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grrgoylLast weekend was the first time it occurred to me to weigh myself on the dog scale at the hospital. I'm not going to tell you what it said. I only mention it because I did it again this weekend, and discovered I was 12 pounds lighter. 12 pounds!!! 1 week!!!! Sure, I've been hitting the Bowflex a little harder, but I didn't think it was physiologically possible to lose that much in that short a time, unless you only left your house by knocking down a wall and renting a crane. I'm thrilled, obviously, if I could believe it. If it is true, it has to be from one or a combination of these factors: 1) water weight 2) the awesome power of the Bowflex 3) faulty scale 4) a world gone topsy-turvy.
Still, 12 pounds isn't enough to counteract my boobs. My t-shirts arrived from that website, which apparently is only a go-between for different t-shirt manufacturers, all of whom have wildly disparate ideas of what constitutes an XL. The Cure shirt fits great, but sadly the Firefly tee that I was most excited about was a bit constricting. I'm forced to exchange it for an XXL, and doesn't THAT effectively negate any kind of ego boost that I enjoyed from the dog scale. Goddamn boobs.
Addendum the First: My sister the nurse assures me that, yes indeedy, it is possible to lose 12 pounds in a week, but that the next 12 would be a lot slower to disappear. Well then.
~*~
A few years ago John Cameron Mitchell wrote, directed and starred in a little movie called Hedwig and the Angry Inch. If you haven't seen it yet, I suggest you stop reading this right now and go rent it. While you're at the store anyway, I also suggest you pick up his sophomore effort, Shortbus. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Not all that spoilery, but I wanted an excuse to use this quote somewhere:
The trailer for this proclaims it to be an honest look at sexuality. It is that, but it is also a film about journeys, and how occasionally individual journeys intersect quite serendipitously in a small town like New York.
James and Jamie are a young, hot gay couple of 5 years. Everyone on the club scene admires their perfect relationship. However, James is plagued by melancholy and he's trying to work through his demons with an amateur movie project, constantly filming the little moments of his daily life with the intensity of Wes Bentley in American Beauty.
They go to see Sofia, a sex therapist who has never had an orgasm, a fact which creates much barely repressed anger for her. Her life has become an all-consuming, frustrating pursuit of the elusive O. The boys turn her on to the titular club, Shortbus...
...where Sofia meets and befriends Severin, a dominatrix who is desperate to make some kind of real human connection.
Without giving away too much, this is the basic story. Which tells you nothing about what an amazing movie this is.
Sex. This movie has it in spades. The first 5 minutes has more penises than I think Tery's seen in her lifetime, and she has 3 brothers (I won't even pretend to claim such modesty. It would be pretty unbelievable with all the time I spend on the internet in the course of a day). And the sex is depicted so graphically this is practically a soft porn (there's even a bonus feature called "Shooting Sex: A docu-primer" to give you some idea).
At the same time it's so much more than sex. It's quirky, interesting, 3-dimensional characters that we are eager to learn more about. It's a vibrant, Bohemian, uninhibited New York that makes you want to move there and touch all that life (unless you're a Republican). As the "mistress" of Shortbus put it, "It's like the 60's, but with less hope." And it's a New York that really exists: so many of the supporting cast use their real names (and, you suspect, their real personas) that it's practically a documentary.
And it's still so much more than that. It's small, simple, beautiful moments of contact that are life-changing. It's people finding redemption in unlikely places. It's what happens when we finally let others in, because we all get it in the end.
If I'm waxing far too rhapsodic about this, keep in mind it's yet another post-overnight shift viewing, when everything makes me giddily euphoric because I have two whole days off in a row (no, the novelty still hasn't worn off). I also watched it fully expecting to love it (not that I haven't been let down before). And love it I did. So much so that I can't even wait for shipping from the internet. I'm getting it today and I'm prepared to pay retail price. Full marks, 5 out of 5
Addendum the Second: "Unrated." It's a word that's slapped on a lot of DVDs nowadays to justify a few extra dollars. Most of the time the product fails to deliver on the promise. My "unrated" edition of Saw III, for instance, is virtually indistinguishable from the theatrical version. But Shortbus takes the word seriously, which is what Tery attributes my subsequent difficulty in finding it to. Target: Nothing. Hollywood Video didn't even have it to rent, let alone buy. I knew Borders was my last chance -- they have the most obscure, but most expensive, DVDs I've ever seen. Sure enough, they came through, one copy on the shelf for a mere $27. Worth every penny.
~*~
Tery's funny of the week: (watching a documentary on "The Real Rainman") Oooooh, look at this autistic guy! He's so FULL of himself!!
Still, 12 pounds isn't enough to counteract my boobs. My t-shirts arrived from that website, which apparently is only a go-between for different t-shirt manufacturers, all of whom have wildly disparate ideas of what constitutes an XL. The Cure shirt fits great, but sadly the Firefly tee that I was most excited about was a bit constricting. I'm forced to exchange it for an XXL, and doesn't THAT effectively negate any kind of ego boost that I enjoyed from the dog scale. Goddamn boobs.
Addendum the First: My sister the nurse assures me that, yes indeedy, it is possible to lose 12 pounds in a week, but that the next 12 would be a lot slower to disappear. Well then.
~*~
A few years ago John Cameron Mitchell wrote, directed and starred in a little movie called Hedwig and the Angry Inch. If you haven't seen it yet, I suggest you stop reading this right now and go rent it. While you're at the store anyway, I also suggest you pick up his sophomore effort, Shortbus. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Not all that spoilery, but I wanted an excuse to use this quote somewhere:
The trailer for this proclaims it to be an honest look at sexuality. It is that, but it is also a film about journeys, and how occasionally individual journeys intersect quite serendipitously in a small town like New York.
James and Jamie are a young, hot gay couple of 5 years. Everyone on the club scene admires their perfect relationship. However, James is plagued by melancholy and he's trying to work through his demons with an amateur movie project, constantly filming the little moments of his daily life with the intensity of Wes Bentley in American Beauty.
They go to see Sofia, a sex therapist who has never had an orgasm, a fact which creates much barely repressed anger for her. Her life has become an all-consuming, frustrating pursuit of the elusive O. The boys turn her on to the titular club, Shortbus...
...where Sofia meets and befriends Severin, a dominatrix who is desperate to make some kind of real human connection.
Without giving away too much, this is the basic story. Which tells you nothing about what an amazing movie this is.
Sex. This movie has it in spades. The first 5 minutes has more penises than I think Tery's seen in her lifetime, and she has 3 brothers (I won't even pretend to claim such modesty. It would be pretty unbelievable with all the time I spend on the internet in the course of a day). And the sex is depicted so graphically this is practically a soft porn (there's even a bonus feature called "Shooting Sex: A docu-primer" to give you some idea).
At the same time it's so much more than sex. It's quirky, interesting, 3-dimensional characters that we are eager to learn more about. It's a vibrant, Bohemian, uninhibited New York that makes you want to move there and touch all that life (unless you're a Republican). As the "mistress" of Shortbus put it, "It's like the 60's, but with less hope." And it's a New York that really exists: so many of the supporting cast use their real names (and, you suspect, their real personas) that it's practically a documentary.
And it's still so much more than that. It's small, simple, beautiful moments of contact that are life-changing. It's people finding redemption in unlikely places. It's what happens when we finally let others in, because we all get it in the end.
If I'm waxing far too rhapsodic about this, keep in mind it's yet another post-overnight shift viewing, when everything makes me giddily euphoric because I have two whole days off in a row (no, the novelty still hasn't worn off). I also watched it fully expecting to love it (not that I haven't been let down before). And love it I did. So much so that I can't even wait for shipping from the internet. I'm getting it today and I'm prepared to pay retail price. Full marks, 5 out of 5
Addendum the Second: "Unrated." It's a word that's slapped on a lot of DVDs nowadays to justify a few extra dollars. Most of the time the product fails to deliver on the promise. My "unrated" edition of Saw III, for instance, is virtually indistinguishable from the theatrical version. But Shortbus takes the word seriously, which is what Tery attributes my subsequent difficulty in finding it to. Target: Nothing. Hollywood Video didn't even have it to rent, let alone buy. I knew Borders was my last chance -- they have the most obscure, but most expensive, DVDs I've ever seen. Sure enough, they came through, one copy on the shelf for a mere $27. Worth every penny.
~*~
Tery's funny of the week: (watching a documentary on "The Real Rainman") Oooooh, look at this autistic guy! He's so FULL of himself!!
