I thought for sure I was getting sick on Thursday night. I could feel my throat becoming increasingly sore and my head was starting to hurt. But then after a cup of coffee on Friday morning, I felt pretty normal and decided I had nothing more than a bad case of hypochondria mixed with a touch of paranoia.
So I called Mimi and Bops to see if they could come over and watch Caroline for a little while because I had made the huge misstep of deleting my entire iTunes library and our personal email account. Yes, the phrase you are looking for is FREAKING THE HECK OUT.
Fortunately the deleted files were still in the trash and I felt like they could be restored by someone much wiser and younger than me. Someone hip enough to wear one of those big plastic circle things in their ear lobe. So I made a trip to the Genius Bar at the Apple store and it took the junior high kid that works there all of three minutes to fix it and restore everything to its rightful place.
(I could tell you how I deleted all those files in the first place but I’m still not totally sure what happened.)
(I do know that I blacked out when I realized the implications of what I’d just done.)
(This also seems like a good time to tell you that I felt the need to clean up my Mac before I took it into the store to get healed and that’s how I discovered there was melted chocolate on the bottom of it. Chocolate that had been there long enough to melt and then solidify. Classy.)
Anyway, Caroline requested that I bring her home a double chocolatey chip frappuccino from Starbucks on my way home and it seemed to be the missing piece in her road back to health. Because after she drank it she became her usual self. The twinkle was back in her eye and she spent the next few hours expending all the energy she hadn’t been well enough to burn during her bout with strep.
But here’s what I really want to talk about. And it’s going to be controversial. Some of you, nay, MANY OF YOU, are going to disagree with me.
On Saturday night I watched the movie Crazy, Stupid, Love with Steve Carrell and Ryan Gosling. I mean, I didn’t watch it with them, they starred in it. I just want to clear that up in case any of you might mistakenly believe I spent my Saturday night in any more glamorous fashion than with a purifying mask on my face while I watched a rented movie on my laptop.
The point is that I really liked the movie. That darling Emma Stone is in it and I just think she is cute as a button. (Wow. Pretty sure I just channeled someone’s grandmother with that sentence.) It made me laugh out loud and it made me cry a little and that is, in my opinion, the sign of a really good movie.
But here’s what threw me off. I have long declared that I don’t get the appeal of Ryan Gosling. I don’t need him to tell me, “Hey Girl, I’m really glad you decided to stay on Pinterest all day and order Chinese takeout for dinner.”
I realize he made women everywhere swoon in The Notebook, but I kind of thought he just looked like he needed a shower and a shave. And I wished he’d quit moping around feeling sorry for himself. Personally, I would have stayed with James Marsden. He was a soldier, appeared to have a good job and seemed to be a really nice guy.
I guess it all worked out though because Ryan Gosling grew up to be James Garner and he read to Gena Rowlands all day long in the nursing home until she remembered the story was about them. And then they danced. And then they died together. And maybe James Marsden wouldn’t have done that. Maybe James Marsden would have grown up to be Christopher Walken and would have left Gena Rowlands all by herself.
Maybe I’m thinking too much about this.
Maybe I need a hobby.
Anyway, my opinion on all this has always been a sign to me that I’m not twenty years old anymore. Because I totally went for the sensible choice. I would choose the good guy over the brooding loner. I didn’t understand the appeal of Ryan Gosling.
Then I watched Crazy, Stupid, Love and I kind of get it now. Ryan Gosling is a handsome guy. There’s no question about it. He seriously does look like he’s photoshopped. (That’s a line in the movie in case you haven’t seen it.)
But he still doesn’t really appeal to me. And I figured out why. He’s too pretty. It looks like we might wear the same size jeans. It appears he might have more hair products in his bathroom cabinet than I do.
And I prefer a man to look like a man. To be a little rough around the edges. To look like he could change a tire or dig a ditch if he had to. Not a man who looks like he could help me pick out just the right pair of skinny jeans to flatter my figure or show me a better way to put on my eyeliner.
Which explains why I’m married to a man who organizes his closet by new Columbia fishing shirts and old Columbia fishing shirts and has been known to order new pants for $10 from a catalog called Cheaper Than Dirt.
Apparently I have a type. And that type is low-maintenance.
So I’m curious. Am I alone? Is this just because I’ve lived my entire life in Texas? Or can you keep a straight face when you see a man wearing skinny jeans?