The Weekend

So the second half of my last two weeks, after our vacation in the Northeast, was insane in terms of work. Alex went on a business trip to San Fransisco and I worked 7 am to 7 pm days Monday through Friday. My wake-up call was 5:30 am, I’d get ready, stop for an iced chai, and be at work before 7:00 had struck. Then LEAVE at 7, get home at 8, have dinner at like 830, chill for a little bit, and continue working till about midnight/1:30. It was unrealllllllllll but I also love it because I love my job so I get a weird buzzed thrill off it. I genuinely dont’ mind/secretly enjoy being too busy to take 4 minutes to walk to the cafeteria because I literally can’t. NONSTOP phonecalls, emails, meetings, pre-meeting prep, and Excel document creation/analysis/editing, etc. Then the weekend really truly feels like the weekend and you get to enjoy yourself and step back from all of it, and then get back to it. Friday night at 9pm my boyfriend returned from San Fran, and he’d told me we were going to check out some of the wineries in Virginia on Saturday (something we’ve wanted to do for awhile).

But, I was SO tired/dead from like 4 hours of sleep a night the whole week, I didn’t know if I was going to be alive enough to leave the house ever. I was a zombie Friday night and we just caught up on our week and cuddled and he told me to look forward to Saturday but that I could sleep in while he did some things. I was like, oh PERFECT, cause I’m fucking exhausted and all I want to do is do nothing ALL DAY. Including going to a winery. I want to lay in bed until 8 pm and then get dressed up, eat dinner, and go right back to bed. But I said all of that in my head.

Well at 11, Alex came back and I heard him shuffling out in the dining/living room and I had already woken up but was reading in bed– had 4 pages left of the 3rd book of The 50 Shades of Grey triology. I’m so traumatized, angry, fuming and a million other horrible things by the books and how stupid/idiotic/offensive/disturbing/RETARDED they are, and how bad the writing is and how annoying the main character and “Mr. 50 Shades” are, and how all I want is to punch the author in the face because I don’t understand how someone could write 1000 pages of the worst trash in the history of America/the world and create what I think must surely be THE most DISLIKABLE character in the entire canon of world literature from the beginning of time.

The character doesn’t have ONE redeeming quality. You can’t relate, you can’t be sympathetic, the only thing you can want to do is literally burn the book. I wish Anastasia were real so that I could cause bodily harm to her, but not in a way she would enjoy. She is such a TOOL for Christian and gets all scared of him every single page (oh shit, is my fifty mad at me? oh no. holy fuck. what do I do? I can’t breathe air without him, what if he leaves me?), but then like, begs him to touch her 5 seconds later and you’re like “have you ever interacted with a man before?” “do you have any common sense or any strength to play hard to get and not be HIS BITCH?” And Christian…is just NOT COOL. If he were real, you’d be like “this guy is a fucking freak.” Like freak central. He’s a loser. All he ever does is “flash her wicked grins.” He just walks around town, flashing wicked grins.

And the stupid phrases from the book like “Mr. Twitching Palm” and “My megalomanic, my fifty, my kinky fuckery” and “Elena Bitch Troll Robinson” and Charlie Tango and her subconscious who is always looking out “from her spectacles over her dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre or The Complete Works of Charles Dickens.” I mean my body was basically physically SQUIRMING with every word I read because it was so painful to read that I reacted physically. I was in hell. Governments who want to torture enemies should force them to read 50 Shades of Grey because there is no worse punishment.

And any erotic author who refers to vaginas as “my sex”– as in: “he carefully moved his fingers over my sex,” and “he knelt between my legs and blew on my sex” — needs to just get it the fuck together. E.L. James…..I don’t even…I don’t even know. I GET IT, okay, SHE MADE LOTS OF MONEY, blah blah, but I will not give her the credit of saying, “she is smart because she knew what to write to make millions.” Yes,  she is a gagillionaire now, great, and she wrote about bondage and S&M and stuff to make money– but she did not intentionally write HORRENDOUSLY to make money– she actually thinks she’s a good writer! That’s the hardest part for me. Her characters and the things they would say and think– Anastasia and Christian and Jack Hyde and Kate and Mia and all the other fucking trolls of the book– E.L. James thinks they’re cool. She talked to young people to do research for the book and thinks she did a great job capturing what young people (in their 20′s-ish) think and say these days. She goes to bed at night and is proud of her writing.

She wrote about dirty sex to make money from prude housewives in Minnesota that could only imagine this stuff in their wildest dreams, but she thinks she’s CLEVER, and that’s the worst part. Her little repeated references (like the subconscious and inner goddess), and the STUPID knicknames she would always give minor characters, like, “Mrs. Hot Pants 2012″ and “the crack whore” and “cocktailgate”, and she refers to her unborn fetus as “little blip” and how she  always references her “Manolos” and “Audi R8″….like EL James genuinely THINKS she’s “with it.” She thinks she knows the cool things 22 years old want, like “Manolos.” omfg.  And that she created this dreamy 22 year old that’s not just a whore, but “smart.” She’s this  in-demand book editor and references Tess of the Dubervilles and talks like Joey used to talk on Dawson’s Creek– a.k.a. out of a Thesarus, but is a bitch for a billion dollar CEO and gets to ride around the world in private jets and live what EL James thinks is everyone’s fantasy– being absurdly rich with a brooding dark man who ties you up in bed.

Except, to explain WHY he is mysterious/likes to be dominant in bed–because apparently no one can just like that and they need to have a sad past that explains it–Christian is screwed up because of his “crack whore mom” who beat him and abandoned him so he likes to beat women in sex in return, so of course Anastasia is going to be the first and only woman to make him see that he doesn’t need to take out his mom issues on women– because she is sooo smart and sexy and innocent that she’ll be the princess to win Christian out from his dark ways and make him realize he can still spank her in bed without being violent about it blah blah blah blah blah.

The entire thing is such a joke. She has an assistant and is like the head editor of the company 1 month out of college and then marries Christian 3 months after meeting him and they have two kids by the time she is 24. The amount of references to Manolos and Audi R8′s *ALONE* made me want to kill myself, let alone the writing DURING their sex– oh christ–her inner monologue in italics “holy fuck. what? he wants to touch me there? does he find that hot? holy shit. why is this arousing? oh my god. why do I find the sight of his erection hot? Oh I dont fucking know Anastasia, cause it’s a hard dick. GET THE FUCK OVER IT.
“oh my god. he wants to pull my hair. Why? Will that make the sex better for him? Do I feel comfortable with this? But he’s just so hot…so…and in control…my Fifty Shades.”

“He wants to shave me….there. Will it make him happier if I am hairless down there? Should I try it? It seems intimate….and so hot. Fuck. Why am I aroused by this?”

OH MY FUCKING GOD. GROAN GROAN GROAN GROAN GROAN. Every sentence I read was a GROAN. YAWN. CRINGE. My entire reading of the books was just me GROANING at how unfathomably ANNOYING this character is. Oh god, and the ‘witty’ banter that is supposed to show that they’re flirting but also smart and well spoken:  “fair point well made Mrs. Grey,” “As to you, Mr. Grey.” THEY CALL EACH OTHER MR. AND MRS. GREY 6,000 TIMES A DAY THE SECOND THEY GET MARRIED in an attempt to be coy. “My nipples are hard Mr. Grey.” “Fair point well made Mrs. Grey.” KILLMEKILLMKILLMEKILLMEKILLME

And the sex is retarded/romance-novel-y!!!  It’s like, “I said his name out loud as he bucked into me, freeing my breast from its bra cup and finding his own sweet release inside me crying my name out as he collapsed around my soft flesh.” The amount of times the word “buck” and “release” were used……she should be executed. Everyone’s just always bucking and releasing into each other.

And Christian’s always “warbling and croaking” and eliciting a “low groan” from deep within his throat. Reading through these books has been the worst hell I’ve ever been in. AND NO, I COULDN’T STOP OKAY, THAT’S WHY I HATE MYSELF SO MUCH. It’s like probably some form of OCD, where once I start something I CAN’T stop. No matter how bad it is. If I read 3 pages of a book and the plot is teased into my head, no matter how atrocious it is, I have to read. I can’t start something and not finish it. I’m just screwed. It’s like “well….fuck my life, here we go….can’t stop now.” What’s funny is the ONLY book in my entire life I’ve ever started and NOT finished was Eat Pray Love. It beat my pathology. My brain was like “I know that we have to close doors once we open them, but there’s really nothing we can do for you here because this book is just….fuck it, we can’t.”

So I was able to stop reading it and not have it bug me that I’d started a book and not finished it. 50 Shades was as bad if not  A MILLION TIMES worse than Eat Pray Love, actually far far far far worse, but…. because they’re like the biggest phenomenon of all time and I am pop-culture obsessed, I had to know the WHOLE story before the infamous movies comes out. Once I read one of them I couldn’t not read the other two even though every time I opened the book I’d announce to myself/everyone around me “I hate myself right now, I want you to know that I HATE MYSELF right now, so you don’t need to do it for me, because, I LOATHE MYSELF for doing this.” It was a nightmare and the last title of the book is Fifty Shades Freed and I’M THE FUCKING FREED one. I can just live my life now, free of having to see the words “Anastasia I’m going to take you over my knee” in print every 3 pages. Also she calls her stepdad Daddy. So there’s that. I just can’t.

But I I’m free. As I read the last few words on the page- FUCKING FREE–Alex came in with a tray from all the places he’d gone while I was sleeping/freeing myself from the tyranny of E L James. He’d gone to Smucker Farms for their very last peaches of the season (best I’ve ever had), their fresh bread and butter (other bread/butter is just budget compared to this), my favorite– an iced coffee from Peregrine, and fresh flowers from Flowers on 14th.

It was so refreshing but the best part………..was when he came in with 1.) A TV for our bedroom (that he’d won at work for writing the best report), and he told me that our plan was to lay in bed all day watching Downton Abbey!!

We’ve never had a TV in our bedroom. It’s always been in the living room. And so if we’re sick or tired we have to go lay on the couch which is stiffer and doesn’t accommodate…your legs. A couch just isn’t a bed. We got rid of our cable, so we just use the TVs as bigger computer screens– with an HDMI cable, you hook it up to the TV, and watch Netflix. I WAS SO HAPPY WE WEREN’T LEAVING THE HOUSE AND WALKING THROUGH WINERIES! He knew it was all I’d want to do and tricked me. Breakfast in bed, AND A TV IN THE BEDROOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And 2.) he also brought me a surprise box from Blue Mercury, with my favorite Trish McEvoy candles and this Laura Mercier honey-bath bubble stuff because I take a bath EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT— EVERY NIGHT– I do not go to sleep without a bath, it is part of my nightly, 7-nights-a-week routine. But I never use anything fancy I just sit there and relax and decompress before sleeping.

So he said he talked to the salesperson and that this stuff literally puts people to sleep haha, he was like ….”the smell of what’s in it, if you basically breathe it you fall asleep.” And look at the little honey comb to drip it into the bath!!!!! Stop I can’t. So Alex’s plan was for me to eat breakfast in bed, watch Downton all day in bed (we are both obsessed with it), then he’d made a dinner reservation for us to eat fresh seafood at Black Salt market, and then come home and take a nice long bath with my new stuff, and fall the fuck asleep. And it’s exactly what we did. It was my perfect day.

We were HERE all day, facing the TV:

And got up only to snack on YELLOW WATERMELON that he’d gotten at Smucker Farms (don’t have words) and more peaches in their cute lil brown bag.

And then I put on this outfit:

Those Iro leather shorts (from Style Etoile- the only place to find Iro in DC) were the best purchase ever and every time Fall comes around I’m so insanely excited to wear them with everything because that’s what you do with leather shorts- wear them with EVERYTHING. I’m SUPER in to emerald green and snakeskin/animal prints this Fall, a post I’ll be writing later.

And then Alex and I headed out for our mussels, since, as I’ve mentioned, all I ever want to eat are mussels.

It reminded me of this black-and-green outfit I wore last Fall.

With versatile staples like a green suede mini skirt, black tuxedo vest, black leather shorts, and green blouse, you can remix the pieces on end. I’ll be wearing some version of these black and green pieces forever.

I like the chunky black and silver “X” earrings I wore with the outfit on Saturday night, that I got in New Orleans for 3 bucks at a store called Funky Monkey, and the silver chain purse I’ve had four 4 years that I got from Zara on sale for 20 dollars.

In my version of this outfit last fall, all the accents were gold– the gold cut-out cuff and gold/green pendant necklace.

We went to bed right after dinner. Sunday morning I had a peach and then went to Pilates class, then came back and Alex had made avocado + arugula+ egg breakfast on the bread from Smucker Farms, using Smucker Farms happy eggs. With yellow watermelon!

So yummy. hahahahhaha he just made me edit this because he thinks it makes him sound like a pussy hahahahaha “here’s your arugula eggs and neon watermelon my darling!” The thing is just that…. he makes the food for both of us. He doesn’t like, wait ’till the door opens and rush up to me with our pumpkin-goat-cheese ravioli and a candle every night. He just handles the food in our 2-person family. He is a guy who knows how to slice a peach and make delicious pork. It’s funny because even I, based on our culture I guess?, feel like people think it’s effeminate for a guy to cook but then you look at other cultures, like Italians and the Spanish, where a guy who knows how to throw salads together and stand in the kitchen barefoot making meals is SEXY and masculine and hot. In my family growing up, my dad was always our cook. He knew how to make everything, and he DID make everything, and he’d arrange strawberries on our pancakes and make us these crazy egg omelets on the weekends and spend 10 hours on Saturdays making his famous “meat-and-potatoes” stew, where he’d go out and get all the ingredients and then slice the potatoes and carrots and stew this amazing red-wine sauce, and put mozzarella and olives into these beautiful floral-looking anti-pasto arrangements. He took pride in his arrangement of things. And it’s rare for a head chef in a restaurant to be a woman. Almost every restaurant I’ve ever gone to, the head chef is a man. But yet when it comes down to relationships, I feel like people think a guy is less of a man if he’s whipping up poached eggs in the kitchen because though men cook in restaurants, women cook in families.  Interesting dynamic there. But I think the guy who cooks is hottttt. Sprinkle a little oregano on that shit, grill a perfect steak, throw some arugula on your perfectly over-medium eggs? Fuck yeah, that’s my kind of guy. Who would think that’s unmanly? I don’t know but people do.

I’m trying to go to Pilates more and eat healthier. I’ve always loved Pilates. That and ballet will get you some bomb legs/abs, and I love ballet so much but the problem is I get soooo bored even though it’s the best workout EVER. I still never enjoy exerting myself, obviously I’d rather be blogging on my ass or watching Downton Abbey than straining my neck to pump my arms for the hundreds, buttt it goes faster/is less slow than ballet so it’s easier for me to stick to it. I’m not really like an INTENSE CARDIO PUMP IT UP type of girl..those classes are way too hard/high-impact for me and I have fibromyalgia so my muscles do weird things and I always feel really sick after I work out in a class where they make you like, run around and do suicides and sprints and jumping jacks. It’s just not for me. Pilates is something that feels so amazing on my body, and works my arms/legs/butt/abs but without like…hurting me. It just feels gentle and restoring, not like cardio kickboxing with Billy Blane. It’s also one of the only things I’ve ever done where within 2 weeks I’ve noticed results– I took a few when I was in college, which was the first time I ever tried it, and noticed ab definition after 2 classes. I’ve also read that Pilates is like……magical. Like people who do it don’t get sick as often. Something about how there was some bad flu in 1920 and the guy who invented Pilates had all his people in training and they all didn’t get it hahaha something like that. Whatever I believe it.

HAHAH yeah I just looked it up, see:

Joseph Pilates grew up in Germany between the two world wars. A sickly, skinny child and very self-conscious about it, he became intrigued with the Greek ideal of balance in body and mind — that a beautiful body is flexible as well as strong. He taught himself physiology and anatomy. And eventually he became an acrobat. Touring with the circus when World War I broke out, he was interned in England as an enemy alien and Pilates kept everyone on his cellblock breathing and moving their limbs. The health conditions in the internment camps were not great, but Pilates insisted that everyone in his cell block participate in daily exercise routines to help maintain both their physical and mental well-being. For the bedridden, he created his first piece of equipment, the “bednasium,” converting an iron hospital bed into something resembling a four-poster bed with a spring and a foot loop attached to the frame, turning them into equipment that provided resistance exercise (those Pilates reformer machines we see today). Patients not only slept in them; they exercised in them. Legend has it that during the great flu epidemic of 1918, not a single one of the soldiers under his care died and lived well beyond the war.

I am so all about Pilates. I trust a German man motivated by his own sickliness.

That’s all for this weekend. May you never, ever, open a 50 Shades of Grey book. God speed.