I guess I should watch Million Dollar Baby...?

I brought a merlot to the Oscar party I went to, a party at which almost everyone LOVED Sideways. Oh, the HORROR.* They were all very nice but we clearly had very different taste in movies.**

I did not bring a merlot to the "baby's first birthday" party I went to this afternoon. I brought baby clothes, though, which are just so much fun to buy, and I got to see folks I haven't seen in a while, and I got to hold the newest Baby CHM member for almost an hour.

As a result, my arm hurts. But it's a good hurt.

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* For the record, I prefer merlot over pinot noir - I like to TASTE my wine.

** Not the least of which was Donnie Darko. When Jake Gyllenhaal was presenting, someone made a comment about not seeing that movie and another person's immediate reply was "DON'T bother." And then the others around him indicated their distaste for the movie. Having just watched the extended version and the director's commentary, I have a new appreciation for the film. (And I also think I finally understand what the hell it's about. But that was an incidental side effect.)

Well you know that it's going to be alright...

I think it's gonna be alright... Everything will always be alright... When we go shopping.

I had a High Fidelity moment today at the music store. I was buying some used oldies but goodies (Police, Pretenders, Elvis Costello, Psychedelic Furs) and the guy at the counter nodded approvingly at my selections. Leaning in so that his boss wouldn't overhear, he said (almost sadly), "Good choices. I sell a lot of crap every day."

I'm sure you do. And that's why I buy my crap online. And why I rent my crap online. I can't bear to face the cashier when I go to the counter with Avril Levigne or Mona Lisa Smile.

And why, dear lord but WHY, did I have to go to SAFEWAY to purchase tahini because Trader Joe's DIDN'T HAVE IT???? That is just soooooo wrong.

It's always lalalalala...

The waiting is the hardest part.

My parents' next-door-neighbor died yesterday (the 80 year old who would've come to the protest with me if it wasn't so freakin' cold). The cause is still TBD, but he was totally fine when I saw him a month ago so I imagine it was sudden and unexpected.

Call your parents, friends, family. Tell them you love them.

It's not uncommon for me to hear of deaths in threes, and celebritites don't usually fall under this umbrella - it's usually someone, or someone related to someone, whom I have a personal connection with. Not to be all dramatic, but... so now, I wait.

So happy together. Alone. Whatever. God bless America!!

Tonight I looked at Luna and had the strangest sensation that we were meant to be together for the long haul - and meant to do so without her comical brother (may he rest in peace) Riley. It was an intensely weird, but comforting, feeling. I blame another few episodes of Six Feet Under for this revelation. In related Luna news, can I just say how happy I am that she likes her new water fountain. Forty dollars well spent, although to my dismay it hasn't entirely kept her out of the kitchen sink. Old habits die hard... Yeah, don't I know it.

In other news... This was disturbing, and this was even more disturbing but on an entirely different level.*

The former does not surprise me all that much, though I would expect it to have happened in a small rural high school in, oh, I don't know, Arkansas, rather than New Jersey. WWKSD? (I'm betting there would be ninjas involved.)

The latter just makes me laugh maniacally. Anyone who views/categorizes/etc me based on the status of my relationships (or lack thereof), who is not a relative whose unofficial chore it is to do so, is hereby immediately disqualified from passing any judgement whatsoever. To those people: I laugh in your general direction. And anyone who thinks that divorced men are more mature than never-married men, well, you have obviously never met my ex-boyfriend.

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* So yes, I do take requests for things to banter about. I do not guarantee any level of quality on the bantering. But bring it on.

Prayers for rain.

Please please please let it rain, so that I don't feel guilty spending the last day of my three-day weekend inside watching the director's cut of Donnie Darko immediately followed by the same movie with commentary by the film's director and (the random choice of) director Kevin Smith turned on.

Kevin Smith, who I saw speak the other day, after Joss Whedon and friends spoke. Live and in person I got to hear Smith's rendition of how he would've redone Passion of the Christ (suffice it to say that there were ninjas involved), see a preview of Whedon's Serenity (woohoo!) and stare at Nathan Fillion for an hour. Who knew comic book conventions could be so fun?

De-lovely.

I don't use the word "lovely" too often, and when I do it's usually in a mocking or sarcastic way. But yesterday I saw what I thought were two lovely things.

One was Finding Neverland. I really can't think of another word to describe that film. The other was at the Dark Star Orchestra show. There was a dreadlocked couple dancing, and the dancing evolved into tantric gyrations, and just when I was certain they were going to rip each others' clothes off they suddenly stopped, put their hands over the other's heart, touched foreheads and started swaying back and forth slowly. It was really... well, lovely.

And then, not so lovely, is this. Goodbye, sir.

The magical world of chemistry.

Today for lunch I had Indian food, and I was craving something sweet afterward. I ran across the box of Harry Potter jellybeans I'd gotten from a friend at Christmas and decided that would do the trick.

Mind you, I have not read the books, seen the movies or kept up with any fanfare about Harry Potter. I also hadn't examined the packaging very closely at all. I figured that "jellybeans" was really all I needed to know.

Fortunately for me, I first offered them to someone else. "You really want to eat Harry Potter jellybeans?" she (who HAS read the books and HAS seen the movies) asked incredulously. I shrugged as if to say, why not? Turning the box over, she read off some of the flavors: "Earthworm? Grass? Dirt??"

I honestly thought they were kidding.

LET THE RECORD SHOW that she was the first to try a dirt-flavored jellybean. But her disgust at how real it tasted intrigued me, so I popped one in my mouth. Peat moss. If I ever eat peat moss, that is what it will taste like. I was a bit fascinated so I tried an earthworm, just for fun. It was gross, but not "cut your tongue off" gross or anything, and I imagine that if I ever eat an earthworm, that's what it will taste like. We spilled the box's contents and reviewed the rest of the options, and she watched me as if I were nuts as I made some wise choices in what I tried next. Spinach - wasn't bad, sure, I kind of felt like I was eating spinach. (Couldn't tell till the second one if it actually was spinach - or green apple - or grass. But it was definitely spinach.) Spaghetti actually tasted like spaghetti. However, I drew the line somewhere and ear wax, soap, black pepper, boogers and vomit all went in the "NO WAY JOSE" pile.

Yes, VOMIT. LET THE RECORD ALSO SHOW that the vomit jellybeans look an awful lot like the spaghetti jellybeans. And just as the spaghetti jellybeans tasted like spaghetti, the vomit jellybeans actually TASTED LIKE VOMIT. After running screaming from the room in search of a napkin before I actually did vomit, I quickly downed some grass flavored jellybeans - hey, it works for pets, maybe it would work for me. But, alas, I spent the rest of the day suffering a bad stomach ache.

Ye be warned.

In other "dumb things I did today" news, my workout buddy was running late this morning so I started without her. This is only the second time I've done the circuit weight lifting thingie, and the first time she led the way and handled all the weight adjustments. I remembered that we started with the lowest level so I put the pin in the first slot on the first machine and started lifting. DEAR GOD but it was hard. Much harder than Tuesday. By the second machine I was whipped, but I attributed it to still being sore from Tuesday and pressed on. But at the triceps machine (#4) I simply could not budge the weight no matter how hard I tried. This is when she arrived and upon starting the first machine, asked, "did you increase the weights?" That's when I learned that Tuesday we'd been operating sans-pin-in-slot - so at about 20lbs rather than 35. Things suddenly got a lot easier...

Couch potato addicts, unite.

Another guilty pleasure that is far less demonizing than my Justified obsession, is that I am totally hooked on TLC. When I got cable again after not having it for several years, I swore to myself that I would not get caught up in the Trading Spaces mania. Swore it. SWORE IT.

Yeah, well... As with any addiction, Trading Spaces led to While You Were Out (I so want to marry Evan), which led to Clean Sweep (I so want to marry Eric), In a Fix (I so want to marry Justin), and most recently Town Haul (I so want to marry... okay, I don't really want to marry anyone on that show, but I like watching it)... And then it spilled over to other channels where I find myself gravitating toward shows like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Orange County Choppers.

The good news is that despite what you might think, the name of the channel isn't a lie. I have actually Learned a lot from The Channel about home decorating, construction, and how much the thrift stores in my area suck big time (where do they find all that marvelous STUFF?!).

I'm also addicted to the Food Network, and want to marry several people on that channel as well, but that's a story for another day.

Oregon gone wild!

Wild, in the "oh my frigging god are you kidding me are they really that nuts?!?!" sense of the word. I am so glad I'm not the only one freaked out about this concept.

Updates du jour.

It's been a while since I wrote about anything relevant to my life. That's because nothing interesting has happened to me lately.

Well, that's not entirely true, but - not to be all mysterious about things but - I'll save that for another day. Perhaps Friday...

(Build suspense - CHECK! Or if I were to do it the Dan Brown* way, "She knew there was something important to share. Something that could be considered slightly monumental, in fact. But she didn't want to share it - JUST YET." No, it's not about a boy so don't ask. And no, Luna hasn't suddenly developed laryngitis, so don't ask - that's just my everyday wishful thinking talking.)

In other news... The giving-up-swearing-for-Lent thing lasted a whopping 40 hours, approximately. I suppose it's not great that it is so natural for me to utter obscenities where others might quietly say, "Rats!" Hey - I've come to terms with it. Why don't you?!? Sheesh!!!

My apartment smells like stale cigarette smoke, because the wool coat I took home last month and kept in my ex-smoker-parents'-house-that-still-smells-like-smoke-despite-the-fact- that-they-haven't-smoked-for-2-years-now, which didn't smell like smoke until yesterday when I wore it for 2 hours, got wet and the scent, nay, ODOR, is now permeating throughout every room. Even though I took it to the cleaners earlier today. It also wriggled its way into my hair yesterday and despite two shampoos, I swear I still smell it. BLEAH.

And finally, will the Culkin brothers ever make a normal movie again? Not that I have issues with the ones they've made recently. Not at all, in fact. Mean Creek was as disturbingly good as I expected it to be.

And that's about it. OH! Except YAY for the director's cut release of Donnie Darko. The next day I don't have a meeting after work (read=August 2007, at this point) I am SOOOOO going to Best Buy to purchase it. I love how everyone thinks it's going to make sense with the extended footage. I hope it doesn't make any more sense than it did before... That's what I liked about it.

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* I liked The Da Vinci Code, as an easy read which raised some interesting questions, but his method of building suspense got old, and on my nerves, REALLY fast.

Cry me a river... of self-induced ridicule.

So I know that some of you out there, like me, enjoy a good Justin Timberlake song every now and then. (Uh... it's not just me, right? I'm not the only one who's been Justified, right?) In light of that, here are a few other guilty pleasures I publicly confess to. Just because I feel like telling you, that's why.

5. Riding in my friend's BMW Z4 convertible. Under normal circumstances I would make a rather large fuss about someone spending so much on a car when there are so many other worthy causes in the world... But, man, those butt-warmer seats in 50 degree weather, while the top is down, and the stereo is loud, are soooooo cool.
4. The new Kelly Clarkson song. I sing it out loud in the car.
3. Southern accents. Minus the conservative attitude that usually come along with southern accents, that southern drawl really gets to me. Matthew McConaughey, you can call me anytime.
2. Manicures. I'm so not a girlie girl but I love me a good manicure.
1. MTV's Made. Because really, there's nothing like seeing the underdog come out on top after being coached by a bunch of professional attitude adjusters/dancers/personal trainers/designers/etc., and also being given a lot of money and the popularity that comes along with being followed around by cameras at school.

End of shameless self-humiliation for one night.

And I said, "what about Breakfast at Tiffany's"...

It's because of this song, which was dubbed "awesomely bad" in one of the many VH1 countdown shows, that I wanted to watch the movie in the first place.

First of all, I do not think the song ranks in the top 100 awesomely bad songs ever. I can think of many more awesomely bad songs than this one.

Secondly, I loved the movie.

No habla espanol.

This perfectly harmless guy was standing outside my apartment building holding new phone books when I happened to come into the lobby through the garage entrance. I have been warned repeatedly through stern signs placed throughout the building, not to let anyone in unless they are coming to see ME SPECIFICALLY, so I opened the door and waited while he put the phone books down. He counted the rest of the mailboxes and appeared to be about to prop the lobby door open to go get more phone books (from somewhere which wasn't right outside). "No, sorry, you can't prop the door open, but I'll wait here for you." Alas, he didn't speak English.

As I stood there trying various ways of explaining and gesturing that I would wait there while he went to get the rest of the phone books, all to no avail, I cursed the 8-week intro to Spanish course I took through a community-sponsored class. I couldn't even remember how to say "door" or "open," and I know we learned those. All I could remember was "mira la cerveza," which isn't really helpful in 99.99999% of situations.

But if given that 0.00001% chance, I'm ready.

Bring out your dead.

I have recently been enjoying the first season of Six Feet Under, the funeral-home version of Northern Exposure which I haven't seen since, oh, about the first season. (Me and my bright idea to move out of the apartment that had free HBO.) There's really nothing to not like about this show. Other than the fact that it was on HBO so I couldn't watch it for three years. And that it's cancelled now.

I've also seen some random things lately, such as two extreme versions of boys coming of age in Roger Dodger and My Life as a Dog. (Liked both a lot for very different reasons.)

Yeah, I'm liking the Netflix. I definitely watch way less TV than I used to, which is a great thing. However, I'm still a total couch potato, which is not such a great thing. But right now I'm okay with that.

Day two, no sins committed!

Assuming, of course, that "JESUS CHRIST!!!!" uttered at a very loud decible several times today doesn't count as swearing.

It does, doesn't it.

I am SOOOOOO going to hell. At least it's not just because of this.

40 days and 40 nights.

I was talking with someone today about Lent, and how I was glad I wasn’t religious because that way I didn’t have to subscribe to the annual denial-of-self that Lent brings about. But she presented it in a way that was a challenge to self, rather than for religious gain, and that caused me to rethink the whole concept. After all, New Years resolutions don’t really amount to much; the last time I really challenged myself was when I applied for grad school eons ago; and I liked the idea of challenging myself (especially since I haven’t taken an academic or non-academic class in forever). So I pondered.

The normal female desires like chocolate and ice cream just don’t do it for me on an average day, so they were out. I thought about trying to give up pizza (my all time favorite food), but I haven’t eaten pizza much lately and when I do, it’s because I am in serious need of comfort food, and who am I to deny my body of what it needs in that situation? And then I had an amusing thought, which went a little something like this:

“I should try to give up swearing. I do it way too much now, especially at work where it is SO not appropriate. Yeah, I should try that.” [… pause for consideration…] “FUCK that.”

That was my honest to goodness train of thought. But then, after laughing at myself, I reconsidered. I’ve wanted to do it for a while now, and it could be an interesting experiment. How hard could it be? Would I seek out other ways of expressing myself, e.g. with “rubbish” or “cable-ten” or “jabroney”?

Time will tell. Forty days, to be exact.* But I have five hours till Lent, so fuck fuckity shit fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.

Now accepting suggestions for alternate "appropriate in workplace settings" outbursts.

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* Exceptions include “damn” and “hell” which are in the Bible, so they're okay, right? Also I’m pretty sure I’ve heard Ned and/or the Flanders boys utter those words once or twice so I should be okay, right? And “biatch [beeeee-yatch]” because that doesn’t count either, right? If I guarantee I will never utter “hella” out loud, “biatch” is okay, right??

"How long it will take till I get retired."

Today I got a letter from our HR folks which began, "As you get closer to retirement..." Having just turned the big 3-0, I am nowhere near retirement, so just for kicks I did a little googling to see how much longer I had to work.

Working 8 hrs a day, 5 days a week until I'm 65 leaves me with 72,896 hours of employed life. That's over 9,000 days.

Holy hell.

Two jokes and an observation.

Two jokes, courtesy of my aunt...

1. President Bush, the First Lady and Dick Cheney are flying on Air Force One. George looks at Laura, chuckles and says, "You know, I could throw a$1,000.00 bill out the window right now and make somebody very happy." Laura shrugs her shoulders and says, "Well, I could throw ten $100.00 bills out the window and make 10 people very happy." Cheney says, "Of course then, I could throw 100 $10.00 bills out the window and make a hundred people very happy." The pilot rolls his eyes, looks at all of them and says to his co-pilot, "Such big shots back there..... hell, I could throw all of them out the window and make 56 million people very happy."

2. February 2nd was Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address. It is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a hideous little creature of marginal intelligence for prognostication. The other involves a groundhog.

And an observation...
Almost every time I walk to another building's cafeteria for my fix of their "$3 for all the salad you can shove into a small-but-sizeable container" lunch, I walk past an elderly man. He appears to be homeless (I can't be 100% certain - I often see him rummaging through trash cans, but the two aren't mutually exclusive these days). I have never, ever seen or heard him ask for money or other handouts. Instead, he greets every person who walks past him with a "hello, dear" or "good morning" or other pleasantry and leaves it at that.

Today I am having a particularly BLAH day, and after sitting through a particularly BLAH meeting, I went over to get lunch. On the way back from the cafeteria I walked past that elderly man, and he smiled and said "hello, dear" as he usually does.

(OK, so at last here's the observation - hope you're not expecting anything revolutionary, though.) It's really amazing how a perfect stranger can do something random and lift you up, even if for just a few moments.

Go Eagles!!

Yeah, they're gonna lose (horribly, I'm predicting). And yeah, I don't really care about the Superbowl. And yeah, I find it atrocious that corporations spend billions of dollars to advertise tons of crap we don't need during said Superbowl.* And yeah, I'd much rather watch college football than professional football because college kids actually give a shit about teamwork and integrity.

But if the implications of the big game are that I can leave the documentation updating work I'm very bitter about having to do today, and instead go drink some beer and think about something else for a few hours, then I'm all for it.

Go Eagles!! Make it a true underdog story today.

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* And yeah, blatant erectile dysfunction ads are way more offensive to me than seeing someone's boob. But that's another rant.

An analogy. Sort of.

I did promise not to go all Jon Carroll on you. But after spending another evening with my friends and (more importantly, because who visits them to see THEM anymore, haha) their new baby, I saw some definite notable similarities between the baby and Luna:

- Both stare at, and often talk to, the ceiling like there is something there - which inevitably causes one to wonder if there really IS something there.
- Both need constant attention.
- Both cry for attention when they are not receiving it.
- Even when they are receiving constant attention, both like to whine and squirm like they don't actually want the attention.
- Rubbing their tummies to quiet them only works for about two seconds.
- Picking them up and doing the "rock the baby" dance to quiet them only works for about five seconds.
- The only way to truly calm them down is to give them something to eat.

I guess the real difference right now is that one day the baby will progress out of the constantly needy stage whereas Luna will continue to act like a two year old for the rest of her life.

Oh yeah, and the baby doesn't cough up hairballs or eat the tails off of fuzzy mice. And Luna's food comes from a bag (and once in a while, from a can), and thank GOD for that.

Serenity now!!

The other day I asked someone who's been having a particularly difficult time lately, how he was doing. He simply replied, "Serenity now, serenity now, SERENITY NOW!!"

Made me laugh.