Susan Powter whispers

Thank goodness for YouTube.

Have you seen the fabulous HBO series "Six Feet Under"? We don't get HBO, but we had heard the show was good. So we started watching it on DVD a couple years ago. Like many shows, the first season combined irreverent humor and dramatic plot twists that were somehow believable. Over time, the humor faded and the soap opera quality oozed in. I mean, if that much crap happened to people in so short a time, it would be loony bin time. Well, I guess that happened, too.

Anyway, we had all the disks for the last season except the final episode. After a couple of episodes into it, though, Eric couldn't watch it anymore. He was going through some craziness of his own (not technically crazy) and couldn't deal with the horror, the anguish, the intensity, the potentially lethal final season. That was a year and a half ago. He said someday he hoped to be able to watch it with me.

Last week, I was surfing YouTube while I waited for Eric to come to bed. By utter fluke, I found a major spoiler in a comment on a video tangentially related to the show. Bummer. I mentioned I had seen the spoiler, but didn't say what it was. He told me I should just watch the last season without him because he didn't think he'd ever be able to.

Also last week, Eric had to go out of town. Guess how I occupied my time alone?

I got through all the disks I had, then ran to our local hippie video store and got the final disk. The people at the store said it was the best final episode they had ever seen, including MASH. (I was disappointed with the final episode of MASH, but I know it is well-regarded by most people.) I could hardly wait to watch it.

It was resolving nicely, a satisfying ending to a series with a lot of ups, downs, laughs and tears, an ending with consistency and intelligence.

And then

THE FUCKING DVD STOPPED WORKING! Fifteen minutes left. FIFTEEN MINUTES! I invested years of emotion in this program. YEARS! And it wasn't easy to see the worst part of my life acted out on screen in that last season, either, but there it was. (Eric was wise not to watch it. I bawled audibly.) AND THEN IT STOPPED PLAYING.

I tried cleaning the disk. It worked for another couple seconds. I tried again. No dice. I took the disk out of my fancy Macintosh and stuck it into the world's cheapest DVD player. I got another five minutes. But that was it.

Unbelievable.

So I went back to YouTube. YouTube had given me the spoiler – which I'd already witnessed. It also gave me a clip of the last ten minutes of the series. How odd someone would have posted the last ten minutes, which is precisely what I needed. It was like the video store people knew their disk was wonky and put it up there for me.

It was a good ending. But it was an ending.

And I'm sad, although satisfied.

Peg Bundy

I got my hair cut this afternoon. I haven't had it cut since August. It was getting long. The hair on the back of my head is thick and wavy. I like it. The hair on the front of my head is thin and fine. I hate it.

So I considered just getting it cut cut cut. Short. Very short, like an inch short for that tousled, short, stylish hair that looks great on other people. But I figured with my hair so thin in front and not highlighted or lowlighted to death, it would just look like I enlisted.

I considered canceling the appointment. Nah. It needed to go.

The "senior design stylist" asked what I liked and didn't about my hair. She suggested bangs and layering. Fine.

Modern mullet? Yeah.

21st-century Peg Bundy? Yeah.

Kelsey laughed. She said it doesn't look like something I would choose, and that it's a middle-aged hair style. Joy.

No, no pictures. Let me keep what little self-esteem I can manage to sweep up with the clippings.

I see it's Tuesday. Fat Tuesday. I haven't been posting updates because nothing has changed. I have to actually try to lose weight, not just hope the fat away.

I did buy three new bras over the weekend, thanks to my fat. My old ones just didn't fit. A tight elastic band attached to flaps over the boobs is so uncomfortable. But the real kicker came when I couldn't look in the "average figure" section.

I have gotten so piggy that I am now in the "full figure" department. And I'm just a B cup. Barely a B cup, in fact, because I can hardly fill the B. There's nothing full about that. Just wide.

I go without a bra often. I can get away with it because my lovely lady lumps are, in fact, lumps. But today I saw an amply endowed woman, and I wondered if she was wearing a bra. Her breasts were possibly the largest I've ever seen, and that's saying something because my mom is a 52J. This woman's jugs were the size of a healthy preschooler. I wonder how much they weigh? Good heavens. Can you imagine lugging that around? Her poor back. How could she possibly find a brassiere that large? No wonder I saw no straps. I wanted to stare. I wanted to feel them, to heft them.

I'm glad I wasn't saddled with those.

Hot off the presses

Cool – I had my first Sunday article today. It wasn't the centerpiece, but it had a couple of photos and ran on the first page of the local section. It's pretty PR-ish, but it was a fun one to do.

I went to the children's hospital, which opened last year and is totally awesome in every way. They have a center for kids who've lost their hair or have scars from surgeries where they can choose wigs, hats, bandannas, makeup, nail polish, get their hair cut, all that kind of crap. It's all free. So I talked with a couple kids who'd used the services and with the hospital people. It was kinda dyno, I must say.

When I was writing it, I kind of struggled with that PR aspect. I also couldn't figure out where to start. So I wrote "FABULOUS LEDE GOES HERE." And then I forgot all about it, did a quick scan, and advanced it. As I headed off to get a Diet Pepsi, I stopped by the editor's desk to say it was coming her way. So she popped it open quick.

"I like your lede!" she said. She was so convincing and so unusually spirited that I thought I must have done a good job. "Fabulous lede DOES go here," she said. "Why don't you go get your soda, I'll read through the rest, and you can work on a fabulous lede."

I felt like a total dork. When I got down to the cafeteria, I told the old pros about it. They laughed but seemed concerned. I guess if someone making more than $25 a week sent that in, they'd get chewed a new one. Seems a little extreme.

Anyway, you can read it here, if you so desire.

Crap Answer

You Are a Colon

You are very orderly and fact driven. You aren't concerned much with theories or dreams... only what's true or untrue. You are brilliant and incredibly learned. Anything you know is well researched. You like to make lists and sort through things step by step. You aren't subject to whim or emotions. Your friends see you as a constant source of knowledge and advice. (But they are a little sick of you being right all of the time!) You excel in: Leadership positions You get along best with: The Semi-Colon

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

The only way I am even remotely like a colon is that I am full of shit.