Tuesday, April 29, 2014

So Much On My Mind That It's Criminal

In 2013 the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year was selfie, the photo taken of one by oneself with a smartphone or webcam and usually shared via social media. That same year, a runner-up was binge-watching. I do not do the former, but I have done the latter, and I have done it often. Selfies always make me look terrible and I hate them. I look tired, old, and as if I have an enormous face. Binge-watching has never done me a bit of harm; that is, until today.

First, a bit of exposition. Some of you may recall that the Dept. gave up cable quite a while ago, and now we live on regular broadcast digital and a Roku, which brings us Jared's Netflix. I've found that I really don't miss anything, especially now that I've found a few new shows to watch. One of them has an actor whose character I like, and it has turned into a Mini-Obsession of sorts, especially now that Daniel Day-Lewis has retreated back into the Gaping Void Of His Creative Space And Marriage. Anyway, the show is Criminal Minds, the character is Dr. Spencer Reid, and the actor is Matthew Gray Gubler.

Here he is with sunglasses and the tously hair, and a little bit of a five o'clock shadow happening.

He's a fan of the messy-haired, but kind of  "Just got off the soccer field, but it won't take me long to get cleaned up before we go out" look.



He's got kind of a "Daniel Day-Lewis Meets Johnny Depp Meets Rob Lowe" thing going on, and I like it.

His character is very awkward and nerdy, however, and brilliant, of course, and he gets debilitating migraines.  (Aha! say all my Readers.) The big thing is, of course, his looks. He has quite a few of the Necessaries: 1. Pretty 2. Longer Hair 3. Slender 4. Great Mouth.

Sigh.

Good Heavens. If he had a British accent, I'd be in tears every time I watched that show.

But I digress.

I had no negative side effects, as I said before, from binge-watching Criminal Minds with MGG in the past, even though it is a terribly and horrifically violent and bloody show. (Honestly, I have no idea how I am able to watch it. It's truly sickening.) The past few days, however, I have watched it a lot. A LOT. There were some episodes that I hadn't even seen before, and last night I watched very late into the night.

But I still woke up early to take the Prius in to get some recall work and an oil change. The place had generously provided all kinds of coffees and teas and some doughnuts. I had a bottle of water. I was playing against my Maryland friend Leanne in Words with Friends on my phone to pass the time. Suddenly, the elderly lady to my left took an absolutely enormous bite out of her jelly doughnut. Huge red clots dropped down through her fingers and onto her pants. My stomach lurched just a little. She grabbed her napkins and began wiping, wiping, wiping, trying so hard to get rid of the evidence of what had happened. The whole napkin was stained with red now. My stomach felt a little queasy, so I looked away and tried to get Lady Macbeth's famous speech out of my head. I turned toward the television and took a sip of water.

On the screen were obscenely large slabs of raw, red meat. The chef (Bobby Flay) selected a long steel knife and carefully sliced away several cuts. The sound was muted, so all I heard was a service tech, who was explaining something to another woman sitting across from me. As the knife continued slicing, I heard, "We didn't find him in there, no, but we found evidence that he'd been there, all right. There was some hair, some shavings, and some other things all balled up. Those kinds of things can clog up the works pretty well. The harsh winter brings them out, and then they need to find a place to hide out and stay warm." Horrified, I was glad to hear the jingle that told me it was my turn to play a word. I played lye for a decent amount of points, then glanced back up at the television. Big chunks of raw meat were being ground up, and then, a quick cut to shots of sloppy burgers dripping with ketchup. My stomach clenched, and I frowned, suddenly suspicious.

I began to observe the staff as they bustled around, smiling at every single person they encountered. No one came near a door without one of Them opening it for the person to walk through. They were so obsequious and eager that it was creepy. Just what kind of place was this? Why were all the people in the waiting room women? Was I the only one who couldn't hear the TV? And why did it take so long for my iPhone to connect to their free WiFi?

But these were questions for another time.  My car was done, and I had to go.  They held the doors open for me, and waved me out, smiling all the time.

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12 comments:

  1. Oh! Not that your other layout was bad, but I am really liking this new one! Much cleaner to the eye.

    Now, I am not a fan of the Long Hair on men. I need to have it cut short before I can truly find a man attractive. Your guy up there looks pretty good to me, but he would look a thousand times better without the lengthy locks. Was he also on Friday Night Lights? I am too lazy to look it up, but he looks familiar.

    And, you should let me know your WWF username and we can play each other. Although you would probably kick my butt.

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  2. I also am a fan of the new look.

    It sounds like you were having some kind of very bad reaction to your binge indeed. Sometimes the world around us gets too confusing and David Lynch-ish, and NEO sounds like just the type of place where that might happen often. Please be careful out there.

    Your crush, by the way, is indeed dreamy. He reminds me of my husband back when we met, lo those many years ago. You can't blame me for stalking him with the long hair and the cheekbones and wonderful mouth? He's sadly lost his hair and gained some weight, but he still has the lovely cheekbones and mouth, and gosh, I'm not as young and thin as I used to be either, so what does one expect, really?

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  3. Oooh, love your new blog decor! The wallpaper is great and the font colors all tie in so nicely. :-D

    MGG is a real McDreamy. I don't really have a hair preference with men (hey, Mr. O. is partly bald), but this guy could do anything he wants with his hair and he would still make me swoon. Agree with the addition of a British accent, too, lol.

    I always marvel at how you find such explicit pictures to go perfectly with your posts. I tried to imagine what you would have googled to get that jelly doughnut graphic. So I tried "jelly doughnut crime scene" and sure enough, it popped up. But it never would have occurred to me to google those words if I hadn't seen the photo.

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  4. Everyone--Thanks for the positive feedback regarding the new blog styling. And my apologies for taking so long to see how overly busy the previous one was. I think after reading thousands of pages of student scrawls and watching tons of epically bad group-produced Power Points using Gothic font, I had a hard time seeing Normal. I like this one, too. I love little sort of Post-Modern prints like these. Let me know if the "Harvest Gold" colour is too difficult to read.

    Ortizzle--Thanks so much, and thanks for your input and efforts to help me see with a fresh eye. You're the best.

    No one is more astonished than I am when Bing or Google gives me a great image for my posts. Sadly, it's often what takes me so darn long to get one done and published. I know what elements I'm looking to include, and with the billions of creative people out there, I know someone has done something I can use.

    For this one, I Bing'd and then had to Google "killer doughnut." You'd be surprised how far down I had to scroll.

    J.@jj--I remember your wedding picture. Ted looked quite inviting, indeed. In recent pictures, he looks like the quintessential Great Guy, the one who every girlfriend says to the wife, "You are so lucky. Ted never...", and they're right. Know what I mean? He's still got "it", and he's got everything else, too.
    BTW--You look terrific, miss. Just perfect.

    Gina--No, he wasn't on FNL, but I know who you were thinking of. He was hotsy-totsy, too. Quite.

    How sad I am. I am old enough, actually, to be these men's grandmother. I think. Like you, I am too lazy (and deluded) to look it up.

    Probably you would kick MY butt at WWF. I like making the bigass, elite words instead of the smart little high-value words. Such is my pathology. My username is DeptofNance.

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  5. I'm onboard with this new template/color scheme. Easy to read + stylish.

    I get your problem with the binge watching. I've never seen Criminal Minds, but I binge watched Dr. Who over our long winter. Now when I see something that doesn't quite make sense to me, I imagine that the Doctor is somewhere close by & that space aliens are causing bad things to happen.

    These shows all get inside our heads. For better... or for worse.

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  6. Nance, you're right about Ted. One of my very best friends, in the aftermath and pain of her second divorce, had MANY of her girlfriends' husbands profess their profound love for her. She said there were two friends, me and Katie, who's husbands didn't come on to her. I cannot imagine how horrid that would be. I told my grandma that, and she said similar things happened when she was widowed in her 20s. Creeps.

    Look at Ted here...he's only 23 at the time, so much too young for us now. But I was 22, so he was the perfect age for me THEN. Great hair, great teeth. I'm glad he's still handsome, though in a much more adult man way.
    http://jellyjules.com/?p=171

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  7. J@jj--The behaviour you describe is beyond egregious and disgusting. What a bunch of sicko predators.

    I love that picture. You look exactly the same to me, btw. Ted looks very...attractive. (I don't want to use an adjective that might embarrass me in future. You and I have met; it's entirely likely that I could meet Ted at some point down the road. But yes, quite. Sigh.)

    Ally Bean--Oh, good. Your blog is nice and elegant, and the layout is crisp. WP offers a lot more in the way of sleek styling, but when I first came to blogging, it was a bit intimidating to me. Blogger at that time was easier. I keep evolving with Ortizzle's expert help.

    I find that I do a lot of things in binges. I'm all in, submerge myself in it, get saturated, then emerge satiated. I was never one to do things little by little when it's something I like/love.

    It can be a problem.

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  8. Nance, I know. He's drool-worthy, and it's weird that I say that about my husband on another person's blog, right? But I had to post because this picture just captured, to me, everything you liked in your post. As I said, he's not 23 anymore. He's 49. But we're not young either. A girl can dream, though. Thanks for saying I look the same, 20 years later and 30 pounds. HA! And you're right, I was horrified when my friend told me of the treatment she received, and equally horrified when my grandmother confirmed that it's nothing new at all. People can suck sometimes.

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  9. Wow! Everybody....All that talk about Ted made me compare him to Brian Sullivan..Let me tell you about old Brian.

    A man walked out to the street and caught a taxi just going by. He got into the taxi, and the cabbie said, "Perfect timing. You're just like "Brian!


    Passenger: "Who?"

    Cabbie: "Brian Sullivan. He's a guy who did everything right all the time. Like my coming along when you needed a cab, things happen like that to Brian Sullivan, every single time."

    Passenger: "There are always a few clouds over everybody."

    Cabbie: "Not Brian Sullivan. He was a terrific athlete. He could have won the Grand Slam at tennis. He could golf with the pros. He sang
    like an opera baritone and danced like a Broadway star and you should have heard him play the piano. He was an amazing guy."

    Passenger: "Sounds like he was something really special."

    Cabbie: "There's more. He had a memory like a computer. He remembered everybody's birthday. He knew all about wine, which foods to order and which fork to eat them with. He could fix anything. Not like me. I change a fuse, and the whole street blacks out. But Brian Sullivan, he could do everything right."

    Passenger: "Wow. Some guy then."

    Cabbie: "He always knew the quickest way to go in traffic and avoid traffic jams. Not like me, I always seem to get stuck in them. But Brian, he never made a mistake, and he really knew how to treat a woman and make her feel good. He would never answer her back even if she was in the wrong; and his clothing was always immaculate, shoes highly polished too. He was the perfect man! He never made a mistake. No one could ever measure up to Brian Sullivan."

    Passenger: "An amazing fellow. How did you meet him?"

    Cabbie: "Well, I never actually met Brian. He died. I'm married to his widow."
    <><>

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  10. Nancy--This was a good one. I had no idea where it was going at all until the final line. Bravo!

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  11. I laughed out loud (really LOLing - Mike had to ask what I was reading) - so funny to picture you in the midst of high drama in the service department - ha!

    That boy IS cute - but the Rob Lowe lips turn me off a bit. Isn't that weird?

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  12. The Bug--Not weird at all. We all have our own tastes in men. I like the fuller lips--Leo DiCaprio's bottom lip I find especially biteable.

    Glad to give you a good chuckle. I try.

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