When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
It’s that time again: HATE LIST.
1) People asking me what I think about Amazon publishing books.
2) People asking me if I’ve read Fifty Shades of Gray.
3) Jennifer Anniston’s new guy.
4) My insane jealousy of Aaron Sorkin.
5) Flats that make your feet looked webbed.
6) The Dukan Diet and everyone telling me about it.
7) That Tosh is already represented.
8) That I am an adolescent boy trapped in the body of a middle-aged woman.
9) Scramble with Friends and my nemesis City of Angels
10) Every blogger who becomes a huge bestseller who is not me.
DId I miss anything?
Filed under: Uncategorized |
Betsy Lerner 
Yes, you missed people who ask me to be quiet in the theater. Sorry, couldn’t resist…
I haven’t heard of that diet yet…
And I’m curious of your hatred for people asking if you’ve read 50 Shades of Gray. Being the major reader among my friends and co-workers, I have the same problem, but am always curious about why other readers hate that question.
1. “Just self-publish! What’s the difference?!”
2. “I read Fifty Shades and I don’t get it either.” (Jessica James and her SHADES OF GRAY book are loving this.)
3. His mother is awesome.
4. But I don’t like “Newsroom” so far. I’m so disappointed.
5. Flats only look good on toothpick legs anyway. I tell myself this.
6. Scary, those Dukan diet people. Too skinny! I tell myself this, too.
7. Had to look up “Tosh.”
8. I am a middle aged woman trapped in the body of a middle aged woman. Very exciting.
9. I’m still playing Words with Friends and hating those fake, non-words, “Qi” and “Za.”
10. How many cookbooks can people buy?
Qi is a game-changer. Literati won’t take it.
Za on the triple word score. Cheaters!!
Za . . . letter in an obscure alphabet or half a pizza?
Oh, I wish I could play this game today. However, I’m emotionally recovering from having my house vandalized yesterday by some one who apparently doesn’t like me at all. Good police work and elbow grease has resolved that which can be seen, but there is a scorch mark on my heart. (thanks for letting me rant)
Vaulting into the #1 spot on my hate list: The person who vandalized Karen’s home.
Damned sorry to hear this Karen. I had a break in last year — drug addict stole my wedding ring etc… Hang in there.
The vandals may not necessarily hate you. They just hate. I’m sorry you have to feel this kind of hurt, Karen.
Yuck. I’m so sorry.
Sorry to hear about this Karen; it’s a violation and a sickening feeling. Stay strong — some people are just assholes.
It makes you feel like your home is some strange place you’ve never seen when you walk into it after something like this – doesn’t it? You’ve done what you can for now, you know the rest…(time) I was mugged while running a few years ago. I didn’t know what the asshole wanted, was he going to slit my throat? Rape me? Turns out the punk wanted money. Money! I looked at him like the idiot that he was. Am I still running? You bet.
Karma will fry their asses for sure.
I’m so sorry, Karen. That seriously sucks.
Thank you, all, for this warm support. The pundits may dismiss it, but I now know that compassion truly defines the quality of one’s soul.
And today is a better day – I can feel the twinges of irritation looking for a point of focus. Perhaps I’ll post something more edgy in a few hours!
Burglars rape your home. BTDT. That was 20+ years ago, and I still can conjure up the moment I opened the door.
Hates:
1. All the “ists” who think bigotry is humor when they smile while saying something hateful. Racists, ageists, ist-ists.
2. Presbyopia
3. Rejection letters
4. The economy. Actually, that’s #1, but I put it at 4 so it wouldn’t make me as angry. I’m tired of starving. Which is the flip side of saying I’m self employed.
5. Lots of other stuff. TMI.
Betsy: For you, I will answer the questions, sort-of, so you don’t have to. Don’t forget, I’m doing you a favor.
1. Nails in my coffin.
2. S & M no, M & M yes.
3. Jennifer what’s-her-name…who she fucks is her business, no…really fucking is her business.
4. Not only a screenwriter but a drug addicted famous screenwriter.
5. If I am wearing a thong it means I have a flip flop sticking out of my ass.
6. He’s French, we saved his country, his country hates us, fuck him and eat a cupcake
7. He’s from old people land, he sweats, a lot.
8. Take down, from above my bed, the sexy picture of Jennifer What’s- her-name
9. Huh ?
10. Welcome to MY world.
Favor done, paybacks smoldering.
Dam Teri beat me first.
And I can’t even spell damn right.
It’s Grey, not Gray. Not that I’ve read it. Seriously. I just happen to be at the beach and everyone here is reading it. But then again, something tells me that no one here much cares about spelling it right, either.
Something inane which I hate: the guy on the Cancun-Isla Mujeres ferry who sings the same three-song “La Bamba” medley every single time and then let’s his drum kit beat box play while aggressively collecting tips that nobody much wants to give.
And the verb “slurp.”
I loved that ferry ride. Years ago I heard an Ugly American making fun of Mexicans not being able to speak English and I thought, what country do you think you’re in, bubba? So I focused instead on that clear blue green water and wondered how safe that creaky old overloaded boat was.
Except…there IS another book with “Gray” vs Grey……http://www.amazon.com/Shades-Gray-Novel-Virginia-ebook/dp/B0019SW4DS/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
That one looks much better to me!
totally agree…
Agreed re: #2. No, I haven’t read it but I’ve read excerpts which I thought were fake until confirmed as actually in the book. Yes, I’m appalled that shitty Twilight fan fiction can make it to the NYT bestseller list. It makes me want to give up writing, because I’ll never be as good as Marilynne Robinson but I’ll never be as horrendous as whoever that chick is. Is there room for a middle ground?
Barbed reviews – I received one and felt sick, wanted to tear down that woman.
bastards.
What the hell is the Dukan diet? And what about having an agenda derailed so you can Google “dukan diet” ? Not that I have an agenda …
The Dukan Diet is French! And the first phase is called “attack.” I’m in!
Okay, now how hard would it be, really, to come up with a best-selling diet book? Far as I can tell, you need a lab coat and some catchy phrases, and a new exotic angle. How about: The Trieste Diet. You alternate espresso shots and ice cream, thereby causing your entire gastric system to implode. But instead of implode, let’s say “reinvent itself.”
See what I mean about derailing?
A lab coat = literary success? I have one of those & a stethoscope and I hate them both. But a successful Fifty Shades of Dieting book might change that. Hmm…
Fifty Shades of Dieting. Brilliant!
Brand Spanking Skinny: 100 Kinky Secrets for Diet Success
Secret #69: If pesky belly fat prevents your chick from grabbing her ankles, tie that woman to the dining room table and shove an apple in her mouth, make her squeal like the piglet she is. She’ll think twice before she goes for the Twinkie next time!
The ultimate tipping point: applying suntan lotion to four bouncing children every week day, before 7:45am.
Oh, yes, that sounds like hell. I have 2, and they can mostly apply it to themselves now. Do you up the hate factor by using mineral-based creams that leave a sticky white layer. Kids love that. I recommend.
I don’t trust my kids to apply their own sunscreen, just like I don’t trust them to floss their teeth appropriately. I’ll let go one of these days but for now this is my arena. These creams you speak of sound interesting, as if my kids need another reason to hate me.
anything from the health food store/coop/Whole Foods ought to fit the bill. Right now my older daughter is away, so I can’t control what she puts on. Or takes off.
The old bitties at work who, when they see I’m reading a paper book instead of the e-reader I occasionally sport, derisively remark: “Oh, you’re reading a real book…”
Bitches.
1. Authors who use one adjective to the point of exhaustion.
2. Copyeditors who don’t catch the overuse (I’m the proofreader here, so I get to be all high and mighty).
3. The word “interestingly.”
4. Fireworks.
Fireworks. Yes!!! I so don’t get the fireworks-thing.
What I really, truly hate are grown ups who take children to see fireworks from a boat and don’t put life jackets on them.
The one you forgot for your list and what you just posted about recently – for me it’s number one:
1) Waiting
I can’t see the picture for the post…is this the case for anyone else? It’s just a blank square – all white space – looks a lot like my brain today.
Mine is blank too, like my mind.
It was there last night but gone now.
I’m on a roll. Twice in the past week I’ve called about something I wanted to buy to see if it was in stock (some pea gravel for a walkway I’m working on, and a guitar amp) before making the trips and enduring long rides on summer road construction routes with an impatient six year old traveling companion, only to arrive at our destination to find the person I spoke to just said the items were in stock without bothering to check. Pissed me right off. Shouldn’t use that language in front of the child. Must be hard to find good help these days. On the plus side, though, it turns out my daughter really liked the banjos at the music store. I’ve bought her two guitars – an acoustic and a cool little red electric one — and a ukulele that don’t see much use, but I never thought about adding a banjo into the mix. Foggy Mountain Breakdown indeed.
Ah yes, that title. I recall spending a night in Chicago’s State Street station, waiting for the first morning train north. I had drank all I had and it was not enough. A drunken sailor amongst ne’re-do-wells, huddled women, and the occasional odd man in a suit, I played air guitar and sang every Simon and Garfunkel song I knew. And I learned something.
I am a rock.
I am an island.
You don’t need a hate list. You are Super Agent, like Super Writer. Shit bounces off you like rain off a duck. Bring it on.
Love that J.D. – Super Agent/Super Writer…”shit bounces off you like rain off a duck.”
FYI – almost done reading a couple of the books I was into and will soon move on to your suggested read…looking forward to it.
Right now, I’m hating the heat and the humidity.
I’m so there with you on that one…
We just had the wettest April and June (May was wet, but no record breaker) since they started keeping records.
I don’t know what bubble Andy Murray was playing in today, but we haven’t seen the sun here in deepest darkest Hampshire for far too long now.
Please send the heat this way. If it’s a package deal, I’ll suffer through the humidity just to get the heat.
I’ll do my best, but the Gulf Stream is a pain this time of year.
It is FREEZING where I live. I’m breathing steam in my apartment. Want to swap?
I would be happy to swap, Jenna! Where are you?
Really? I’d take the heat right now! I’m down in not-so-sunny Melbourne, Australia. We’re getting all the “coldest July on record!” at the moment. Grrrrr. And also, brrrrrrr.
sounds like you got it covered
In reverse order of importance:
People who (still!) ask “REALLY?” as if I’ve just requested a rimjob
No-knock warrants delivered to incorrect addresses
Armed IRS agents
the one-to-ten pain scale
The first 45 seconds of not breathing
Bieber
1 to 10 pain scale, happy face to very sad face: I’m a pain intolerant lightweight who has learned to say, “9 maybe 10” no matter what and however groggy the anesthesia hangover has left me. All pain is serious pain; give me the morphine!
The Bieb is having a lot of fun. So far.
Exactamente! And if one were to get all macho about it, one wouldn’t get the opiates.
There is Bieber, and then there’s THE Bieber.
If he’s any relation to Justin, ol’ Heinrich is probably spinning in his grave right now.
Only just noticed, after 15 years of listening to him, that his name is actually spelled “Biber.” Oh, well.
Lovely melancholy writing music. Thanks.
I love those big-hair musicians from the ’80s, in this case, the 1680s.
Rain. (see my earlier comment above)
The charge on my hate battery ran down a while back and I never got a new one, but there seems to be no shortage of annoyances. The one I’d like to cite to is a Congress playing chicken with the national economy while squabbling over ideological nonsense like punk-ass middle-school gangsta wannabes fighting over who gets to wear what colors in what corner of the playground. Millions of people are suffering years into the worst downtown in three-quarters of a century and all those clowns in Washington can do is tell lies and fiddle about. Someday a real rain will come…
And WE pay their salery. And WE elected them.
So what do WE do. The next crop coming up…pathetic. One side brainless, the other side ball-less. Is there such a word as ball-less and how do you spell it, 2 Ls, 3 Ls? Considering this comment how about no L’s, no balls.