Ideas of mortality, the body’s vulnerabilities and frailty, and corporeal suffering have been plaguing my mind lately. These things slap you in the face when you cut yourself while slicing tomatoes and proceed to bleed like the dickens.

Then others share their horrific kitchen accident tales (please be careful when you wash glass tumblers).

Then you see your dad’s elderly (but perfectly “functional”) neighbor sitting on her own front steps covered in blood because she fell and hit her head and the wound is so bad you can see the bone of her forehead, and there’s a thick gelatinous sheet of coagulated globular blood just jiggling off her chin. You ask her if it hurts and she calmly says no. She’s perfectly lucid and not flipping out.

And your roommate gets hit by a car while riding his bike (any day now it’ll be me too). Even the video from first aid training at work, though funny, had me a bit spooked.

It’s terrifying how in a blink of an eye, injury can happen. The most mundane, habitual activities can wreak havoc in a split second. Even leaving the house can have grave consequences. Anything can happen!

Uh, I guess what I’m saying is. BE CAREFUL out there.

every morning, it’s the same routine. i wince at the prospect of getting dressed for work. why? it’s not just that my wardrobe has grown obsolete and is woefully blah. despite my usual sloppy appearance, i’m actually a pretty superficial, style-conscious person who places almost too much value on sartorial aesthetic. but i guess you could say i’ve learned to let myself go because it’s pretty discouraging to try to look presentable most of the time.

the most painful part of facing my closet is the absolute shame, dread, and crippling depression that comes with *trying* to slip on clothes that don’t fit quite like they used to. whenever i put my slacks on, it’s a ritual of disgust. i brace myself for the moment of encroaching tightness that occurs when they get past my knees and climb up my thighs. the worst part: the waistband. for every pair of pants, regardless of the cut and cloth, i naturally arch my back in a futile attempt to stretch the tummy for tautness (which is a joke on this body), suck in, and tug hard on the opposite sides of the zipper/button to overlap them.

then i look in the mirror and deceive myself into thinking they’re not *that* tight, even though my ass is shrinkwrapped in a terrifyingly self-compromising way. i try to dismiss that stifling feeling of restriction and over-snugness around my bellybutton and thighs, hoping that as the day progresses the fabric will “relax” around my muffintop.

it makes me marvel at how once, these clothes actually used to fit me well.

nowadays, i spend most of my time shifting around uncomfortably, endeavoring to overcome my slovenliness with strained confidence, sometimes unable to sit up straight at my desk because i hate the way my rolls runneth over. all while being around women whose bodies i’d die to call my own (your genes = life’s worst crapshoot).

all my clothes feel like sausage casing. and i’m the sausage.

how do i define a good work week?

:

* miraculously mustering up the discipline to get to the gym on mondays and tuesdays, and riding the bike to/from work the remaining three days. most people can pull it off. not me. the sloth is my spirit animal, and it shows!

* using up most of my groceries. it’s harder than you’d think. even if i plan to cook every night, it doesn’t mean it will happen, so when i can utilize most of my perishable materials, it feels (sadly) like an accomplishment. i HATE throwing out stuff i never got to use.

* pleasant weather. can’t believe i was one of those mopey goth girls who abided by shirley manson’s “only happen when it rains” rhetoric. PFFFFT, whatevs! it’s all about a climate in which i don’t have to fret about wearing my thickest, warmest $hit for fear of being cold. leaving the house with just a hoodie — now that’s comfort.

* treating myself to a fiiiiine, delicious, skilled meal prepared by someone else (thank you melissa claire’s kitchen!). this is why i’ll end up destitute at retirement age, but i can’t help myself.

* putting together an unprecedented combo culled from my crap wardrobe, and being somewhat surprised that i don’t look like a walking havel.

* some sort of socializing with a favorite person/peoples. if it’s not physical contact, then even an insightful or meaningful conversation can be nourishing.

* being able to ride the bike home on a friday after work, when the sun’s still shining

:

yeah, i’d say it was a pretty good week. the only thing that would’ve made it better if i was more efficient at work. i hate being a slacker.

how do you define a good week?

even though this NYT article is like 50 pages long and tragically mis-titled (splashed with ryan mcginley photos to boot = my ambivalence) , i do think it’s something everyone should take the time to read. there’s nothing novel here, except maybe increased “empirical” grounding for things we already knew or assumed. sex science has always been on my list of dream careers. is that weird?

a big chunk of the piece posits how the sense of being desired is crucial to female sexuality. duh, right? but i think the researcher/scientist sound bites (that i list below) come across eloquently and succinctly. it’s all so very true. am i pig-headed or naive to believe so?

a consistent feeling of being desired is key to any relationship’s vitality and longevity, and core to any person’s pysche and confidence, whether you’re male or female. everyone needs to feel nurtured, loved, and adored. everyone needs to feel special, admired, respected for his/her unique traits, or sense of humor, or intelligence. but let’s face it, we all need to feel like sexy, hot, desirable pieces of meat too. it fits into the equation, and we can’t live without this healthy sensation. conversely, it’s just as important to feel that same sparky, uncontainable lust for your partner as well, and express it best you can.

maybe what i’m describing is an impossible reciprocation. but i’d like to believe this kind of relationship can exist.

without further ado, here are the striking snippets from the article that resonated with me. and yes, please file this blog entry under “random” and “no $hit, sherlock.”

She, even more than Chivers, emphasized the role of being desired — and of narcissism — in women’s desiring.

The critical part played by being desired, Julia Heiman observed, is an emerging theme in the current study of female sexuality. She pronounced, as well, “I consider myself a feminist.” Then she added, “But political correctness isn’t sexy at all.” For women, “being desired is the orgasm.”

The generally accepted therapeutic notion that, for women, incubating intimacy leads to better sex is, Meana told me, often misguided. “Really,” she said, “women’s desire is not relational, it’s narcissistic” — it is dominated by the yearnings of “self-love,” by the wish to be the object of erotic admiration and sexual need.

And within a committed relationship, the crucial stimulus of being desired decreases considerably, not only because the woman’s partner loses a degree of interest but also, more important, because the woman feels that her partner is trapped, that a choice — the choosing of her — is no longer being carried out.

A symbolic scene ran through Meana’s talk of female lust: a woman pinned against an alley wall, being ravished. Here, in Meana’s vision, was an emblem of female heat. The ravisher is so overcome by a craving focused on this particular woman that he cannot contain himself; he transgresses societal codes in order to seize her, and she, feeling herself to be the unique object of his desire, is electrified by her own reactive charge and surrenders. Meana apologized for the regressive, anti-feminist sound of the scene.

recently, i was lucky enough to have yet another extraordinarily fulfilling, poignant birthday recently. the stars were aligned for everything to go well. i have amazing, talented, clever friends generous enough to indulge my every whim. whether it meant being dragged around the bay, witnessing the defecation habits of goats, or being stuffed silly into a tiny living room, they did it all.

thanks everyone for making me feel special. birthdays are always opportune for feeling deeply grateful just to be alive. they’re also times of anxious and pensive introspection. i’m a year away from the age my mom was when she birthed me. i have the financial management skills of a 14 year old and the achievements and ambitions of a fetus. i’ll probably still be living with three other people in the same apartment by retirement age. that’s some unsavory food for thought. however, i do have at least one thing to show for myself — and that’s my friends and family.

extra big ups to peg for being ringleader and over-the-top awesome foods/drinks provider.

on my jack lemmon kick, i recently watched the 1962 blake edwards’ film days of wine and roses (based in SF!)

it was bleak. jack lemmon, a well-meaning but damaged PR guy in the two-martini lunch era, has a crippling dependency issue. he meets lee remick, a pure, sweet thing who doesn’t even like the taste of alcohol (but loves chocolate). they “fall in love,” marry, procreate, etc, but everything quickly disintegrates because of booze. she too has become an alcoholic to pass the days of being a bored and pensive housewife.

in the end, he miraculously manages to give up the bottle, but she’s a wreck wandering the streets in an ethanol-induced stupor. mind you, they have a daughter! as immensely as he wants her back, he needs to know she can stop, or at least try to stop, but she refuses to promise even an effort, acknowledging, “But I can’t face the idea of never having another drink.”

and that got me thinking: wow, that’s heavy. is there something that i crave and am so severely addicted too that i couldn’t even imagine ever giving up? for life? (other than love, affection, friendship?) forgive me for my offensively rude and crude analogy, but the answer is food. yeah, i guess could just subsist on chicken breast and fish and veggies for the rest of my life (if i was a vegetable), but it’s the starches, the sugars, the deep fried goodies, all that stuff, that i need.

understand that i am not likening my relationship with food to an alcoholic’s relationship with alcohol. hardly the case. it’s just that thinking about substance abuse in this way gave me an extremely deep appreciation, or vague idea, of the impossible epic battle that addicts must face if they want to win. it’s downright depressing, and requires the sort of willpower that i can’t even fathom. i think about a relative whose life was lost to this battle, and it saddens me to no end.

i’ll be the first to admit that i have an eating disorder. sure it’s not bulimia or anorexia, but there’s definitely a pathological, psychological connection i have with food. it’s intense. the passion for good eating is fine and dandy, but i’m talking about the sick primal binging (no really, it’s disgusting), the absolute lack of control, the full-throttle consumption, and how all of it feeds into my body image, the incessant utterly violent self loathing. it’s probably my one true consistent sourse of unhappiness. i don’t think it’s just emotional eating either, a la jack donaghy (but i assure you if i could find a huge tub of cheese balls i’d be all over it)

well this has probably been my most navel gazing post ever. if you didn’t know it before, it’s been confirmed for you here: yes, i really am that superficial and shallow.

in days of wine and roses, jack lemmon would ritually say with pleasure, right before taking a swig, “magic time.” and that’s how i feel every time i eat something delicious.