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Centuries ago, women ate arsenic to make their skin attractively pale. Belladonna was dripped into women's eyes to make their pupils huge. Corsets, girdles, falsies. Later there was the facelift. Then boob jobs. Now we have the "mommy makeover," which often includes:
- Breast augmentation
- Breast lift
- Tummy tuck
- Butt lift
- Liposuction

But ladies, why stop there? Didn't you know that every single part of you is wrong? Or, as a local doctor points out, "If you're remodeling your home, would you leave one of the most important rooms untouched?"

Of course not. Which is why you shouldn't stop at waxing or shaving your pubic area. No, you need plastic surgery "to enhance your sexuality or self-esteem"!

Yes, you need plastic surgery on your hoo-haw to "correct form and appearance." After all, you don't want to be "cosmetically unattractive" do you?

What's next?

I do a ton of research for books, and I always feel embarrassed if I get a fact wrong in my books. But sometimes I feel like my need for things to be true and right gets in the way of my having a good time. Sometimes I'll find myself putting down a book because it contains events that simply couldn't happen. But that's like expecting Desperate Housewives to be reality-based instead of good, frothy fun.

Last night when I couldn't sleep I stayed up late reading a thriller. The premise is that a girl was nearly killed and now must figure out who did it before they finish the job.

She wakes in the hospital unable to move her arms and legs - and also unable to feel touch. OMG, she's a quadriplegic!

But no.

The doctor tells her that nothing is really wrong "hypothesizing that my paralysis was in part due to swelling on my spinal cord and partially psychological. The swelling of my limbs was a result of the drugs and would go down soon." He adds that with luck soon she'll be "good as new."

Say what? In what world does it work like that?

I put it aside.

Do you ever have trouble suspending disbelief?

Last year, I encountered the blog of Mrs. Q, a teacher who ate school lunch every day for a year and blogged about it (and worried about being fired.)


Then I read this truly horrifying post about a Happy Meal that has sat in woman's office untouched, for a year. It never rotted or got moldy or smelled, the way you would expect to. In fact, it basically looks the same, one year later.

Something is very wrong with the way many children eat in America.

And now Mrs. Q (who is really Mrs. Wu) has a book out called Fed Up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project: How One Anonymous Teacher Revealed the Truth About School Lunches --And How We Can Change Them!. Here's a radio interview and excerpt about the book

Teen and I eagerly settled in last night to watch Fringe. We came late to the Lost party (we watched the first two seasons on DVD), but we are now big fans of that show and it shares some of the same creators.

So what wasn't to like?

I can suspend disbelief with the best of them, but:
- a plane that lands itself simply becuase you press a red button labelled "auto pilot"? They tried to get around this by saying Logan airport was one of the first to use the new system, but...
- a guy locked up in a mental asylum for 17 years because there was an accident at a lab that killed someone? Hard to believe he would be sent to a mental asylum. Hard to believe he'd be there that long. Hard to believe that no one else seemed to be housed there. Hard to believe that if he was so scary and dangerous, the one guard in the background didn't seem to care when he went for his son's face and started trying to pry open his eye.
- the only way to get the guy out of the asylum is to get his estranged son to do it, even flying to Iraq to see said son, even doing some indepth sleuthing on son's secrets and lies and threatening to reveal all unless he lets them see his dad. Um, wouldn't have been easier just to convince a judge that it was a matter of national security and bypass the son (who has "potential love interest with secrets" written all over him)?
- and the mad scientist was investigating a laundry list of "fringe" science. Hard to believe that he investigated like 20 different things.
- the mad scientist's lab still existed in some basement in Harvard, albeit a little dusty, after 17 years. Right. Like no one wouldn't have lusted after the space or the equipment.

That's the point where the TV went off. I guess my take is that Lost is about people first and then plot, and Fringe was about a gee-whiz plot and then people. It just seemed forced and over the top.

Which is too bad.

It snowed in Chris’ hometown of Austin, Texas yesterday. Schools and universities were closed, giving his dad an unexpected day off.

Long lonesome roads became treacherously icy. Heartbreak hotels shut down. Cacti cooled. Longhorns lost heat. Scorpions shivered.

Corrupt Texas Governor Rick Perry wasted a bunch of money.

The governor used state funds to build an outdoor stage to host his two-million dollar inauguration ceremony. When it snowed, the ceremony was moved indoors, and the stage was torn down unused.

Today, Texas teachers return to their elementary school classes, many of which are held in trailers that supplement tiny school buildings.

I’ll say one thing for New York State, we may not have the biggest cows, or the biggest hats, but we’ve got the damned biggest snowplows you’ve ever seen.

Adios, y’all.