Month: July 2007

The 40 dollar nap (We went to see the Transformers)

1st: it was my boyfriend’s idea. I have hated the Transformers for a very long time ever since they were a product and a cartoon.Even as a pre-teen I disliked the idea that my Saturday morning entertainment was co opted by the hard-sell advertising campaign techniques of Mattell Hasbro.

But A. grew up in Israel and probably missed the ad bombardment.

So we both fell asleep.The film is overlong and is mostly just special effects.But the boy gets the car which gets him the hot girl.Stupid movie.

Primo Amore or The Dressing on the Side,Please

primo amoreI just watched this Italian film called Primo Amore[2004] about a disturbed man who is obsessed with his new girlfriend’s weight.According to European weight measurements she is about 55 kilos.

The fundamental irony of the movie being that she is already slim.55 kilos is about 122 pounds.He gets her down to 40 kilos.90 pounds.She is(was) a lively and intelligent woman before he gets a hold of her.Afterward she is foggy and silent.Her body is skin and bones and her mind is scattered.Why does she allow this to happen? What flaw in her allows him to control her this way? Because she does go along with the stringent diet he makes for her.At the core of their love affair is the morning weigh-in,a ritual for them that seems to take the place of sex.Or anyway, there seems to be no more sex once he gets her to go along with his starvation diet plans.

Basically she eats nothing and if her weight doesn’t drop fast enough for him he suspects her of secret eating. If her weight does go down he suspects her of tampering with the scale.You begin to realize he will never be satisfied. He is sick.It is obvious that this game can’t go on either she will wake up or starve herself to death.The thing is, why did her need for a boyfriend put her to sleep?
There is a scene in a restaurant at the end of the film that is riveting,she finally rebels against his control over her food intake.Of course films about masochism and obsessive love never end well …no happy endings here.No neat wrap up of the plot either.We are left to wonder what will become of them both but we don’t get to see it.We just have to imagine.
Another aspect of this movie is the absence of any outside intervention.Are Italians just more loathe to interfere than other cultures? Or was that just an edited out plot-twist? His history with women and his past failures at relationships are hinted at but never revealed. Her history also is never revealed.

Relationships that demand the subsumation of self in deference to the other are bound for disaster.In other words, super-size those fries,baby.

Buying Stuff

I’m having a bit of fun because I made some $ and I hadn’t made any $ in a while.So for any red blooded girl that usually means hitting the shops.

I bought these 60.00 Gap jeans 2 sizes 2 big so they would be baggy on my butt.This means the waist is really really loose.Apparently if you are the size I bought you have a fat gut and a big butt along with chubby thighs and hips the size of a barge.I am blessed with only 2 of these attributes.Gap seems to pride themselves on remembering women have hips and a butt.Yet no matter what if I don’t want to wear tight jeans and I buy bigger sizes the waist will always be way too big. So basically they are still designing for apple shaped ladies.

I guess I can get a belt.Yet I have never liked wearing them.

Then I bought 2 books that were supposed to be for my trip but I am already half thru one of them:
Anybody out there by Marion Keyes. Pure chick lit lite but I do love the way she writes.

The next book is Thief by Peter Carey one of my all time favorite writers.I am totally saving it for the grueling plane ride from Newark,NJ to St.George,UT.

About 85.00 bucks spent total.

Glasses Agro

About 2 months ago I bought glasses from Mott st Optical.
They were expensive.Over 200 bucks.They were also supposed to be available to be picked up the same day as purchased.But while I was hanging in the neighborhood killing time waiting to go get them, someone from the store called me to tell me I had to wait until the following Monday,instead.

It’s really hard for me to get into the city.I don’t know why,it just is.Which is why I was thrilled when they told me I could pick them up the same day.So when they told me I was going to have to make another trip I just sagged.And I never went to get them.I called and asked them to mail them to me.They said they would and read my address back to me and it seemed all set.I never got them. I called last Friday and inquired about them.The girl who answered said they were ready and I could come and pick them up! They never mailed them!

I freaked. I lost my cool.I used expletives.I demanded to talk to a manager.Of course none was there.How convenient!

The girl basically told me it was my fault because I hadn’t picked them up the day bought them.She had that note.She didn’t have the note that was never written that they’d called me to tell me they wouldn’t be ready the same day.So it was this attitude plus her saying that she just worked there(I hate it when people in the service industry, an industry I worked in for over 6 years do this)that made me see red.

When I was in retail I would never dream of telling a customer that it was their fault they were unhappy with the service they received due to some failure on their part to be satisfied with basically non existent service!