Sanity Assessment

Me Jane. Where Tarzan? I've been mood-swinging so extravagantly these past few weeks that I should be wearing a cheetah-fur bikini and sleeping in a hemp-rope hammock. I'm happy to report, however, that after careful charting I've noticed a pattern, and it's not spots or stripes- it's happy. I'm generally happy. How nice, after five years of thinking I was and not really being so. Life is so misleading.

Speaking of which, I saw an ad in Glamour today for some numbered anthology of Rod Stewart's greatest hits that totally made me go "wha...?!" (Grammar-Nazi authorized misuse of punctuation for artistic and expressive purposes.) I, poor unsuspecting viewer, was assaulted by several unappealing visual hints: there's a bare pair of shapely and distinctly female legs sticking out from behind Rod, who is pictured adjusting his tie like he's just put it back on, and one is lead to assume he must have just re-donned his icky 80's-inspired striped suit jacket, also. Adjusting that tie must be hard to do with the strap of a metallic silver pump with a four-inch heel hanging off his bony hand. Why doesn't he put it down? Not only that, but he's wearing such a complacent smirk on his face that some marketing genius's message is apparent: this guy could get any woman he wanted (again, wha?!) just by crooning some nostalgic American classics that Frank Sinatra nailed and rendered unimprovable decades ago. I really don't have anything against Rod Stewart, except that hearing him sing makes me want to clear my throat. (I also secretly enjoy the optimistic, laid-back tune of Rhythm of my Heart, even if I can't understand a word he's growling.) I just really didn't want to see an ad that connotates the guy just got done with whoever's daughter is lounging lewdly behind him. Frank may have been reputed a chauvenist jerk, but at least he had more class than to make an ad like that. (Upon closer inspection of the two previous anthology albums pictured in miniature below the feature, the observer finds that Rod's tie is untied and hangin' in both photos, and both also feature the ever-present smirk. Only on Volume II, he appears to be saluting, and it's more of a grimace. Okay, man. Whatever frosts your Lucky Charms.)

I don't mean to be so critical. It's just a nasty visual. You know, though, I could pick apart album covers all day. I'll get busy one of these days and stage my own imaginary album cover. Rest assured it would involve my truck and tons of secret messages, but nothing would be insinuated at all.