Notice: This pig has not been vaccinated!

Everyone’s talking about the swine flu these days, it seems.  Whether it’s a discussion of the late vaccines, New York’s speculated defense because of the spring outbreak, or arguments over vaccination side effects, everyone seems to have an opinion.  On the Today show the other day, I heard the decision whether to get vaccinated for the swine flu referred to as “such a personal decision.”  Well, yes and no.  It’s personal in the sense that any medical care is personal, but in several meaningful ways, vaccines are less personal than any other medical decision you might make.  Vaccines aren’t just about you not getting sick — they’re about you not passing it on to other people who might also get sick.  Vaccines are about public health.

I know that lots of people aren’t planning to get the swine flu vaccine when it finally becomes available, and I think that dialog is frequently missing a key point.  Here it is: even if you’re not likely to die from the swine flu, you might come into contact with someone who is.  And sure, those people should be vaccinated, but let’s be real.  The vaccines are coming much later than anyone had hoped, and lots of people even in high risk categories haven’t had it yet.  Even when the vaccines are widely available (probably several months from now), there will be a few people who for one reason or another get missed.  And vaccines aren’t perfect.

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I have a confession.  From being conspicuously single when Femmeiniste launched, I have rapidly progressed to being in a full-blown relationship. You’ve heard about The Man With The Hidden Talents before.  We have been “temporarily” cohabiting since July.  I can now say definitively that he is also The Man With The Hidden Weirdnesses, but as I am the owner of a stuffed Malaysian tapir, I am not in a position to throw stones.

I’ve actually been shocked at how easy and natural it was, and I can’t quite decide if it was easier or should have been harder because we had no actual intention of the living together lasting this long.  I’ve never lived with a guy before, and this is supposed to be a BIG DEAL.  So far?  There’s nothing easier.  It actually makes me a little suspicious. Isn’t this supposed to be hard?  I’m sure it’ll be more challenging if the temporary cohabitation becomes permanent, but for now it’s all hearts and flowers and caramel macchiatos in bed.  (Benefits of a guy who has to settle for street parking.)  I always imagined that moving in with a guy would mean putting up with a lot of annoying personal habits, but possibly I was just assuming that because The Ex had annoying personal habits.  I guess we’ll see.

The fact that a theoretical two weeks has extended into three months has finally brought home to me, however, the need to make room for the boy’s stuff.  Living out of a suitcase was okay for the first few weeks, but it began to seem a little inhospitable by the time we hit September.  I have cleared him two drawers and some closet space, but he owns stuff.  The same kind of stuff I own.  The stuff that is currently all over the place.

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This actually exists. Seriously.

Any other readers of the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book out there?  I am far from clear whether there is an actual Neiman Marcus store near my apartment, but the Christmas book still gives me good entertainment on an annual basis.  If you’re unfamiliar with the book, Neiman Marcus goes out of its way every year to put on a good show.  Yes, there’s some stuff in there that normal people might actually want to buy.  But there’s also always a whole parade of preposterous Christmas gifts that someone might buy, but certainly no one I know.

This is my favorite of this year’s preposterous gifts.  It’s not anything like the most expensive at a mere $25,000, but isn’t it great to imagine someone actually going to the trouble of designing and building these things for a Christmas catalog?

Ready for next week’s opening of “Where The Wild Things Are”?  I am!  What kid didn’t love that book?  Since its publication in 1963, it’s been a treasured part of the childhood of generations of children.  I’m really hoping the movie does it justice.

Since it doesn’t open until October 16, however, we still have a bit of a wait.  If you’re looking to psych yourself up for it in the mean time, try checking out the Animazing Gallery in Soho (corner of Greene and Broome Streets).  From now through November 8, the gallery is hosting a Sendak in Soho exhibition including more than 200 pieces from Sendak’s own collection ranging from art for the Where The Wild Things Are opera, sketches, art from the book, and limited edition etchings.  I stopped in this weekend and was lucky to walk out without a lithograph in my hand.  Do I need a Sendak illustration?  No.  But that was probably the coziest exhibition I have ever been to.  All the illustrations you loved as a kid, the pictures that made the book so memorable — they’re there.  It was like being in the best decorated nursery in the world.  These are possibly the most adorable illustrated monsters in the history of children’s literature.

If you’re not looking to buy and don’t mind the admissions fee, the Morgan Library is also hosting a Sendak retrospective of pieces borrowed from the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia.   I haven’t had the chance to check that out yet, but the exhibition is designed to show Sendak’s creative process and includes pencil drawings and preliminary sketches for the book.

Let the wild rumpus start!

Dealing with addiction is one of our biggest ongoing public health problems, but did you ever imagine that addicts could be vaccinated against their addictions?  Unlikely though it sounds, the National Institute on Drug Abuse announced yesterday that an experimental vaccine to prevent cocaine users from getting high on the drug is showing promise.  (For a full discussion, see the Scientific American article here.)  The vaccine apparently works by triggering antibodies that bind to the cocaine molecules, preventing them from passing through the blood-brain barrier and as a result preventing the user from getting high.  Although the vaccine still has a number of issues to be worked out (for now, its effects are only temporary, and it’s not effective on everyone), this is potentially a huge step forward in treating addiction.

Aside from the tiny part of me that is saying “Spoilsports!” even though I’ve never had cocaine myself and have no desire to try it, I have to say that this sounds pretty cool.  I’m sure that this method will prove impossible to use on certain addictive substances just because of the chemistry, but still.   According to a quick Google, over 22 million Americans have substance abuse problems of some kind.  A tool that can give addicts some serious assistance in getting their addiction under control?  Fantastic.

“Butterfly in the sky … “

I just learned that the last on-air broadcast of one of my favorite kids’ shows, Reading Rainbow, came to pass on August 28th.  For those of you who might not remember it,  Reading Rainbow has run on PBS since 1983, teaching children about the joy of reading.   New episodes actually stopped airing three years ago, in 2006, but the show lived on in reruns until August.  Now, after 26 Emmys and hundreds of books, it’s over.

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Just a few of the names who have signed the Free Roman Polanski Petition:

Woody Allen (ok, no shocker here), David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Julian Schnabel, Terry Gilliam, Jonathan Demme, Stephen Frears, Wes Anderson (sniff), Pedro Almodovar (sniff sniff), Wong Kar Wai,  Adrien Brody (no!), Tilda Swinton (no no no!), Monica Bellucci, Gael Garcia Bernal, Penelope Cruz … and many, many others.

Some excerpts from the document itself:

“Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision. It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him … Roman Polanski is a French citizen, a renown and international artist now facing extradition. This extradition, if it takes place, will be heavy in consequences and will take away his freedom … Filmmakers, actors, producers and technicians – everyone involved in international filmmaking – want him to know that he has their support and friendship … If only in the name of this friendship between our two countries, we demand the immediate release of Roman Polanski.”

(And let’s not forget Harvey Weinstein, who wrote his own opinion piece in The Independent, claiming that “Whatever you think about the so-called crime, Polanski has served his time. A deal was made with the judge, and the deal is not being honored . . . This is the government of the United States not giving its word and recanting on a deal, and it is the government acting irresponsibly and criminally.”)  (OK, we always knew Harvey was a bastard to begin with.)

WTF???

I’m not going to get into all the sordid details again, but let me just say this:

So what if she looked 18 and has a terrible mother.   So what if the judge made a deal, and went back on it.  So what if the victim, now-fully-grown with children of her own, has moved on with her life.  So what if the case was “mishandled”, and so what if Mr. Polanski has spent the last 30 years suffering from guilt and international travel restrictions.  And most of all, SO WHAT if he’s a great director, if he’s famous, if he’s powerful, if he’s made some good movies, if he’s a kind and charming man, SO WHAT????

Are people crazy?

To paraphrase Chris Rock – this is like saying – Yeah, but did you see O.J. play against New England?

If Clive Owen’s name pops up on this petition I will really cry.

I just had to share: my Dell replacement computer crashed twice today — while I was filling out a customer service satisfaction survey for them.  Does it get any better than that?

I can but laugh.  By all means, share your latest poetic moment!

Having spent nearly two months watching design shows and saying increasingly rude things about the owners’ color choices (apparently I’m picky), I am delighted to say that I am fully technified again at long last. Granted, this computer does not have Microsoft Office installed on it (who needs a word processor, after all?), and I don’t yet have access to the information on my old hard drive, but after two months I’m plenty grateful just to be able to read the Times online.

This seems like the time when I should stop to meditate on what I got out of my time away.  I’m afraid given that I spent all that time in New Jersey and not at a yoga retreat in the Bahamas, what you’re going to get ain’t deep, but here are my thoughts.

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Tentative good news on the computer front, I’m happy to say.  Dell has supposedly shipped a refurbished replacement system that will supposedly arrive tomorrow and will supposedly be functional.  They will supposedly also be shipping the disc for Microsoft Office separately, so someday I will again be able to word process on a keyboard larger than three square inches.

Lest I disappoint, however, my interactions with Dell have gotten no less ridiculous since my last post.  Now that there’s some reasonable prospect of my getting some kind of functional system back prior to retirement, the total confusion at Dell customer service has passed beyond frustrating to fascinating.   Despite the fact that I wrote a letter to Dell’s president for consumer products and the customer service folks are clearly taking me seriously, they cannot get their s*** together to save their lives.  It is like watching the fall of the Roman Empire.   I really think this is how it happened.  One side of the empire doesn’t know what the other side is doing, communication lines fall, a few key shipments are lost, and the next thing you know, the barbarians are sweeping down from the north waving bankruptcy papers.

I’m now dealing only with the escalation department.  That’s nice, since they speak better English and seem to have slightly more ability to take actual action than the regular customer service people.  Even they, however, cannot get themselves straight.  I have been receiving multiple daily phone calls from different people, who, as always, have conflicting stories to tell me every time they call.  Your computer will ship Friday!  Your computer will ship tomorrow!  You will be able to access your old hard drive!  You will not be able to access your old hard drive!  How do they not know when they call that someone in their department called ten minutes earlier with a different story?  Being as they are a computer company, surely they have a computer system recording this stuff.  (The opinion of a friend of the family at IBM? Dell’s lost my system and doesn’t want to admit it.  Did I mention I’m glad I didn’t send my hard drive?)

The latest?  A replacement system will be shipped to me.  And Escalation Guy #1 will have my old system shipped back to me SO THAT I CAN SHIP IT BACK TO DELL.  Seriously?  Dear God, people, what kind of ship are you running?  I have to admit that despite earlier posts I had been sort of hoping Dell would wow me (with say, a new system) in such a way that I could go back to being a Dell customer in good conscience.  But this?  This is the path to bankruptcy, folks.  Don’t count on buying a new Dell and being able to rely on your warranty, because if they keep running things like this, they won’t be around long enough to back it up for you.