the modernity ward

Vampire Weekend

Y'all.

I have a True Blood problem.

First season was compelling enough for me to watch episodes one after the other on my mother-in-law's On Demand, and then go home and rent the rest. Second season was the reason I signed up for Netflix, and the third season has me pulling up a big soft chair in front of my slow-ass computer to watch probably pirated episodes in pixellated glory. And ignoring my children to read the Jezebel episode recaps.

The real bummer, though, is that Eric Northman is 1) not an actual person, and 2) not going to come to my house. Which might sound ridiculous coming from a married lady in her mid-30s, but something momentous has happened: my period has returned after a 27-month absence (9 months of pregnancy, 18 months of nursing amenorrhea) and, as happened last time, somebody told my glands that they belong to a fourteen-year-old boy and they are responding accordingly. I'm afraid my voice might start changing.

But hey, anybody can get all hot and bothered when supplied with saucy vampire teevee. The truly shocking part of this whole hot mess is that when I settle in to watch an episode, I don't want to eat; in fact, my stomach gets that tense fluttery feeling...you know, like when I was sixteen and some sweet, sarcastic boy aswirl with pheromones and his mother's laundry detergent wrote me an illustrated note with a Flair pen.

That kind of feeling.

It wasn't a feeling I missed, exactly, but it was one I thought I'd said goodbye to forever. That feeling just doesn't keep well, not in relationships that last more than five weeks. But here it is again.

For a goddamned television show. Could I be any more ridiculous?

The thing about being profoundly happy and profoundly settled is that it isn't always very exciting, especially when you have to will yourself not to discuss the school lunch program as part of foreplay. If fifty-four minutes of titillating comic-book horror can shut off the "buy-peanut-butter-oh-shit-we're-out of-cat-food-there-are- no-clean-socks-for- the-kids-need-to-pay-the-gas-bill" faucet for a week, then who am I to deny myself? And if I feed my children cat food so I can moon around the IKEA catalog imagining the beautiful Swedish homeland of one Alexander Skarsgard, if I pick up my college books with the Old Norse and Old English and Old Icelandic so I can replay certain scenes and try to understand them without subtitles -- well, who are you to judge?

Okay, You're Right, I Won't Shave My Head. Yet.

Waiting until the Postpartum Pee-Out is a very, very good idea. And since all this talk (okay, my talk) of Javier Bardem is starting to infiltrate my dreams, IF you know what I mean, AND I think you do.

No, seriously. It was more than a little disturbing. Anyway.

I'm feeling terrifically boring, and all I can think of to tell you is that I saw two commercials that made me proud to be an American. The first was a credit card commercial with this opening line, in a mom's voice: "My kids are normal kids. They're plugged in twenty-four hours a day!"

After I dislodged the chunk of burrito I had sucked into my windpipe, I was able to pay attention to the rest of the commercial, which was all about how the parents had financed themselves into oblivion to take the kids to Costa Rica or some shit, and finally after a week in the jungle the kids finally stopped texting their friends and noticed they were swimming in a phosphorescent bay. And there were exotic birds, maybe. Anyway, it was all worth it, the ten thou at 14.9% APR, because the children put down their phones for an hour! The phones...that their parents bought them...with the credit card they maxed out...trying to get the children...to put down the phones. I love this country!

The second one looked as though it had been produced in somebody's half-finished basement office, and starred a bearded old gent as the doctor. Holding a gloved finger up to the camera, he stated: "If a prostate exam is uncomfortable for you, just think how your doctor feels!" The complete absence of tone in his voice left the latter up to interpretation: Does your doctor feel equally embarrassed? Disgusted at having to weasel a digit up your aging ass? Is he restraining himself from cracking off-color jokes? Does he maybe have a sympathy plug up his own rectum? We shall never know. I, for one, would hope my doctor was professionally indifferent to the upholstery, if you will, and concentrating entirely upon the matter at hand (snork!). That did not, however, seem to be one of the choices.

The man went on to say a lot of things about prostates, but he kept his finger at the ready, slightly crooked, held right about shoulder level as though he were gearing up to get some serious leverage. The effect was distracting. And awesome. If they'd been selling something I could buy, I would have; as it was, I had to content myself with scheduling prostate exams for my husband and a handful of male friends whose last names I could remember.

So if you get a confirmation call for an appointment you don't remember making, you should probably just go, and not ask a lot of questions. After all, just think of how your doctor might feel.