Cardiogirl: 19% body fat 100% fun

Has anyone here seen the movie “Eraserhead?” It’s a crazy, crazy movie from David Lynch that basically scarred me for life as I still have images floating around in my head from more than 20 years ago.

Side note: I just hit publish by accident and then immediately deleted this post. I can’t wait to see if it appears in my Google Reader. If so, I had an itchy trigger finger. Sorry about that.

Back to the movie. (Shudders.)

I was a freshman in college and my roommate Tonya (hey Tonya, how you doin’?) said there was a great movie playing on campus. I’m pretty sure each weekend there were free movies on campus in a lecture hall. You used your dorm meal card as your ticket. So one weekend “Erasherhead” was showing and Tonya insisted that it was something I had to see.

I think she was a David Lynch fan.

Anyway, we went to see it and it was mental overload for me. I seriously can’t remember all of the plot and I have no memory of Tonya’s review or explanation after the movie.

What I recall is that the movie was in black and white and the guy, Eraserhead, had crazy tall hair like Kramer from Seinfeld. This guy somehow got married to a chick who had a super freaky baby.

I don’t think he was the father of the baby but they got married anyway and that baby was like a crazy alien head with the body wrapped in mummy bandages.

The guy was afraid of the baby, like I was, but he had to take care of it. The baby cried and cried and I remember wanting to shoot the baby to make the crying stop.

You may recall, in high school and college I was not a fan of babies and I never wanted children. Ever. I told anyone who would listen that I wanted a hysterectomy for Christmas. And as you know, I now have three kids. You can’t run from karma, can you?

Eventually the guy in the movie used scissors to cut the bandages open and the baby bled and bled. Auugghhh! That’s what I remember.

I had to go to Wikipedia to see what the rest of the movie was about. It’s all crazy disjointed stuff and has a long plot summary.

The things I did not remember include the fact that the girlfriend was stressed and overly tired so she abandoned him and the baby. He had super bizarre experiences like watching a scary looking woman dancing in his radiator and a sexual tryst with a beautiful woman who lived across the hall.

Um, who babysat while he and the chick across the hall went at it?

Somewhere in all of this he dreamt his head fell off and it was used at a pencil factory to create pencil erasers. WTF?

Later he saw the neighbor in the hall returning home with another man. When she saw him she was terrified because she saw an image of the baby in Eraserhead’s face.

That’s when he went back and cut the baby’s bandages open and killed the baby. It bled and bled and the world exploded. Fade to black.

Okay, so since I had my first kid I have randomly had images of that crazy alien baby when looking at my own child swaddled in a receiving blanket. It’s a very disturbing image as you can imagine and it freaks me out.

I hated that movie, I don’t understand what it’s about and I wish David Lynch never made it.

Have you seen it? Can you explain the artistic vision to me or can you provide the Blue Pill from “The Matrix” so I can remove the images from my head once and for all?

Thanks for your help in this matter.

Well we haven’t gone back in time via my journal in a while, so let’s get to it. Today we’re going to June 23, 1983 and I was 15. Damn, too bad I didn’t write this last Tuesday — it would have been 26 years ago to the day.

(Staggers about with her hand on her heart.) Wow, that’s a long time. I’m pretty sure Cate, Heidi Klum version 2.0 and Liz hadn’t been born yet (cries a bit).

It’s 12:54 pm and I’m watching “I Love Lucy.” I have shorts and a T-shirt on. At 2:00 pm I have a “tennis date.” No, just with my friend Karen. Me and Karen are gonna start running at night (around 8:00 pm) not too late.

Yesterday was our first day, we walked about a quarter of a mile — then we ran a 1/4 of a mile. God, am I out of shape. I was practically dying!

Oh no! Guess what’s on TV?! Sonny Eliot and the One O’Clock Movie. He is the biggest jerk. I know! Why couldn’t HE move to Palm Beach and Bill Kennedy could be on five days a week.

Today Ma and Pa are picking Claire up at the airport. She’s coming in from Florida. Jack got an apartment in St. Louis and he’s getting a phone today.

I made bacon today and read a book. Well while I was reading I wasn’t paying attention and I thought I smelled burning bacon. I checked it five minutes later. I was right. It was as black as sin! So I had to throw it away and make more.

I need a book on clipping a bird’s nails.

As usual, so much to comment on, so much to explain.

“I Love Lucy” was on every weekday from 12:30 pm til 1:00 pm and I watched it relentlessly. I even watched it on my lunch hour from high school. We lived a block from the school so I had enough time to go home and watch the show while I ate lunch. I don’t think I ate lunch in the cafeteria at high school the entire four years that I was there.

But this was written during summer vacation as evidenced by that day’s wardrobe. I have no idea why I thought it was important to note the shorts and T-shirt that I was wearing, but now we know. I also find it amusing that I noted — to my journal — that it shouldn’t get excited thinking I had a real date with a boy. I was just using the term “tennis date” casually.

Great sentence construction on “Me and Karen are gonna start running at night…”

I did watch a lot of television growing up. And for a long time there was a standing movie at 1:00 pm on Channel 50. The original host, Bill Kennedy, was awesome. He must have been in his late 60s or early 70s by the time I was watching.

Anyway, he would give an intro into the movie (always a black and white movie and I loved that) and after the commercial breaks, but before the movie resumed, he would give some more commentary. He also was pretty frank about his thoughts on the movie in question. Sometimes he wasn’t thrilled with it, but worked with what he had regardless.

So he retired somewhere in 1983 and moved to sunny Palm Beach. I was pissed off. I did not understand why a 74-year-old man felt the need to retire. I remember thinking he could have easily hosted the show from Florida. Effer.

Enter Sonny Elliot. I hated him then, can’t stand him now. He was just super smarmy and he drove me nuts. I’m sure I stopped watching the movies soon after he started hosting it.

I also think it’s funny that it took me about six minutes to write the first two paragraphs.

Now the bacon. As we know, everyone loves bacon and I was no exception. I still love bacon but it has to be crunchy. I call it shatter bacon because if you dropped it on the floor it should shatter. That’s how I like it and that’s how I eat it.

I do NOT want to chew on bacon fat. The fat on the bacon should crunch. So I’m not very surprised that I fired up the pan and then started reading a book. I am surprised that I waited for five minutes after I smelled it burning to check on it.

“Black as sin” is totally a phrase I learned from my mother. I don’t think I’ve actually said that in a long time but as soon as I read it, it came back to me. I also recall my mom saying “Hell’s bells!” when extremely frustrated.

Yeah, we’re Catholic.

And my miserly ways must have started after I moved out of my parent’s house, since I had no qualms about throwing that bacon away.

Lastly, I thoroughly enjoy the end of that entry. You may recall our blue parakeet Bingo and his battle with the bathroom door. Sometime in his short life I must have wanted to clip his nails. I do remember reading something that said the blood line can be seen through the bird’s nails and one must make sure to clip beneath that to avoid excessive bleeding.

I’m quite certain I never trimmed his nails.

And that concludes our trip down memory lane today. I hope you had as much fun as I did.

TO: The refrigerator in my basement
FROM: Cardiogirl
RE: Your freezer compartment

Hey thanks for all you do, buddy. You have been loyal and true all of these years, just hanging out quietly in the basement keeping my extra coffee cream, milk, pop, etc. cold and ready. I appreciate that, I really do.

You know I’ve been your biggest fan since we signed the mortgage papers. Mr. C was ready to cart your ass to the curb. Remember? But I told him I thought you’d come in handy and he relented. Between you and me, a few years ago he did say he was really glad we kept you in the basement there.

Oh I know you’re getting up there in age. You look like you might have been born somewhere in the 50s — that plastic egg holder inside your door is so cute although you’ll never see me using that thing. I prefer my eggs in the carton front and center where I can see them.

And your freezer compartment — oh you know I love your freezer! Especially in the summer when we have popsicles coming out of our ears. So handy and such a part of our daily lives.

But you have one huge flaw that has been getting on my last nerve since the day we moved into this house. Your freezer is old school. It actually has to be defrosted. Gah! That is so annoying.

I know. If we’re going to live together I’m supposed to accept every part of you — flaws and all. I just talked about this with my therapist last week. I know I can’t change you, I have to learn to live with your foibles, just as you live with mine.

Dude, it
shouldn’t
snow in
the freezer when
I shove
a box of
chicken nuggets in there.Dude, it shouldn’t snow in the freezer when I shove a box of chicken nuggets in there. You’re like an expanding waist line that won’t accept with the worn notch on the belt. Why must you create snow and ice like the tundra of the North Pole.

It’s not endearing, that’s all I’m saying.

And I’m not even sure how I’m supposed to deal with this problem. I’m a child of the 70s. Growing up, I don’t ever remember our freezer growing glaciers. It just didn’t happen.

I’m nervous, just like you are, every time I hit the screw driver with the hammer to chip away at the ice. I know one wrong move means we’re both screwed. Am I supposed to leave the door open and let nature take its course?

Mr. C cleaned your clock last night by boiling pots of water and letting them sit inside with the door closed. And I just have to add that this is one of the instances where his neurotic, first-born tendencies really came in handy. That freezer compartment is stripped down, baby. No frost, much less ice, in there. Just shiny metal on each side.

You and I both know it wouldn’t look like that if I were doing the job.

So in short I appreciate your steadfast loyalty. Your refrigeration abilities are top notch — way to deliver. Yet your freezer compartment, while often used and greatly appreciated, leaves a lot to be desired.