Feeling My Age

People on the Gold Coast, scratch that, men on the Gold Coast, love to yell out their car windows as they drive by you walking, jogging, biking or pretty much doing anything that catches their pervy attention. I like to think that I've become somewhat desensitized to this for the most part, but an incident today definitely threw me for a loop. As I walked down the sidewalk toward the beach after dropping off my bike down in Miami (sidenote: there is a Miami Beach here, and I vow to get a picture next to the 'Welcome to Miami' sign before I leave), I heard a high pitched voice shout

"YEAHHHHHHH, MAMA!"

out the window of a passing car. I whipped my head around and saw that the offender looked something like this:

And all I could think, as I walked on shaking my head, was yes, young man, I am sadly old enough to be your mama!

Are Sweatpants Killing This Blog?

For my long trip back to Australia from Orlando, my mother was kind enough to pick up some of the latest gossip rags for me to peruse. I'm touched that she not only recognizes but supports my penchant for this respected form of journalism. Just wait until she comes here for a visit and sees that I've hung a magazine rack on my living room wall that is chock full o' tabloid goodness.

While picking through the pages of InTouch Weekly somewhere between hours 9 and 12 over the Pacific Ocean, I stumbled upon an article that at first made me laugh, but really stuck with me and is now ticking me off. Sounds straightforward enough - 'How He Broke Her Heart' details the breakup of Bradley Cooper and Renee Zellweger, who (full disclosure) is not one of my favorite leading ladies (Bridget Jones' Diary aside). My personal feelings about her, however, do not excuse this magazine for creating an entire sidebar within the article to blame the fact that she wears sweatpants as a key to their breakup.

The 'Did Sweatpants Kill the Relationship' sidebar left me both amused and appalled. Amused because it is so far fetched and shows a lack of hard facts in the article (what did I expect from InTouch?); appalled because I take offense to the implication here that women have to be dressed to the nines and made up perfectly at all times in order to keep a man interested. Of course I believe there is a time and a place for that, but there is no way a woman can be comfortable with herself if she's that high maintenance 24/7. The article captions one picture with 'so sexy before' and shows Renee in a dress and Bradley with his hands all over her arse, then moves through a shame spiral of more casual shots until the last one depicts her in *gasp* running shorts and him walking two steps in front of her as if she's not there. How symbolic.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt, as I'm single and no expert on men at this point in my life. But I'll be damned if I'm going to buy into this notion that being casual or sporty or, I don't know, YOURSELF around your partner is going to drive him away. Isn't it supposed to be what's on the inside that counts? I mean, I'm sure Renee had to overlook more than a few nasty habits of old Bradley's throughout their relationship, but she still kept him around! And look where that's gotten her...

I'm hopeful that the author of this piece has a sense of humor and is trying to be tongue in cheek, as potentially evidenced by the closing line of 'One can only wonder if the right low-cut dress might have changed Bradley's mind,' but if not, shame on him! And even more shame if the author is a her!!

Time to face the facts, people. They actually broke up because he was cheating on her with Tom Cruise.

p.s. - I don't think I've ever felt so strongly about a feminist issue until this moment. And it's really so dumb AND was brought about because of a trashy magazine.

p.p.s. - I'm wearing Old Navy sweatpants as I write this :)

Holding My Breath

This just in: I'm becoming quite the expert at holding my breath here lately. I've honed this talent through the ultrasound, CT Scan and MRI that I've had in the past month, where they each require you to suck in and hold for about 25 seconds at a time. And repeat. For upwards of 45 minutes in some cases! Apparently, this helps to keep your internal organs from moving so they can be ready for their close up. I don't mean to brag, but even my liver surgeon remarked that my breath holding skills were top notch, as there wasn't a single blurry image in my report!

My talent at work! 'The Todd' (my tumor) is the white mass in my liver (on the left of this picture).

As a currently unemployed, and admittedly somewhat confused, person, I'm looking for ways to cash in on this newly discovered talent and someday make a living from it. In the meantime, I'm practicing my skill until July, when I will learn whether the lovely tumor that is occupying nearly 40% of my liver will shrink, remain the same or grow. As long as it's not the last of those options, I believe it will be smooth sailing from there...

I hope you will each do me a favor and hold YOUR breath that there is only good news from here on out. And you just might find out you have a hidden talent too!