Elesean Fields

I get the most interesting junk comments.  The latest was a company that scouts production locations. 

I was driving in this morning, listening to the news reports of how that reality show murder guy was found dead in his hotel room, and how after he had finished carving up his bride, she could only be identified by the serial numbers on her breast implants.  It sent me down a couple of trains of thought, one being that I now wonder how many murdered women are going to turn up without fingers, teeth, or breasts.  The other, how I could sneak some breast implants into my own body without my husband noticing.

My husband is extremely anti-plastic surgery.  I go back and forth.  The one thing I've never wavered on was that if I had the guts and the cash, I would buy myself a better looking pair of Sweater Pets.  I thought that if I could get my husband to go on a week long vacation with our son, and the Grandfather, I could have some pretty teardrops tucked into my torso, and recoup while they were visiting Old Faithful.  Played carefully, it might be a couple of weeks before he noticed. (I have the same thoughts about tattoos.  I think I could easily have one for months before my husband saw it.  And then, instead of having the fight about me getting a tattoo, we could have the fight about how he doesn't notice me.  Win-win!  Except for the not really part of that.)

Anyway, I would love to have some new or at least simply improved dirty pillows.  Of course, as I age and after having had a child, I look at my stomach and think, "That ain't ever going back to normal, either.  I could lose a hundred pounds and be grossly underweight, and my belly button would still look like it was going down the bath drain."  My vanity dies under the thought of tummy tuck, though, mainly because that seems like major surgery compared to a boob job, and I don't even have the guts for the boob job.

But after saying, "That ain't ever going back to normal," another part of me says, "Dork, it IS normal.  You had a great big, healthy baby.  Welcome to reality."  (And that baby?  I picked him up out of bed this morning and his feet were banging against my knees.  Where did the baby go?!)

I was part of a conversation with a man who was telling about his wife's natural labors and deliveries of two 10+lb babies.  I asked him what kind of present he bought her, and he said, "A ten-thousand dollar tummy tuck!  Man, she needed it!"  He was obviously grossed out by what had become of her stomach.  My sudden insecurity was reflexive.  "Post-partum bellies are gross?  Oh god!  I have one!  Oh god!  I'm gross!  I need to have that thing cut off!"

Fortunately, the feeling went away quickly and I decided he was gross for not loving his wife's body the way it was.  (But men are visual, you say.  So are pigs, I say.  Welcome to reality.  Everything sags eventually.  Everything.  Yes, even that.)

I started wondering if somewhere, in some part of the world where there is no America's Next Top Model, or Vogue magazine, or Gossip Girl, if girls and young women look at the bodies of their mothers and grandmothers and hope that one day they will be able to physically emulate the soft puckers of a belly that has housed a family, and the deflated sacs that fed that family?  Strong arms, strong legs, strong backs, and wonderfully soft and wrinkly everything else.  Do you think?

Do you think men in those cultures are proud of their wives post-baby looks because of what those looks mean?

I think that's something of Utopia.

And I still want nicer boobs.

Posted by eleseanfields at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the mornings on my hour long commute and the evenings on my hour and half long commute, when my son hasn't talked me into listening to his favorite songs on repeat, I listen among four radio stations:  Sports Talk, Local News, NPR, and JACK FM.  Thus, I know a little bit about what is going on locally and in the world, which teams are good this year, and the lyrics to the latest hits.  It works well.

The Sports Talk guys and the Local News are far more right leaning than what you get on NPR, so when they run similar stories, I like hearing the differences.  Lately, a lot of talk has been devoted to health care reform. 

I don't pretend to be informed enough to back or protest any bills being presented, and I readily admit that whenever I hear "Health Care Reform" alarms start clanging in my brain that sound like "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!  WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!  AND WE'LL DIE WITH BAD TEETH!"

Yesterday, I shared that with a total stranger through a mutual friend's journal post on the subject.  (I have very intelligent, informed friends, by the way.  If you can't be intelligent or informed yourself, that's the next best thing.  I'm looking at you, Sarah Palin.)  The stranger's response had to do with us not needing better or guaranteed insurance, but guaranteed care.  I followed up that we needed guaranteed GOOD care.  Guaranteed care is like guaranteed lunch when you're stuck in a training class.  I'm not sure the government can guarantee any level of efficiency in healthcare.  In fact, I'm pretty sure they can't.

I do believe the system needs to change, but I also believe that human nature is to chase the brass ring, and if we are going to have the best minds and hands in healthcare, there have to be free market incentives.  Instead of incentive just to get into the lucrative medical field, though, I think we need to restructure payment so that profit is outcome based.  Are you a good doctor or nurse?  Then you build your practice to a measurable, and at the end of the year, insurance companies give you kickbacks for how healthy your patients are.

Oh, you have to have records to prove that your patients have all had physicals and have good bills of health, and your potential for profit decreases as your patients health does.  But if you've got 80% or better of your customers in solid health, then you get a hefty chunk of cash.  That drives medical interest in prevention and cures, and is its own check and balance to the drug companies. 

I'm not sure the government is impartial enough to run that.  As my friend The Average Blogger says, "Why would you want the outfit that brought you the IRS in charge of your healthcare?" Free bad healthcare can be just as detrimental as no healthcare at all.  Ask me.  I grew up being treated by military doctors.  All those jokes about military doctors?  Funny because they are true.

On NPR this morning, David Goldhill talked about how his father died in a hospital, after catching a hospital related infection.  He went on to ask what would happen if, after killing his father, the hospital had presented his mother with the +$600k bill.  As a consumer, and as the customer, would his mother have been happy to pay for the snowball bill, built up by treatments required after the hospital's initial goof?  If not, then why should an insurance company, or Medicare/Medicaid?

I have to say this, too.  While I believe that people should all be able to access basic healthcare, and I believe that some provisions should be made for those who honestly cannot help themselves to healthcare, I have a big problem with being told that everyone should only have access to the same healthcare.  Big problem with that.  And I say that as a lower middle-class woman with a cracked tooth I can't afford to fix right now.

I say that as a woman who, while laid off, had to take her son to the emergency room for a three hour long, $800 visit.

I say that as a woman who has bought private, high-deductible insurance when she couldn't afford the out of pocket on the insurance offered by her small company.  Who has had no insurance at all, but bought the package for cheaper visits to the Doc in the Box.  And as a woman who has made career choices based on nothing but which company could offer me better insurance.

I know there are very real problems.  One of my best friends can't afford care she needs.  Another friend is hoarding her rx meds because she can't afford to buy more.  Another best friend is scraping by because she and her brother are sharing the expense of keeping their ailing father in  a good Alzheimer's facility. 

I just don't think the government is the group to fix the problems.  Open the conversation?  Sure.  Be in charge?  No.

Posted by eleseanfields at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some days, certain songs just work.  Other songs work every day.  I love this one by Fiona Apple:

Pale september, I wore the time like a dress that year
The autumn days swung soft around me, like cotton on my skin
But as the embers of the summer lost their breath and disappeared
My heart went cold and only hollow rhythms resounded from within
But then he rose, brilliant as the moon in full
And sank in the burrows of my keep

And all my armour falling down, in a pile at my feet
And my winter giving way to warm, as Im singing him to sleep

He goes along just as a water lily
Gentle on the surface of his thoughts his body floats
Unweighted down by passion or intensity
Yet unaware of the depth upon which he coasts
And he finds a home in me
For what misfortune sows, he knows my touch will reap

And all my armour failing down, in a pile at my feet
And my winter giving way to warm, as Im singing him to sleep
All my armour falling down, in a pile at my feet
And my winter giving way to warm, as Im singing him to sleep

She is such a lovely writer. 

Posted by eleseanfields at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh, Hillary, as a woman and a feminist, I want to support you.  I may not be nearly as liberal, and I may take issue with the fact that you remind me too much of my abrasive, high school arch-nemesis to feel warmly toward you, but I want to support you in your role as the leading diplomat of our nation.

I know you are in the Congo right now, trying to direct international attention to the plight of women in Africa.  You are there to shed light on the rampant sexual and gender-based violence being perpetrated, and you are demanding arrests, prosecutions, and punishments.  You are doing a good thing.  You are doing a great thing.

But today, if you google "Clinton, Congo" (very different results if you google "Clinton, Conga") a large number of results lead to the mortifying video of you laying the smackdown on a Congalese student who dared ask you (and perhaps to accidentally ask you) what Mr. Clinton thinks about a public policy issue.  I became aware of the video when local deejays opened up the news segment of their show with the commentary that this was why a woman should never be President, as you were clearly dealing with PMS. 

After my initial response of, "And that is why men shouldn't be allowed to talk," I thought, "And how stupid.  Hillary's probably hit menopause by now.  She's not PMSing, you dinks.  She's just...in a very bad mood."

I would be in a very bad mood if I were married to Bill Clinton.  I would also be in a very bad mood if I were constantly upstaged by my sleazy, adulterous husband's easy, winning charm, and bon homme, while everyone went on and on about me being a low-heeled wearing shrew.  Knowing that while I was sweating my pantsuit off in the Congo to aid women, my lecherous spouse was whooping it up in Las Vegas (perhaps doing the conga?) with women aiding him would not help to improve my temper.  And maybe, just maybe, if someone asked me what the greasy, fat bastard thought of public policies my right eye would twitch.  See, my eye twitches when I am really annoyed.

But never, never, never in a million years would I, as a professional, as a diplomat, as a WOMAN snipe, "My husband isn't the Secretary of State!  I am!"  Because...ouch!  That's just bad manners, ma'am.

Bad manners overshadow everything, and diplomats are supposed to be the epitome, the pinnacle, the very living example of good manners.  Diplomacy is defined as the skill of handling affairs without raising hostility. 

Hillary, it wasn't even the student's native language.  It wasn't meant as an insult.  It was innocent.  It was sincere.  And all you needed to say was something along the lines of, "I can't speak for Mr. Clinton, but as Secretary of State, I am glad to define the United States' position as..."  You could even have laughed a little, made it a joke.  But this?  You may as well have rolled up your speech and thwacked that poor kid on the nose with it.  "Bad Congalese student!  Bad!"

Let's face it, I am never going to like you, but I would like to respect you.  Maybe a seminar in comportment is fitting?  Whatever, I do hope this doesn't overshadow the purpose of your mission.  Women are being abused, tortured, and murdered, and that ain't right.  That's the message.  That's the mantra.  That's the heart of the matter.

Posted by eleseanfields at 03:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am running the risk of becoming a full-time infomercial channel, but I have one more group of products to talk about today.  I got a sample size of Bath & Body Works', Patricia Wexler, M.D. Skin Rejenerating Serum several months ago, and I liked it so well, I went back to consider other Wexler products.

I don't like to pay a lot for full skin care lines because I never know how quickly I am going to tire of them.  I like to keep things simple, but I do want to take care of my skin.  Well, I discovered that for the cost of one full-sized jar of the regenerating serum (which I love), I could get a full line of trial sized products, including another small serum.  After two months of using the full line (and switching it out with my usual Cetaphil cleanser, my Aveno Foam Cleanser, my Oil of Olay spf30 moisturizer, and my Aveno spf15 tinted moisturizer) I am still really enjoying the products.

No, I probably won't ever buy any full sized jars of anything, but I will definitely buy another small sized set.  I don't think I look any younger for using it, but I am very pleased with how my skin feels.

What I like best:  Light, airy creams, and non-abrasive cleanser.

What I like least:  It's freaking expensive.

Posted by eleseanfields at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have very thin, very fine hair, which was the bane of my childhood existence.  You see, I always wanted to wear barrettes and bows, and ribbons, and pigtails, and my mother did her best to oblige (you know, once I was about six and had some hair to work with), but no matter what she did, my hair rejected all manner of adornment like Amy Winehouse rejecting rehab.  No, no, bow.

Same thing holds true today.  If I want to put in a barrette or a bob of some sort, I have to jimmy it in with a hair pin.  Nothing holds.  Well, orthodontic rubber bands work, but they also break my hair.  This means I am often skeptical of products with taglines saying they will work in the thinnest, finest of hair.  Still, after seeing two new products and wondering about them for a while, I went ahead and bought one of each.

Ezcomb and Bumpits, aside from having supremely obnoxious websites, are my new favorite hair bobs.  In fact, after being stopped by two women while grocery shopping today, who wanted to admire my ezcomb, I may buy stock in the company.  Not really.  But how nice!

Last night, after drinking a margarita that was so much stronger than I thought it was that it took me until noon today to recover (lightweight!), I came home and played with my new hair toys.  I also took pictures.  Listen, if these things are so easy to use that even a drunken blonde can make them look put together, these things are awesome!

(I am self aware enough to know that these are not particularly great photos of the items in question, but you'll just have to trust me.)

I particularly like that I can dress these things up or down, depending on the mood.  Meanwhile, I've been wearing the ezcomb since about 4 this afternoon.  It is now 11pm, and I haven't had to readjust the combs at all.  They have not slipped, have not slid, and my hair hasn't fallen out of them.  If only these things had been around when I was in elementary school!

Posted by eleseanfields at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)