Sin CIty

The biggest difference between New York City (4 trips ago) and Las Vegas (the most recent trip) is not that the Big Apple is aggressively authentic and the Glitter Gulch is appallingly inauthentic. That is merely the second biggest difference.

The biggest difference is that in New York City, where they have quite decent drinking water, there are no bathrooms to be found and yet, they free water at a lot of places. Inevitably, you will end up paying for a bag of chips at a Subway just to pee, I promise you.

And then we find that in Vegas, there are bathrooms everywhere - clean, plentiful and no more than a minute walk away from wherever you are - but the water tastes gross and it is most definitely not free. No waiter offers it, and every bartender charges you $8 for a small bottle of it. Sin city, indeed.

Problems in a Pile

So at a comedy venue the other night, the house manager was a beautiful woman, with the kind of skin they probably use to design Photoshop templates. Flawless skin, a great figure, wearing a sleeveless top when she assisted the bus boys in clearing a few tables and picking up tossed-aside programs.

As she made her way through the audience toward the end of the show, cleaning a few items, I found myself admiring her arm and shoulder. I am pretty obsessed with arms right now - I have this vision in my head of what I want them to look like - since the next step of fitness on the Weight Watchers program for me has been adding in strength training, and I'm enjoying the journey of sculpting the arms. To be fair, the arms I really want I can't have... I don't think they'll ever be as thin as I desire... so instead, I am actively trying to make a new goal, and finding beautiful, toned, muscular arms to admire and strive toward.

Her shoulders were tough and strong, not tiny, but oh, so lovely. I can really covet a great arm in a sleeveless top, let me tell you. Add in that perfect skin, and I'm thinking of adding reps to my workout already.

And then she turned to double-back through the room.

And you could see that she had one lovely shoulder and arm; and she also had one smaller, still lovely, shoulder with an amputated arm above the elbow.

Covet away, Emily, covet away. There's an instant lesson for you!!

Have you ever heard of the pile of problems? Bring together 100 people, some you know and some you don't. Pop all your problems into a pile of 100 scraps of paper and choose one. Do you pick someone else's problems - the ones you can see, the ones you can't, and the ones they hide written on their piece of paper? Or in the end, do you pick the problems you know, understand, can handle and own?

78

I'm still pretty tired. Although my face no longer hurts, and my abdominals were not sore this year, by my exhausted-yet-conservative counting, I saw at least 78 sets of comedy at this year's Bridgetown Comedy Festival!

I survived it last April - barely - and had to skip the 4th of 4 days. This year, I planned better. I paced myself better. I made it to shows on all 4 days. (Well... my fellow wine drinkers on Saturday night might disagree about my ability to pace myself and be a fully responsible 30 year old, especially he who drove me home while I chattered the whole way in a voice that could have slurred a feeeeew less words.)

But. 78 sets. Ranging from a few 3-minute opener/host types to Janeane Garofolo, who was supposed do a 15 minute set, but didn't see the red light (she was looking at the wrong part of the theater for it to flash at her) and realized it 25 minutes later. (It was the most hilarious, embarrassed, genuine, huge reaction. She gasped, she threw her hands over her mouth, she ran off stage - apologizing to the crew and staff, mid-joke.)

Next year, I aim to top 80.

And if anyone out there is scouring Google for mentions of the Festival seeking feedback, I'll say this: thank you for bringing more women comics! Also: there were fewer masturbation jokes and I was grateful. But, there were a lot more mentions of pot, the Occupy movement, Portland dudes with beards and parenting/kids. Overall it was a little tamer - though, really, no less drunk on the performers' part - than last year, and if you want to immerse yourself in it with next year, let's! Call me in early April - I'll be plotting out my weekend of shows and picking more of my favorites! This year:

• Gloria Bigelow
• Toby Muresianu
• Ricky Carmona

and Auggie Smith delivered, like always, and Lucas Dick was quite funny well before he told us his dad is Andy Dick! Go Lucas! Bridgetowners like me will enjoy seeing you in years to come.

More Truth in Advertising

You might remember the useful tip at the federal gym, all honesty it was about how we are going to get in shape, as regular people and not super-human will-power machines.

I noticed another sign today, in the elevator. It's above the emergency phone, and it contains instructions on what to do if the elevator breaks, but the perfect part of it is the first line, which reads, in all caps:

TRY NOT TO PANIC!

So supportive! So true! Try not to... even though we know you will, and we would too if we were there with you, because who wouldn't!?!... just try. And even if you do, that's OK, just move on to step two and we'll come to get ya out. Comforting!

CRACK

It's official. Smitten Kitchen's posts are taking over my baking life and I. Need. To. Stop.

Stop baking her recipes, stop reading her charming posts, and stop sharing her gospel with others. It is no exaggeration that THREE people have now described her cocoa brownies (which I have baked for them and forced them to eat) as addicting to the point of being like crack, and so if you know what's good for you, you WON'T click on that link.

The most recent success is the honey cake. Good thing Rosh Hashanah is months away, so I won't have to make it again until September because it is, as described, moist and majestic, and it was, as expected, freaking delicious. (At least I was able to send it all home with guests and not a crumb remains at home.)

Must stop, must stop, must stop. Well, maybe right after I try the Sally Lunn bread... it has been calling to me for weeks... Hey! I'm making it without the honeyed brown butter! That's controlling this problem, right?

1? 1mil?

I've either written this post a million times, or I've never managed to get it published... but it's a simple, powerful observation and if I haven't written it yet, shame on me.

Time spent with positive influences (ahem, people) in your life is time that flies, time that energizes, time that is well spent and makes you feel like you can come home and tackle that to-do list (clean all the things, even!) and have energy to spare - to share - to make a NEW list and start on THAT!

So the next time you come home from lunch, dinner, happy hour, coffee, or conversation and find yourself drained, needing a nap, wanting to turn your phone off... think about it. Think about how you could be coming home from the kind of conversation that is truly no better time spent, no relationship more worth nurturing. And invite one of those people to hang out - it'll do ya good.

So is this an Easter post? Sure, why not! There's a metaphor for rebirth in there somewhere, you can find it.

Happy Easter!

Must-Read

If you're not reading, and using, the recipes from Smitten Kitchen - and I am sure you are, because you are cooler than me and more experienced in finding all the cool stuff on the internet - then you should be. Her baking recipes are brilliantly good, and she lists ingredients by weight!! Oh, the accuracy. Oh, the obsessive ability to calculate Weight Watchers points. And oh, oh, oh, the snickerdoodles. Start with these and you'll be a committed fan.

More Zumba Wisdom

Oh, you laugh - and laugh away! It is a silly title. But my lovely, authentic and fun Zumba teacher said in class the other day, "If you want to lose weight in your hips, you have to vigorously move your whole body. And if you want to lose weight in your arms, you have to vigorously move your whole body. If you want to lose weight in your belly..." And everyone laughed, and kept dancing, and she added, "Your body decides what its weight loss process is going to look like, and where it comes from, so we'll just keep moving."

I've hit a plateau in the weight loss - or rather, I've lost the motivation to be disciplined enough, since early January, to lose the 6 or so last pounds that will in turn display The Number I Want on the scale. I don't need to lose these pounds, but it turns out that following Weight Watchers 5.5 days a week and doing almost whatever you want 1.5 days a week doesn't cut it. That will keep you at exactly the same weight - which, I admit, is an accomplishment of sorts! - but with the cherry blossoms arriving, real food starting to grow again (no more apple, orange, banana Every. Single. Day.), and a renewed commitment to reaching the goal, I'm back on the wagon. 7 days a week.

Rattling Around

Rattling around in my head today is an article from Scientific American about this gene, called CHRM2, whose various expressions appear to be correlated with depression, unruly childhood behavior, high intelligence and alcoholism.

Wha-a-at? Yes. Fascinating.

The theory goes that when this gene is confronted with unstable, uninvolved, volatile parenting... well... it is more likely to result in alcoholism or aggression in teenagers. And when this gene is confronted with engaged, positive, nurturing and involved parenting... it results in wildly successful and intelligent citizens.

It is truly being called the orkidebarn or maskrosbarn theory (Swedish for... orchid child or dandelion child). Dandelion children are the resilient children... they can, and usually do, thrive in any kind of environment. But the orchid children - they are delicate. They have the capacity for incredible beauty, for outshining others - but they also have the capacity to wilt beyond repair without tender, careful care. They're not to be stepped on. Mistakes weigh on them.

I suspect we'll learn more and more and more in my lifetime about various genes, and the effect nurture has on them in each person, depending on the variance in the gene we happen to be housing. But isn't it fascinating!?

(More here.)

Book Report

It is March 1 - and I even had an extra day in February! - but I failed in my goal of finishing the 1,004 page book loaned to me by a dear friend, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Alas, it was a self-set goal (not required by the loaner), which makes failure even worse!

But it's hard to compete with the two books I did start - and finish - while the giant red behemoth of a paperback languished bedside. I like it, I truly do - but it meanders, it lingers, it takes time with an old-fashioned style of narration. And it is HEAVY! Sometimes it annoys me, resting too heavily on my stomach in bed at night. It really should be on a Kindle!

So first up, I cannot recommend enough Room by Emma Donaghue. It's a "run-don't-walk" to your library/friends/bookshop/Kindle store kind of book. I literally intended to read for 20 minutes one night, to dip my toes in, to only slightly cheat on Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell... and 3 hours and 20 minutes later, at 2 AM, I was within 45 pages of the end. It is that good. It made my heart race, there were sections where I could not read fast enough and was holding my breath. If you have an ounce of trust in me, you won't even go read about Room - you'll just go read Room.

And second, I joined the bandwagon and read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. It's pure YA fun and the writing is not nearly as skilled as Donaghue's, and the plot is not QUITE as compelling as hers either, but I read it in an afternoon/evening, and book two in the series was loaned to me today. Yay for friends, and yay for borrowing!

So that's this month's Book Report. You?