BROOD

My friend Nora Rocket brought the following article from Philadelphia Magazine to my attention: Pretty Babies by Carrie Denny - a report on a new trend that is honestly terrifying to me. Like, worse than puppy mills.

The article focuses on the new phenomenon of pre-pubescent girls - some as young as eight - showing up with their moms at the spa for treatments ranging from manicures to eyebrow plucking to Botox treatments to dye jobs to bikini waxes. These girls may never see their awkward stage, may never understand that not being perfect is okay, and may never feel comfortable in their bodies unless they are tanned, waxed, and made up.

Now, I don’t want to sound like a grandmother here, inching along in her walker and commenting on kids these days, but I’m pretty sure this is a serious problem for women. I’m not going to quote from the article - it’s too quotable for that - but you should read it, especially if you have kids or are even considering reproducing.

I’ve seen the same types of things in New York, which is probably the world’s motherhive of utterly ridiculous consumerist culture. Just last weekend, as Ben and I were eating at a restaurant, a girl at the table next to us threw a temper tantrum about getting her “mani and pedi.” I’m guessing this girl was seven. And although I know I’m not supposed to judge people or tell people how to raise their kids, but that ain’t right. At seven, your kids should only be throwing temper tantrums for popsicles.

I’m not sure what is worse about the scenario: the fact that these girls are learning to be utterly self-involved and self-conscious or that these treatments are so out-of-this-world expensive that they are learning pampered lifestyles that they won’t be able to support if mom and dad ever disappear. We might be raising a generation of girls that will continue to be dependent on their parents far after they should be and perhaps until they can find another viable source of income to pay for their spray-on tans.

Of course, I’m not exactly a poster child for “taking care of myself.” I don’t wax or pluck or dye, but on the other hand, I don’t brush my hair or require a bra. I might do more if I had the cash, but I’m guessing I wouldn’t do much. I think my awkward phase was an important if not pleasant time in my life when I learned that you should work on being things other than pretty, because pretty doesn’t always show up when you need it. And I think that altering our bodies to look like an airbrushed magazine covergirl and consuming expensive things as a major facet of entertainment in our lives is a slippery slope of emotional and financial troubles that won’t disappear with an hour-long massage.

I know these are old ideas and I know I’m preaching to the choir, but damn. What is even the point of giving an eight year old a bikini wax? The only thing that will accomplish is fucking that girl up for life.

Here’s what I hope: I hope that like all the generations that have come before us, these girls will rebel when they hit 18. That they might realize that looking natural and aging naturally is pretty great (and easy) and that there are scientific and evolutionary reasons that we have hair where we do. They might also realize that they are drowning in spa bills and wasting hours a week on the state of their blonde highlights. They might run rampant in the streets with no eyeliner and no bras, without blow-drying their hair or pumicing their feet, like a new generation of hippies.

And their mothers, who tried so hard to train them to be beautiful, will be horrified - only no one will be able to tell from their faces because of the Botox treatments.

Last week I watched an investigative report about puppy mills that Oprah and Lisa Ling put together.

I was shocked to learn that 99% of puppies in pet stores are from puppy mills and that most if not all puppy mills involve terrible conditions: unhealthy doggies, emotionally disturbed doggies, tiny doggy cages. Even doggies that didn’t know how to walk on solid ground because they had never been out of their chicken wire crates. (I mean, look how sad that puppy to the right is about the poor conditions!)

It was clear that puppy mills are terrible, inhumane operations that should be better regulated and that we should stand up as a people to make sure the puppies we purchase are from valid sources such as a well-respected breeder or, better yet, a pound. And yet the statistics show that puppy mills are growing in numbers. Why is this so?

At least in my mind, I’m pretty sure it’s because the phrase “puppy mill” just sounds SO adorable.

I mean, can anything be thought of as scary or urine-soaked or torturous that has the word puppy in it? Would other things be less scary if they had cute animal names inserted into them? For instance, would people be more likely to make water baby panda boarding legal?

The first thing that pops into my mind when I hear “puppy mill” is that scene in Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, when that big door opens up and all the children run into a magical candy and sweets factory-land with enormous gumdrops growing on trees, cream-filled mushrooms, and a milk chocolate waterfall - except replace all the candy and junk with puppies. Yes - the puppy mill would be all excited yipping and friendly playful tussling and pink noses. Your senses would be overwhelmed by velvety oversized paws, pure puppy love, and that hard to place new puppy smell. The mill floor would be covered not in chicken wire, but with freshly mowed grass and the puppies would emerge, tails wagging and tennis ball in mouth, from a cute conveyor belt. And for some reason, there would be Umpa Lumpas.

The point is, I don’t think we’re going to get anything done to eradicate puppy mills until we get a name change in the works that truly depicts the terrible treatment and loveless lives that these animals endure - and I’m not just talking about changing it to “dog mills” or “canine factories.” I’m thinking of something more along the lines of “Muttilation Chambers” or “Barksweitz.”

Okay, maybe I need some help thinking of a new name for puppy mills. I think I go look for a picture of a adorable but sad puppy picture to post with this entry now. That’s really why I wrote it in the first place.

Annie Dillard is simply one of the best creative non-fiction writers living. She has the rare ability to put common experiences and abstract emotions into words, and the structure and beauty of her sentences are pretty well unrivaled. If you don’t believe me, pick up An American Childhood or Pilgrim at Tinker Creek – both books about everyday experiences that Dillard makes wondrous. Over the years, I think I’ve read every nonfiction book she’s written.

Still, can she write fiction? The Maytrees is her second fictive effort after The Living and the only novel by Dillard that I’ve read. It follows a couple who lives on Cape Cod through the 50 years of their relationship and explores how and why people love. The couple has a child, the man runs away with another woman, the other woman dies, the man comes back. Nothing revolutionary plot-wise.

First, let me say I liked it. The description of  Provincetown is lovely and Dillard does what she does best: dissects little moments and little thoughts and puts words to feelings that we’ve never been able to find words for. Her sentences are as lovely as always and the story almost has the feel of a long poem.

On the other hand, it’s pretty clear that fiction isn’t Dillard’s strong suit. The largest problem I had involved simply understanding the story – much more attention is put toward how things are going on instead of what’s going on. There were many passages I had to read twice just to get the logistics of what was happening, and I don’t think Dillard meant for it to be confusing. There were several places were the numbers simply didn’t work (the main character’s age is wrong in several places, for instance, which immediately throws me out the reality of the world she’s created) and there were several places that didn’t make sense for hundreds of pages (one passage in the first ten pages makes you think that a character is murdered in the future, when in fact she dies of old age 200 pages later) and again, these confusing bits of writing didn’t seem to be there on purpose.

In the end, if you’re an Annie Dillard fanatic, this is worth picking up, just to be in awe of some of her sentences and to read her descriptions of the New England Coast. If you haven’t read much Dillard, I might skip this one in favor of one of her nonfiction books – although it isn’t unenjoyable, it does show that Dillard is much better at exploring our own world than at creating her own.

Last week was, to say the least, busy.

To start things off, Ben got way, way sicker than I did and was knocked off his feet for almost a week. To give you an idea of how bad this virus was that hit us, the coworker who got it from Ben is now laid up in the hospital.

Strangely, on the day that Ben was at his lowest point, he got two emails: one from an online mixed martial arts site Cage Potato and the other from none other than Sports Illustrated. Both publications had read Ben’s stuff and were looking to get in on the goods before someone else did. Within the week, Ben 1) accepted a full time job as editor of Cage Potato 2) accepted a steady freelancing gig with Sports Illustrated (non-sports fans: this is huge) and 3) slowly, slowly recovered from the superbug that was eating him alive.

What does that mean for us? Since both Cage Potato and Sports Illustrated don’t give a damn where Ben writes from as long as he writes for them, and since my freelance business is chugging along more smoothly than I could have ever expected, we are planning to return to Montana in the next few months. Yes, Montana - where you can get an entire burger for a buck and where you can actually see the stars at night.

As you might guess, I’m stupendously excited. Aside from the 24-hour takeout options, New York City and I never quite got along. I know I should have realized this going in, but the capital of the world is loud, crowded, dirty, and depressing. And with spring coming, I can only think about the fun I could be having if only we had a backyard, a grill, and a whiffle ball set.  And did I mention Ben is going to write for Sports Illustrated?

The tentative plan involves selling most of our crap, buying a truck, and leaving by mid- June or July — right around the time that the garbage on the sidewalks of the city starts rotting in the heat. This plan also involves buying a house in our much-loved and much-missed Missoula and perhaps even adopting a puppy. Although I think we have a handle on the puppy-buying process, we’re a bit lost when it comes to purchasing a house. I bet we’ll figure it out, though.

I’m looking forward to all of it - the money we’re making will go so, so much farther in Montana (the basic conversion is that the cost of one beer in New York is equal to the cost of one pitcher in Missoula) and seeing the mountains again sounds like just what I need.

There is no better feeling than waking up feeling better after being sick for several days. Everything I do makes me feel super-human. Look at me taking a shower - now strong enough to open the bottle of conditioner and with enough endurance to shave my legs! Look at me type a full, coherent sentence, all without having to take breaks for orange juice and crying! Look at me take out the garbage without turning it into a 30-minute production of self-directed verbal abuse!

The main problem with being sick is, I think, that many times we don’t want to admit to ourselves just how bad we’re feeling. We try to do normal things when really we should just turn off our cell phones and computers, watch the America’s Next Top Model marathon on MTV, and eat pudding cups. Of course, we never quite have the clarity of thought to see these things at the time.

The bad news is that Ben is still deep in the dark well of illness (since I obviously gave it to him while he was caring for me). As evil as it may sound, it really makes me feel good to see how sick he is - it confirms the fact that I am not a wimp for barely being able to function since Saturday. Whatever this weird bug is, it can take out even the strongest and most handsome among us. In any case, I am now doing my duties as a Survivor, by fetching new cartons of orange juice and bags of cough drops and new boxes of Kleenex when they are needed, and by saying things like, “there, there” and “you’ll stop shivering and whimpering uncontrollably sometime tomorrow.”

We’ve also watched about every HBO On Demand movie available at the moment, from Driving Miss Daisy (which I had never seen and which was quite good) to The Break-Up (which was also surprisingly good, although I like anything Vince Vaughn is even associated with).

Tomorrow we head to New Jersey for an IFL fight, which are exhausting enough for Ben to cover when he’s at 100%. I’ll be rooting for him from the stands, probably finally fully recovered enough to switch up my pudding cups and OJ for cheesy nachos and a big bad beer.

An acquaintance of mine from college, Jen, brought this great link to my attention: Postcards From Yo Momma. Despite the dumb name, the site manages to be both hilarious and sweet at the same time. The concept is simple: it’s a collection of reader submissions of emails they get from their moms. I know I found myself laughing one minute and missing my mom the next. It’s kind of like Chicken Soup for the Soul mixed up with Overheard in New York.

After reading through a couple of pages, the eerie similarities that apparently span all moms start to emerge, which makes you realize that although all of our moms are special in their own quirky ways, there are some things that seem to be utterly universal.

For example, all moms are a bit more interested in the weather - both where they are located and where you are located, as well as the exact highs and lows and possibly the humidity — than any other humans. And all moms seem to have adorable and vague words for gross bodily functions, such as “Your Cycle” and “Your Tummy Issues.”

More importantly, all moms seem more concerned about you than anyone else in the world, and sincerely, truly, want you to be safe and well.

Here’s a visual for you: Ben and I, now both ill, sitting on our couch, eating Chinese takeout, watching Lake Placid on cable, and still feebly attempting to get work done on our laptops before the day ends.

With the small exception of the takeout, life is bad. Real bad.

And, unfortunately for him, Ben has to drive to a generic New Jersey hotel conference room tomorrow to tape a grueling 12 hours of fighter interviews. I plan on hanging out in my sweatpants all day and eating his leftover General Tso’s chicken in his absence, but only out of love.

(Oh, dude, an enormous and ancient crocodile just ate a bear in Lake Placid. It almost makes up for the poor acting.)

Being mostly sick is weird because you can still do stuff, but you don’t really have the energy to do real work or concentrate on anything too important. Add this to the fact that I discovered a bunch of old high school people on facebook - yes, facebook, the enormous and ancient crocodile of procrastination and time sucks - and you have a strange, wasted day indeed.

Since I missed my high school reunion a couple of years ago, I hadn’t really seen many people except for the small circles of close friends that I’ve kept in touch with, and catching up with many of their lives was downright weird, even more so considering my fever. A jock turned sensitive photographer? People holding down real jobs? People with babies? Everyone is fat?

The fat thing is especially weird. I mean, I’ve put on 20 pounds since graduating high school too, and I think to strangers most people are still considered normal-weighted. But the last time I saw them, they were at the height of their youth - 18, tanned, unjaded, beerbellyless. Now they look like regular people. And sometimes wear things like turtlenecks.

What I’m trying to say is, it makes you take stock of your life. I guess other people are probably shocked that I’m married. Or still wearing that same t-shirt.

Well, Lake Placid is over, after a less-than-thrilling 79 minutes. Don’t worry, they left plenty of room for a sequel. I think I’m going to take a Tylenol PM and shiver in bed for a while before the drugs kick in. Hopefully I won’t have night terrors about my misspent youth or large, digitally mediocre reptiles. And hopefully I’ll have an update worth reading tomorrow.