Style Blog Debut
I don’t consider myself an especially stylish person, but strangely, I know style when I see it. I can spot a cheap hem from a block away. I know where seams should be. I know what good fabrics are, and more important, what bad fabrics make good people do. (I love the US Weekly feature “When Bad Clothes Happen to Good People.”) My good eye always travels, unfortunately, to the most expensive shoes and handbags (my two weaknesses), but I’m not willing to shell out the money to do the right thing. Alas.
I do pride myself on my vintage finds. People often compliment me on something that I purchased for less than $10, which gives me a Jewish-grandmother frisson. It’s all about quality materials and good fit. And if you spend money on shoes, you can get away with a lot more.
At any rate, my colleague Tara Murtha does a style blog, which I’ve mentioned before. She has asked me to contribute before, but I’ve been afraid. Does being 40 mean I’m no longer stylish — indeed, if I ever was at all? Does it put me out of the demo, as they say?
There are plenty of people, I know, who read this blog and are over 40. Isn’t it interesting how fashion changes? Just a few years ago I wore baby tees. Now? Never. Not because my body has changed, but because it’s just … wrong for someone my age.
Today I took a chance and posted for the first time to the style blog. Wander on over and check it out. It tends to be very quirky. Maybe if this one goes over okay, I’ll do more about being a moldy oldy. At 40.
Yasmin Le Bon
liz | 1:24 PM | Uncategorized
I’m Not Sure About This One: “Assisted” Suicide
Nineteen-year-old Jacob Weiss (pictured) and his 18-year-old friend were drinking and talking about suicide, a Colorado news report says, when Weiss went and got a loaded shotgun and handed it to his friend. The younger kid shot himself and died. Now Weiss is in jail on manslaughter charges based on Colorado’s law prohibiting assisted suicide. There are other charges against him as well, including reckless endangerment and prohibited use of a firearm.
This seems like a complex case. Did Weiss really believe his friend would go through with it? I’m guessing he didn’t. Maybe he was trying to make a point by bringing him the gun, trying to scare him out of it. On the other hand, if Weiss felt his friend was serious in any way about wanting to die, handing him a loaded gun was indeed reckless and stupid.
This brings up the question of punishment. Should Weiss go to prison? Is he a danger to others? Should he be punished for facilitating his friend’s death? (He should certainly be punished for that facial hair.)
I don’t know the answers. Once again, however, I’d like to take this time to say I think gunz R stoopid.
Your thoughts?
liz | 9:16 AM | Uncategorized
Site Down for a Day
That would be today. I’m home with a cold — I think it’s a mental cold — and I need a break. That’s why there aren’t any posts. The funny thing is that being at home is actually making me more depressed instead of helping my stress and exhaustion. So I might end up going into work just to cheer myself up. Ridiculous, I know.
liz | 11:34 AM | Uncategorized
Guest Column: J.L. Arehart on Eagles Season
Here We Go Again
By J.L. ArehartFootball season, eh? No, no. Eagles season. A whole different beast.
The beginning of football season started out well for me – I am home alone tonight as Terry is out eating pizza and watching the game at his cousin’s house. Men must come together at this time as in the yesteryears of hunting; like the cyclical rise and fall the tides – it’s magnetic. Yet unlike hunting and gathering, or the beauty of tidal force, the pull of football season consists of scratching and belching and that yes, we women must expect our men to return to the home covered in Cheetos dust.
Oh, fleeting peace! A night all to myself to lie around in my robe and curl up with Portnoy’s Complaint! Wrap up my night sighing and shutting my eyes with the satisfaction of reading the latest New Yorker fiction section. Peeing with the door open! No blaring TV, which still does not seem to penetrate Terry’s stale and deaf ears!
Quiet. Quiet.
And then the game started – I have to presume the game started – all of my neighbors are suddenly screaming, “NO!” and “Fuck yeah!” “Go, go GO!” “You fucking douchebag!” and such. Oh, the raw sound of the Northeast accent! There are horns blaring, babies crying, animal-like screams cut through the night!
Testosterone is palpable, wafting in the air, seeping through the air conditioning system. There is no escape.
Philadelphia is like a puddle of water that is still standing, exquisitely covered by moss and trash, sad, forgotten and contaminated. And yet when Eagles season arrives, it’s as if a dinosaur is walking nearby, the puddle ripples, boils, then just turns into a volcano and fucking explodes. Eagles season is like Pompeii – out of nowhere, lava, screaming, running in the streets and after the Superbowl, it is eerily quiet, burned confetti settling in the cracks of the streets.
Case Study: There was a photo in the Philadelphia Inquirer of people AGAIN burning effigies of Terrell Owens. That’s another thing – Philadelphia holds a grudge. You double cross this city and you will be hated forever. They will burn your fucking EFFIGY in the streets and hold parties at lunchtime – across businesses downtown – to celebrate your suicide attempts. There will be an official day off to celebrate anything that brings you and your family pain. Don’t you dare cross this city or you will be tortured for life!
Philadelphia during Eagles season: ball sweat, leg tattoos, Miller Time, unapologetic hatred and rage, rabies-like symptoms, kielbasa.
This year, I am going to give in on day one – there is no escaping it. Like the sport itself, during Eagles time Philadelphia is masculine, short-tempered, unwashed and violent. There is no hope for a girl like me. All I can do is turn the Puccini high, twist up the fans, turn the sleep machine up, up – drown out the noise! And hope I make it out alive.
liz | 11:38 AM | Uncategorized
Thanks Karl!
PhillyFuture’s Karl Martino gave me and Philip a nice plug here yesterday. Thank you so much, sir.
liz | 11:14 AM | Uncategorized
Bipolar Kids = Up. Therefore, Antipsychotics = Up.
The very children who are featured in the NYT Sunday mag are those who are at risk when they take certain meds increasingly (and often fancifully) prescribed for bipolar disorder. To wit:
Risks Found for Youths in New Antipsychotics
liz | 8:43 PM | Uncategorized
I’m Voting Republican Because…
And because today the stock market is in such great shape!
liz | 5:43 PM | Uncategorized
Ah, the Irony
I was doing a Google search for more info on David Foster Wallace, the American author who just committed suicide. I entered his name plus the search term “ECT.” Funny what came up: a book review from Slate subtitled: “Why shock therapy deserves its mini-revival.”
Yet here’s why not (thanks to Heather for pointing this out): because when he had to go off his depression meds that worked for 20 years, he fell apart and was given what? ECT. Says his father, James, in the NYT: “Everything had been tried, and he just couldn’t stand it anymore.”
liz | 3:42 PM | Uncategorized
A Thing of Beauty
My colleague Daniel McQuade has a new blog design, which is quite attractive and user-friendly. Please go there and bask in the prettiness now. One of his posts is about Snurf, a drug kids get online that messes them up. From WebMD, about a potential ingredient of Snurf:
Yet both the desired effects and the side effects can be devastating. At extreme doses, Levine says, DXM causes the same kinds of dissociative symptoms — memory loss, depression, anxiety, detachment from self, sense of unreality, blurred sense of identity … “
Hey, I got that without any drugs in my system at all! It was called “being batshit crazy.” Kids, you don’t have to go online for that.
liz | 1:35 PM | Uncategorized
