Brianne Blogs?

The following is an excerpt from my History and Systems of Psychology Textbook. I think it’s really funny, but it’s pretty likely that only Erica will think it’s as interesting and funny as I do. But, read on if you will non-Ericans.

“An American neurologist, George Beard, had coined the term “neurasthenia” and referred to the condition as a peculiarly American nervousness. He listed a variety of symptoms: insomnia, hypochondria, headache, skin rash, nervous exhaustion and something called brain collapse. William James (1800’s American psychologist and brother of novelist Henry James) called the syndrome “Americanitis”.

“During the second half of the nineteenth century, what many observers called an “epidemic of neurasthenia” swept through the upper classes…Neurasthenia was, literally, a lack of nerve force-an immobilizing depression, a loss of will. The most educated and sdelf-conscious were among the most likely to succumb. Postponement of career choice became a common experience among these disable sons of the bourgeoisie.”

“Many of James’s friends, relatives and colleagues suffered these debilitating symptoms. A friend wrote ” I wonder if anybody ever reached 35 in New England without wanting to kill himself”. And James noted: “I take it that no man is educated who had never dallied with the thought of suicide”. The condition was so widespread amond the affluent and highly educated segmented of American society that a popular publication was entitled “Anybody Who Was Anybody Was Neurasthenic”. Obvioiusly William James was in good company.”

“The Rexall drug company capitalized on the opportunity afforded by this illness. It introduced a patent medicine called Americanitis Elixir, recommended for nervous disorders, exhaustion, and all troubles arising from Americanitis. Female sufferers, notably intellectuals and feminists, were advised to spend 6 weeds or more in bed without any work, reading, or social life and to gain large amounts of weight on high-fat diets. Men were not expected to restrict their lifestyle. Their recommended course of treatment included travel, adventure and vigorous physical exercise.”

See, psychology is funny.

After reading Angels and Demons, I went back to the children’s book series, Artemis Fowl. I just finished book two in this series where the main character is an evil, scheming pre-teen. What I love about these books is that while I like all of the characters, I don’t love them the way I do the Harry Potter characters. Nor do I often feel the need to cry or yell or run screaming from the book the way HP often makes me want to. The other great thing about this series is that you can read a book in a day if you wanted to. But it’s not so light that it’s not entertaining. I even occassinaly laugh out loud.

My summer of fluff is going okay except that I keep seeing other books that I want to read that I have to add to an ever lengthening list and I’m starting to yearn and I mean yearn for some weightier books and I’m only two books into my summer of fluff. Oh dear, I fear this will not end well.

Here are some of the good ones from our calendar as of late:

1. Pepsi is commonly used by wooden boat owners to clean mold from decksw. They leave it on for about thirty seconds, then it must be rinsed off so as to not cause erosion.

2. The ball on top of the flagpole is called the truck. (who knew that had a name?)

3. Peanuts are cholesterol-free. They are also one of the ingredients of dynamite.

4. All of Queen Anne’s seventeen children died before she did.

5. The oldest word in the English language is town.

6. One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 1930’s lobbied against hemp farmers-they say hemp as competition. Hemp is not chemically addictive, as are nicotine, alcohol and caffeine.

7. Leonardo da Vinci spent twelve years painting the Mona Lisa’s lips. He could also write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.

8. A wind with a speed of seventy-four miles per hour or more is designated a hurricane.

I thought I’d tell you about our trip through northern italy. On our drive through Italy on our way to Verona, where we would spend the next two days, we decided to take advantage of our car and stop in cool towns we saw along the way. One such town was Trento, Italy.

In Trento, they had this beautiful castle. Since we arrived half and hour before it closed, they didn’t charge us for admission and let us wander around at will. Nice Italians.

Look at the cool things this castle had. Giant human-sized fireplaces and teeny 5′7″ doors. How short were these people?

While Trento was awesome and we were glad we stopped there, we were not so pleased with the fact that it was here that the engine of our rental car started smoking. Bad enough that a man came out of his work to look sadly at our car and say, “Caput?” Then we got back on the highway to head to our final destination of the day only to land smack in the middle of a 45 minute long road problem that resulted in us going 5 miles. Yes, 5 miles in a smoking car on the Italian highway. Good times.

Lots and lots more Italy to follow at some random future date.

Yesterday afternoon, Maren selected for our viewing pleasure the one, the only, Family Feud. How great is this show? First, it’s a mental challenge to try to come up with the answers yourselves. Second, it’s funny to mock the horrible answers that the teams come up with.

Today on the show it was NBA players versus their moms. The players sucked and it’s good they don’t rely on their brains to make their money!

However, I think their moms showed that their lack of Feud skill is genetic as  these were their mothers answers to one of the Fast Money question:

1. Name a state that has a lot of blizzards

Mom One: California

Mom Two: Arkansas.

True Story.

Confession: You can play Family Feud online. The year after college, when Amber and I were bored, we would play it online. A lot. Try it, it’s fun.

So, WordPress, this fine website where I post my blog, has a little section called Blog Stats. I love this section as it appeals to the nerd in me that likes to make lists and look at charts. This section gives you a line graph of the number of people who have visited your blog everyday. How great is that?

A year ago when this bad boy first got launched, I would always have a few days each month when only 3 people checked my blog. These three people were Grandma Sally, Meghan and Erica. Never fail, they were there to boost my blog stat numbers. Now, however, and in the last few months, my minimum number of visitors has jumped to 9. Who are these 9 people who are daily visitors to my blog? Do I even know all of you? If I do know you, would I want you reading my blog? Are you my arch nemesis from 3rd grade, Terry Keylon (who told the principal that I said “f*&^” under the moonclimber at recess which I most certainly did not-little bastard!)? Are you a crazy man who is cyber stalking me as a warm up for the actual real-life stalking you are about to start that will end with me chained up in a room or being boiled alive in a vat of acid?

You see, at first I was excited about this jump in readership, but after considering that last option I mentioned above, I’m starting to think it’s not so great to have mystery readers. And what if the mystery readers are Free Masons sent to read my blog to keep track of me since I purchased Angels and Demons? What if it’s the US Government monitoring my blog since my post office rant of last April? What if the state of Oklahoma finally remembered that I owe them a ton of money from all the tolls I ran through and is preparing to get me and now I’ve confessed so I’ll have no leg to stand on in toll court? Oh dear, this gets worse by the minute.

So I say to you, Nine Mystery Readers, that even though you are watching me, I too will be watching you. I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but soon I will be watching…

Hearty apologies to these Mystery Nine if they are, in fact, friends or family or both. A girls got to be prepared!

How fitting is it that Maren Stefanie Genow, who made me promise to read books of no substance for the summer is arriving in New York later today, the very day in which I finished reading my first such reading endeavor. Yes, this morning, I finished Angels and Demons. As I previously predicted, I like it. I mean, it’s an action movie in book form. Who wouldn’t love that? And it involves religious conspiracies and secret societies. That’s the stuff dreams are made of.

Reading this book has made me want to read lots and lots more about secret socieites, like the FreeMasons, but then it also makes me not want to because of one very paranoid fear that I have:

 Namely that these secret organizations that you read about do exist and thay they monitor your book purchases (throught your credit cards) and they then monitor your email and BLOG posts and thus they know when you are onto them and they come after you and you will likely find yourself in a Turkish prison or jumping out of a helicopter to save your life only no one will belive what you say because they will have somehow messed with your credibility and you will end up like those people who claim they have been abducted by aliens who no one believes and everyone thinks is crazy!

I think the lesson here is that I will take some time to really think it out before I dive head first into some conspiracy theory research.

In only slightly related news (aliens) I watched Independance Day over the weekend. Yes, Dad, it was on and I was hungover and needed the distraction and I watched it. And, let’s be honest, loved it. As I do everytime that I watch it. I mean, I am Steve Genow’s daughter, how could I not. It also got me to thinking that I should memorize the speech that Bill Pullman gives right before they go off to fight the aliens in case a similar situation arises and I might need a similarly inspirational speech to rally the troops to fight off whatever we are fighting-Freemasons, aliens, monsters from the deep, you name it.

And in case you weren’t quite sure before, I think this post has proven that I think some really strange things when reading books and watching movies. Perhaps this is why I’m such a big reader, I mean, with thoughts like these rolling around during a read, who could possibly put down a book?

Zak and I made plans for Friday night that were supposed to go something like this: dinner and happy hour followed by a movie, probably home by midnight.

What actually transpired was this: we started drinking at my house at 6 and didn’t eat dinner and didn’t go to a movie and then at around midnight left the house to go to a bar and then another bar and finally got back home around 3am.

Those are the events as I remember them. And that’s about all that I remember. Except that when I got home I wasn’t feeling so good (perhaps that had to do with the fact that I didn’t have anything to eat that entire day. Not breakfast, not lunch, not dinner, no snacks, nothing and that Zak and I drank from 6pm to 2am) so I ate some pasta salad and drank some water and ended up watching some old Blooper shows with Dick Clark for 2 hours. It was around 4:45am that it dawned on me that I was being an idiot and that I should just go to bed. Yeah, an impressive night for both Brianne and Zak.

Our heartfelt apologies to those of you that we called after 9:00pm. The calls before 9 we remember, the calls after 9 we have no memory of. So if you were called and we discussed something importatnt, you might want to run it by us again.

In unrelated news, Zak and I watched the Belmont yesterday and I must say it was awesome! Who knew horse racing could be so exciting? I mean, those 90 seconds or so were fantastic! The hour of coverage before and the 1/2 hour after the race were super boring, but the main event was great. Who knew? Alas, I was ill-prepared and therefore was not wearing a giant hat. Maybe next year!

I was thinking the other day about things that really bother me and was sad to discover that my greatest pet peeve doesn’t really apply in my life anymore so I think I’ll have to change it. My #1 pet peeve has always been discourteous drivers. You know, the ones who drive below the speed limit, don’t understand that the left lane is for passing, try to wave you on at a 4 way stop even when it’s their turn thus causing more problems that their intended “kindness” would have prevented. I hate those people. Alas, in New York, where I drive a car maybe once a year, I never have to deal with these things, so I think it’s time to revamp my pet peeves list. I know, I’ll make an NYC pet peeves list and then a list of things that I love about NYC just to even it all out and make sure I don’t anger it. I’m pretty sure if you piss off the city, it takes you out with a taxi the very next day.

New York Pet Peeves:

1. Tourists who stop in the middle of the sidewalk to look around or take a picture. It’s fine to stop. It’s fine to look around. It’s fine to take a picture. But you wouldn’t stop your car in the middle of the road to do these things so don’t stop your butt in the middle of the sidewalk. Pull off to the side of the walk and do your slow tourist business there!

2. People who won’t move to let people on or off the subway when they are standing in front of the door. Obviously you have to stand in front of the door sometimes. But when other people need to get on or off, you need to move. And if you can’t move further into the car for a minute, try taking a step out of the subway car. We will let you back on and you can even have your spot back!

3. Pre-teens (this to me is all people ages 12-19) who travel in packs, texting, yelling, screaming, wearing their skinny jeans, rough housing and talking loudly during movies!

4. Men who feel not only the need to whistle at you or say something inappropriate in spanish, but who then follow you down the street and try to walk with you and ask you questions. Are you kidding? Have you ever heard a story that started with “I met my husband one magical day when he cat-called me from the corner and stalked me for a block or two…”? NO?! Because it doesn’t happen!

5. Kids being pushed in strollers who are way too old to be pushed in strollers. I know that we walk a lot in the city and it’s hard for little toddler legs to keep up, but add more time to your trip or take a train. Do not push around your 5 year old in a stroller. It’s got to stunt them in some important social way, it’s just got to!

6. People who don’t pick up their dog poop! Gross!

7. People who try to cross the street when it’s not time to cross, nearly get hit by a taxi and then curse at the taxi driver like it was his fault. Actually, this doesn’t bother me, I think it’s funny.

8. People who put books outside by the trash when it’s going to rain. This pains me in my soul. In NYC it’s okay to put books out by the trash because the rest of us will come along and take the ones we want and the circle of that book’s life can continue. However, when you put a book outside and it rains, then the rest of us cannot take it and it has to be killed in the trash. This hurts. Deep.

New York Loves:

1. I love that no matter what time of day it is or how bad the traffic is, it always takes me the same amount of time to get to and from work.

2. I love the mystery smell that eminates out of Citarella (the market on our corner) that is so good it stopped me and Meghan in our tracks the first time we smelled it. I also love that we are both so afraid of being disappointed in what is actually making the smell that we have never tried to find out but rather prefer to enjoy the smell itself and the ideas we have imagined to be its source.

3. I love it when you drop something and someone behind you picks it up and brings it to you. This happens alot actually.

4. Marathon Day! This day is by far the best day of the whole year. I can’t explain it but I cry every year when we are standing next to strangers cheering on other strangers as they do this great thing through our city. Such a great day!

5. Top of the Rock. Yes, I live here and must admit that one of my favorite things is the tourist attraction where you go to the top of Rockefeller center to see the great views of the city. I love it and never tire of it and, confession, don’t just go when I have out of town guests.

6. The Staten Island Ferry. Yes, in another confession, in the warmer months, I take this free ferry to Staten Island at least once a month and then turn around and immediately come back. It’s not like there’s anything I need to do there, so I just take the trip and head home. It’s so pretty to be on the water and see the Statue of Liberty and the city and did I mention it’s free?

7. I love that taxi drivers will slow down and see if you need a ride if you are a woman walking alone after dark. How great is that? I also love when taxi drivers carry your luggage to your door when you are coming back from the airport. Again, so great!

8. I love how when I was on crutches a few years ago people would offer me steats on the subway all the time. See, we’re not mean here.

9. I also love it when you see a tourist looking at a map or trying to take a picture and you offer to give directions or take the picture for them and they seem so shocked that a scary, mean New Yorker would be so helpful.

Yep, those are my likes and dislikes for this city I call home. But don’t worry, if I ever move to a place that requires more driving, I’ll move discourteous drivers back to the number one spot. Also, John, in case you were worried, my road rage is still firmly intact.

I just finished the first book in another children’s book series called Artemis Fowl. There are ferries, leprechauns, gnomes and trolls. How great is that? The best part is that the main character, Artemis Fowl is evil. He’s the bad guy in the story. It’s good stuff. Alas, as with most children’s books, there aren’t a lot of quotable lines. But I did learn a lot about the history of leprechauns and there’s never a bad time for that.

Sadly, up next is Angels and Demons. Here goes my summer of no substance…