I Like The Shiny Ones

As the year draws to a close, I pause to reflect on a gift that kept on giving: my Shoe-A-Day desk calendar. When I was presented with the calendar on Christmas morning 2007, I thought, What a strange gift. I like fun shoes, but a page-a-day calendar? An interesting choice, but will it catch on?

Did it ever! The calendar is a HIT in my office! The facility manager (a burly, hooded sweatshirt-wearing, shovels-show-while-he-smokes kind of guy) comes in almost every morning to see the new day's shoe. Some days are mundane - just how many strappy black sandals does one calendar need? - while others are just ridiculous - lace-up spring-bottomed moon shoes? Really? But no matter the shoe, be it lovely or loony, a conversation was always started, and I grew a little closer to my office mates and learned something about fashion, too.

Next up: the 2009 purse-a-day calendar. I can't wait!

shoe-a-day - A

So... What's New?

I love Facebook.  I really do.  I have over 400 Facebook friends - some of whom I see every day, and some of whom I haven't spoken to in over ten years.  It's fun.  I find it's an easy way to stay "connected" to people that you may just want to say hi to every now then; on the flip side, it's also easy to send messages to your co-workers in the next room if your boss can access your email.  Not that I do that.  My boss is one of my Facebook friends.

But I digress.  The thing I DON'T like about Facebook is the question "so what's new?"  When someone asks me what's new, I want to tell them the NEWEST thing I can.  For example: what's new with me?  Well, the theater where I work is going to show The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which is cool, and I got a Christmas box from my dad yesterday, which is awesome, and I really need a pedicure.  That's what's "new" with me.  But someone you haven't talked to in over ten years doesn't want to hear about your janky toenails... but I can't in good conscience start the "what's new" answer with "Well, I graduated from college."  Because that would be answering "what's old?"

Facebook - A-

"What's new?" - C-

Christmasy Things

I've wrapped the presents, decorated the tree, addresses the cards (they're going out later today)... and later this week, the gay carolers will be at work!  Yay!  Let the holidays begin!

happy cartoon lesbian carolers, especially the one with the stereotypical haircut - A

Cannonball Read

When is a resolution not a resolution?

When it's a challenge.

I have decided to participate in Cannonball Read in 2009.  The objective: read 100 books in one year (you can read more about it here).  That's about two books a week, and there are rules: No books smaller than 200 pages.  Short story collections only count if they are at least 6 stories long.  No graphic novels.  And I'm adding my own rule: if I've only read it ONCE, it's fair game (I'm talking to you, The Glass Castle and Water for Elephants).  

I'm a little scared.  This will probably drastically cut into my TV time.  But I'm up for it.  I will come out of it smarter, maybe, with tired eyes, for sure, and hopefully with some new-found inspiration for blog posts.

In the meantime, please send your book suggestions!

Cannonball Read - incomplete, but I'm thinking it's going to be an A+

The End of an Era.

My cleavage and I were the maids of honor in a wedding this weekend.  And it was great.  Being part of a wedding party is not just an honor, it's a hell of a good time.  And you get a present!  I love my new necklace.  It's tremendous.

Here's the crazy thing about this wedding I was just in: it's the last one for a while.  I've been to 51 weddings in the last 12 years, and have been a bridesmaid 6 times.  But I'm entering a dry spell.  I think that, on the outside, I will only attend four more weddings in the next ten years.  And that includes the weddings of two people who don't even have significant others at this time.  Which means that, to enter another period of fruitful wedding attendance, I'm either going to need to befriend a bunch of 22-year-olds, or wait until my friend's CHILDREN get married.  But that'll be a long wait.  The oldest child of people-whose-wedding-I-attended is nine.

wedding dry spell - C-

More About Books

Meme meme meme meme meme. I never do these. But this one's cool. And sort of embarrassing - for someone who claims to be an "avid reader," I have a LOT of books on this list that I haven't read.

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. As usual, bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi*
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha*
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West*
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian*
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay*
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time*
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots, and Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northhanger Abbey
The Catcher In the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakanomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence: An Inquiry Into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

How about you?

shameful book list - B-

The Most Anticipatated Book EVER!

My all-time most favorite book ever is The Eight by Katherine Neville. Well, guess what - there's a SEQUEL. Coming out next Tuesday! I am so excited!

Combos

I am not pregnant. However, based on my purchases at the grocery store today, you might think I was. Consider:
sauerkraut
ice cream

When I was a little girl, I used to like to eat pickles and chocolate cake together as a snack. I like pickles, and I like cake, so what could be better than having them on the same plate and taking a bite of one and then a bite of another? Nothing, I say.

Do you have fun food combos you'd like to share with the group?

sauerkraut - A
ice cream - A
combined - I'm giving this one a D - I don't think they should be ingested simultaneously

More About Sarah Palin

Do you see it?

my new career as an impersonator - B

Who Says I'm Not Into Politics!?

Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was on the cover of four news magazines that I saw yesterday at my neighborhood supermarket: People, Us Weekly, the National Enquirer, and...

NEWSWEEK!

How does it feel, Newsweek, to finally be on the cutting edge of print gossip? I bet it feels pretty good.

Us Newsweekly - B+

Gross! Eww!

We found a roach.  A GIGANTIC roach.  Let me put it in perspective: this roach was so big that the manager of the leasing office (because Fearless Husband took it in to show to the maintenance guys) thought it was a PLASTIC TOY.  And we also found THREE egg sacs.  This grosses me out even more.  To think - if Big Meanie hadn't shown up, leading us to look in every nook and cranny, we could have had a gazillion of 'em.  NASTY.

So now we have to have our apartment sprayed - which means that we have to clear out every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen and bathrooms.  Which is annoying, but a lot less annoying than the alternative. (note: Fearless Husband that it's gel pesticide, not spray, in all the little spaces that we and the dog can't get to but bugs can.  No bug bomb.)

We are sad about the roaches.  We don't think that we're filthy people.  Sure, I don't clean the bathroom as much as I should... or vacuum... or sweep under the refrigerator, but believe me, I have known some gross people, and we are not them.  So why are we the new haven for creepy-crawlies?  

Awesome.  Now the dog is sniffing a cabinet.  I just hope he likes the smell of scrapbook supplies.

nasty awful creepy grossness - F  

Sister Mary Two-Ply Absorbency

Tuesday was the first day of school in these parts, and I live right across the street from a Catholic elementary school. It was super cute to see all the little girls in their jumpers and the boys in their stiff blue Oxford cloth shirts, trudging up the sidewalk with gigantic (but empty) backpacks. What surprised me, though, was that all of them were carrying dry goods. You know - tissues, paper towels, I think I saw a pack or two of disinfectant wipes. I guess when you're charging an admission fee for school, you can ask the parents to supply with germ killers, too.

parent-supplied paper goods - B

Before and After

Someone got groomed.
Before:




















And after - what a handsome boy!


grooming - A- (a few points off because the fuzzy look is awfully cute)

auntie helga

So I'm going to be an aunt, and I am thrilled beyond belief. So thrilled that I can't even use exclamation points. Because I am THRILLED to seriousness.
Best part about being an aunt so far? The shopping. It is difficult to not buy all the onesies, funny leather booties, and parental guidance books that come across my path - and actually impossible to not purchase all the pregnancy-related greeting cards. I have a stockpile of cards for the parents-to-be, and I'll be sending them off once a month or so until my nieceornephew arrives.

But I can guarantee that I will NOT be making the kid pancakes. I'm a terrible cook.

babyontheway - A+

july, part four - dogville

July continued to be a cute month in Dogville. Wash is growing up quite nicely. He's getting smarter, too. For the past few days he's been going to sit by the door when he needs to "go out," instead of "going out" INSIDE. He's also been known to crawl inside his toy box.
I love him.










Kirkshires Hoban Washburne - A+

july, part three - lingerie

I continued my big month with a lingerie shower for EJ (she of the Chicago bachelorette party the previous weekend). I think I like showers. Ladies wear nice clothes, and nametags or corsages, and eat chicken salad and croissants and fruit salad and drink punch, and there are usually party favors, and yet someone always say something a little raunchy. I believe EJ's mom KJack told us all about the beautiful black man she saw running in her neighborhood. And you play games! I love games!

This was a lingerie shower, and EJ and I were concerned that she was going to receive a lot of thongs or flannel long-sleeved pajama sets, two things that she does not wear. We were happy to discover that she received no flannel, and no thongs! She really came out on top.
The only downside to this lovely day was the horrendous construction I encountered on my way there. I was half an hour late to the party. I felt like a tool. Everyone was extremely nice about it, but seriously? Half an hour? That is unacceptable MOH behavior. I will have to try harder.

lingerie shower - A-

july, part two - chicago

Upon returning from New York, I worked a feverish three days at my fine town's Art Fair, where all the art sits atop copper sticks. OK, not ALL of it, but about 80% of the affordable art is garden art, and it's on a stick. I mostly sold hot dogs and counted piles & piles of money. That's what happens when you become a manager.
But I got to leave Art Fair a day early to go to Chicago for EJ's bachelorette party. See, I'm a maid of honor, and I had to be there to make sure that we DID IT UP RIGHT. First and foremost was the shopping excursion. Sequins were needed, and sequins are what we got. I wore a black tank top, with sequins, and some sassy dark jeans, with EJ wore a less sparkly top but a teeny-tiny miniskirt constructed ENTIRELY of sequins. And she also wore a tiara with a veil and pearls. As you can see here, a nice young man at a fine establishment was entranced by said pearls.

The night wore on, we visited several bars, much alcohol was consumed, I texted some friends who live in the area who were unable to come out & play, and then the bride got a little glassy. I think this picture sums up the whole night pretty well:

It's OK, she knows that guy.


bachelorette party - B+ (some points off for the hotel expense and the vomit [not mine])

july, part one - new york city

It's been a big month, starting off with a wonderful weekend in New York City with many fine friends. Bestie, Lil Sister and I went to the rooftop garden at the Met, and it was truly beautiful. Shorties though we all are (I'm the tallest of the bunch, and I'm 5'5"), we had a lovely view, and we all felt very glam in our day dresses, designer handbags and gigantic sunglasses.

The next day, Bestie, Lil Sister and I went to Shake Shack, and on the way there, those bitches left me on the other side of the street. I didn't love it. But I do love this picture. Look at me in the big city.


So yummy. I should have gotten what these two had - the 'Shroom Burger. It's a portobello mushroom stuffed with muenster and cheddar cheese, then DEEP FRIED. Bestie let me have a bite, and it was truly one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten.




The NEXT day, Bestie and met up with BRE (that stands for Best Roommate Ever) and BRE's beau. After a carb-and-dairy delight at the mac & cheese restaurant, we went the tourist route and rode the Staten Island Ferry. It was rad. I saw the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. And I'm pretty sure we made fools of ourselves, but no more so than all the people wearing fanny packs.

We returned to BRE and Beau's Chelsea apartment, where BRE and I entertained the group with a rousing game of Wii American Idol. I thought BRE was going to pull off an upset win after his TREMENDOUS version of "My Heart Will Go On," but I prevailed! Woo-hoo! I'm a winner! My Mii had some hot dances moves, which I attempted to imitate... but LeAmanda cannot be imitated.


We stuck around for dinner and then played Apples to Apples - and ate apple pie straight out of the oven. Oh my God, it was so good.

one of the best weekends of my life - A+

Reasons Why I Don't Blog Anymore, Part Two

1. These people are getting married in October, and I am one of the maids of honor. And I have entered full-on "someone else's wedding" mode. I have made hotel reservations for the bachelorette party, purchased the shoes to go with my bridesmaid's dress, sent the invitations for the b-party, working on games for the b-party, asking quiz questions to the bride for the b-party, talking to MY maid of honor to get the low-down on being a good MOH... I am all-consumed by fun plans. And I love it.

other people's weddings - A

Reasons Why I Don't Blog Anymore

1. I have one of the top ten cutest puppies of all time living at my house. Kirkshire's Hoban Washburne, better known as Wash, came home two weeks ago, and I have been consumed with walks and toys and pee & poop and prying my fingers out of his mouth. But I love him. He is super adorable. And he pretty much sleeps through the night.


2. Stardoll has reared its fashionable head for the second summer in a row. The big difference between last summer and this summer is StarBazaar. You can sell your "old" clothes for Stardollars. I am cleaning out my closet, which I like in real life and LOVE on Stardoll. Those teenagers will pay top dollar! That's a picture of my stardoll, naivehelga, in her Sunday brunch outfit.

summer hobbies - A+

Tattoos

I'm setting the record straight: I am not into tattoos. Now, this doesn't mean that, if you have a tattoo, I think less of you as a person. Some of my best friends have tattoos. But they're not for me. I don't think I could ever care about something so much that I would want to have a representation of that thing permanently inked onto my body. Yeah, I said it. I'm selfish. I can appreciate the sentiment of tattooing a child's name, but I also think that Mommy doesn't need to have "Junior" on her lower ass/back. That's a little weird. I also think it's a bad idea to tattoo a lover's name on your body. Look at where that got Johnny Depp.

I have one gigantic tattoo no-no: wings. Listen, people. You are not angels. You are not fairies. You are certainly not bats. You do not have wings, and you never did. So why the angel wing tat, huh? Why is that cool? I'll tell you why. It's not.

I have a secondary tattoo no-no: unless you are a virtuoso studying at Mannes or Eastman or Longy or The Juilliard School, DO NOT tattoo f-holes on your back. You are not a cello.

tattoos - C-

Deep Impact

This is not a blog post about porn.

I loved Deep Impact when it came out ten years ago, and when I cuaght it on TV last night, I still loved it. It is an excellent disaster movie - protagonists die! Landmarks fall! Heroes save the world and life continues! I love it so hard.

Here's my list of the worst/best moment, and the best/worst moment. What does that even mean, you ask? Well, the worst moment is awful in that it's cheesy - it's so bad, it's good. The best moments are the ones that seem really real, and they're painful and believable, so they're good, but they also make you feel bad. So here you go:

(oh, by the way, this movie came out TEN YEARS AGO. So I don't even feel bad if I'm spoiling any of it, because you should have seen it a long time ago.)

worst/best: after the comet hits and destroys much of New York, you see the severed head of the Statue of Liberty floating by underwater. Really? Her severed head? Nice touch, Mimi Leder.

best/worst moment: the entire scene where Leelee Sobieski's mom takes off the baby sling and hands it to Leelee right before she and Elijah Wood ride off to safety on Leelee's dad's motorbike - and Lee flips the fuck out. She start by crying "no no no no" and ends with repeatedly sobbing "I'll see you soon. I'll see you soon." SO AWFUL. Oh man, if I think about it too much more, I'll probably tear up.

Deep Impact - B+

Eagle Vs. Shark

I didn't love Eagle Vs. Shark, but I didn't hate it, either. I found the story line amusing and the characters sympathetic, but they were also too awkward to be believed. Lily and Jarrod made me uncomfortable. Cute, but weird.

Eagle Vs. Shark - B-

Water for Elephants

I read this book on Sunday. Yeah, that's what I said. I read it all in one sitting - well, two sittings, I guess, since I put it down about two-thirds of the way through so I could go shopping. But then I picked it back up and devoured it.

Let me back up. I resisted reading Water for Elephants for a very long time - because I thought it was about India. Picture on the cover? Some sort of upper-class Indian society man going into... a tent. I didn't really think it through. I'm not opposed to India in general, but fictional recountings of British India just aren't my thing. But it turns out, Water for Elephants is about the circus! And I'm OK with the circus. And my maid of honor left this book up north, and I'm supposed to send it back to her, but it sat on my coffee table for a week, staring me in the face and all but demanding that I read it.

So I did. And I loved it. Characters, plot, language, the whole thing. Except the ending. Which I won't give away, but it certainly brings the grade down. Water for Elephants was captivating, engrossing, fantastic. Big thanks to Ashley for forgetting it!

Water for Elephants - A- (yes, it would have been an A, if not for those pesky last few pages)

Newness

I'm back. And I'm married.

I'm pretty sure that our wedding was great. I enjoyed it! The weather was gorgeous, lots of friends and family were there, the food was yummy and as you can see, the flowers were phenomenal.

And best of all, Nate and I got married. Aww! It's pretty much the same as living together, and I don't really feel any different, but Nate's wearing a wedding band, and I like that a lot.

Other news: later today we're going to meet our puppy. Welcome to the new popular topic of blogversation - puppies! We can bring our little guy home in about three weeks, and I am super excited. You will see plenty of pictures in the weeks to come.

wedded bliss - A
our new puppy - I - stay tuned

My Work Boyfriend

I have a work boyfriend. I'll call him Mike, because that's not his name (although I work with two nice young men named Mike, but neither of them is my work boyfriend). I don't see Mike very often - he used to come to my building once every two weeks or so, but now it's more like once every six months. I am always very happy when I know that Mike is coming in. I usually try to look cuter on days when he's going to be there - I shower, I put on eyeliner, and try to wear one of the more flattering outfits from my closet. I like to think that I "sparkle" just a little bit brighter when he's around. And there's nothing wrong with that. Sparkling is good. It's fun to get my flirt on.

Does this mean I don't love my man? Not a chance. No one needs to be threatened by Mike. He's just a diversion. But I was a little sad to hear that Mike is getting married. I was hoping that I was his secret work girlfriend.

work boyfriend - B-

The Smell of Spring

I really, really, really can't stand the smell of worms. Did you know that worms have a smell? I smell it after every spring rainstorm, and it grosses me out. And then I see worms on the sidewalk, and that grosses me out even more.
From what I hear, worms are good for the planet. But I still think they're gross.

worms - D

You Have Got To Be Kidding Me

Word on the street is, Project Runway is moving to Lifetime. LIFETIME! What the fuck, Bravo? What happened? Seriously, how did this happen?

Project Runway on Lifetime is a tranny hot mess. I don't care if Tim and Heidi are still on (and that is not confirmed, one way or the other). It won't be the same. Dammit.

PR on Lifetime - F!

Hugs

I love hugs. I really do. I think that there are very few day-to-day problems that couldn't be solved by hugging it out. If you and I have any kind of friendly relationship, even if it's a friendly business relationship, I guarantee that we will hug before our time together is through. I offer hugs to many of my co-workers (some enjoy it more than others, and I feel that has more to do with my sizable chest than the closeness of our relationship) and the people I work with on an occasional basis, if I don't see them very often.
I've heard that a friend-of-a-friend doesn't like hugs. I don't understand this. If I ever meet said FoF, I will probably hug her, not only to see what happens, but because I can't help myself. I'm a hugger.
One summer, I worked at a camp where we instructed that hugs between campers and counselors could not last longer than ten seconds. At first, many of us thought that this was ridiculous... but then we timed it out. Ten seconds is a long damn hug. We were also told not to touch campers on the knee. I still haven't figured that one out.

hugs - A

Dogulating

I want a dog. I want a dog so bad that I can taste it. I want a dog like some girls want babies... which is where the term "dogulating" came from. See, I'm ovulating for a dog. I see pictures of puppies and I get all maternal and baby-talky. Oooh, look at da puppy! Ee's so cute! I wanna hold eem!

This is the kind of dog I want. In fact, this is the kind of dog I'm going to get, in about two months. Consider yourself warned. I'll probably turn into one of those people who carries around pictures of their puppy. I'm definitely going to be one of those people who takes their puppy to work. I am going to be so excited when I buy a baby gate for my office.

dogulating - A-

Resurrection

I write my blog in my head every day. EVERY DAY. I can't tell you how many times I've written those two sentences. In fact, I have a small store of topics to draw from, floating around up in my little noggin, yet for some reason, I don't write them down.

As someone once said to me, I don't know what my problem is.

But I'm not ready for my blog to be dead. I just need something to inspire me, something to make me sit up and take notice and say, Yes, that is worth blogging about. Where are my out-of-control Hollywood starlets? Where's my ridiculous headline from AOL? Where is... everyone?

feeble attempt at a comeback - B-

Oscar wrap-up

Well, the Oscars are over for another year, and I did fairly well in my predictions. I ended up with 17 out of 24 correct, which is only 71% but is better than last year - and yet, one point lower than my all-time best. Sigh. I just can't break free of 16, 17 or 18. I did best Chargenda in our yearly unofficial pool, which is awesome, since I haven't beat him since 2001. So I feel pretty good abaout that.

I also feel pretty good about trivia night last night. I went with some work buddies to the good kind of trivia, the kind that's hosted and has multiple rounds and where there's cash money as a prize if you win. It was our first foray into trivia night as a team, and although we were confident in our brain power, we weren't sure we'd finish in the money. And then they announced the bonus categories: Last Night's Oscars, and War. Now, you can imagine that we as theater employees were thrilled about the Oscar category, but what you probably don't know is that we were there with one of the biggest war buffs I've ever known. LD goes so far as to reenact World War I battles - so yeah, we were feelin' good about our chances at that point.
I knew it was going to go well when one of the three-point questions was to name the designer of the gown pictured above. Hello? Oscars and fashion? Is there any doubt I didn't know the answer?
Long story short - we won. Straight up won the whole damn thing. And we all walked a little taller on Monday because of it.

Oscar night - A-
Oscar night coming in handy at trivia (and being $15 richer) - A+

Oscar predictions

Here are my Oscar predictions for tonight; tune into tomorrow to see how I did.

Best Picture - No Country for Old Men
Best Actor - Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Best Actress - Julie Christie, Away From Her
Best Supporting Actor - Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Best Supporting Actress - Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Best Director - Ethan and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men
Best Adapted Screenplay - Ethan and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men
Best Original Screenplay - Diablo Cody, Juno
Animated Feature - Ratatouille
Foreign Language Film - The Counterfeiters
Documentary Feature - No End In Sight
Documentary Short - Freeheld
Cinematography - There Will Be Blood
Visual Effects - Transformers
Animated Short Film - Peter and the Wolf
Live Action Short Film - At Night
Art Direction - Atonement
Costume Design - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Film Editing - No Country for Old Men
Sound Mixing - The Bourne Ultimatum
Sound Editing - The Bourne Ultimatum
Original Score - Atonement
Original Song - "Falling Slowly," Once
Makeup - La Vie En Rose

Analogies

Sometimes I am so inspired by something that I feel compelled to write about it. Today, it's this:

"Seriously, these cupcakes are like puffs of heaven with the best Christmas gift ever slathered on the top."

Thank you, Dustin, and Happy Birthday.

Analogies - I love 'em. People say crazy things in the attempt to link two items together. Many of you have probably seen this, but my favorite analogy of all time comes from that venerable piece of American cinema, Steel Magnolias, when Clairee is describing the mayor's dancing wife:
"Looks like two pigs fightin' under a blanket."
Genius! GENIUS!

So, to continue Dustin's belated birthday celebration, I'd like to ask all my readers - what's YOUR favorite analogy?

analogies - A

What A Wonder Is A Gun

Arkansas Tech University - my alma mater and the alma mater of my brother, parents, grandparents and great-grandfather - has "postponed" a production of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins because, according to the press release, "the production, which portrays scenes of violence, was thought to be too sensitive in view of recent tragic events that have taken place on other campuses around the United States."

OK. School shootings are senseless and tragic. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who wouldn't agree with that statement. But I truly believe that a musical representation of successful and would-be presidential assassins is not going to incite violence on our nation's college campuses. Far from it. In fact, the simultaneously disturbing and funny musical could start a dialogue among college students, getting them talking about history, politics, art, violence, and the genius that is Stephen Sondheim.

Now, at Tech, they won't get the chance.

I would like to close by talking about Joe Bertucci. Joe was the director at a community theatre where I played a lot, and I learned more from him in three shows than I ever thought possible. Joe shaped the lives, both artistic and personal, of everyone he came in contact with, and I am honored that I knew him. Joe liked to borrow a phrase from FP Dunne: "It is is the duty of theatre to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." Joe, I wonder what you'd make of this - in this situation, who's comfortable? Who's afflicted?

I'd like to further close with these lyrics from "Gun Song" from Assassins:
What a wonder is a gun!
What a versatile invention!
First of all when you've a gun -
Everybody pays attention!

Tech administration's poor, poor decision - F

Fashion, Doggy-Style

With the Oscars just around the corner, I know you're waiting with bated breath to read my Oscar predictions... but really, isn't a dog in a tuxedo way more fun? Especially when the dog is wearing a LEONARDO DICAPRIO-INSPIRED TUXEDO. For real.

formal attire for dogs - B

Swag

Swag is one of the greatest things ever. Now that I'm a fancy worker, I get to go to conferences, and I'm always on the lookout for which booths are giving away the best stuff. Unfortunately, most arts organizations aren't selling "products," they're selling shows, so the most likely swag you'll see at a presenters or theaters conference is a DVD or CD of some wacky kids' show or magician or Celtic crossover band. At the last conference I attended, I managed to pick up a couple pens and a sticky note pad, but nothing else cool. I think that drug companies give the best swag. There always seem to be mousepads and mugs and pens and hats, and all sorts of other things. My mom and dad used to bring home tons of stuff like that, and it was all rad.
Yesterday, I attended a birthday party at JNash's house. JNash is a dermatologist, and she had just returned from a conference... and was parting with her swag. And let me tell you, a whole new world of swag was opened up to me. I came home with sunscreen, body wash, lotion, soap, and cuticle cream; other people took bronzer, anti-wrinkle cream, a wide variety of washes and lotions, and a Coolie hat.
I should be a dermatologist.

Swag - A

Dance Revolution

I am taking a fitness class - cardio dance and pilates, specifically. What a joy. It's me, a few other "young ladies," some very overweight middle-aged ladies, some spry but slow old ladies, and one guy. I don't know his name, but I call him Tom. I shake my groove thang twice a week in a school gymnasium, and I love it. You have never seen so many grapevines in one place (except for at mid-Michigan weddings, but then, there's less spandex).

Our hardest routine is to "How We Operate" by Gomez. The beginning of the song is a little tricky, and everyone, including the instructor, gets confused. I love that she's changing it up a little, and Gomez is a nice change from all the Motown we usually get, but maybe it wasn't such a good choice if everyone spends the first thirty seconds of the song staggering around wondering where the beat it.

my bi-weekly dance party - A