My name is Karen and I’m an AMC Addict.  No, I’m not talking about movies from the 70s and 80s and advertising themed television shows with great vintage fashion and lots of cigarettes (although that could be another blog post once I get caught up on Mad Men).  I’m talking about the soon-to-be-off-the-air All My Children.  Never in my life did I ever think I would be hooked on a soap opera at the ripe old age of 44. 

It happened a few months ago.  I was browsing Hulu and saw that they had all the standard soaps available for on demand.  It not only proved to me once and for all that Hulu is just as good, if not better than that rip-off DishNetwork; it also peaked my interest in All My Children.  Since it was mid-May and all my other shows had ended for the season I decided to give the old soap a try.  I’d already heard it was going to be cancelled but I wasn’t sure when.  Besides, I figured I would be bored in a weeks time anyway. 

I booted up the most recent episode and was hooked by the first commercial break.  Not only that but I immediately felt some kind of weird kinship to the characters.  The show opened at the coffee shop/bar with Krystal and Tad right there.  Then came Bianca.  I shrieked her name out loud when I saw her.  “Is Bianca still a lesbian?” I asked no one in particular.  “Where’s Erica?”  (Causing Jerry to growl “Who are you talking to?” from the next room.)  I knew these people!  But how?  I had never watched the show before.  All My Children was such a part of our day to day culture that it was a household name even for people who didn’t watch the show. 

Erica Kane finally made her appearance looking a little too fabulous for her age.  I was fascinated by how preserved Susan Lucci appeared to be at what has to be age 65.  The poor woman must be half bionic and wax by now.  However it was the final scene of that first episode that sealed me to the show when it was revealed to me that the Erica Kane I had been seeing was actually an imposter and the real Erica was still kidnapped. 

After that I found myself watching every night.  It turned into a part of my day that needed to happen.  If I missed a day or two I began to get lonely to the characters.  I needed to see what was happening with the developing relationships of Kendall and Griffin and Kara and Tad.  I had to find out what fake Erica was doing to ruin real Erica’s life.  Suddenly the idea of living without these characters when the show ended in September concerned me.  I started to look around for another soap to watch but alas, General Hospital and Days of Our Lives can not take the place of All My Children. 

It was actually a good thing that I didn’t get attached to another soap anyway.  What little free time I had was now being dominated by All My Children.  I didn’t watch anything else.  I also wasn’t reading as much or keeping up with my blog.  All My Children was taking over my life so a few weeks ago I decided to wean myself off.  I still watch every episode but only on the weekends.  With only a week to go before the final episode and a bizarre storyline, including characters returning from the dead wearing chicken suits, reunions at Oakhaven Mental Hospital and Erica Kane walking over Susan Lucci’s star on Hollywood Boulevard, I think I’m now prepared to let the show go entirely. 

I know that All My Children has been licensed to Prospect Park which is planning to continue the show on the internet.  I may give it a try but I’m not optimistic.  I can’t see any of the major characters continuing with the show and don’t think I’d want to.  Besides, keeping up with a daily soap opera is hard work! 

A couple of years ago when the final Harry Potter book released, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I rushed out to get a copy (which I found at Fry’s Electronics oddly enough).  After three days of solid reading, including an all night bender to get through the final 300 pages I was thoroughly satisfied with the ending. For days I basked in the afterglow of destroyed horcruxes, wand lore and the truth, which I suspected all along, that Snape was not such a bad guy.  In the midst of all theses things I also had a revelation about the writing process.  It was something I never really took to heart even though people had been saying as much all along: writing means writing a lot.  

Based on what I’ve read about J.K. Rowling, she had all seven books plotted out before she started them.  The further you read into the Harry Potter books the more you realize how deep the story is.  Each side story and character is essential to the grand plot with all loose ends tied together securely in the end.  It took years of writing to bring everything all together and not just what we see in the books.  I like to think that J.K. Rowling has mountains of notebooks filled with stories and material we may never see, like the fully story of Neville’s parents, more on Dumbledore’s early years, details about spells and potions and maybe, if we really care but probably do not, what ever happened to the Dursleys. 

Rowling has launched a website, Pottermore, which is supposed to be a whole new way to experience the Harry Potter stories and it’s likely we may get a glimpse of the extra details she likely had to write in order to bring us the books.  Regardless the message to me is still the same: write and write and write some more and then pick out the cream to make butter. 

Case in point: I wrote a whole other blog post on a completely different book before I came up with this one.  It was when I realized I got that really good dairy reference I finally knew I had the right thing to say. 

(by Bunnybunns Cedar Jones CC BY-NC 2.0)

I’m struggling to come up with an appropriate adjective that will sufficiently describe the feeling I had today when I bit into a delicious piece of creamy smoked gouda.  For now suffice it to say that it was a very intimate moment with me and my cheese. 

Let’s address the elephant in the room shall we?  You may not know what I’m talking about but I do.  The thing I could definitely live without (but probably won’t) is alcohol.  I drink more than I should.  And I depend on it more than I should.  A quick review of my recent Twitter pictures says it all: 

So the other day my friend Dave made an official page on Facebook for the Lady Jessop.  You can find it here.  Like it?  Don’t mind if you do!  In the meantime I’m trying to figure out how to get one of those fancy-assed Facebook fan boxes on the side.  Facebook has the HTML code and WordPress has a widget, neither of which works for me which I am still trying to figure out.  If the next time you come to ladyjessop.com and you see this now you’ll know why: 

Mrs. B and I are always engaged in some form of battle of wills.  Unfortunately the most recent one escalated to heights I never imagined. 

It started a few weeks ago when I fed her Top Kat, cheap food from the 99 Cents Only Store.  I told Jerry it was a mistake but Mrs. B showed me up by going straight to the food when Jerry poured some into her bowl.  They were both pretty smug about it. 

A few days later I noticed that the food begging increased.  First it got earlier in the day and then gradually increased.  Even after her nightly ration of wet food Mrs. B was not happy, evidenced by her extreme neediness and inability to make a decision.  She wanted to go out…she wanted to come back in…she wanted to stare at the window…she wanted to sit on my lap.  

One morning I finally realized that the Top Kat was the problem.  The bowl was always full because Mrs. B rarely touched the stuff. 

“Ah ha! I told you!” I finally got to say to Jerry.  However by this time my cheap nature kicked in as well.  No way was I going to let this cat force me to toss a cheap bag of food.  Instead I mixed in some Friskies for a Friskies/Top Cat mix.  “She’ll never know the difference.” I bragged. 

It worked for like a day.  Then I started noticing pieces of dry food scattered outside Mrs. B’s dish.  That bitch was picking out the Friskies and spitting out the Top Kat! 

I persisted and refused to cave.  The begging became constant and more intense.  Sometimes she even pulled out claws.  I retaliated by pulling out the vacuum but Mrs. B ultimately prevailed with her own V-class weapon: vomit. 

She waited for a calm Saturday morning while I was innocently curled up on the couch with my coffee and a book.  Mrs. B wandered into the room and as I listened to her crunching her food I smiled triumphantly, not yet knowing that her attack was about to begin.  She regally marched to the middle of the floor and calmly licked her paws and cleaned her face.  Then, as I was reaching for a sip of coffee, she crouched over and puked on the floor.  She then jumped up on the couch and puked again.  At my feet. 

Horrified, I realized I was a victim of a real life revenge puke.  I was defeated. 

Although we was immediately kicked outside, Mrs. B was ultimately the victor in our battle.  An hour later when she came back in all traces of the the Top Kat were removed from her bowl and I promised to never make her eat it again. 

Never mess with a cat’s Class-V weapon. 

By dyobmit  (CC BY 2.0)

While I believe it may be a toss up between coffee and booze, I think I have to go with coffee.  Don’t get me wrong, giving up booze would be hard as hell.  Unfortunately giving up coffee would be harder.  I know this because I’ve tried it. 

Giving up booze would basically entail making behavioral changes like ordering a diet coke instead of a cocktail when I’m out or relaxing in the evening with a cup of tea instead of wine.  I’ve tried all this before and as long as I’m mentally motivated it’s not too hard.  Giving up coffee would mean more than behavioral changes like waking up each morning with a cup of decaf or tea.  Giving up coffee would also mean dealing with a headache. 

Even though I know the caffeine withdrawal headache is only supposed to last for a few days I am not willing to put up with that simply to live without coffee.  I’ve tried it before.  Tylenol will only get you so far.  Eventually the caffeine headache wins out and I give in because I absolutely can not tolerate a headache. 

Luckily my caffeine addiction is not that bad.  I do not drink diet Coke or other caffeinated soft drinks and I rarely drink more than a cup or two of coffee per date.  I’m not into all those fancy-ass coffee drinks either.  I like a plain cup of brewed coffee with milk and no sugar.  Considering childhood I think this is a feat in an of itself.  When I was a kid my dad used to lower a newly opened coffee can down for me and my brothers to smell. Delicious!  My grandmother used to pour a tablespoon of hot coffee in our milk so we could have a taste. 

I was raised to be a coffee drinker and I’ll never give it up. 

I discovered Maureen Johnson a few months ago when she live tweeted the “rapture” on May 21.  If you read nothing else by this brilliant author read that.  (But good luck finding it.  There has got to be some tool on the internet that will collect and categorize past tweets but I have yet to find it.)   If you want more and you are a fan of teen lit, I would suggest her second novel, The Bermudez Triangle. 

The Bermudez Triangle is the story of three friends, Mel, Nina and Avery.  It takes place in upstate New York, the summer before their senior year.  While Nina, the smart one, goes away to a special college program for smart kids at Stanford University, Mel and Avery hook up.  Yes, Mel and Avery are girls.  Yes the story is about young lesbian love.  No, it’s not graphic. 

What happens when two teenaged girls hook up?  Pretty much the same thing that happens with a teenaged boy and girl hook up.  They become inseparable and make out a lot.  The challenge for Mel and Avery is that they keep their relationship a secret from almost everyone, including Nina who only finds out after she catches them kissing in the dressing room of J. Crew. 

While Nina is somewhat shaken by this discovery about her two best friends she takes it a lot better than I would have at 17.  Her character lends her as the stabilizing force for the three friends as the story progresses.  She is also the subject of my favorite line in the book:

She tried to strike a balance between party wear and casual, but she’d ended up dressing like a paralegal.”

The Bermudez Triangle is a great book that I would recommend to anyone is a fan of teen lit.  If you know a gay teen who wants to look like a paralegal, even better. 

Have you ever read Simple Abundance?  It is a lifestyle book, directed at women and seriously?  It can be life changing.  I read it about 15 years ago when it first came out.  Since it was a gift from my mother I assumed the book would be terribly preachy so I avoided it at first and gave it a home in the bathroom.  The one page chapters, one assigned for each day of the year seemed perfect for bathroom reading and one day I finally picked it up. 

I still remember the day.  It was October 9th, and the title of the chapter was “Coping with Stress.”  It was 15 days before my dreaded 30th birthday and several months after I had ended a five year relationship.  I was a giant ball of anxiety (thus the constipation) and totally needed to read that chapter. 

From that day on I was sold.  I moved the book from the bathroom to my living room and read a chapter every morning while drinking my coffee.   I learned about the six principles of Simple Abundance: gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty and joy.  I learned how to weave these principles into my daily life and as promised I became a happier person.  It was a turning point.  And the author of the book, Sarah Ban Breathnach became my imaginary best friend. 

Sarah got me to start a gratitude journal where I listed five things I was grateful for each day.  She taught me that focusing on what was lacking in my life would get me nowhere.  I had to accept my life circumstances, which at the time was a depressed single woman who lived alone in a crappy apartment in Hayward, and appreciate the fact that things could have been a lot worse.  She helped me experience joy in everyday activities like the first sip of coffee in the morning, walking to the Bart station and depositing my paycheck.  She helped me feel grateful for my friends and family.  Suddenly being single didn’t seem all that bad.  And the crappy apartment…well at least it was close to Bart and the rent was cheap.  And once the crack house across the street got fixed up by the new owner the neighborhood wasn’t nearly as scary as before. 

I loved Sarah and I loved the book she wrote.  I was thrilled when I found out she wrote another book until I saw the title.  Sarah’s next book was called Something More.  I was confused as hell.  Something More?  How could she?  What happened to being grateful for what you had?  What happened to accepting your circumstances? 

My instincts where correct.  Something More was not a very good book.  It seemed to be written by someone who was suddenly very unsatisfied with their life.  What was that all about?  I didn’t even finish it.  I was so disappointed.  Sarah wrote subsequent books, all of which were equally disappointing and according to the Amazon reviews not just to me.  She also started a website.  A website you had to pay $75 a year to see!  What best-selling author makes her readers pay to join her website?  My hero, Sarah Ban Breathnach let me down. 

A few years later I picked up another one of Sarah’s books.  This one was a memoir called Moving On.  In it Sarah confessed that after the windfall success of Simple Abundance her marriage failed, she became quite the spendthrift and much of the money she made selling her books was gone.  In reading Moving On, I got the feeling that Sarah became a little too focused on the Simple Abundance principle of beauty and threw the remaining five out the window.  It was understandable I suppose.  Even though it may be a secret fantasy for many of us, being an overnight success with instant piles of money is probably not the easiest thing in the world to deal with.  One minute you are a typical working mom and the next day people are recognizing you in the grocery store and Oprah is telling the world to read your books. 

Having a hero let you down can be a good thing.  It helps remind us that we are all human, even our heroes.  I may have given up on Sarah as my imaginary BFF but I still haven’t given up on her original book.  The wisdom in Simple Abundance is still as powerful as ever and I still read it 15 years later and also recommend it to anyone I can. 

So if you haven’t yet read Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach, I highly recommend you do!  Just don’t get attached to the author. 

I am from a dial phone that hung on the kitchen wall and television with only four channels, from Gee You Hair Smells Terrific, Dittos and a 1967 white Volkswagen square-back. 

I am from fake vinyl paneling in every single room, green shag carpet and knick-knacks, swamp coolers and an antique grandfather clock, where the quarry sounds of dump trucks carried through open windows on warm summer nights and it didn’t feel like Saturday unless the garage door was open and the hood of a car was up. 

I am from hummingbirds drinking sugar water from the feeder outside Grandma’s kitchen window, Eucalyptus trees that lose branches on the neighbors lawn in rainstorms and brothers who are obsessed with catching lizards. 

I am from crawling into bed with Grandma and Grandpa, bacon and eggs on Saturday morning and getting to choose dinner on your birthday.  I am from talking loud and blue eyes, from Butch, Hetty and Harl, Bob and Mary and Fritzie. 

I am from the table where every single person orders blue cheese dressing on their salad.  I am from a strong work ethic, drinking to relieve the strong work ethic and anxiety attacks. 

From don’t do a half-assed job, be kind to one another, go to your room and I love you.

I am from the Catholic church where going to confession is rewarded with chocolate dipped cones from Dairy Queen, the blessed mother is the most women will get and no birth control…seriously? 

I’m from California, New York and Switzerland, from steak and tater tots, blueberry pancakes, stollen and coffee-milk. 

From making spaghetti sauce handprints on newly painted white walls with my best friend Lisa, from Harlan and John setting a field on fire, from Dad putting water on the slide and Mom’s reading at church about the Severe Salmon.  

I am from photo albums carefully preserved by Grandma and Mom, Franciscan Apple china in an antique breakfront, Grandpa’s chiming ship’s clock which really must be fixed and Grandma Teetsel’s wedding ring which now resides and will stay on my left hand. 

Thank you Adam Avitable for the idea and the prompt!