Eden M. Kennedy's Blog, page 8

Look out, this is a long one

The last few years it’s been hard to enjoy blogging as much as I used to, and I eventually came to see that my lack of enjoyment was actually a lack of trust. Lack of trust in the ability of...



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So Much FunCon

I went to MaxFunCon again this year and I’m not even sure where to begin. Saturday I got to sit at breakfast with Bill Corbett. (If you’re a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 you might...



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Catching Up with the Kennedys

Last night I finished reading Let’s Pretend This Never Happened out loud to Jackson at bedtime. We’d had to skip over some parts, like the backyard gravedigging and zombies chapter...



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Selvishness

I am reading a Martha Beck book. I didn’t know who she was until recently, but it turns out that half the women I know are super into Martha Beck and her kooky, down-to-earth, life-coaching...



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I'm tricky like that

This post is sponsored by Chronicle Books. I like books, and people who read are the kind of people I want to know. I've taken somewhat of a break from posting because I was tired of having...



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I’m tricky like that

This post is sponsored by Chronicle Books. I like books, and people who read are the kind of people I want to know. I’ve taken somewhat of a break from posting because I was tired of having...



Click to read the full post.

I invite you to go elsewhere

I have two posts up in other places this week, both of them exciting investigations into the deep, dark subject of celebrities that I think are cute. The one up at The Popcorn Whisperer is entitled, Movie Clips I'd Like to See at the 2013 Oscars. My main goal was to write something that would reveal myself to myself, but then I got lazy and stopped wondering why I have so much affection for a bunch of famous people I've never met. How adorable do I find Drew Barrymore? Very. Paul Rudd? Charming as pie. But it's Laurence Fishburne I'll always adore no matter how pouchy he gets, because I remember when he was just Larry, a gangly teenager grooving his way upriver in Apocalypse Now, and then the next thing I knew he was goofy Cowboy Curtis wooing Miss Yvonne with all his twangling heart, and then what? Super sexy in Deep Cover (with my other boyfriend, Jeff Goldblum), and then bam! Othello! Which you'd think would be the pinnacle of his career, but no, suddenly he's wearing a long leather coat and unlocking the secret of time itself for an addled Keanu Reeves. He's just two heartbeats away from becoming Darth Vader's cranky grandfather in a chrome helmet, and I'm probably going to start a Tumblr called fuckyeahlaurencefishburne. I'll let you know if that happens. I'm still kind of busy unpacking.

The other thing I wrote is 5 Ways to Meet Celebrities Without Looking Like a Stalker, which started as an off-the-cuff idea that a couple of editors really responded to, but writing it made me realize how sadly excited I've been to run into movie stars throughout my life. I'm not sure if it's because I'm kind of repressed and these people get to be emotionally vulnerable for a living, and so they appear to be living out parts of my life that I don't have the guts to inhabit, or what. I'm sure studies have been done. (Oh, look, here's one: Celebrity Worship Syndrome. I'm going to go ahead and self-diagnose on the not-pathological end of the scale.)

In conclusion, thank you for reading, click on those links and read me elsewhere if it sounds like something you want to do, and let's all have the nicest weekend possible!

I love being part of the problem

I've lived in California for more than 20 years now and yesterday I was finally able to admit to myself: I don't ever want to get out of my car.

I was at work yesterday and instead of taking an hour for lunch I arranged to take two 30-minute breaks, one at 12:30 to have lunch, and one at 3:15 to pick up Jackson from school. I didn't bring a lunch so I decided to go over to the sandwich shop because they're close, they're cheap, and they're fast as hell. They're cheap and fast because they don't bother with vegetables. You get meat, bread, cheese, something to make it all stick together, and that's it. The first time I went in there and asked for lettuce and tomato on my sandwich, the girl at the counter pointed at the menu taped to the side of the meat counter and said, "No." She didn't say, I'm so sorry for the inconvenience but we only make sandwiches out of things that don't bruise when you drop them. She just pointed to a list of meats, breads, and cheeses and said, "No." NEXT.

The actual point of this story, however, is the fact that the sandwich shop is about 350 feet away from where I work, and I drove to get my lunch. I got in my car, pulled out of the library driveway, turned onto the main road, took my foot off the gas and coasted 40 feet, turned into the sandwich shop driveway, and parked in a spot that had a wonderful view of the bench I would normally sit on while eating my lunch, and you know what? Fuck that bench. Yesterday it was windy and cold and that bench is made out of cement. Did I want to shove my napkin under my leg to keep it from blowing away? No, I did not. Nor did I want a bug to fall into my coke, grizzled pedestrians to veer inappropriately close, or my skirt to blow up and expose my pink thigh-highs to the people staring at me from the warmth of their cars while they ate their sandwiches and wondered what the hell was my problem.

Instead, I bought my Fritos, my Diet Pepsi, and my turkey-on-wheat-with-mayo and then brought it all back to my nice, warm aging-Volvo privacy bubble. I put my soda in my cup holder, balanced the Eastside Branch Library's copy of Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and Other Concerns) on the steering wheel, and didn't talk to, look at, or think about any of the strangers on the other side of my tinted windows for 25 glorious minutes. I was so delighted and relieved to finally be vulnerable enough with myself to admit that this was the most relaxing lunch I'd had in years that I don't think revelation is too strong a word to describe my feelings. For so long I'd felt guilty about cutting myself off from the energy of nature or whatever it is hippies say to convince you to get out of your car, take off your shoes, and let the wind blow ecstatically through your hair. Hippies of the world: I love shoes and I don't have that much hair, and the energy of nature is unpredictable. As a matter of fact, it smells like jasmine mixed with B.O.

So, sorry all you city planners who spend your lives sweating over designs for usable, friendly, safe public spaces! Tomorrow I might take my car to the beach parking lot for lunch, and then maybe we'll hit a drive-in this weekend. We can double date with my husband's truck.

The view from the bench, which I could see just as well through my windshield, frankly.

The Chair

Yesterday, I got my teeth cleaned. It was a last-minute appointment so I got a hygienist I'd never met before. Let's call her Mira. Mira was pleasant but it seemed more important to her...



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Moved

We are here in our new house and I have a stress cold. I'd show you some photos but all you'd see would be hardwood floors covered in garbage bags full of socks and underwear, because...



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