This Afternoon In Drama

The Kicks Table

Don't freak out.  This is not the actual cover of the book in the Bloomsbury fall catalog.

   

I mean, it was for a minute.  Up until I freaked out because I thought it was a totally great cover for Babysitter's Club #162, Stacey's Wacky Garden Party, but just not really for my book.  That outfit is so Stacey, right?  Maybe with a few borrowed pieces from Claudia.

After I saw the above for the first time, I drove out to the desert with tears streaming down my face. That probably sounds more dramatic than it really was because it wasn't like I got in my car and just bolted for the desert to soothe myself with an empty landscape or anything like that.  I was just already going out there because I had to teach near Palm Springs that night.  Also, the tears were kind of from being upset about the cover and kind of from eye-road fatigue (fucking contacts, man).

I guess what got me most was the shoes.  They're like the Wet Seal version of those shoes Carrie Bradshaw does her "Hellloooo lover" shtick over in the episode of Sex and the City where they ultimately get ruined by Miranda's baby fluids.  These shoes:

 

My eyes went to their red-headed stepsisters on that cover and I was like, "Oh.  Ohhhhhhh.  Oh no."  And that's my take on them even if they hadn't gotten into bed with the turquoise tights.  I used to like a good Delia's catalog as much as the next girl, but it made me incredibly sad to have a cover that could pull double duty in a kooky prom spread.  Especially for this book, which despite being a comedy- I guess- is not the same kind of funny as that weird yellow table the gang's sitting at.  Not the same kind of funny as the kid who looks like he's been eating from his diaper.  I felt like if this was going to be my cover, then I wished there'd be a woman at every Barnes and Noble who could break water over every copy for me.  I'd put out an announcement: "Hey ladies, if you're suuuuuper pregnant, I've got a pile of jackets I'm going to ask you to squat over."  

However, this isn't the cover.  Bloomsbury didn't want my head to crack open.  They were willing to have discussions, many discussions, and bless the heart of that little blonde, but she's being tossed.  (Dear actual girl who modeled for the cover: Sorry!  Sorry if you already told your friends you're being on it!)  I think the new cover should probably be up by earlyish June.  

6.   I'm not playing about the shoes.

Do-re-MRI

I've mostly had a life free of medical treatment, knock on my Ralph Lauren wooden colonial armchair.  As a kid, my brother cracked his head open and broke his nose-- both incidents that made me incredibly jealous.  He received an avalanche of gifts.  I got a consolation pack of Garbage Pail Kids cards.  My worst ailments were a deep plantar's wart from the pool and a chronic case of self-imposed constipation.

But then my family started getting lots of cancer, and it was decided that I needed to get checked for what I call the "bad Jew gene," which indicates you are at serious, hereditary risk for certain manifestations of the disease.  I knew I was going to be positive even before the results came back, so when they did and when they were positive, I couldn't articulate any specific feeling about the news.  "It's not a surprise" was pretty much the extent of my emotional reaction.

My new oncologist, who has a very Jewish name but looks so not Jewish, suggested that I might want to go in for a breast MRI just to get a baseline scan for when I have to start doing them regularly in a few years.  So I made the appointment and got kind of paranoid when the booker asked me, "Are you sure you don't have metal anywhere in your body?" because I know I don't, but I had this fear that I'd forgotten something, somewhere, and the MRI machine would rip it out my body through my nose.

I thought I'd write about what having an MRI is like because I had absolutely no clue going in, and I'm sure there are a lot of people my age who (luckily) aren't familiar with the experience either.  

So first I was sent to a wood-slatted dressing room that was kind of like something you'd encounter in a nice salon, complete with a wall-mounted TV in case you'd like to naked-watch a little Law & Order before you emerge.  There was a closet of folded gowns, and the technician told me to leave the open part in the front.  I, as always, couldn't figure out how the ties worked (I AM SO BAD AT SPACIAL RELATIONS) because they're sewn to the inside seam of the gown, and so even if you do them up, then you still have gaping holes all the way down, showing the old, gowned guy waiting for his MRI in the chair outside underboob and frontal thong.  I don't understand why the gown isn't more of a Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress design.  But whatever.  I'm sure that guy wasn't having the greatest day either, so if my underboob brightened it even a little, I'm thrilled.

Next I went to go have an IV put into the crook of my arm, and the technician forgot to cap off the tube, so my blood started to spill out all over my arm and the armrest.  Hiyooooo!

The feeling of the MRI room is like the den of an empty '80s model home, minus the windows.  It's surprisingly spacious with light hard wood floors, and I don't know if this is standard or not, but mine had what looked like giant paper scrunchies mounted to the western wall.  They were iridescently, artistically, purplishly lit, which alternately made me feel like I was in a gallery from Less Than Zero, the film.

Also contributing to the '80s-ness of the room is a constantly playing loop that I call "Hospital Rave: Greatest Hit"; I don't know if this ongoing number is standard either.  It kind of sounds like balls being musically popped from one pneumatic tube to another, but it has this techno-womb quality, which makes me think the hospital plays it because it's supposed to be soothing.  It didn't seem to have anything to do with the functioning of the machine, and it never changed beats.

The machine is the only thing in the room, and the space dwarfs it.  The technician had me lay down on the bed thing and drop my boobs into what can best be described as two boob baskets scooped out in the bed thing.  (I know.  I totally sound like someone who went to medical school right now.)  I was thinking, "Hey, yeah, this is cool.  I'm just going to lie here, take a nap, and have my boobs hang," but that restfulness only lasted about as long as it took to think it.

Part of the reason for that is because the MRI machine begins making some impressively loud sounds right up near your head.  I mean, it's like, "ENNNNHHH ENNNNHHHH ENNNNNNHHH" for a few minutes, kind of like you stepped into some area you weren't supposed to and you set off a NASA-strength alarm.  Then it progresses into some heavy metal buzzing and some "KUNK KUNK KUNK"s.  But there aren't just three of those "KUNK"s.  They go on for stretches while the machine does whatever magnety shit it needs to do (right now you're finding to hard to believe I'm not an MD!).

Another part of the reason it's difficult to relax is the discomfort that comes from being face down in the face hole (paging Dr. Annnnndrea) while staring into a tilted mirror.  My nose was about to drip the whole time because 1. I have bad seasonal allergies and 2. being in the machine was making me think about how my dad had spent so much of the last year of his life in it, not knowing what was happening in his brain, and tears were building and my nose had started to run.  For at least the first five minutes, I was deeply sad.  I was imagining myself as my dad in the machine, and I was taken over with how he must have lied in there consumed with his mortality and probably knowing that the results were not going to be very good and just feeling very mechanized and taken out of what's effortless and reassuring about ordinary life.  I thought about how he knew he was going to die, how machines like that force you to recognize how terrible things have gotten.  Also, back in the dressing room, the technician had asked me to remove two necklaces from my dad that I always wear, and their unusual absence increased my melancholy.  In the tilted mirror, I could see a tissue sticking out of a box, and even that tissue killed me in that moment, seeming like a decent symbol of the flimsiness of health.  Maybe today I'm like, "Jesus Christ, you were moved by a fucking tissue?" but while I was in the machine and viewing that tissue's reflection (the mirror is put there to keep you from getting too claustrophobic), it was somewhat mentally destructive.

Another part of the discomfort of the MRI was that my nose was pressed into the bar holding the mirror.  I don't know if this is just because I have what we'll call a "character nose," but it seems to me that because the Jews are the ones with this bad gene and are probably among the most frequent customers of the breast MRI, someone might want to lower that bar.

Probably the worst physical part of the MRI was the awkward positioning of the arms, which hang up and over the head.  Mine began to tingle and shake soon into the scan, but I'd been told not to move and I'm very Type-A, so I became intensely focused on trying to keep them still.  But then I was even more aware of the growing discomfort, which worsened along with the shaking.  And that was even before the technician came on the intercom and announced that I should, "PREPARE FOR THE INJECTION."

"Prepare for the injection" is a pretty funny thing to say.  I laughed, and then I was like, "Shit!  They told me not to move and now my breasts probably just heaved!"  The injection is something called "contrast," but it's clear, and you can see these large computerized tubes depressing the solution into your IV tube from the angled mirror under your nose.  If you thought the MRI machine was being loud before, then just wait until after "the injection," because then it starts making sounds like you'd hear in the international space station after you just stole the moon.  Prior to "the injection," the technician had warned me that I "might feel a tingle of coldness, you may feel nothing, or you may feel an extremely painful burning.  And if it's the painful burning, I'm going to want you to squeeze this ball."  So I had that hollow ball at the ready in case I fell into the third camp, but I was a member of the first and never got to test out what they do for you if you start to feel like the inside of your body has been set on fire.  But that's okay.

The MRI lasted for somewhere around a half-hour, and then it was over without ceremony.  For those of you left in suspense, I managed not to drip snot on the mirror.  (Back pat!)  I didn't bother to try to shut the gown on the way out, just kind of loosely kimono'd it around me and was like, "I'm not even anywhere near my best historical muscle definition, so whoever wants to see it, can see it."  A different technician, sporting what looked suspiciously like a Bumpit, took out my IV and talked shit on the other technician for getting blood all over my arm, which was still crusty.  I returned to the dressing room, caught the tail end of Law & Order, and put on my sundress that I bought because I loved Ali's dress on The Bachelor, but didn't want to shell out for the designer version.

Then I came out into the waiting room to get Brent and knew I wouldn't be incredibly surprised if I get a call next week saying they found cancer.

You'll Want To Have This Couple At Your Next BBQ

Let's talk about this ad.

Last night it had me falling backward over the side of the bed, laughing until tears rolled down my face, but I'd just been drinking this hard cider my landlords home-brewed-- which in my eyes, is basically moonshine-- and so I didn't know if I'd feel the same way about it this morning.  (After I cried happily about the charms of this ad, I then cried sadly about how I love my dog so much that I can't stand to lose her.  And Brent kept repeating, "She's two.  She's two.")  

But I do feel the same!  This morning it's still funny to me.  I  also feel like recently marketers and advertisers have begun to present ideas as self-evident that really aren't-- like the Kardashian Bebe Collection-- and sometimes you're flipping through a magazine and you're like, "Hmm.  Oh," but the thing really calls for a, "Hooooooold up!  Shenanigans!"  Because hold up, what kind of shenanigans are these two in the Newport menthols ad up to?

Let's start with the focal point.  Do you see what he's putting mustard on?  He's putting mustard on her Ruffles chip!  Oh silly fella, mustard doesn't go on chips, and his auburn-tressed companion seems to recognize the humor of this shtick.  The body language confuses me (I mean, the CHIP confuses me, but it's the centerpiece of the concept, so I feel like you just have to go with it or else you're at a complete loss for meaning, drifting in some semiotic black hole of illegibility) because the lady's got a hand on the mustard too, so either she's helping him, and this is something very funny that they've come up with to do together.  Or else she is putting up her hand in protest because she's all, "Hey!  That's my chip and I don't take mustard on my chips!" and if that's the case, then 1.) why is the dollop on the chip so large?  Is he being a total dickhead and ignoring her wishes?  And in response... 2.) is she not fully asserting her feelings by expressing her true displeasure with his joke?  Instead she's just giving him an open mouth smile and big laugh when really, she's had enough of his really stupid condiment gags?

I lean toward the former because she appears to have freely proffered this chip toward him with her other hand, and she did so at midsection level.  If the chip was lifted higher, I might suggest that she'd been trying to feed him and then he pulled out the mustard and stepped on a tender moment.  But from the composition of this scene, I do believe that she slid the chip under the mustard in order that the two might make this joke together, and thus she is helping him squeeze.  And listen, if they're both this amused by squirting mustard onto a potato chip, then this is a match made in heaven and I don't doubt he's going to put a ring on that hand she's trying to call attention to with the uncharacteristic leather cuff.

But that brings us back around to the whole point of this ad, which is supposedly "pleasure!"  Pleasure is supposed to be self-evident in this image, and sure, I guess these kids are having a great time at this cookout, but is it really that pleasurable to make a joke about putting mustard on the wrong food item at the table?  What I have to assume here is that Newport set out to depict two people who are exceptionally easily amused, and that's the real suggestion of pleasure in this ad-- that you could lock this pair up in a room with a rubber band and their belly button lint, and they would just fucking hoot it up and come out of there three days later, telling you they'd they'd killed it for hours on end.  Maybe I shouldn't talk because I laughed at this ad for five minutes straight last night, so it's possible that sense of their simple pleasure does reach outward and touch the consumer, but again, I was sort of drunk.

There's also a more sexual reading you could enact here, if you want to look at it like the guy's showing the girl what he's going to do to her with his ejaculate when they get home later.  But that's not all that pleasurable to think about in light of that chip-- unless that happens to be "your thing"-- and it also suggests messy clean-up, which I believe only speaks to a very narrow segment of the target audience.

But regardless of how or even if this notion of pleasure reads to the viewer, I ultimately arrive at the conclusion that I'm still not enticed to smoke menthols.  Maybe if the guy had been putting mustard on a menthol-- I don't know.  I'd have to see it.