Put on a happy face

Today I had one of my last few Invisalign appointments. I have about six weeks and two sets of aligners left, after which point I'll be given two night retainers plus semi-permanent metal bars that go behind my teeth. Why yes, I am 33. Apologies in advance for trafficking in that radio signal.

The doctor would prefer I stretch the process out and wear my last two sets for longer, 4-5 weeks for each, so he can make minute adjustments on certain teeth. And while I suppose I could suck it up and honor that - it's not like an extra few weeks will kill me - I am so beyond ready to be done with these things.

Physically, wearing them has been fine - the trays are comfortable, unobtrusive, and no hassle whatsoever. I even really enjoy the pressure against my teeth, the sense that something is working. However, the whole time I've had them, I've never felt entirely comfortable in my skin.

I don't think I was ever self-conscious wearing braces - everyone in my high school had them. But now, as a 33 year old professional woman, I find myself, not embarrassed, exactly, but ill-at-ease sporting a plastic grin, however nearly-invisible the aligners might be. From a distance, you can't see them at all. Up close, you might catch the plastic's reflection, and no matter where you are, you can probably detect a small lisp in my speech. None of it should be embarrassing - there is no shame in straightening my teeth - but it feels different, obvious, like I've covered up a big zit with concealer, and can't concentrate on conversation because what if they're looking at my skin?!

The worst part is that I have noticed it affecting my behavior. At work, I stay in my office more, rather than socialize with my coworkers. I don't smile as much, and when I do, it's not my signature sunshine beam; it's a less enthusiastic, half-staff grin. Overall, I'm more withdrawn, and when I'm wearing them, just don't feel as confident as when I'm not. You know those studies that say smiling, even artificially, can boost your mood, because you are sending certain signals to the brain? I buy it. Especially since that would support the shitty mood I've been in for - coincidentally - the last 11 months or so.

Because, without exaggeration, 2009 has been the single most shitastic year of my adult life.

It's not that anything truly bad happened. Well, actually, a lot of soul-sucking, humbling things have happened - none of which I care to share - but nothing in the sense that anyone was sick or that I lost my job or my health or my home. I am ever-blessed to have everything I need and more. Much of the melancholy is due to the fact that nothing has happened. I have been in the same job and same home and same situation for the last four and a half years, and instead of reveling in my mature stability, I feel stagnant, stuck, fearing I am going to flatline forever.

(Boo-hoo. I am going to be in a healthy, stable, comfortably self-supported situation forever. Wah.)

A lot of this has to do with the economy. Many of my friends in LA are unemployed, which has affected their attitudes, which by proxy, have affected mine. I don't go out much because my friends don't have the funds or inclination. (I also don't go out much because many friends are in relationships, and the people who do go out are under 30, but that's another post, and- not-coincidentally - also contributing to much of my malaise.)

It's like the entire nation has collectively lost its optimism and I'm caught in the cross-hairs. I always used to feel I had something to look forward to - new friends to meet, guys to date, jobs to take, the idea that anything could happen. Opportunities used to present themselves, but in the last year, the energy around me has come to a grinding halt. My mojo has plummeted to an all-time low. I really don't even recognize myself. Which is unsettling coming from someone who spends an inordinate amount of time looking in the mirror.

Sorry, kids. I didn't start out this post intending to complain. And I don't actually think that once I lose the Invisalign, the rest of my life will magically align. But, as with just about everything else from 2009, I'm more than ready to leave this memory behind.

Sha na na na, hey hey hey, good bye

Plenty has already been said about this year's unusually high number of celebrity deaths, and especially that of the icons that shaped my particular generation. While the passing of Bea Arthur and Ed McMahon was sad, and the loss of DJ AM and Billy Mays, tragic, the deaths of Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, John Hughes, and Patrick Swayze broke my heart as well as any doubt that my childhood was really over.

So if my youth got buried six feet under this summer, today's news that former Remote Control host Ken Ober died basically spit on the grave. Despite the fact that I've mistakenly been calling him "Ken Olin" all these years, I credit that one show for shaping much of my current interest in pop culture. It ran from 1987-1989 - the same time-frame I attended junior high and spent every afternoon in the TV room. Sitcom reruns and music videos comprised my 4-8 PM shift - the exact topics covered on the show. Unlike any other game shows I'd seen, this was the first that rewarded the couch potato. I couldn't memorize algebraic equations or the Founding Fathers (probably because I did my homework in front of the tube), but dammit, I could excel in TV trivia. I was really fucking good at watching the Brady Bunch.

I wrote a little bit here about my thing with the Brady Bunch. And here about my thing with the TV. Reading back, I think its pretty obvious I used TV as an escape, a latchkey kid looking for a better life outside her front door. And maybe that was the draw of this show. More than just an escape, Remote Control celebrated this inane interest I had, assuring me that in it was some value.

Eat, pray, leave entirely underwhelmed

I'm having a hard time striking up enthusiasm for this blog, but am just not yet ready to quit. I keep thinking that my writing wit will come back and I'll want a place to put the words, but for now, I'm totally phoning it in. I keep putting off the blogging, waiting til I'm feeling it, but then days go by and it never comes.

That sounds an awful lot like my approach to online dating.

So why am I writing now? For posterity. Because if I don't write things down, I may forget. And if the 20 pound box of journals under my bed hasn't given this away, I need to have a written record of everything. This week I partook in two activities I would like to add to my archives:

Wednesday night I went to magazine release party and met yummy tattooed Top Chef Michael Voltaggio. I don't find tattoos attractive in real life, on real people, but I will grant him the exception. He was kind and gracious and entirely delicious and I would learn to cook if it meant more time with him.

Last night I attended a special two hour yoga class set to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album. I know, I know - when did I become such a hippie? It was one of my favorite gym instructors teaching at a different studio, and the whole thing just sounded so cool and different, I couldn't wait to try it out.

It was okay. For one thing, it's been so long since I've taken a class anywhere besides my own gym, I arrived a little unprepared. My gym has towel service - something I know is a rarity in LA, but is an amenity I'm so used to, it never even occurred to me to bring one. I also completely forgot to bring the big water bottle I had purchased specifically for this class. Turns out I didn't really need either. Despite the class being two hours, I barely broke a sweat.

The album, apparently, is not even an hour. So I think we started a little late, then did a really long meditation warm up, and at the end, did a really long shavasana. Which was nice, I guess. Relaxing. But I could have done that at home. I was really expecting something more challenging. Additionally, the yogis on both sides of me annoyed me, throughout. People almost never annoy me in yoga. I am pretty focused, and so is everyone else. But that's at my gym, which I guess is a little more hardcore than the hippie-dippy yoga studio. The people on both sides of me were chatting, laughing - nothing major, but I was never unaware of them.

Of course, the whole point of yoga - aside from learning how to center yourself and tune out everything else - is that there are no rules and you do what feels good and blah blah birkenstock granola crunch. But you know, I am a serious person and apparently that is how I like my yoga as well. Shut up, show up on time, and let me find peace in peace.

Perhaps I have a little more work to do.

Still sweepin' the clouds away

As you may have heard, today is Sesame Street's 40th anniversary. I've mentioned before that when I was younger, I was granted the ridiculously cool privilege of visiting the studio set in New York. What's funniest about these photos is that, 29 years later, almost all of the actors in them are still on the show. (Though I can't vouch for the hanging muppet.)

In Maria and Gordon's apartment, I think, with Susan (real name Loretta Long). My mom and I saw Susan/Loretta at the Grove a few years ago.* (Well, technically, I saw her, and my mom spent five minutes trying to remember/understand who she was and why I was so excited.)

On the stoop with Grandma. (Thanks, Grandma!)

Bob, Linda, and Big Bird running lines on set.

Who you callin' Dummy?!

Whew - big day. Let me get a glamour shot against Oscar's car.

And my perennial favorite, half-dressed Big Bird.

Now that's foul.

*Edited to add: After I hit "publish", I remembered that it wasn't "Susan" we saw at the Grove, but the actress who played "Olivia." You may also remember her from that other popular brownstone stoop from the set of 227.

Darkness stirs and wakes imagination

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I am seriously seasonally affected; after all, it's a big reason I moved to LA. Well, it was especially clear to me tonight, when I left work in the pitch dark, and, after a day of feeling fairly energetic, I suddenly felt so tired, I questioned whether I was going to make it all the way home.

It didn't help that traffic has been HORRENDOUS lately - in fact, it has been so bad the last few weeks, I feel fairly confident in telling you that the recession has to be over - these people must be going somewhere. The commute took so long tonight, I didn't make my yoga class, and instead just went food shopping and headed home. Within ten minutes of walking in the door and turning on all the lights, I felt fine. Better than fine, actually - energetic and productive and like a normal person. As much as I enjoy waking up to actual sunlight, I'm already more than over daylight savings time.

The extra hour to sleep in on Sunday was nice, though. I needed it. For the first time since I've lived in LA, I had a pretty major Halloween. Having it on a Saturday night, helped. And I was excited to get one more use out of my 1992 prom dress!

I don't know why, but I seem to have a long-standing aversion to store-bought costumes. Despite the fact that they usually look better than anything I can craft on my own, I have a stubborn habit of always wanting to create something original from my closet. One year, I wore all black and painted my face and body silver. Another time, I decided to be a superhero, but couldn't decide what emblem should go on my chest. I went to the fabric store, traced a purple a purple sequined question mark, and attempted to sew it onto my shirt. However I must have been looking in the mirror while doing so, because Crafty McCrafterson sewed it on backwards. Rather than look mysterious and powerful, I just looked like a dyslexic joker. Go Super Grammar Girl, GO!

And then, for three years in a row in New York, I wore all black with a pink wig. I wonder where this year's costume ideas came from... Photo gallery is here.

I know I haven't been writing as much. I blame that on my DVR. One of my arguments for holding out as long as I did was that I don't need to watch more TV. "But you'll watch good TV!" everyone says. Yes, I do watch good TV, if you count watching Mad Men three times in a row and four episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 back-to-back, but I really didn't need the option to do so. Don't get me wrong - I'm head-over-heels in love with the device, but other, more mind-stretching activities are suffering.

Which is why I'm considering taking another course at UCLA this winter. There aren't any writing courses I'm interested in - at least not until I can get an actual writing project off the ground - so I'm thinking more broadly. I'm actually thinking of revisiting two courses I took as an undergrad: Art History in the Renaissance Era, and Introduction to Wine. (Yes, I took Beer and Wine Tasting, for credit, as a first-semester senior. My life was so good.) I loved both classes, went to every single one. I also forget most of what I learned. Both are around the same price and meet the same number of times per week. I figure either way, I'm becoming more cultured, and building quite the case for a return trip overseas.

Attention-starved

My quest for personal branding power has no end. This time, I am quoted in Fitness magazine offering advice on how to manage your weight during the holiday season.

The topic, specifically, was how to keep from overeating in the office, which is something I felt fairly qualified to discuss. My personal office looks out on the communal candy counter, so every time we get a gift basket, or someone brings in homemade/back-from-vacation/leftover-from-the weekend treats, I have a bird's eye view of the the longing, grazing, and the eventual giving in to the confectionery calories. And let me tell you, after four and a half years (more when you consider my decade-plus of office work history) of watching good food go bad and the same old scenes of coworkers struggling for self control, very few things actually tempt me.

Since we're now officially into the holiday eating season (it's November already!) I'll share the unedited list of tips I sent in to the editor. May it keep us all from gaining weight or losing our self-respect.

- I don't eat anything that's not "special" - i.e. read and green M&M's, drugstore candy, etc. - who cares? If there are amazing cookies or something, I will allow myself, but even those get old by the second week in December, so then they're out.
- Work-wise, I won't allow myself any treats before lunch. I firmly believe that sugar kicks off a vicious cycle in that where, if I don't have it, I don't crave it, but once I do, I want more. I figure if I have to have something, at least wait until after lunch when it is more socially acceptable, or better, yet, around 3 or 4 o'clock when my body is more likely to naturally crave sugar, and the, at least, I can minimize the cycle. I also always try to throw half of whatever it is away before I even eat it.
- I don’t eat anything “passed” at parties, because I know once I have one, I won’t stop. Better to make a rule not to eat anything. Also, eating passed hors de oeuvres while you are speaking to someone is messy and rude, so I just picture myself stuffing food in my face in public, and the temptation usually passes. I also picture all the hands that have brushed the food on the platter, and get grossed out. That’s also good for the buffet.
- When I am sitting down and getting full, I’ll pour salt, pepper, or otherwise ruin what’s left of my food so I won’t eat it. (this works year-round).

I could have danced all night

I've decided that, as long as I'm going to be single, I'd much prefer to be a gay man. Is that a problem?

I went out last night to a club in West Hollywood filled with the best looking grown men I've seen in a long time. Unlike clubs that cater to a straight crowd, this one was filled with actual adults - 20-somethings, sure, but also plenty of 30- and maybe even 40-somethings. I can't remember the last time I went out and didn't feel like the oldest person there. Not only were the men good looking, they were well-dressed with fantastic bodies and high-wattage smiles. I've always said that I don't want to date a man who's prettier or better dressed than me, but, hell, it would be nice to have the option. Just the sheer fact that so many single men were in the same room made me miss the days when I was aware that some existed.