Godammit, I’m Mad!

Last night I discovered a girl named Chrissy who killed herself after several years of paralysis caused by a swimming pool accident.

I learned about her in a forum on the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation website. I came upon the website a few months ago, and struggled with the mystery of why some people want to go on living and some do not.

Chrissy was a beautiful girl who had  recently  fallen in love and was looking forward to everything. The story of her accident and its aftermath is horrifying but it happened and I had to read it. Horrible things happen but few things can be this horrible. Still, Chrissy endured for several years. In the end, she simply didn’t want to continue a life under the circumstances dictated by her condition.

On her blog, she explained:

A big part of me died back on June 5, 2005 and my life was never the same. Everything has felt empty, and bittersweet. Every memory tainted with sadness, over everything that I’ve lost, everything I miss doing, and everything I had planned to do, and hoped to be.

I  understand. Max  left  me a message saying something similar, even though his disabilities weren’t as extreme as Chrissy’s. For him, they were intolerable.   Going back to her blog just now, I couldn’t help but cry. What a brave girl she was. I salute her honesty and her incredible, heroic struggle.

~

Tonight, I learned about a photographer and writer, Edouard Levé, who shot himself a few days after completing a novel called Suicide. The novel is  fiction  but obviously reflects Levé’s preoccupation with suicide. Perhaps he he planned his death as an artistic statement. Or perhaps he lingered too long on the subject of death, turning it over in his mind until it seemed like the only rational conclusion to his obsessive and inward-looking existence. He was only 42 but seemed to have focused closely on life’s absurdity.   Here is what the narrator of Suicide says:

“You didn’t like the selfishness of your suicide. But, on balance, death’s reprieve won out over the painful agitation of life.”

It bothers me that Levé threw his life away even though he wasn’t paralyzed. It bothers me that I can’t understand why some people are resilient and some aren’t. It bothers me that you can’t leave this world without smashing everyone around you. It bothers me that no one has the power to decide which suicide is justified. It bothers me that I don’t know where Chrissy is, meaning I don’t know where Max is. It bothers me that I can’t forgive Levé for hanging himself because I can’t find the compassion for his obscure suffering.

It bothers me that I have to keep pondering death like a difficult math problem that might  yield  an answer if I stick with it. It beckons to me and repels me and it continues to break my broken heart.

A company called SRANGEBEAUTIFUL has come up with some sets of nail polish designed to appeal to the Proustian-minded among us.

“….a range of 10 diaphanous veils of wildly haunting colors with inspiration ranging from the vampiric gradations of a healing bruise; the moody rusts of menstrual blood; sooty, phantasmal India ink; the profile of a gray blue Heron scooping fish against a background of gooey river runoff and the apocalyptic color palette of Medieval Flemish paintings. Visceral and private, each shade cloaks the finger in an aqueous film of color for an effect that is strange, beautiful, and impossible to forget.”

Hahahahaha! Isn’t that fantastic???? Other sets are avilable, each absurdly pretentious.

I like how this set includes the color “Menstrual Last Day.” Hopefully they have “First Day of Menstruation” in one of the other sets.

I love colors and the names for colors. I loved my box of crayola crayons as much for the names as the actual colors. When Max was little, we deferred to his acute appreciation of color by showing him something of indeterminate hue and asking him, “What do you call this color, Max?” He would take a moment to consider and say something like, “I call it tan.”

In the spirit of STRANGEBEAUTIFUL, I want to invent my own set of nail polish colors:

Cubism
Gruyere
Still Spotting
Hep C
Wittgenstein
Virgin Birth
Mishima Cultist Coral
Clogged Drain
Hypothermia Blue

Have a look at the nail polish here.   $85 per set.

And contribute your own colors if you are so inclined!

I came across this ad in Marie Claire a few days ago, and couldn’t believe it wasn’t a joke. “Masque” is a new product for women who would enjoy performing oral sex if only it tasted like chocolate or watermelon.

I think it’s a little strip that dissolves in your mouth like a breath-freshener thingie. The only time I tried one of those mouthwash strips,   I nearly choked to death, trying to spit it out.

Anyway, the ad’s tagline is beyond sickening: “Expect flowers tomorrow” it promises suggestively, showing a happy couple who have evidently managed the tricky completion of oral sex. Their expressions are ridiculous, much like the product itself.

Who are these fucking people who need to “Masque” the taste of sex and then expect flowers?!?

Ladies, if your man pulled out a “Masque” strip before doing his job, wouldn’t you just snarl, “Don’t bother?”   I guess men are  supposed  to be so desperate that they’d send flowers.

This ad and the mentality it reflects is pathetic and gross and makes me want to kill everyone involved.

Thoughts?

Today I had the privilege of another colonoscopy. My mother had colon cancer, so this is her gift to me. I looked forward to the propofol, but little else. The fasting and the nauseating potion you have to drink are an ordeal, even for someone who is used to ordeals.

I felt strongly that I would have cancer. Then, as I waited for the lady with the propofol, I felt Max’s presense. I felt so sure I was going to join him, I figured I would die during the procedure.

The Doctor appeared and exclaimed at how pretty I looked. I told her that I wore lipstick* just for her. The next thing I knew, I heard her voice telling me: “It’s all over, your colon is beautiful!”

If I can’t just be dead, at least I know I have a beautiful colon. Feel free to admire it in the pictures   below!

* M.A.C. Russian Red

Even though it’s not important and it doesn’t matter, I still want to know about Angelina’s lips.   Everyone seems to accept that those lips are really real. “Just look at Shilo’s lips!”

As a teenager, above, her top lips was half the size of her bottom lip, which looks enormous.

Same here.

I showed these pictures to my husband, whose reaction was the exasperated retort: “How do I know, maybe some people’s lips get bigger when they get older!”

I love Angie for stealing Brad from Jen, and for flying around to refugee camps. But I think this is the answer to the startling impact of her face. It’s startling because she created at least two of her facial features.

Yes, no, or how dare I waste my time with such shallow concerns?

I just got this Hanky Panky Retro Thong in two colors, and I can’t overstate their perfection. They are the Holy Grail of underpants. Let me just quote Hanky Panky’s website:

A high-waisted panty with figure-flattering coverage everywhere you need it, and absolutely nowhere you don’t. This panty is designed with an extra-generous band of lace that hugs your midsection and tricks even thick tummies into feeling super svelte.

Every word is true! But not every word is good.

I can’t stand the word “panty.”   ”Can’t stand” isn’t strong enough to describe my feelings about panty or “panties.” It almost makes me sick. I’ve felt like this for most of my adult life. Sometimes, I’ll be reading a magazine and the phrase “sans panties” will almost give me a stroke.

I asked my husband what he felt about “panties.” He isn’t nearly as reactive to words as I am, but he agrees on panties. He prefers “underpants,” which is my preference too. No wonder we stay together!

I think it’s the infantile connotation with “panty” that makes me cringe. There may be more at a deeper subconscious level.

I was pleased to find on a blog about language that lots of people hate “panties,” yet surprised to learn about a widespread aversion to the word “moist.” It cuts across both genders:   No one likes moist.

Generally speaking, I am more likely to take offense at a word or phrase than anyone I know. Max was a pretty hardcore wordist but not as bad as I am. Any yet, I have no trouble with “moist.” Am I broken or something? “Moist” reminds me of moist cake. or moist lipstick. Things should be moist, ideally, or else they’re too dry.

Going back to the blog just now, I see that someone hates the word “suckle.” Eoow.   Same here. It’s especially creepy when applied to humans.

Have a look at Language Log and get in on the word aversion.   I like that they make a point to distinguish between word rage (like when you hear someone on the news say “grow the economy”) and word aversion (like panty.)

Feel free to share your own personal aversions.

Remember the last time we struggled with this?

On the one hand, this guy is dressed like a clown. On the other hand,   he projects intelligence, confidence and a rakish challenge.

Do you want to grab his jacket and run? Or would you rather go back to his studio and play with his hair?

Remember that factory in China where 17 workers committed suicide? Remember how we were assured that compared to the general population of China, this rate of suicide was actually very low?

Foxconn is Apple’s largest supplier of iPads and iPhones. Apple wants us to think of it as a utopian company run by the benevolent prophet Steve Jobs. It doesn’t want us to look at the grim truth about how its products are manufactured.

They aren’t brought to us by storks! They aren’t made in the US, either. They are made in Foxconn’s three Chinese  factories, the most modern of which is an antiseptic nightmare of dehumanizing work conditions. Another worker jumped to her death on November 24, but I only found out because I was looking for images from China Fashion Week.

Joel Johnson wrote in Wired Magazine about the sense of guilt that drove him to visit the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, an industrial city in southern China. The company has put nets around its buildings to break the fall of potential jumpers. It has opened counseling offices and forced  workers  to sign contracts that forbid suicide and warn that families of suicides won’t receive any unusual compensation.

Maybe we’re supposed to think that the million workers employed by Foxconn are lucky to be employed. That only works if you think you’d feel lucky to work a ten hour shift with forced overtime, where you raise your hand to use a restroom. You’d have to feel lucky to live in a dorm room with seven strangers and can only watch TV in a common room with bench seating.

Two independent reports found that worker conditions at Foxconn were incredibly poor, and that Apple had failed to keep its promises regarding Foxconn.   In the first quarter of 2011, Apple posted a record high in revenue of $26.74 billion.

As a reviewer of electronic gadgets, Joel Johnson was burdened “with an outsize provision of guilt–an existential buyer’s remorse for civilization itself. I am here because I want to know: Did my iPhone kill 17 people?”

After touring Foxconn, his answer was Yes.

I’m glad I don’t own a single Apple product. I would never buy one now. If I meet Steve Jobs in hell, I’m going to tell him what I think. Meanwhile, I hope you will pass this story on. We can’t easily opt out of  civilization  but we can choose which companies to do business with.

I was thrilled to hear that Tallulah Willis (middle, above) was   chosen to attend the prestigious Debutantes Ball   at the Crillon Hotel on Paris’ Place de la Concorde.

At just 17 years old, Tallulah is one of the youngest of the 23 girls making their debut last night.   Just look at her jewel-encrusted Lanvin gown, created especially for her by designer Alber Elbaz, who she described as “a very dear friend.”

Rumer competes for attention in a breathtakingly low-cut dress that craftily draws the eye downward to her bared breasts. Determined to make a splash in her own right, Scout died her naturally brunette hair for the occasion, achieving the perfect shade of bright yellow.

I can’t wait for more photos of the event, but I knew you’d be dying to get an early look at the splendor of these wonderful girls!

Here is Chanel’s new red nail polish, “Pirate.” It was $23 plus tax.

This is what is looks like after one week. It is the shittiest nail polish ever. Ever. Don’t fall for it! Get some cheap brand from a beauty supply shop instead.

Because of this outrage, Karl Lagerfeld is Cunt of the Week™.