book club!

I finally, finally got back to my book club tonight, after something like 4 or 5 months. Amazingly, all eight of us were there (some of the folks travel or live part-time elsewhere).

I was asked to join the club by someone I knew at PPSC; we got to know each other better after I left as Facebook friends, and she invited me to join maybe 9 months ago. They are a fabulous bunch: old lefties, five women and three men, mostly older than I am. They all either work in or retired from helping professions. All of the women wear arty jewelry.

We go to a restaurant once a month and discuss the book a bit, but mostly schmooze. There's a whole procedure in place for choosing the next month's book, and this seems more serious than discussing this month's book. Each person can propose up to two books (one of the men brings something he's written to promote his book choices), and then we can each vote (secret ballot) on two nominated books. One of the other guys always brings slips of paper and golf pencils for the vote. It's kind of cute.

Since we only meet once a month, it's been a little rough for me to keep track of everyone's names, how they're connected, what they do or used to do. I was terrified that I wouldn't remember a thing after all these months, but after a short time, I had all the names. We had been going for a while to a nice Szechuan restaurant on St. Mark's Place (on the site of the renowned Electric Circus, which later on hosted some grungy AA meetings). But that restaurant closed, so we went to Saigon Market tonight.

Everyone was so glad to see me again, which made me really happy, since I'm the new kid. With eight people around a round table, it's impossible to have just one conversation (though we do it for the brief book discussion). Everyone was concerned about my health and wanted to hear about the new apartment. I'm not super-close with anyone yet, although I did ride the subway partway with one woman and we got to have a nice chat. I feel very relaxed with them. It's such a good, good thing in my life.

I've been hella busy. I had been so crazy arranging the furniture delivery times that I thought both pieces were coming Saturday, when in fact they came yesterday. Good thing I had a slow start and hadn't yet gone out on many errands! The coffee table is great, and Lars himself delivered the small dresser. Lars himself is so lovely. He stuck around for a few minutes and admired the progress on the apartment.

Today was the big errand day. I went down near Kings Plaza and went into Gothic Cabinet (just in case they had a floor model of the wooden file cabinet that I love but think is too pricey); then into Bob's and Raymour & Flanagan to look at recliners. I remembered vaguely that I'd seen one I liked at one of those stores when I was pre-shopping. (It may have been in the couple of weeks between signing my lease and my accident.) I remembered it as being yellow and tweedy. Bob's had a lot of those big ugly leather recliners (some had electric up-and-down), and one push recliner that I liked, a nice blue fabric, but the wooden arms had an obvious and ugly veneer,

Then I went into R&F, let a sales guy show me a few recliners, and then I spotted the one I'd seen before - which was not yellow and tweedy, but a nice tan-ish print. And it's a push recliner, and doesn't look like a recliner - it looks like a nice accent chair. I tried it out for back comfort, and pulled the trigger. It will be delivered on Tuesday, Then I went into Kings Plaza, to browse a bit but mostly to pee, then took the bus down Avenue U a bit to check out a plant nursery I'd seen online, Came home with two big African violets, Phoebe and Susan, for five bucks each. Then back on the bus down Avenue U to pick up my prescriptions, then home.

I haven't managed to do much housework except for two loads of laundry, vacuuming the living room, and wet-Swiffering the bathroom. It'll all get done.

Tomorrow I have therapy in the city at 11, and I suspect a stop at Union Square on the way home. Sunday I have a long dental appointment: temporary bridge and I suspect some work on the crown (I never had a crown before, so I'm not sure what that entails). It's supposed to be a beautiful day so I may mosey on down to Coney Island. Monday has nothing scheduled yet, so I expect I'll be cleaning, maybe go to the Botanic Gardens if it's nice out or a movie if it isn't. Don't know yet when the chair will come on Tuesday.

Then back to work Wednesday.

When I came home, there was some sort of candlelight procession half a block from home. I asked one of the candle-carriers what it was for. He said, very seriously, "the resurrection of Christ." That's my reminder to call Mary on Sunday to wish her happy Easter.

Time to see if I have a copy of The Handmaid's Tale and then some TV - probably the new MST3K on Netflix.

hired!

And no, it wasn't the high-end jeweler.  I had a great interview with her, during which she said, "I will hire you" around four or five times.  Then I didn't hear from her for a week, and when I called, she wouldn't take or return my calls.  Go fig.  And I just wanted to let you all know that this stupid, unprofessional, lying bitch is named Gayle Grenadier, and if you ever have $40,000 to spend on a piece of jewelry, don't buy it from her.  And don't ever even consider working for her.

The people who did hire me are the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center (which we'll call PPSC to make life easier).  I'm going to be the office manager, working below the director and executive director.  It's basically a post-graduate training institute (probably only open to M.S.W.s or Ph.D.s in psychology) who want to be analysts, practice analytic-style therapy, or incorporate some analytic theory/technique into their therapy practice.  So it's a school, and also a clinic where trainees can rent rooms to see their patients.  Believe it or not, I worked at one of these places in 1980-81 (the New York Center for Psychoanalytic Training, which no longer exists).  So it's familiar ground for me.  I'll basically be running the office, along with registering students and maintaining student records.

They are paying the money I asked for, plus a bump in six months when my Medicaid runs out.  I'll be getting a letter today setting out the terms and conditions, to make things really official.  I liked both of the women who interviewed me -- unlike NYCPT, PPSC was created and run by a woman.  NYCPT was definitely a patriarchy, created and led by the late Dr. Reuben Fine.

I got the e-mail last night, and called in sick to BTW today -- tomorrow I'll being in my letter and start the disconnection process.  We keep Medicaid for around six months, which is when they review eligibility. We'll lose the cash and rent benefits, but I'm not sure when -- immediately, when I begin working, or when I first get paid.  We may be able to keep some part of the food stamps.  And I believe they pay carfare for the first 90 days.  I think Barry will continue to go to Back to Work, which I think will help him with career development.

And let's see what MST3K has to say:

how I got this way -- post-childhood influences: MST3K

I wrote a very detailed version of this post last night, with much windy text and many clips.  It took me about two hours, and then Blogger ate it when I was trying to post.  This one will be less ambitious -- probably less text and more clips.

I've been running an occasional feature called "how I got this way," featuring the cartoons that I watched endlessly as a very young child.  But I've had plenty of TV obsessions as an adult...I believe I once went on at great length in this blog about Friday Night Lights.  But I've also gone crazy for Ren & Stimpy (the first John K ones), and never stopped watching SNL.

I was an insane fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, often known as MTS3K.  I taped episodes and watched them over and over and over.

The premise of the show, like the show itself, is pretty silly.  Two mad scientists shoot their janitor into space, placing him on a ship called the Satellite of Love.  To ease his boredom and loneliness, he builds himself a few robots (actually puppets).  Unfortunately, without the parts he used to make the robots, he can't fly the ship to return to earth.  To make things worse, the mad scientists force him to watch awful old movies. These are referred to as "experiments," though what the scientists, known as "the mads," are attempting to discover is pretty fuzzy.  (The theme song deals with the overall fuzziness this way:  just repeat to yourself, it's only a show, I should really just relax.)

Joel and "the 'bots" respond to the bad movies like many people do:  they talk back to the screen and make fun of the movie.  So most of the show is a terrible old movie, usually sci-fi, with the silhouettes of Joel and two robots in the lower left-hand corner, riffing on the movie.  There are also "host segments" which sometimes relate to the movie and sometimes not.  Early on, there was an "invention exchange" with the mads on every show, taking advantage of the real Joel's early career as a prop comic.  (The character is named Joel Robinson and the creator/actor is Joel Hodgson, and both are usually referred to as Joel.)

Even when it went from being a local show on KTMA in Minneapolis-St. Paul to a well-liked show on Comedy Central (and later on the Sci-Fi channel), it still had a kind of DIY look and feel to it, and it continued to be produced in the Twin Cities.

First, a very young Joel doing his stand-up/magic/prop comic act.  (I hesitate to even use the term "prop comic," since it conjures images of the awful and terrifying Carrot Top.  But hang in there -- Joel is terrific.)




Here's a little clip reel from three of the earlier "experiments."




I am particularly fond of the host segments where a particularly stupid scene from a movie is parodied by Joel and the 'bots -- especially if it involves a song.  This is from Pod People, not my top favorite episode, but one of them.  But I think it's my favorite host segment.  This clip shows the original song and then the host parody, complete with reaction from the mads.




Pod People actually had *two* really great host segment parodies.  Here's the movie clip, and the parody, of Trumpy, the pod person in Pod People:







Favorite episode, hands-down?  Manos, the Hands of Fate.  Here's a chunk that includes the bizarre Torgo with his creepy theme music.  Unfortunately, the final host segment, involving a faux-Torgo delivering pizza to the mads, has been sliced neatly in half between segment 9 and segment 10.  I'll post 10, the end of the Torgo/pizza bit, which also includes the closing credits.  You can see that pretty much everyone on the show did two or three different things, including occasionally appearing in a skit.

For instance, the guy who plays one of the mads also plays one of the robots and something else, maybe some design thing?  Joel did half of the jobs on the show. The whole cast is on the writing staff.   And Mike Nelson, the head writer who played Torgo in the last skit, took over as host after Joel left the show.  Mike's married to one of the other writers who occasionally does a skit.  And one of the other writers played a new mad scientist after one of the others left.  There's more cool stuff, but I'm sure I want you all to know what an incredible MST3K dork I am.  (The correct word for me and my ilk is "MSTies," pronounced misties."






HE TRIED TO KILL ME WITH A FORKLIFT!




Strangely enough, I couldn't find a clip of just the opening theme. This is the beginning of Pod People, which for some reason is not embeddable.  The theme is chock-full of exposition and low-rent props.



If you love this, it's available through Netflix, and apparently also in ten-minute segments on YouTube.  YouTube sure does rock, as I'm sure I said before.    (There are also MST3K shorts on YouTube, which are also pretty great.