My Very First Blog Bitch Session: Alec Baldwin's Face

okay.  so something just happened that keeps me away from the internet.

first of all, i'm really glad there are mommies everywhere and that there are mommies that do blogs and tell every single detail about their trip to the Costco and upload photos of the pre-natal care trip to the hospital where they get the --- what do you call that -- sonar, radar, belly thing -- you know what i'm talking about.  lunar...i know i'm close.  i'll remember it in a second.  i know it could look it up.  but i want to remember it on my own.  let my brain do the work.

so.  the thing? well, it's the thing that some algorithm does.  it does it to me and it does it to you.  it judges us.  it judges me to be in my 'mommy-zone' years and it pushes these ideas to me and i don't like it.

i find this behavior very insensitive.

please mr. ms. google-yahoo people -- miranda, clay, rj -- can you do something about this?

can i tell you that i can't stand that i have to stare at Alec Baldwin's scary mug the second a sedative film ends -- and i have to RUN and GET UP QUICKLY because the image of him is there, just as was falling asleep, to the sweet seduction of the final credits -- but no -- Netflix decided that "as part of their customer experience" that they would force this image upon me at the beginning of the credit roll.

i don't like this.

i called them.

they said there was nothing that i could do.

no button to push.  no choice for a different background.  nothing i could do.

no more red screen.  no more silence.  no more peace of mind or satisfaction or quiet red contemplation after the movie.  no edge of sleep to fall over into.

just him.  there he is.  goddamned alec baldwin.

now.  don't get me wrong.  i love alec baldwin.  love his voice-overs in the wes anderson films.  couldn't have been a better choice there.  i even enjoy 30 Rock from time to time.

but i gotta tell ya.  since ya'll at Netflix make me stare at his somewhat disturbing-looking evil-face after every single movie ends -- i am NOT interested in watching it.

Netflix, i am pissed.  first, you take away our freedom to DVD.  now this.

really, what are we to do?  your subscribers, your audience.  what do you think we should do?

and how long do you think we should wait?

are you busy gathering information, for your newest algorithm, that you will apply, as the data rolls in?

writing programs for 'classic red' after the movie ends or perhaps other 'wallpapers' that will entice more views or more subscribership?

well, i don't know.  i just know i don't like it and i either have to deal with this ridiculous HOT MEDIA that people have invented that is supposed to MAKE OUR LIVES SO MUCH BETTER.

but, really?  i'd much rather pop in an old VHS -- that's right, people, i'm THAT old -- and then fall asleep to that sweet bluescreen after Caddyshack for the hundredth time ends.  but then i'd have to have a tv in my room.  not really down with that either.  so.  medicine come with side effects.  and now ALEC fucking BALDWIN is the side effect to Neflix medication.  thanks, Netflix for not asking me if i was cool with that, for not offering me some alternative -- really -- that's the right thing to do at the very least.

and could you please put Emmet Otter back on?  or are you busy watching to see how many purchases of that are made during the holiday season on Amazon or at Best Buy since you are no longer offering it. 

and my brain?  well, it hasn't pulled up the file yet for that word, damn it.  lunar, sonar, radar, belly, something.  i have to get a...okay.  maybe mute.  let's try it. maybe get an ____ something.  starts with a 'u'? maybe?  an?  oh, yes.

ultrasound.

there is it.

so these mommies with their ultrasounds.   don't they know i'm a woman in my thirties?  oh, they probably do know that.  that's why they're pushing mommy-central at me.  reminding me just what i'm missing most in my life:  a husband that loves me, a baby that i love more than life itself, a house that i can make food and love in, and a space that is mine to tend to and be responsible for.  oh.  yes.  right.  that.

another one of the reasons that i just had to, and well, i thought wrong at first, i thought Deactivating my Facebook account was forever the first time -- then i realized that, well, no, you can come back any time you want -- so -- so much for that.  but, yeah.  another too many babies and smiling happy perfect lives that i just don't have right now in my face all the time.  too overwhelming.  too much.  so, sorry for my sometimes deactivated status.

i think i have mostly worked that out to only sign on when i feel good about what's happening in my life, and when i just need something like a phone number that got lost on an old phone that i need now -- that is definitely a positive side -- especially since the hard copies -- they are called address books -- actual little books with paper that has lines on it and a little symbol of a phone in the space where the phone number should be written.  i loved these things.  but most of them have been stolen.  out of my car, usually.

these objects to me are tomes full of history.  i want to say 'rich' history -- but all i can think of is Will Farrell saying that word when he describes mahogany, and leather-bound books.  thank you, will.

which reminds me.  i should get into touch with my friend, Will.

Will graduated from Brown a few years ago.  now he is in St. Louis at Washington University.  he does things with fMRI research.  we have a long friendship extending over the last -- oh god, is it really, could it possibly be?  dare i say -- seventeen years?  yikes.  well, anyway, we've always had conversations about healing and issues and trauma and how all that works.   he's from Rochester, and i'll be heading to Philadelphia later this week.

empty coffee cup.

gotta go get something to drink.

see.

this is why i don't really like the computer thingy.  it just ends up serving as a stand-in for talking to someone face to face and all those weird little things you would say to someone if they were right there, the weird things that you don't really type about -- the things you're not supposed to share -- now there's a word for it: 'oversharing' -- i know i have observed myself to do this in years past, and i have tried to work on that, since it seems like most of that information is of negligible importance and usually works out to making the interaction less efficient and potentially more drawn out and frustrating for everyone.

but, hey.  it's all about being heard, right?

heard, recognized, acknowledged, seen.

so, maybe instead of remembering that Alec Baldwin chewed his daughter out when her was drunk and called her horrible things and said awful words to her, maybe i need to recognize that poor Alec was just trying to be heard at the time.  and that he was angry and frustrated with the world or his ex-wife or financial situation or whatever it was -- maybe he just didn't get laid the night before -- what EVER it was -- that he was still expressing himself at the time -- and that is good.  and that we, as human beings need to realize that that sometimes is really not personal.  yes, he was acting out.  he chose a target.  that is not right, and i do not respect that.  and i am sure he didn't think about when he was doing it that there are consequences to his actions, and that his words could be projected all over the world with just a few clicks of some buttons.

and that is the world we are all living in, now.  no, maybe we don't have the infamousness -- can i just say infamity -- is that a word? -- it is now -- the infamity that mister baldwin has, but there are consequences to our actions.  point a to point b.  that phrase i always get confused about -- the physics-chemistry thing: that every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction -- or how ever it goes -- feel free to correct the quote -- i may have to myself if no one gets to it first -- but.

we are humans, and we are all works in progress.  we are all learning all the time.

so maybe alec baldwin had a crappy day and took it out on his daughter.  is it really different that my own father?  nah.  not really.  except that my dad's isn't the ugly mug that flashes up and out at me at 4:44 in the morning after Jason Reitman's film Young Adult ends.  nope.  not my pop's face.  but if it was, i'd probably be freaked out too.