'In Treatment'

After reading the 50 kajillion articles about HBO's new series, "In Treatment," in the New York Times (seriously, do their editors ever talk to each other?) this weekend, I downloaded the whole set on iTunes. For free! Thanks, HBO. But why can't you say "fuck" on iTunes?

Anyway. The series follows a therapist, Paul, as he talks to his patients. There are five half-hour episodes — Monday through Thursday features Paul's patients, and Friday focuses on the doctor's own session with his psychiatrist.

It really is a train wreck of a show. So far there are no redeemable people, no one you would actually want to hang out with. Except for maybe Dr. Paul. There's Laura (Monday), a breathy twentysomething who is in love with Paul; Alex (Tuesday), a Navy pilot (a totally compelling Blair Underwood) who is dealing with his role in the Iraq war; Sophie, a gymnast.

My favorite is Jake and Amy. Amy went through five years of fertility treatments, but now that she's pregnant she wants an abortion. He's a schlubby ass. She's a rich liar in a white suit. She may be having an affair. He may be emotionally abusive. They are horrible, horrible people. I have no idea why I like watching them, other than that it makes me feel better about myself.

The little things are really what make this show. After Laura tells Paul she loves him, you can hear his unseen wife upstairs. She stares at him as he unconsciously twists his wedding ring on his finger. There are almost no opening credits, no big "Sopranos"-style theme song + montage. When I got done watching, I thought, wow. That was really well acted. And: Thank God I'm not a therapist.

Hug Me, Don't Eat Me

I went down to California last weekend for a pig killing.

For those of you who don't think you read that right: Every year, my family gets together with a few other Basque families to butcher the pigs we'll need for the next year. We make the traditional sausages — chorizo, mortzilla (that's blood sausage) — cure ham and and package up the salomo and pig's feet that will make its way into holiday dishes (or, in my mom's case, losing bets).

I could tell you about how much this means to me because it preserves tradition and is a rapidly dying art, or that there's value in seeing where that ham came from and how the animal suffered for you, but I know that the two readers of this blog aren't interested in that. So!

I hadn't been down to the pig killing — held every January for generations — for five whole years, due to assorted illnesses, bad weather, work schedule ... you know the drill. Since I was last down two very important people have died, a Portuguese family and a Japanese family have joined in, and now about 80 people show up to drink, watch the proceedings and eat like it's Thanksgiving all over again.

The morning starts out with spiked coffee and the husband-and-wife butchers, who dispatch the poor pigs and get them ready for the rest of us. And by the rest of us I mean the dads of the group. I spent most of the morning drinking, talking to my relatives and taking pictures. Eventually I thought that I should, you know, do something, so I went to help my mom separate intestines for sausage casings. That's really not as gross as it sounds. They're already clean and packed in salt in Denmark, bizarrely. Due they have some sort of intestine industry? Back in the day, cleaning the intestines was the job for the girl rookies. Imagine marrying into that.

After a totally awesome lunch (worth another post, really) of lamb everyone made the mortzillak. Blood sausage really isn't as bad as it sounds, but it's pretty great for freaking people out because it's made from the fresh blood and the offal from the pig. It tastes rich, but it isn't heavy or greasy. It tastes ... dark. If the darkest of dark chocolates could be reincarnated, it would show up as blood sausage.

Everyone breaks at dusk and eats the mortzillak, grabbing french bread and glasses of wine off of the bed of a truck pulled up to make a dinner counter. And then we drink some more. Too much, in my case. It took me three days to recover and all of my pictures from about 6 p.m. on are blurry.

The next day started out with the ancient grinder breaking down and an accidental stabbing after one of the men cutting up the hogs let his knife slip. He's fine after some stitches and staples, but the sheriff's office had to call (call!) to ask about the stabbing. "We're just butchering some hogs," the person who answered said. Apparently that's a good enough explanation in Stanislaus County. We weren't sure if we should be comforted or worried by that.

After mixing together the chorizo according to each family's specifications, everything gets packaged up. I wish I could have stayed for the big breakfast the next morning, when everyone tries out the chorizo, but no luck. I was on a plane back to Idaho by 6:30 a.m., nursing my hangover and thinking about next year.

One D at a Time

I'm kind of addicted to One D at a Time, Tracie "Slut Machine" Eagan's blog. (Slut Machine is her nom de plume, in case you aren't a reader of the completely fantastic and smart Jezebel.)

If I were a 28-year-old chick in with huge tits and a weed problem living in New York and getting over my porn star ex, I would aspire to have a blog 1/10th as awesome as hers. I'd settle for this blog being 1/250th as awesome as hers, to tell the truth. I talk a lot about how America needs to rise up against puritanical thinking and pass out condoms in school and keep abortion legal blah blah blah other good liberal things, but there is no way that I would ever have the balls to talk about the things she does and put my name on them.

A few recent subjects: Hooking up with an acquaintance at her own New Year's Eve party and not being able to finish the sentence because of imminent puking; interrupting Dr. Ruth at lunch and asking her about period sex; watching boys jack off on the Internet while using her Hitachi Magic Wand; putting pictures of her cleavage up in order to attract a date ... You get the picture.

It'll make you feel like an nun.

I'm a Man! I'm 40!

Our friend Nick recently turned 40, and to celebrate he embarked on a months-long journey to document the best songs of his lifetime — four for every year. No repeats of bands, either. The result is one of the greatest things I've ever seen, not only because it's such a rad idea, but because the collection came with, like, 24 pages of liner notes.

The liner notes elevate the two-disc set from just a fun set of songs to a work of art. Seriously. I don't know why more people don't do this. Probably because you have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of rock music and a memory like an elephant's. Luckily, Nick has both. A sample from the year 1987:

"Welcome to the Jungle (Guns N Roses): Arguably the most influential album of the 1980s and one that didn't have a weak song. I won a trip to see them in Dayton once and it was the infamous show where they played until 3:30 a.m. This disc was a party staple at our eipc Lakeview parties with Dan Michael, the Reckhemmer brothers and Teresa Saile. Wild Turkey was always served. That stuff is nasty. Those were fun days with those guys and Colleen Buggy and her friends. Colleen and I always said we were going to throw a 'Purim' party after we saw that holiday on a calendar. Never happened. Too bad."

The liner notes also list Nick's pick for best restaurants around the country, broken down by categories: cheap, steak, Italian, chicken wings ... And! There's a bonus disc with the honorable mentions and clips of Nick's many, many contest wins on a radio station in Ohio (where he was named the all-time contest winner and had his own commerical) and soundbites from Mike Gundy, who provided the inspiration for the title.

It would be the coolest if Nick would start a blog so that everyone could contribute their own lists, but, understandably, the guy's a little bit worn out.