Do I wake or sleep?

I was watching the E!THS about Hugh Hefner and Playboy last night. I have mixed feelings about HH--to start off with, I do think the photos in Playboy (what I've seen of them) are beautiful. I think they're classic American cheesecake with beautiful women--they're not art per se, because their sole purpose is to get a guy off (art is open-ended, asks questions, challenges), but the photos themselves don't bother me because (from what I've seen) they don't demean women. And although I find HH's self-congratulatory attitude about how he led America out of the Puritan age (whatEVER, Hef! I mean, thank God YOU came along, right? ;) a little nauseating, I will say his ideology has a refreshing awareness of political issues. He's come out for gay rights, freedom of speech, abortion rights, birth control (sure, some of that is self-serving but it's nice SOMEONE is standing up for abortion rights!), safe sex. And of course the magazine has always had good articles and a strong fiction selection. However, I wish the magazine featured a lot more models of color--I think it buys way too much into the construct of cheesecake beauty as tall, busty, blonde. Come on! There are tons of gorgeous women of all colors, races, body types--as open-minded as Hef is and as much as he claims Playboy to set the standard, you'd think he would push that a little more (they have had models of color, just not many).

Now on the other hand--personally, I find the man icky and a little sad. An 80-year-old man is just pathetic when he's surrounded by all those baby-blonde Stepford wives. (I'm not even going to touch why those women stay with him--why the HELL are you wasting your 20s on a man who has a harem? Most of the girlfriends don't actually pose for the magazine so they're certainly not getting much out of the arrangement other than room and board!) I mean, come on, man. No one believes you're actually sleeping with all of them, keeping them satisfied. A woman in her 20s is just coming into the period of her strongest sexual drive, and it only gets stronger as she moves into her 30s. An 80-year-old is just not up to the task. And there is something terribly sad about a 70-plus-year old man who settles down, gets married, has a couple of kids...and still can't hold it together enough, until his wife leaves him, and he goes back to that weird, trying-to-convince-everyone-what-a-blast-I'm having, Peter Pan existence. Underneath it all, Peter Pan was actually quite unhappy--the scene of him staring into the window, saying to Mrs. Darling "We can't both have her, ma'am." The weird thing is, I don't know how much of that is organic--I've read interviews with him, and he comes off as very intelligent and thoughtful. I question how much of a hedonist he truly is, or ever was.

All of that said, he must be doing something right as a father because his two young sons are ADORABLE. So endearing, and sweet--the younger one was saying shyly "I think I would just like to have one girlfriend...I think people are meant to be with one person" and kind of stumbling over it because this is apostasy in the Hefner household! His older daughter, Christie, is smart as a whip too, and is apparently President of the Company. Hefner is a little like Donald and Ivana Trump, who against all odds have three normal, hardworking, likeable, intelligent kids. Go figure!

Yesterday, I planned to enjoy my longish train ride home by sleeping for a couple of hours on the train, and then getting a beer and a hotdog from the cafe car and enjoying them at the seat. Unfortunately my plans were ruined by the ignorant crack whore mother across the aisle from me, who allowed her hyped-on-sugar shit children to scream, jump up and down on the seats and run up and down the aisles. The only thing I could hear were these shitty kids. God, I hate negligent parents. And after this I feel like I hate kids. Oh, except wait--I saw two other kids, who I didn't even realize were there until they came to their mother (who sat immediately next to me) and quietly asked her a question form time to time. They were reading. See, that's what normal, well-brought up kids do on long train rides. They occupy themselves by reading, or playing video games, or cards. Fucking trash parents. I hate people who can't behave.

The worst was when the mother ordered her shit kids to change the toddlers diaper--on the seat. Staph infections, anyone?

So, I came into town thoroughly exhausted and frustrated, and ended up sleeping way too late today. I woke up at three in the afternoon.

But. That's all behind me, and now I feel better. Mom and I are having a reveillon tonight after Midnight Mass--this is a French custom wherein you fast all day on Christmas Eve and then eat all sorts of delicacies after church. We have red champagne, pastries, Mom's yummy spice cake that she makes every Christmas [it's so good--it's so rich it doesn't need any frosting or anything, it uses like a dozen eggs, and lots of bubbon (Bourbon, for those non-Southerners)]. Lots and lots of yummy stuff.

I checked out tomorrow's TV schedule, and they're showing the Yule Log from 9-11. I'd never heard of this until last Christmas, but apparently on Christmas morning some TV stations in some areas (it's a New York tradition originally, I think) air footage of a log burning with Christmas music. How cute is that? And then at 11:00 they're showing my favorite version of A Christmas Carol, the one with George C. Scott. God, he's good in that role. He doesn't overmotivate any of it--he's just so damn grounded in his disgust with Christmas. I saw the Patrick Stewart version last weekend and didn't really like it for that reason.

And then I think I want to go see Peter Pan.