Slim Jim

Can anyone tell me why Slim Jim is the only consumable product in the whole country--or even outside it--that doesn't have to include nutritional content information on the wrapper? Not only that but I defy you to find out the nutritional content on their website.

I did manage to find the nutritional information on the web via a blogger on lowcarbfreedom.com who was ranting about not being able to find it either.

You'd think the makers of Slim Jim would want to market to all the low-carb enthusiasts out there. Low calories, only like 1 carb--even sort of low fat. Weirdly it has 0g fiber, which I find odd since when you eat it you'd swear one of the main ingredients has to be paper because you can feel those little fibers in your mouth.

I just don't understand why any other thing even remotely considered to be digestible--gum, tic-tacs, even toothpaste--has its nutritional content information somehow printed on the label, no matter how impossibly small it may be, yet the makers of Slim Jim have apparently opted out of complying with the law that says you have to include that stuff on the label. I just don't get it--wouldn't you think that the FDA would force them to start labeling it? And take it off the market until they complied?

thirtysomething--is that you?

In the trailers, HBO's new show Tell Me You Love Me looked--at least to me--like a modernized remake of the awesome mid-80s show, thirtysomething. I loved that show and couldn't wait to see this new apparent rip-off of the classic yuppie sitcom.

Last Sunday, the night it premiered, I tried to get the kids to bed before 9 but ended up missing the first 15 minutes. I sat down at 9:15 and turned the TV on. There, on Patrick's 53" TV, was a girl shimmying out of her jeans, revealing more than a glimpse of her...uh, landing strip.

Huh? I checked the channel to see how I managed to set the DVR for some porn channel, but it was tuned to HBO and to the correct show. Surprised, I kept watching... and there went her shirt, then the guys pants then--yikes--a full view of the guy's balls.

WTF? Where was thirtysomething? Ok, then it cut to the next scene--I think it was a couple in a therapists office talking their struggles with infertility. Ok, that's more like it, I thought. Then they're sitting at the dinner table at the guy's parents house and they both get up and go into another room to laugh and bond over how horrible the mother-in-law is...and next thing you know, there's another patch of pubic hair and a boob and the guy's actual dick!

Maybe I'm remembering the sequence wrong, but what I do remember from that episode are: at least two scenes featuring girls' naked crotches, at least two sightings of a pretty realistic simulation of penetration, a few sets of balls, and, if I'm not mistaken, a guy actually ejaculating. Oh, and I forgot--a blow job and/or a hand job and a guy jerking off. And woven in between the sex scenes, a distinctly thirtysomething-ish storyline.

All in all, the show is good and the characters are interesting and likable, but what's up with the very gratuitous--and frequent--sex scenes? Don't get me wrong--I'm going to keep watching it--but I could do with less pubic hair and ball sightings and more thirtysomething-ish coffee talk scenes.

So I check my email this morning and in the "subject" column is this:

Augusten's Assistant

Had Augusten been obsessing over me since I emailed him and was now having his assistant email me to tell me he just HAD to meet me? Or was it someone who reads this blog writing to tell me something about Augusten's assistant?

This was the email:

Hi lovely folks,

It's Stewart, Augusten's assistant, and I wanted to (humbly) let you know about my debut novel that was recently published, ROCKSTARLET. It's a dishy, hollywood tale about a closeted rockstar, and based on your emails, I've chosen the people i think would enjoy...

How psyched am I that I am apparently in Augusten's assistant's address book? (or then again, it could be because I'm on the mailing list for Augusten's website? Surely not--remember my email conversation with him a few weeks ago?)

So skip the books I recommended yesterday and go buy this and we will discuss.

Wah!

Can you tell my husband (of all of 3 weeks) is out of the country by how much I'm posting? It sucks!

This cheered me up slightly. As did this.

Apologies to Augusten, who is still my soulmate, but there is actually one person I am more obsessed with than him: this guy. Sadly, I don't know his name--is it Maddox? All I know is that I swear to god his site is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. Is it just me or are "Crappy child's art" #1 and #2 legendary for their humor value? I can still remember the first time I saw those pages and how I laughed harder than I ever laughed in my life--and that was at least 5 years ago and I still laugh just as hard every time I see them.

Anyway, I defy you to go to read this and not choke half to death from laughing so hard.

Documentaries

I don't know why but I'm a big fan of documentaries. I am beyond ignorant when it comes to anything related to politics, history, geography or economics, but for whatever reason I am all about documentaries about politics or economics (not so much history or geography...).

A few months ago I raved about Sicko and have since been up in arms about the health insurance system. It's the kind of thing I can't really think about too much because it just makes me so mad it ends up depressing me because it's such a lost cause--I don't even waste time trying to dispute the fact that my health insurance inexplicably denied payment for the exact same routine doctor visit that they have faithfully covered the other three times I've gone. After seeing that movie it just seems futile to waste time trying to plead my case--all to get them to count the full $120 out-of-pocket towards my $500 out-of-pocket per year limit. Even though it costs $120 out of my pocket, somehow they only will count $53 as my out-of-pocket expense. So I'm paying $100 a month to have the luxury of being able to go to "out of network" doctors--a privilege almost non-existent in these days of managed healthcare--yet before they will cover any of these out of network doctor visits I have to shell out an additional $500 per calendar year. Except now it turns out that the $500 limit isn't what actually comes out of my pocket; it's what they THINK should be coming out of my pocket. So even though I'm out $120, they only count it as $53. So basically, the $500 out of pocket limit becomes $1,200 a year for the insurance premium, then $500 THEN another who knows how much--at least double that--in out of pocket expenses that they consider to be outrageous or whatever.

So, as it's turning out, I can go on the much cheaper (half the cost per month) HMO insurance which covers the same as my current plan except no out of network benefits, and just pay the visits myself as I'm already doing, and I'd come out $50 richer every month. Anyway, I digress....I hadn't really thought of it that way until just now.

ANYWAY...back to today's documentary: Maxed Out. It's about the whole credit card debt crisis in this country. For some inexplicable reason I am fixated on the whole subject of debt and American excess. Don't ask me why because, as I said, I know nothing about economics or business; the main thing I know about money is how to spend (hence, I guess, the quest to keep my finances in line with horror stories of others' financial ruin). At any rate (no pun intended!), any news item, book or movie about anything having to do with crazy debt intrigues me.

Since I went off on that health insurance tangent I have now lost my train of thought about Maxed Out, but maybe that fact says it all about this movie: it wasn't that memorable. It was ok and I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who writes about financial issues. Actually, I am only a fan in principal, seeing as I have yet to actually read one of her books, although I have read excerpts from them in other favorite books like The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts. (like I said, I have for some reason become totally fixated on the subject of money, especially as it pertains to women and, in particular, women with children.)

ANYWAY, I clearly can't keep a straight train of thought here but I would say yes, you should see Maxed Out then read The Feminine Mistake and all of Elizabeth Warren's books, then we can discuss.

AugustenB

How psyched was I to open my gmail inbox and see an email from "AugustenB"?! I had emailed my new obsession, Augusten Burroughs, to tell him how great I think he is and also to ask him how he deals with the inevitable criticism that is inherent in any writer's line of work, let alone a memoirist's. I asked if he ever used to worry about it and, if so, how he overcame it. I never expected to hear back from him--although of course my fantasy was that he would read my email and realize we are psychic twins separated at birth and we would become best friends. The same fantasy I used to have about Oprah until I met her and realized we were not actually soulmates.

So I open my inbox the other day and gasped when I saw "AugustenB" in the "From" column. My fantasy had come true and Augusten had actually written me back! Ok, so the email was actually from his assistant, but still, isn't an email from Augusten's personal assistant almost as good as an email from Augusten himself? Here is what is said:

maggie-
first off, thanks for writing. i know augusten appreciates it.
i can't speak directly for him, but i do know that you can NEVER be a memoirist if you care what people think! augusten had a NEED to write about his life, and if he worried about what people were going to think, the writing would be stifled, and probably a lot less successful.
hope this helps and that you possibly get to meet augusten next year when he tours with his new book.
cheers,
stewart (augusten's assistant)

I love it how he says that Augusten had a NEED to write about his life and couldn't be bothered with what people might say about him or his writing. That is exactly why I am obsessed with him--first of all, because it is very evident in his writing that he had a "need" to write it and that need is what makes him such a magnificent writer. Secondly, I am obsessed with him because I love it that he doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks about him, his life, his writing, etc--in spite of any negatives he is the one who, in the end, is a NYT best-selling author, sought-after speaker at various ivy-league colleges and just an overall genius and cultural icon. He is the embodiment of my life philosophy; namely, just wish for something hard enough and it will come true and no need to conform to "requirements" like advanced degrees or abiding by sociatal norms about what's ok to talk about and what's not.

Anyway, you can bet your ASS I will be meeting him next year when he tours with his new book.