put too fin a point on it) used to call them the weird kids. You know it’s true. The kid who couldn’t quite figure out how to get into the social stream. The one who ended up picked on because he didn’t fit in. The one who didn’t make eye contact. He laughed too loud, or at the wrong times. If he made an overture at friendship (big if) he most likely creeped the person he approached out. Possibly smelled. You remember the kid. And you probably have stopped to wonder as an adult whatever happens to a kid like that when they grow up.

Okay, 1 in 38 seems like a lot. But if you figure that the average school has 3 to 4 classes of 24 to 25 kids per each grade, that’s 2 to 3 weird kids per grade. Which is just about exactly what I remember from elementary school. I may have had a little closer contact with the weird kids in school, because I was frequently in that borderline-weird area of kids who are different (fat, skinny, too smart, a little slow, gay, artsy, whatever) but still have enough social skills to cope and gather at least a small group of friends. And because we generally suffered from the usual run of mild to moderately aggressive teasing that the outsiders get, if we weren’t able to protect the weird kids, we at least tried not to add any more to the ration of hell that the pack leaders were usually only to happy to deal out.

And I know people are really hesitant to label. But really, some autistic kids turn out just fine. It’s not a death sentence. I’ve never heard anyone say it out loud, but I’m pretty much of the opinion that George Lucas is probably the Asperger’s poster child of all time. I have a family member who’s only been diagnosed in his 20s. Yes, we noticed. We just didn’t have a name for it. I think the more we are able to recognize what’s going on, the more some adults are going to find out that an autism diagnosis would have explained a shitload about their lives. And a lot of them would really find it sad that someone hadn’t been able to offer them help 20, 30 or 40 years earlier.

Autism is a spectrum disorder. Some kids are going to be profound. And some kids are going to be Temple Grandin. If someone gets those autistic kids who are at the mild end of the spectrum, who aren’t learning disabled but are pretty hopeless at the social interaction, and gets them the counseling that might get them a shot at being, well, at least not total social outcasts, I think most of those kids would be pretty damn grateful.

If only this was the end

The death of Osama bin Laden. As always with these things, it’s not easy to process when you’re a peace loving pragmatist. I wish we could have handled this as a country with quiet dignity. I understand why some could not. I can say I don’t feel safer. Do you?

I do feel like, given the Pakistanis remarkable ability to play both sides against the middle, that we should seriously re-think any aid money that is in that new budget we just wrote. If they can’t back us in a bar fight, it’s time to stop picking up their tab. Mean spirited, yes. Did I mention that I’m a little conflicted about this?

Was it about vengeance? Justice? The future safety of the billions of people worldwide who are threatened by the effects of radical terrorism? Finally being able to end a war effort that has floundered too long and killed too many? Maybe a little of each of the first three. I’m failing to even hope for the last.

I’m not glad he’s dead. I’m not sorry either. Really, I’m just sorry that we don’t live in a better world than this.

Wild Kingdom: Cougars and Drunk Lions

So, Saturday at the Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers show at Gruene Hall (and yes, I do realize I’m one lucky girl that I get to throw off phrases like that as casual as can be), I kind of realized why the whole cougar thing works.

I was at the show with Mo and T, enjoying the music, feeling good, grooving the scene. And from our vantage point on the edge of the crowd, we see this young guy working the crowd. There were at least 4 bachelorette parties, and he was working really hard to hook up with somebody, or apparently anybody. He’d float from group to group, making his play. And getting denied pretty much at every turn. Being inebriated, while probably loosening him up in making his move, was not helping him when it came to sealing the deal. You’d just see the girls in each group getting a little spooked every time he came near them. Like a herd of okapi scenting a lion on the wind. A really, really drunk lion.

And it was during “Green and Dumb”, when I locked arms with Mo to sway and sing along (it’s that kind of song; strangers become friends, friends become soul sisters and brothers from another mother under the light of a neon beer sign), I suddenly recognized Drunk Simba. Two years ago at an RCPM show (http://firephrase.blogspot.com/2009/05/good.html) at the House of Blues, he had been the one swaying with me, and finished the song off with a full-body hug. A bit fresh on 3 and a half minutes acquaintance, but not out of line. Firm yet gentle, I’d recommend him to a friend.

Anyway, Mo and I had apparently had the same thought when we saw the bachelorette girls getting all spooked about Simba. “Unclench, girls. He’s going to be carried to the car by his friends tonight. Being nice to him won’t kill you.” And that’s the advantage of being over 40. You don’t think that you’re going to marry, or even end up in a semi-committed one night stand with, every guy you smile at in a bar. Sometimes you can just play for the love of the game. And you also have enough confidence to know that if you start something and it turns into more than you were looking for, you can tell the guy to back off. Gently, or in no uncertain terms. It’s not a big deal. And believe me, I understand chicks before d***s (it’s my girl power version of bros before hos), and sometimes you just want to hang out with your girls. But honestly, it wouldn’t kill you to just be nice to the poor drunk guy. Karma has a way of coming around. Yeah, he wanted to hook up. But he'd probably have settled for a smile and a sing-along.

So, to all those young girls who sit in bars wondering aloud, as I’ve occasionally heard them do, why all the young guys are over talking to older women and not you – it’s pretty simple. We talk back.

Excuse the hell out of me

I just had the most amazing revelation about "kids these days". It kind of explains so much for me. They only apologize for social errors if they think you're going to get mad.

I was sitting in the hotel lobby finishing my coffee in an armchair. A teenage girl was moving a dining chair over to another table to sit with her friends. She banged her chair into the arm of mine, accidentally. Not me, the arm of my chair, hard enough to startle me. She stopped and looked at my face, and when she figured out that the blank look on my face was being stunned, rather than an overture to getting angry, she just went about her business. Somebody behind me asked if she was going to say anything; her reply was "Oh, no she's not mad." And that was that. No apology. No pardon. No excuse me.

And I was NOT going to get angry. It was a simple mistake that anyone could have made. No real harm. But it did, I don't know, disturb me. Interrupted my train of thought. Gave me a moment. So, in my day, you'd have said something. Just to acknowledge that your world bumped into mine. Regardless of whether someone was going to get mad or not. The "sorry" wasn't there to avoid a fight (most of the time), it was just polite.

I think she looked at the situation as there being nothing that she was going to get out of that second of saying "sorry" and just decided to save herself the effort. And I think that happens all the time. Those moments when I think young people are rude and don't know why. They don't use social skills unless they're going to get something out of it, avoid a fight or curry favor. But if they bump into you in the hall and you don't immediately start to yell at them, they're just going to truck on down the hall.

I'm trying to avoid the automatic judgement of "they're so lazy/rude/anti-social". It could be just the new way that people interact, and I'm behind the times. But geez. My knee jerk reaction is that it scares the crap out of me. This is the world we're going to be living in?