Pop Culture 101

It Just Gets Harder

2009-08-16T20:45:00.000-07:00

It has been three weeks since my mom passed away.
And it just keeps getting worse, getting more difficult.
I think of a thousand things a day I wish I could tell her; stupid things, little things. How people are at work. The horrible, horrible heat. An Op-Ed in the New York Times. What I had for dinner.
All the things we would talk about everyday. The things that make up your life.
I want to -- and I can't.
I have never felt more alone in my life. I always had my mom on my side and I knew that even when we weren't together, there was someone in the world who loved me. Now, I just don't feel the same way. I know my siblings love me and I love them, but it's not the same. No one loves you so freely or so deeply as your mother. And mine is gone.

Does this ever get easier?

Never ask why

2009-08-09T15:46:00.000-07:00

Over the past three weeks my life has changed, irrevocably changed and I am not sure how to function.
My mother, my best friend, my biggest champion and the one person who always loved me no matter how much of a pill I am, passed away on July 26.
It was a shock. She hadn't seemed sick or ill when I was home in May and had only been complaining of a pain in her neck. Though we all begged her to see a doctor, she refused and instead saw a quack chiropractor.
After a month of increasing pain and a few days of altered mental status, she finally let my two youngest brothers take her to the emergency room. They took a CT and saw something awful. I was on a plane the very next morning, not knowing what to expect, but hoping that she would be OK.
I had packed for three days and was home for three weeks.
What she thought was just a pulled muscle was actually a fracture in her spinal cord, due to metastasis in her bones...in her bones, in her liver, in her lung, and in her pancreas where we learned it had all started.
It was the longest week of my life in the hospital before my mom passed away. And that was it.

I want to write more. I want to examine this from every angle, every emotion. I want to rail against God and beat my breast and shriek into the wind. I want to turn back the clock and relive my 32 years with her. But I can't. I can't think too much. It hurts. It hurts in a way that is beyond adjectives, beyond words, beyond mere description. It is a raw, red and bloody hurt that I can't dig into just yet. I hope that in the months to come the rawness will fade and I begin to cope, even just a bit. And begin to pick up the pieces of my life without my mother. Someday.

Right now? I just want my mommy.

Life Changes

2008-10-23T17:37:00.000-07:00

For the second time in my life, I'm about to start a job that I will not be embarrassed to say I do. The first job was a short-lived one that, unfortunately, created years of anxiety and self-consciousness after it ended. After that I held jobs that paid the bills (sometimes) but wasn't something you really wanted to talk about at cocktail parties or reunions.
I have not married. I'm not even close. I don't have my own place. I've done a little bit of traveling, but not enough to make up for a really crappy job description. The dream, apart from find Prince Charming who wants to whisk me away to Europe on his private jet stocked with episode of 30 Rock and the Simpsons, is doing something amazing for a living. It's not the same as actually having a life, but it was always something that I thought would sorta make up for it.
For the past 2 1/2 years I've been working for a bookstore, which isn't the worst thing, but having gone to an Ivy League school...ending up in retail is a bit demoralizing. You'd be ringing up someone's purchase of "Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul" and getting in a conversation with a customer.
"So how do you like working here?"
"It's not so bad. Good discounts"
All laugh
"Where did you go to school?"
"Columbia"
Silence.
"Well, at least you're surrounded by books."
And I smile and nod and die a little on the inside.
There's nothing wrong with an honest day's work for a semi-honest day's wage - no matter where you went or didn't go to school. Especially in this economy. Rocket scientists will most likely be pouring us coffee...those of us who are lucky enough to afford to buy coffee and not just make it with used coffee grounds and napkins-as-filters. The next person who helps you at the GAP might have once been a financial adviser. So in the grand scheme of things, working at a book store isn't all that bad.
But it still hurt when I thought about where I assumed I would be at this point in my life.
Thankfully, and in what I'm dubbing a total and complete confluence of luck and a fluke, I'm starting a job on Monday that I'm proud of. Not sure what exactly I'll be doing, but working for a major city orchestra is head and shoulders above anything I've done in the past.
I may not be married, or even close, but finally I won't have heart palpitations the next time someone asks me what I do for a living.

Three Movies That Signal The End

2008-07-01T13:09:00.000-07:00

I saw Wall-E this weekend and like everyone else in the known universe, I had my mind blown. The visual, the emotions, the downright frakking adorableness of it all was almost too much to handle.
God Bless you Andrew Stanton!
That being said, I saw some movie trailers before the movie that made me question our right to exist on this planet.

1. Fly Me to the Moon. Not much was made clear about this movie from the trailer other than it's flies...who are part of the great space program and are going to the moon. Wow. Add some flatulence jokes, some fat jokes, and some god-awful "fly" and "bug" puns and you have one craptastic movie.

2. Space Chimps. Continuing the idea that what people really want is animated animals being sent to space, we are given "Space Chimps", from the "homo sapien" who gave us Shrek. I say that homo sapien need watch his back. Again, puns and ill-timed and conceived jokes seem to abound. Did someone replace the Mountain Dew in the writers' room with moron juice? Would seem so.

And, finally, the piece de la resistance:
3. Beverly Hills Chiahuahua. One only needs see the trailer to understand the depth and breadth of my loathing of this movie. Dancing, singing, beheadressed rats are no way to get me to see a movie. I imagine South America rumbling as every single Mayan or Incan whose ever culture they are raping for this abortion of a film rolls over in their grave. I don't like seeing these tiny, nervous, and yippy dogs on the street and I surely do not want to see them on screen. The musical number just helped seal the deal. I would have died a happy person had I never had to see animated dogs singing poorly written verse to music that clearly came out of someone's pot-driven synthesizer session.

I understand that there was a writer's strike earlier this year, but why are we the viewing public being punished?

Really McD's?

2008-06-19T18:20:00.000-07:00

So McDonald's has a new breakfast sandwich out there, the southern chicken biscuit breakfast sandwich or something like that.
And the commercial is all about how eating chicken for breakfast is different, hip and cool. It even has some douchebag holding said sandwich, looking at the camera and saying "Here's to non-conformity".
Really?
REALLY?
Non-conformity is eating a chicken sandwich during am hours at a nationwide fast food chain? Man, I have been totally misled my whole life about what non-conformity actually meant.
Cuz....I would have thought it's basically the definition...

Long Term Plans

2008-06-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

For over 2 years I've lived in Boston. I arrived here without a goal or a plan or really much of anything. 2 years and many books later, I'm working at Barnes & Noble and still sort of treading water, a term which could be applied to my life over the past 10 years.
I left college not knowing what the hell I wanted to do with myself. I've done a myriad of things since then: worked at a few non profits, helped organized a Holocaust museum, worked at a major corporation for a total of 2 weeks, and a whole bunch of other jobs that basically got me nowhere.
As I have drifted back and forth across the country and back and forth between life aspirations, I have felt increasingly untethered to life, to things, and to people. I watched all my friends get married and procreate as I tried yet again to restart my life. At the age of almost 32 I don't know that I've progressed much during this time.
Whereas in the past I had hopes and dreams of traveling the world, meeting someone with whom I'd have that lifelong love affair everyone else seems to find, finding my voice with the written word...now my dreams and hopes are so much more mundane.
Is it wrong to sell myself so short? Or is it just being realistic? How long do you hold onto such ephemera before you start appearing pathetic or am I already there? Do you settle for just OK or do you continue to try and discover the ultimate?
I don't know anymore if I am capable of reaching beyond just getting through it all week by week with a few pennies in my pocket, the memories of past passions fading faster and faster, and just settling for enjoying the latest book, movie or TV show.
And the funniest part? I am not even so sure when and where it all went so...mediocre.

Surreal

2008-03-04T06:21:00.000-08:00

Conductor Lorin Maazel was just on The Colbert Report last night.
And just when you thought it was mind bogging enough that the NY Phil played North Korea...

Cold

2008-01-03T18:55:00.000-08:00

After 3 years living in sunny Los Angeles, last year I moved to Boston. Muggy in the summer, crisp in the fall, bright in the spring, and brutal in the winter Boston.
I thought that this past summer, full of humidity and heat waves was the worst. I was wrong. I thought last winter was bad, with its occasional day of freezing wind was the worst. I was wrong.
It is only the beginning of January and already I am ready to pack up and move anywhere that winter no longer exists. December was mostly a month of snow. On the 13th I walked home through knee high snowdrifts, weaved in an out of cars seemingly frozen in place after hours on the road, and watched the snow blanket my entire neighborhood. That Sunday I trudged through yet another snow storm that heaped another several inches of blindingly white snow on what had already fallen earlier that week. All the while, thoughts of old men complaining "I used to walk 20 miles to school in the snow" echoed in my head.
It eventually stopped snowing and I was rewarded. The snow turned to ice. Cloudy off white and imperfect ice in piles along the road. Shiny clear ice slicking the sidewalk. And dark dangerous black ice just waiting to cause a car accident...or slip an unsuspecting and ill-shod pedestrian. (I know from experience)
The days would warm up, 30's and sometimes 40's. The ice would liquefy and coat the streets. As dark fell, so did the air temperature and all that water would freeze, making the walk to work that much more treacherous.
I'm actually impressed I haven't broken a bone yet, though I'm pretty sure I've twisted an ankle or two.
And all this, all this was almost bearable till now. According to weather.com, it is 9 degrees, but it feels like -6. It took almost 15 minutes for my legs to thaw once I got to work this morning. Any inch of exposed skin felt scrubbed raw by winds that rushed through my pants like water through a sieve. The ground was still covered in ice, but this ice was so cold, so brittle that it crushed like glass under my feet. The cold was so intense that it froze the air and sound didn't seem to carry. Even inside, all I had to do is walk past one of our large plate glass window to start shivering again. The walk home wasn't as bad, but it is 10 pm and my bones have yet to warm up. Living in a converted attic apartment doesn't make for a room tightly sealed against the elements and even 2 pairs of socks, a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants have made me cozy.
Thankfully it is supposed to warm up again tomorrow. Not much, but enough to make being outside bearable. And yet, in just a few months, I'll be walking to work, sweat pouring down my back, breathing in the thick heated air of a New England summer...dreaming of the same streets, lined with leaf bare trees, silently coated in white.

Snip

2007-10-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

After at least two months of talking about and talking about it, I finally got my damned hair cut today.
Because of the PCOS there was at least a year and a half when I was petrified of getting my hair cut. The fear that someone brushing it would tear out huge chunks kept me from letting anyone touch my hair. I barely touched it. I'd gently wash it in the shower, keep in in a towel till mostly dry and immediately put it into a loose ponytail. On occasion I'd cut it myself, just chopping off the end of the ponytail. If someone would run their hand through my hair, it would come out in clumps. Sometimes I wondered how I had any left on my head considering how much came out every day.
Not good times.
I had to be a bridesmaid during this period and the fear of what my hair would look like in the pictures almost kept me from taking part in my friend's wedding. Everyone else would be getting their hair professionally dried and styled, and i couldn't even brush mine. Not good times indeed.
After a few thousand dollars, my hair basically stopped falling out. Time to time there will be a month or 2 when it will start coming out and I will brush it more carefully, wash it more carefully and pray. A lot of prayer actually. And thus far it seems to be working. I don't have as much hair as I did six years ago, but I have enough that I am no longer self-conscious. I can go and get it cut by someone who knows what they're doing. In the shower I don't have to worry about needing to clear the drain several times from all the hair that has fallen out. And afterwards, I can use a brush and a blow dryer and a straightening iron...and come out looking semi-decent.
Plus I can be proud - I no longer watch shampoo commercials and cry.

Fall is i-cumin' in, loud sing cuckoo

2007-09-15T20:03:00.000-07:00

Finally, after a summer of some truly humid and disgusting days, Fall seems to have settled on New England.
This means that glorious leaves of crimsons, golds, browns, and oranges are just around the corner. Halleluja.
I always hated September and October in LA. It was then that I truly felt the lack of seasons. Fall, and to a lesser extent Spring, are the prizes you get for surviving Summer and Winter. The slow mellow death and sprightly shining rebirth of nature can't exist in a city that doesn't have real highs and lows of temperature. It's either hot or cooler. No real changing of seasons, just alternates in temperature.
In Fall just walking down the street becomes a thing of wonder. The air becomes cleaner and crisper, more in focus. The ground is noisy with the crunch of fallen leaves. And it's jacket time. Sure snow is just around the corner and I'll be cursing my frozen toes and cold-burned lungs, but till then, I'm going to love Fall for as long as I can.

A Wish

2007-09-09T19:29:00.000-07:00

I just wish I didn't give a damn when the people I cared about forgot about my birthday. People that I've known for well over a decade, siblings...I just wish that I could get used to them disappointing me and not have it hurt.
But it does.
And it just fucking sucks.

Birthday Thoughts

2007-09-08T19:57:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm officially IN my 30's...sigh....I seem to have reached a point in my life where certain things don't matter. OK, not 100% sure what they are, but I'm sure I'll find out sooner or later.
It still matters to me that most of my friends continue to forget to even just send me an email, but it hurts less every year so I'm guessing I won't care too much next year.
For a change, though, I had a fairly decent birthday. I mean, I actually did something which is a huge change from the past few years.
Last night I met Michael Palin, a moment that was on my "to-do" life list. He had just published his diaries written during the Python years and did a Q&A in Cambridge. I stood in line, waiting for him to sign my copy and could barely contain my excitement. I was bouncing - literally - bouncing on my feet in anticipation. My hands shook and my heart thudded as I realized I was actually going to meet Michael Palin, a member of Monty Python, a group that has given me nothing but pure joy for at least 2 decades of my life. He was always my favorite Python, and only a bit because he was the cutest. I got up there, mentioned something about how I used to know someone who rented his house, gave him my book and managed to walk away afterwards without hugging him or truly embarrassing myself. The shaking didn't stop for ten minutes afterwards.
Tonight I went with a couple of friends to see Guster, a band that I love and have now seen in 3 states. Of course they are a huge hometown band, having gone to Tufts and all, so the place was packed. Packed with many a college student, which definitely made me feel my age. But the evening was thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless. At one point the people sitting/standing next to me began to make-out furiously. This went on for at least 20 minutes, causing someone seated behind us to throw condoms at them and yell "stop making out!". The couple, too drunk to care, just went on sucking face. I noticed that the girl had a gigantic hickey on her neck by the end of the evening. At least she got a concert souvenir I suppose. On the way back, one of my friends was hanging on a ceiling pole on the bus and managed to break it with all of his super strength. Brian is apparently the man of steel. My only concern was that they would stop the bus, have us get off and wait for the next one, and no one wanted that. (It was around 100 degrees today with humidity. Brutal).
Got some calls from family, a few from a few friends...overall decent.

Lifestyles of the Rich and the Dead

2007-09-04T06:18:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to Newport, RI with a friend and found myself surrounded by more marble and gold leaf than I thought possible.
Newport has been the summer playground for the fabulously and obscenely rich for over 100 years. The Gilded Age, the age of the Vanderbilts, where railroad and coal tycoons saw their income come rolling in without the touch of income taxes, allowed these families to build monuments to their money. And sure they vacationed in these monuments oh, about 6 to 8 weeks a year.
I was struck by the immense extravagance and luxury of these homes. 500,000 cubit feet of marble in one house alone. 50 foot ceilings and entire walls of fireplaces flown in from France. Intricate hand-carved woodwork and mosaics that took nine months to complete. These people surely knew how to live it up.
The town of Newport easily divided by money lines. Bellevue Avenue, Mansion Main Street as it were, is a far cry from the homes and businesses of the regular folk. (We got mighty lost trying to find our way out of Newport and saw quite a lot of those regular homes.) I can only imagine what the disparity was like when people actually lived on Bellevue. The central tourist area was along the water, and all things being equal not too terribly touristy. A lot of local shops selling things you might not necessarily pick up elsewhere, including a fantastic make-up store that allowed me to indulge in make-up talk with the very enthusiastic owner.
I could have used another day to visit some of the museums in Newport, including the National Museum of Illustration (they house a lot of Rockwell and Parrish) and I'd love to have spent on full day on the water. But just getting a glimpse at the famed Newport Mansions and walking along the cliffs along the Bay...totally worth fighting the traffic on Rte 24.

Have We Lost the Magic?

2007-08-15T09:13:00.000-07:00

This past Friday night I saw the movie Stardust, which is based on the book of the same name by my all-time favorite author, Neil Gaiman.
Gaiman is a master of creating worlds of fantasy that seem to be just five seconds to the right out of the corner of your eye. Worlds that could oh so easily exist if only we looked fast enough and quick enough. Books like American Gods, Neverwhere, Stardust and Coraline all speak to this.
But about the movie.
Stardust, while not adhering 100% to the book was a wonderful brilliant movie. The casting turned out to be excellent, and I even managed not to hate Claire Danes. But mostly the movie captured Gaiman's sense of wonder and sense of humor. A sort of dark and knowing humor pervaded the entire script and echoed the same senses in the book.
All in all one of the better movies I've seen this summer.
Something bothered me however. Not about the movie, no - but about the critical response. The Philadelphia Daily News's movie critic called Stardust "a fantasy adventure with too much icky romance for young boys, a movie driven by grown-up stars with too much fantasy content for adults." Yes, young boys do not like that "icky romance", at least not publicly. However, who said that adults can't deal with fantasy content? Is this true? Are all adults beyond the reach of fantasy?
The Lord of the Rings movie might say otherwise perhaps. Those movies were a veritable goldmine and I can't imagine that only young boys shelled out their pocket money to push these films into profits of millions upon millions. So-called adults must have seen them as well. Beyond that trilogy, so many high grossing films have contained within them aspects of fantasy, even Titanic (though the fantasy is more of the romantic variety).
I guess I'm just puzzled that adults are considered to be ill-equipped to be able to handle something that isn't firmly based in our world and reality. As children we are encouraged to use our imaginations and think big wild and crazy thoughts. Though as we get older and the real world becomes realer by the day and by the bill, we're supposed to shut off that part of ourselves. I say when better to indulge in our imaginations than when we spend our days dealing with real life? Why are we expected to become dour and unimaginative as we age? Is that because it happens? Or does it happen only because we are told it should?
A movie like Stardust provides not only an escape (from the sweltering heat and humidity as well as one's work-a-day cares), but can help bring back that spark of the creative in we adults who have been told such things are no longer ours. We should be able to dream of places where stars fall and become beautiful young women, of witches who enslave princesses with a slim silver chain, and of awkward young men who discover how to be men through love. What's wrong with any of that?

A Quandry

2007-08-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

After coming home from a highly enjoyable evening with friends, I realize I am faced with a huge problem.
As much as I don't have a significant other, which is the bane of my existence, and as much as my dream is to move back to NY...I have friends here.
I have friends I can go to the movies with, friends to go out to dinner with, friends to come over and just hang with.
It's been years since I've had that.
I have no family, no Jewish community to call my own...things that worry me.
But I really do love the fact that I have friends again.
Do I stay or go?
Just not sure...

Are we that dumb?

2007-08-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

I'm now watching Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America.
Before the program begins someone who sounds amazingly like Eric Idle of Python fame tells us the American viewers that the following program contains British accents and to find out what on earth anyone is talking about, to turn on closed captioning.
Seriously?
Do they think we are that so uncultured that we couldn't understand someone speaking in a British accent?
Please!

PSS

2007-08-04T14:52:00.001-07:00

Last night I was out and about and it was BRUTALLY hot. I was convinced that I was sweating so badly that it was going to drip in my eyes...sexy, no?
But - lo, there was nothing there. Not a drop. I decided that I am suffering from a new disease, PSS or Phantom Sweat Syndrome.
As such, I have written my own commercial for Swealtex, a new medication that I believe will revolutionize the way people deal with PSS. (I mean hey, if they can talk about Restless Leg Syndrome, I can have my Phantom Sweat Syndrome...)
Here you go:
Do you find yourself feeling sweaty but there's nothing there?
Do you wake up at night to wipe your brow but find it bone dry?
Are there times when you know a bead of sweat is going to mess up your mascara, and yet, your makeup remains perfect?
If the answer to any of these questions is 'yes' you might be suffering from Phantom Sweat Syndrome.
Swealtex is a new drug to help with the symptoms of PSS. Side effects may include enlarged tongue, baldness, or instant lycanthropy. Women who may be pregnant or nursing should not be in the same room with Swealtex. Men who might come in contact with children should also avoid open bottles of Swealtex. If you take Swealtex and are still feeling the PSS, get yourself to the emergency room immediately.
Talk to your doctor and see if Swealtex is for you.
No one needs to live in fear of the next PSS attack.

Items of Note

2007-07-31T20:38:00.000-07:00

1) I'm pretty sure I broke my toe last night. Bashed it into the wheels of a suitcase - yes they are just lying around my room. After spending all day on it and enduring the pain and odd sensations, I went out and bought surgical tape and taped it up.
Feels much better.
I'm a klutz
2) Yet again, I had to clean up the bathroom at work earlier this week. What I found in that stall ... no human being could have done. I mean, they could have, but their internal organs would have been in the bowl along with everything else and they would be dead. But damn them, they didn't even attempt to flush the damned toilet.
I need out.
3) Spider Pig, Spider Pig. Does whatever a Spider Pig does. Can he swing from a web? No he can't, he's a pig. Look out, here comes the Spider Pig.
4) Simpsons movie rocked. Need to see it again before I can comment cogently on the subject. However, I must say that they really had a good balance on Homer's idiocy. He was neither too stupid nor too savvy. Just the right amount of D'oh for my tastes. Oh, and Ralph had one of the best lines, as always.
5) Summer TV. No more just for reruns, we now get some of the best programming during the hottest months of the year. And some of the crappiest. I remarked earlier this evening to someone that TV just keeps getting better while getting worse at the same time. Either way I think I need to give this medium some more attention.
6) For the first time, I really feel like I want children. Not sure where this came from but I want it to go away.
7) Neil Gaiman continues to astound me. I only hope Stardust the movie holds up to Stardust the book....

This is SERIOUSLY a hunk of crap

2007-07-30T14:05:00.001-07:00

Let me say that in NO way does any of this apply to me.
I love how stupid these "surveys" are.

Your Birthdate: September 8
Watch out Donald Trump! You've got a head for business and money.
You'll make it rich some day, even if you haven't figured out how yet.
A supreme individualist, you shouldn't get stuck in a corporate job.
Instead, make your own way - so that you can be the boss.

Your strength: Your undying determination

Your weakness: You require an opulent lifestyle

Your power color: Plum

Your power symbol: Dollar sign

Your power month: August

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

A Thought

2007-07-28T11:21:00.001-07:00

Recently I have found myself thinking about my friends. I am very careful before I'll call someone my friend, doubly so before I'd call them a good friend.
But, lately, I think I've got a few.
There are whole groups that I no longer speak to. This is mostly my own doing, and while I do regret it at times, I think it is what was healthiest for me at the time (or now).
And then there are the friends I've known since I was a teenager - one since I was 11. And while we don't see each other often or sometimes even talk all the frequently, I know that these people would be there for me in a moment of crisis or just when I'd really really need a friend.
There are the occasional person I've picked up along the way, a friend from my old company in LA, someone I lived a few floors away from during a crazy time in New York...
Now, I have a small group of friends from my job. Bound by a love/hate relationship for our employer, we have discovered that we share more than that, if only a love of 80' music and grilled meats.
Usually I'm a pessimist, seeing the worst in the world and in people in general. But every so often, I can look out through clear - not dark or rose colored - glasses and take stock in some of the good that is actually out there. And yes, some of that good are my friends.

Harry Potter and the Neverending Party Planning

2007-07-24T13:12:00.001-07:00

After months of planning, after weeks of in-store alerts from the home office, after countless conference calls and meetings with the rest of the district, the night the final Harry Potter book was to be sold finally arrived.
I spent a good part of last week in preparation for this night. We were expecting around 500 people to show up, most of them having made reservations to pick up the book, but a good number just dropping by on the night. We had received almost 200 boxes of books, kept under lock and key. We had even taped up the window to our receiving room so that no one walking by might accidentally get a glimpse of the boxes, let alone open them before 12:01 AM July 21st. Our booksellers were planned down to the half hour in some cases and the store was mapped out for the event. We'd brought out the velvet ropes, moved fixture, stocked up on toilet paper, and printed out list after list after list.
Thanks to my shall we say enthusiasm about the book and about the release party, I was the one to organize all the games. Not happy to have the basics of face painting, bean guessing and setting up a polaroid so people could take pictures with a cardboard cut out of Harry, I slaved away creating other amusements for the evening: a "sorting bag" since a hat was unavailable, where customers could pick out cards from the bag that placed them in one of the 4 Hogwarts houses...with a list of trivia about the house on the back. This took me several hours as each card had to have the house letter stenciled on and then have the trivia sheet glued to the back. Then I thought we needed to do fortune telling, divination such a key point in the books. I gotta say, coming up with 20 Potter-related fortunes was incredibly frustrating. I finally came up with rather funny fortunes involving polyjuice potion, Quiddich, Yule Balls, and Howelers. Then the coup de grace, the trivia raffle. 25 trivia questions based on HP 1-6 placed around the store; if answered correctly entered the customer in a raffle for a Harry Potter pillow.
The evening began by checking in each and every customer and handing them a wristband. We went thru over 960 wristbands that night. The immediate rush of customers at 6 pm, the stated time we'd hand out the wristbands, was startling. We're a tiny store, the smallest one in our district. I've never seen that many people in the store before...or so I thought. We kept the check in desk open till around 11 pm. At 10:30, an hour and a half before the book could be sold, we had customers in group1 lining up. And that line just got bigger. Meanwhile I was running around making sure all the activities were staffed, that booksellers had access to all the give aways we had in spades: tassels in the Gryffindor colors with the date, glow in the dark HP glasses and temporary tattoos. Towards the end we were just tossing these freebies out to anyone who wanted - which is harder to do with plastic glasses than you might imagine.
As it neared midnight, more and more people came into the store. Seas and swarms of people some in costume, some in tank tops and jeans, were milling about the store, waiting...and might I add making a damned mess of everything.
The next hour was pretty much a blur. I herded those almost 1000 people into various lines, leading them to the moment when they could buy the final Harry Potter. The excitement level was palpable - literally. The air vibrated with all the bodies and voices. The bleeding blisters on my heels, the pain in my feet, the exhaustion all vanished for the hour and a half we sold the book to all the waiting customers. As we neared the end of the crowd and those who purchased the book left, the noise level understandably dropped and I started to be able to breathe again.
Our last customer bought his book at 1:20 and finally we were free...to clean up the store.
I got home at 3 am and spent the next 2 hours reading, finishing half of the book.
And of course the next day was just as hectic and we sold over 1600 copies in 24 hours. If a customer came up to buy something that wasn't Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it was a shock.
Yes, by Monday afternoon (for I worked all day Saturday, Sunday and half of Monday) I was a husk of a person. Yes, my feet are dead and my headaches are finally subsiding. But I am eternally grateful that I was there. I was there to plan out and execute my ideas on the biggest book buying day I think we'll ever see. I was part of this grand social experience. Everyone who is a book person or a Potter person or just someone with their finger on the occasional pulse of the times will remember when the finale Harry Potter book came out. And lucky me, I was there too.

Embracing My Inner Geek

2007-07-14T14:38:00.001-07:00

This week I came face to face with the fact that despite my outer cool (stop that snickering!), I am an inner geek.
Case in point - I waited almost 4 hours in line to see the midnight show of the new Harry Potter movie. Sure, that's bad, but I was proud of that fact. Plus I am proud of the fact that I also waited in line for several hours to see the midnight opening show Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, as well as the fact that I saw the first showing of all three Lord of the Rings movies. I'd like to add this includes a six hour wait for The Two Towers.
In other HP related geekdom, I am planning the events for our store for the release party of the final Harry Potter book. We aren't required to plan anything terribly complicated and yet I'm throwing myself into this full throttle. And getting totally excited about it. Everyone at work is laughing at me, but I think that I'll feel vindicated when and if our customers have a great time.
With the Simpsons movie coming up, I find myself getting further entrenched in the world of Springfield. I'll randomly quote a Homer line when it occurs to me or just walk up to people and ask if they remember a small moment from an episode that aired years ago.
I realize that on some level I should probably be ashamed of all this, but I'm really not. In the end I have a love/hate relationship with my geekitude, much like Homer and booze, "To alcohol, the cause of and solution to all life's problems"

Really?

2007-06-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

Today I was working in the Science Fiction section today when a man wearing a cowboy hat came to browse some books. He seemed to have some sort of mp3 player or walkman on and occasionally would mutter something.
I thought he was singing along with the music.
And of course I was mistaken.
The muttering soon turned into loud, full sentences, such as "Wow, look at this editorial work? How do they get this through the editors?"
I kept glancing to see if maybe he was using a wireless headset and talking to someone on the phone.
Nope.
Then I thought perhaps he was talking to me and I faced him to see if he'd acknowledge his statement.
Again, nope.
Then he continued to speak aloud. He began to comment on the artistic merits of the various sci-fi writers. "This guy is great! This writing is so good! Yeah, I know. So good"
"Yeah, I know"?
He had begun to respond to himself.
After slowly backing away, I found one of my coworkers and told her about the guy and apparently she had seen/heard him in a different section of the store earlier that day. She too thought that maybe he was on the phone, but soon realized he was just a total and complete wacko.
I'm not sure what the ratio of crazy to sane is in my town, but apparently they love to congregate at my store.

DAMN YOU TRAILERS!

2007-05-30T18:42:00.001-07:00

There are many movies that I don't want to see. Most of them involve names like Lohan or Alba.

However, damnit all to hell, if the promo monkeys haven't made me want to see the sequel to a movie I thought was utter crap. The Fantastic Four was one of my favorite comics as a kid and as much as I adored Ioan Gruffudd as Horatio Hornblower, he ain't no Mr. Fantastic. I didn't mind Chris Evans as the Flame and Michael Chiklis as the Thing was inspired casting. However, Jessica Alba all but destroyed any positive associations I might have had for Sue Storm. Jeez is she awful.
AND YET.
And yet...
Those darned trailers make the Rise of the Silver Surfer look so intriguing.
I suppose I'll have to wait and read the reviews and see if the movie is as abominable as the first.
Though to be honest, I'll probably see it anyway.
Sigh.

Things I Wonder on Sunday Mornings

2007-05-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

-What would make someone open and drink a bottle of beer in the bathroom of a bookstore?
-Why would someone use said bathroom to take a pregnancy test?
-How difficult is it for women to located the toilet?
-Is anyone really in such a rush that they need to shave in a public bathroom?
-Why would someone need to look at EVERY SINGLE BOOK on a shelf and then think that they shouldn't even bother to put them back?
-Does anyone really think about the fact that someone else will have to clean up the garbage they leave lying around on the floor, or is there a resurgence in the belief in the garbage fairy?
-How did I end up being said garbage fairy?

Positive Thinking

2007-05-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

With this whole bullshit surrounding the book/dvd/Oprah phenom "The Secret" everyone is talking about the power of attraction aka, if you make a wish and believe in it, it will come true.
This is obviously a bunch of hooey, though one cannot deny that maybe your outlook is improved by this thinking positive and maybe you just reinterpret the outcome of your life.
All in all, I don't buy into this.

HOWEVER.

There are very few things in this world that really turn me into the praying sort. Illness and all that sort of bad horrible stuff that we hope never befalls our loved ones. But the real question is what are the happy things in life we'd pray for: money? love? success? Or is that all cliched?
I for one have finally found something to pray and dare I say hope for.
For almost 20 years my family has lived in the desolate wastelands of Los Angeles. While the rest of our tiny extended family resided in New York, my immediate family struggled to make connections in a city that from the get-go seemed hostile and unwelcoming. We suffered through major traumas without any local support, all the time dreaming of moving back to New York, the city of our origins. Sure in our minds we had inflated New York to a city of miracles, a place where everything will be good and fine and safe. In reality, no place could be a panacea but we hoped nonetheless.
Yesterday I got call from my mother. Through a variety of serendipitous occurrences, there is a chance that she could get a job - a good job at that - back in New York and this will enable her to move. This job would not start for another year, but even so the two of us became giddy with the possibility. My mother would no longer be alone and I would get to see her more than 2 or 3 times a year. All my siblings on the East Coast would once again have a parent near by, though those on the West Coast would have to adjust.
For the first time in recent memory I am asking the Universe for some payback on all the shit that has transpired in my life for the past 15 years or so. I don't believe in karma, but if what goes around comes around, my family is surely do for some good fortune.
So for what it's worth, I'm thinking positively and praying to whatever higher being might exist that even if just for my mom who has gotten the fuzzy end of the lollipop more times that I can count, please let this happen.

(And that please comes with sugar on top)

Won't You Be My Neighbor

2007-05-20T18:24:00.001-07:00

For the first time in recent memory I am living in a neighborhood.
In NY the Upper West Side was a neighborhood, but since Manhattan is really just a collection of streets making one organism, there's very little small town about it.
In LA, there was nothing remotely like a neighborhood where I was living. But there is nothing homey about LA regardless of where you are, so my little street was nothing out of the ordinary.
Recently I moved to an area outside of Boston and everyday I am struck by how much I enjoy just walking around. While I loved walking in NY it was because there was always something to look at, something to watch, someone to see. It was active.
Now, when I walk around my new digs, there is no pressure that I might miss something. The streets are lined with verdant trees now that Spring has hit. Some of the home owners have planted flowerbeds and here and there are splashes of color to break up the green and brown. Just 2 blocks West and you're on a main street, but on my little block it's nothing but Victorian-esque houses in purples, blues, and yellows.
It has not stopped raining for the past five days. As I walked to work early this morning, I was hit by the fresh smell of earth and clean pavement. Even during the slight breaks in the weather, the trees would rain down on me the heavy droplets that clung to their leaves. The streets were deserted and slick and it was bliss.
On my way home later this afternoon, the drizzle didn't stop a group of young boys from riding around on their bikes or playing basketball in the middle of the street. The occasional car would slow down and give them time to move the net.
It struck me that there is something Rockwellian about all this. I still don't know my neighbors and I'm not sure that I really want to. They will be the same sort of people I've lived next door to in other cities and while there's nothing wrong with that, I'm enjoying living in this bubble. Perhaps it will break this little spell and for right now - just right now - I'd like to be a bit enchanted, thank you very much.

Four Seasons

2007-04-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

One of the many many things I hated about living in Los Angeles was the lack of seasons. You had varying temperatures, sure, but different actual season, not a chance.
I've been living in Massachusetts for about a year now and have had a chance to witness a full cycle of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.
Today, it is most definitely Spring.
Not the happy flowery Spring of Easter cards and May Day Fairs, but the midday rainfall, violent rebirth Spring. That is just the sort of Spring I love.
There are times for gentle, delicate weather. The cool breeze gliding across a blistering summer day or the quiet stillness of a street after a night full of snow. But there times for the savagery of the season: the moisture heavy 1oo degree heat of a summer day and the night lit by sheeting snow. Or, as it is today, the teeming rain that helps make the world green again.
I would take the extremes of heat and cold for the rebirth of Spring or decay of Fall. Any day.

Some Random Addictions

2007-03-25T17:52:00.000-07:00

I was thinking today about the fact that we all have our addictions. Some people are addicted to love or sex, some to drugs or alcohol, some to twinkies or chocolate.
Most of my addictions don't seem that harmful, but who am I to judge?
1. Books: Working at a bookstore is quite possibly one of the more detrimental things I have done to my finances. It is nearly impossible for me to go a week without purchasing another book to add to my collection. Most of the time I will read the book, but quite often I don't. The book gets put on a shelf for me to admire and dream about reading one day when the mood strikes me. I am forever taking home stripped mass markets (we only need to return the front covers and so I take the books themselves from the recycling bin). These mass markets are pulpy messes that balloon when exposed to the slightest amount of moisture and refuse to sit like good little books on my shelves. I tend not to read most of these. Publishers send us advance readers copies of various books they'd like to read, fall in love with, and promote the hell out of. These are not copies destined to be sold and when no one else wants them, and even sometimes when they do, I am quick to shove them into my bag and stack them neatly with the rest of the books I am hoping to delve into.
My room is silly with books.
2. Television: Without a doubt my greatest addiction is television. I watch everything. Well, not everything, I have some limits (Two and a Half Men!) There is always something on I want to see: an episode of Spongebob Squarepants, the other Discovery program on black holes, a Friends rerun I have not seen in a few years, the new South Park that will undoubtedly mock a very current affair, yet another show about the great white that will tell me how misunderstood it is, Tyra Banks announcing America's Next Top Model or on occasion a well crafted, well acted show like Battlestar Galactica. All of these and more. I need them all, and I'd have an IV directly into my bloodstream if I could. I mock those naysayers who tell me how bad TV is for and how it pollutes my brain. Sure, some shows do and those are the final resorts, when I'm too tired to sleep, too tired to read, too tired to think. But there are brilliant television programs on that can inspire, amuse, and educated. It is one of our greatest common mediums and has provided much social lubricant over the years.
Of course, though, I do love a good football to the groin bit just as much as the next man.

Vindicated!

2007-03-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

For years I've been telling people how much I didn't like the movie version of "The Shining". I know Stanley Kubrick is this big time genius, yada yada yada, but the movie just didn't do it for me. (Though I did love the constant use of the Dies Irae music in the background)
The novel "The Shining" while a scary scary horror story, really tells the story of the disintegration of a man and his family. All the horrible images and all the violence means nothing if you have no connection with the characters - and that is basically what happened in the movie.
So much of what draws me again and again to the book is slow and painful ruination of Jack Torrance by the evil that dwells within the Overlook hotel. He is not a bad man, he is not an evil man. He is corrupted. In the movie, Jack Nicholson plays Torrance as a jackass from the get-go. There is always something dangerous about him, even before he sets up house in the Overlook. And while his madness is frightening, it is not surprising or shocking. It is just a fulfillment on a promise made definite by the early scenes.
No one else seemed to have my problem with the movie. Everyone just talks about how spooky it is, how Nicholson was a genius, and how much they loved the word "redrum". And I've been stewing quietly in my own juices, till tonight.
Tonight, for various reasons, I had to watch the A&E Biography on Stephen King. You get how poor he was growing up, how much he wanted to be a writer...you know, all the stuff that makes for a good rags to riches story.
They were discussing the movie version of "The Shining" and how excited King was to have Kubrick at the helm. That is till he saw the movie. He firmly believed the while the movie as a movie looked beautiful and was engaging, it did not tell the story he had written. After this film King reserved the right to decide who can and cannot direct the films based on his books.
So after all these years and telling my opinion to anyone who will listen, I am at peace. Stephen King agrees with me and all is right with the world.

A Fine Romance

2007-02-23T14:33:00.000-08:00

It has been brought to my attention that I might not be a romantic and I've been wondering if that is such a bad thing.
We all have images and ideas of what constitutes being romantic. I thank Hollywood for most of them, though a few books and songs are guilty as well. But do any of these images translate to real life? Do we all really want the Clark Gable/Vivien Leigh kiss as Atlanta burns to the ground? Or are we hoping for the Pretty Woman ending, with our very own Richard Gere driving up in a stretch limo with a bunch of red roses? Maybe...but without Richard Gere please.
None of the men I've ever been involved with have been romantics, or at least not with me. I've never gotten flowers, never been the recipient of a grand gesture and I don't know if I mind. Sure it would be nice and all, but as I contemplate it now, I believe I just might giggle a wee bit too much to make it through such things.
I can admire chivalry such as a man holding the door open for me, pulling out my chair, walking on the outside of the sidewalk. But beyond that, I don't know if I can imagine much else. Is this a lack of imagination or just a lack of experience?
When I think of things that have seemed romantic to me, none of them are textbook: a guy waiting with me in the snow and the cold for 45 minutes so I can get Nathan Lane's autograph after seeing "Something Funny Happened on the way to the Forum"; receiving the full opera Don Giovanni from someone who doesn't really like opera but knew I did; being feted with a slew of Marvin the Martian paraphernalia after admitting my soft spot for the cartoon creature. In general, these moments are someone going out of their way to do something special for me especially when it involves something they don't really like.
Part of me does have those dreams of being kissed atop the Empire State Building or the admissions of love in the pouring rain, but none of that is really practical. It's nice to have these dreams, but maybe it's safer to have your expectations be grounded in reality.
Or maybe I'm just not a red roses, champagne, and diamonds kinda gal.

Does it fit under a bed?

2006-11-12T18:43:00.000-08:00

I've noticed something remarkable about infomercials.
First is the fact that they all make the product they are selling sound AMAZING - even if they are just selling Tupperware. I can't tell you how many times I've had to stop myself from shelling out the cash for the Magic Bullet or that nifty machine that will vacuum pack everything from cheese to my socks.
Second, every person who is not shilling for the product is a bonafide idiot. They can barely be expected to tie their shoes from the way they come off on the infomercials. For example, the new locking Tupperware product makes it seem that we are incapable of putting the containers together with their lids unless they were magically made to interlock. The same way unless we use the special new non-stick pans that will cost us only 4 easy payments of $19.99, we will not be able to scramble eggs without them sticking to our standard pans like superglue.
However my favorite is the new pasta boiler. Who knew that without this brand new invention, we'd be stuck using a pot and a collander just like cavemen?! All the women in the commercial seem downright flustered by these antiquated cooking devices - won't someone show the way to a new and better life?? So we get a plastic cylinder which can hold the pasta and then once you pour boiling water in, cook it as well. Sure this sounds like a nifty device and it might very well be, however no one is so incompetant that they can't figure out how to cook pasta the way Italians have for many a year.
None of this stops me from watching them, mind you, but there must be a better way of selling us useless items...right?

Now Brit-Brit and K-Fed??

2006-11-07T17:05:00.000-08:00

The magical couple that no one ever imagined would split, are doing just that.
Britney Spears, she of the 24 hours first marriage, multi-foot boa and shoeless gas station bathroom attendance has decided to divorce her husband, Popozao aka Kevin Federline.

Part of me is too upset to talk about it.

The other parts are just laughing their asses off.

Jegshamesh

2006-11-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

For a change my faith in the American movie going public has been strengthened rather than dashed like so many china plates during a violent divorce.
This weekend 2 "big" movies opened, Santa Clause 3 and Borat.
Prior to this weekend, 20th Century Fox decided to pull Borat from around 1200 theatres because they thought that Middle America couldn't handle the subject matter -- too risque and/or advanced for them.
And at the same time, most projections for the weekend were that Santa Clause 3 would be the top earner.
Oh joy, rehashed tripe on its third time around would kick the ass of a movie full of questionable taste but a scathing expose on the bigotry and social deception that we try to desperately to hide.
However, all projections were wrong.
This morning the Santa Clause 3 was said to have earned $20 million versus Borat's resounding $26.4 million. And remember, this with only 800 theatres nationwide.

Take that movie studios who underestimate the intelligence and wit of those who shell out hard earned cash to see their films.

Cooking

2006-10-10T16:49:00.000-07:00

In recent months I've started cooking more and more.
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I no longer have my mother to cook for me anymore and if I want to eat something other than frozen food or PBJ's, I have to make it myself.
At home I cooked a lot of vegetables but not much meat or fish; I left that to the mother. At my current abode, I've been trying to remedy that.
And I've been enjoying it. A lot.
Over the past week I've made:
-chicken marinated in rosemary and lemon juice
-acorn squash stuffed with raisins, apples and pecans
-grilled chicken in a peanut sesame sauce
-warm rice salad
-roasted carrots in balsamic vinegar
-spaghetti in a homemade meat sauce with ground turkey, sauteed aromatics, mushrooms and fresh thyme and basil

I am still finding my feet and experimenting, but damn, it's a tasty ride.

Yay. Another Pity Party

2006-09-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

It's on your 30th birthday that you discover who your real friends are.
Despite in theory having a bunch of people that I might call friends, in fact I have very few.
It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I have dreaded this day for months. 30 has been looming in the distances ever since I realized that I would turn 30 and be unmarried and essentially careerless. And yet, out of let's say 10 people I would call relatively close friends, people I have almost daily contact with...TWO of them remembered that today was my birthday.
TWO!
I know that since I don't have a husband, a baby or a house I might not be as important to those who have such things - but does that translate into the fact that they should forget the date of my birth?
I'm truly beyond hurt right now.
Last year my family essentially forgot and it caused much fighting and some rifts took months to fix. But they are my family and I knew that we'd eventually work through it all because of a base of love and shared history. With these people who I used to call my friends, there is none of that love and apparently the shared history means nothing to them.
Maybe I'll get over it in a couple of days, maybe not.
Either way, you really do learn who your friends are when you turn 30.

Spam

2006-08-22T17:45:00.000-07:00

Latest body of spam email I received today:

Not very good erecxction? You are welcome

No other words than awesome. Just awesome.

To: Reality TV; Re: I Surrender

2006-08-01T16:53:00.000-07:00

Ok, I get it.
After years of badmouthing and just plain bashing reality TV over the head, I have finally given up and said "uncle".
I now watch and love several reality TV shows.
Now none of these are like Survivor, Big Brother or Deal or No Deal. But not sure how much better they actually are.
First up, Hell's Kitchen. Granted any show that is about cooking has a head start, but this is so trumped up with added instant flashbacks and sound effects...sigh. But I love me some Gordon Ramsay and watching him scream at these useless wannabe chefs is entertaining.
Second, Rockstar:Supernova. A friend turned me on to this and I have been watching it for the past few weeks. It's like American Idol, if American Idol had the rights to good songs for the contestants and if the contestants had real talent. And having Tommy Lee just make random sexist comments is always a plus.
Third, Project Runway. This show is probably the best of the bunch. Again, contestants who must have talent and challenges that are actually challenging, not along the lines of how many earthworms can you cram up your nose in five minutes challenging either. Plus PR has Tim Gunn, probably the best mentor I've come across.
Finally, the creme de la creme of the bunch, My Fair Brady. This show is unabashed garbage. It knows it's cheesy crap and makes no bones about it. I got stuck on this one after seeing a bit of the Surreal Life that Adrian Curry and Chris Knight were on. It's addictive like crack. I cannot say anything more.

So there you have it. On top of the good, quality TV shows I watch, I have added in these assorted gems.
Damn you reality TV. Damn you all to hell.

Social Again

2006-08-01T16:01:00.000-07:00

After years of feeling in hibernation, I've finally started being social again.
With three parties in 2 weeks, I feel like there's been a break in the depressive downward slope of my life.
Last night I hosted a goodbye party for one of my coworkers. Godbless her, she's off to Philly to learn how to be a lawyer. I mean, if there's one thing this country needs, it's more lawyers. Of course one of my brothers is currently studying to join the ranks of that illustrious profession, so I really don't hate all lawyers and my now ex-coworker is a really groovy person. For crying out loud, she's as obessesed with Snakes on a Plane as I am.
It's motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane.
I'm really enjoying this onslaught of activity, though damn is it tiring. Must ease back into the alcohol as well as the socializing; going full throttle on both is going to do damage to this soon to be 30 year old.
And I learned a valuable lesson last night at around 2 am: do not, under any circumstances and no matter what sort of good idea it might seem at the time, drink absinthe.
That shite will fuck you up ten ways till Tuesday in about 5 seconds.

News

2006-07-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

To say that my father and I do not have a good relationship is to put the actual situation in the most diplomatic of terms.
We haven't spoken more than 5 words to each other in as many years. And that is all for the best. The last time I recall feeling something positive for my dad was before I turned 10. After that it was really all downhill; specifics are just not that important anymore.
Last year I got a call from my mom that my dad had a stroke. After the initial shock, though, I wasn't all that upset. More just interested in the lack of emotion in my response.
Then apart from a few jokes about him made to various family members at various times, he hasn't really entered into my thoughts.
A couple of nights ago I was on the phone with my mother, discussing the new fridge she had to purchase to replace the current one which wasn't nearly keeping up it's end of the appliance bargain. Somehow we got onto the subject of my father and in passing she mentions him being seen with a pound of butter, stupid after his heart surgery.
Heart surgery? Huh?
I learn that my father had a quadruple bypass at some point a few months ago. My brothers knew about it at the time and my mother didn't find out till April. But no one thought to tell me. Now, granted, I'm not torn up about this; in fact I was more shocked that he hadn't kicked the bucket while on the table. However, I was bewildered as to why no one in my family thought it necessary to tell me about it.
Maybe my lack of compassion for the man might have influenced their decision or maybe the fact that he really has no effect whatsoever on my life.
Regardless of the reason, it would have been nice to know earlier.

I'm SUCH a Lightweight

2006-07-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

After almost 5 months in Boston, I finally had plans on a Saturday night this past weekend.
One of my coworkers - one of the cooler ones I might add - had a birthday party. It was a good time had by all...I got home at like 5:30 am so yes, it was a good time.
I forgot what it was like to hang out with a random collection of people, drinking, shooting the shit, getting totally piss ass drunk, and hopefully making a decent enough impression to be invited to the next party.
The majority of the people at the party either currently work or previously worked at my store. And somehow we managed to talk about the store only half the time. The age range was between 16 and 30. And yes, all were drunk at various points in the night.
If I remember correctly I only had 3 glasses of wine and one diet coke with orange vodka (not something I would recommend) and yet I was wasted. I was hung over till around, oh an hour ago. Thankfully there was no vomit or blackouts, just some woozy conversation and some very unpleasant nausea for most of today.
But hey, it's all in the name of fun.

A Family Place

2006-07-20T19:39:00.000-07:00

On Monday I discovered something very very disturbing about my workplace.
I walked into the bathroom only to be hit with the overwhelming stench of human feces. Now this was not like someone pooped, flushed and the smell was still lingering. This was like someone was crapping into their hands and then smearing the product on the walls a la Jackson Pollock.
I turn the corner to see an older woman, standing in front of the sink sans pants. Her legs and underpants are covered in fecal matter. Not wanting to embarrass her further (and wanting to get the hell outta there) I quickly fled the scene. I notified a manager of the situation and went to go clear my head.
Of course I had to share this news with a few of my fellow coworkers. Not all, mind you, just the ones with whom I spend the day in an odd one-upmanship of who can find the oddest thing the store sells. I saw one of these people and proceeded to attempt to tell them about what I saw. I say attempt because apparently I am five years old and cannot say "A woman crapped herself in the bathroom" without giggling for ten minutes.
My coworker looked at me and said "I have no sympathy for you women." Indignant, I demanded an explanation.
His explanation: occasionally (OK, pretty much on a daily basis) they have to remove various pornographic magazines from the men's room.
That's right. Men come into a bookstore, take a porno mag from the shelves, walk through the children's section to the bathroom, and proceed to jack one off. It boggles the mind.
My comment was that I firmly believed that it was worth the $5.99 to masturbate in the comfort of one's own home. But it would seem I am wrong.
When I approached another coworker to relay both pieces of information - the goings on in both male and female lavatories - he told me that he already knew about what happened in the men's room and that all the male employees have had to remove said magazines.
It has been almost 5 days since this revelation and I am still totally and utterly skeeved out.

One is the loneliest Number

2006-06-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

Though I've found two, three and occasionally five and seven can be just as lonely.
I've now been in Boston for almost four months and while I'm as settled in as I'm going to get, I still don't feel like I have (for lack of an English word) a chevra, or a group. (OK, so I found an English word).
Granted I haven't had that sort of group in several years; not since they all started getting married and moving to various cities around the country. But even so, I had a good core group of friends that I could rely on.
One by one that core group has gotten married off as well and moved around the globe, not just around the world. As much as I love one of my friends, with him living in Australia, there is a definite strain on our friendship.
I know that there are people in places like Chicago, LA, and Baltimore who I could count on when the chips are really really down, but I am finding myself really really needing that in Boston.
And I've come to realize more and more that as much as I love NY and plan on returning within the next few years, I will have to start from scratch in terms of friends. It's an odd thought and one that didn't come easy to me. I've always or since 1994 had a solid group of people I could count on whenever I lived or visited my favorite city on Earth. But marriage, fights, and general distance has lessened those ties and by the time I finally get my sorry ass back to the City, I don't expect those ties to be anything other than the occasional phone call followed by the rarer and awkward cup of coffee or beer.
How much of my affinity for NY is based on my happier memories of friends and good times past and how much is based on the actual city? While at this point I can't tell, I am sure it's at least split evenly and now when I think of NY it's no longer the people in it that come to mind as much as the institutions and cultural meccas. And I'm thinking this is a good thing.
When all is said and done, however, I am as of this moment, not in NY, but in Boston. I have made some casual friends through a book club and while I enjoy our bi-weekly excuses to drink and gossip, I have only really made one real friend out of that bunch and lo, she is moving to (wouldn't you know) New York within the next 2 months. Work is full of nice and friendly people, but very few are people that right now seem to be the sort who hang out with co-workers...or at least with me.
I feel like a broken record sometimes writing about being lonely and single and all that bullshit, but I think it's just been the overarching theme in my life for the past couple of years. I am truly truly longing to find someone and someones with whom I can connect; people who "get" me and who in turn I have "gotten". I do not expect that I am alone in this struggle. Most of us yearn for that sort of communion with friends and lovers, and maybe it is my bad luck to have experienced it so early in life. Maybe you're not supposed to have met people who really understood you at the age of 17 - because once they have left your life, you find yourself on the verge of 30 trying to recreate something that is similar to that experience. True, you can never really recreate the past, nor is it a good thing to try to do so; but if you have been happy and contented at one point, is it not human to attempt to seek out that same feeling again and again as you go through life?
I have not fully acclimated myself to that scariest of realizations: being alone forever and ever, no matter what else I've said till now. There is some slight hope somewhere in me that I'll be able to meet that right person with whom to spend the rest of my life and that I'll meet up with the right people who will be the rocks of friendship that I feel I am partially missing at this stage.
Problem is that I don't know which is worse: losing that hope or keeping it burning despite a preponderance of evidence that is it useless and misplaced.

To Quote Homer, "Oh a GYYYM!"

2006-06-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that I am making near poverty levels at my exciting new job as book store whore, I have decided that I need to give a majority of it every month to a gym. Granted it is the best looking gym I've ever seen in my life: all beechwood and green glass, with brand-spanking new machines, a sauna, steam room and something called a "eucalyptus whirlpool". So yeah, the place is amazing.
Oh, they also have five (5!) big screen plasma TV's in the cardio area and godbless, today they were showing my favorite episodes of Friends.
But I figure I have to go around 4 times a week to make it worth my monetary while. And yes, it will be good for me too to do that, but getting up at 5 am four times a week and standing on my feet for 8 hours a day is not conducive to being gung-ho about going to run for another hour.
Here's to hoping it gets easier as time goes on...and hoping I can get up tomorrow morning at 5 am.

Fuck It

2006-06-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

As my 30th birthday creeps closer and closer, I have started the hyperventilating and late nights sitting around wondering what the hell is going on with my life.
With yet another friend annoucing her engagement, another announcing her pregnancy, and another buying his second house, I cannot help but try and figure out where the hell my life took that awful turn where I'm almost 30 and totally and completely alone.
I keep hearing stories of "I know this woman who met the man of her dreams when she was 42 and now they're married and it's all great." Wonderful. Faboo. Mazal Tov. Personally, I'd rather not spend the majority of my life alone. Just a personal quirk I suppose.
And the kicker is that there's pretty much no one in my life who can understand how I'm feeling. I have a very very few male friends left who are not married, but I would say that they are all single for very very obvious reasons. Not that that makes it right, of course. And all the married friends, who believe so much that they know what I'm going through, are really just lying to me and to themselves. Anyone who has been in a relationship long enough to even consider engagement has absolutely no idea.
So I keep coming back to the theory that there must be something rather unright with me as well. If all my completely fucked up and morose bunch of friends can find someone with whom to while away the remainder of their lives, what is it about me that is so aborrent that I remain alone?
Thus far I have not been able to come up with a theory that would account for my total solitude...but I am still looking.

A Chip off the Old Shoulder

2006-06-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

I'm usually the last to admit this, but yes, I am an intellectual snob.
This is not to say that I'm some bigtime smartypants, but on occasion I know a few things. However, I have been highly intolerant of those whose knowledge of books, politics, history, and anything that isn't found on the pages of People. To my knowledge I've never snubbed anyone who falls into that category, but I know that I judged.
Barring one glaring example at my last job (and the acid dropping paranoid alien-abductee knows who he is), I've been lucky enough to work with non-mouth breathers. At Barnes and Noble, there is a far larger sieve where employees are concerned. A great retail employee doesn't necessarily need to have massive brain power - just selling power. And as such, I've been working with not the brightest colors in the 64 box of crayons. Nice nice people, but the sorts who say "I'll tell you what". But I no longer judge, for the most part. These are in reality nice nice people and I'm learning that sometimes that can be enough. Sure I'm not going to want to sit down and debate whether Von Karajan is the best Beethoven conductor with most of my coworkers, but I don't have to worry about any of them stabbing me in the back (literally or figuratively).
I know that there will always be some tiny corner of my mind that will scream whenever I hear one of them mangle the English language but I've stopped rolling my eyes and muttering under my breath and that has to count for something.

And So It has Come to This

2006-06-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

After a few months in Boston and some major soul searching I have attempted to carve out a new future for myself: about a year of manual labor at a retail store and then the payoff, around 2 months in Europe.
Maybe this isn't the smartest thing for a soon to be 30 year old to do, but the thought of settling into an office job "just because" fills me with intense dread.
Besides, if I don't travel now, when will I?
And so to finance my little jaunt, I have taken a job at Barnes and Noble. Perhaps a step above Starbucks - though maybe not.
I control an entire section of the store, though the actual responsibility is minor (a welcome change from my last job where I had a couple of million riding on my everyday duties). The people I work with are all essentially friendly and all essentially far younger than I. My direct manager is a huge fan of Invader Zim so that's a plus. And overall it's mostly hauling books and boxes of books around the store and doing basic book store maintenance stuff.
However--on Friday I came into work and glanced at the daily assignment sheet to get an idea of how my day was going to be broken down. For the last three hours of my shift, I was assigned to "MC". Not knowing what this meant, I walked over to the manager on duty and inquired. The MOD laughed in my face, and then said pityingly "This is just because the guy who was supposed to do it didn't show up". And what you might ask is "MC"? It stands for MasterCard. As in, wear an apron and stand at the front of the store and greet customers and inform them of the new B&N Member MasterCard. May I repeat - an APRON! A fucking apron!
So after four years at an Ivy League college, three years managing the daily runnings of a company, I have been reduced to becoming an apron wearing, credit card shilling Barnes and Noble bitch.
Lovely.
Of course most of the customers didn't want to be bothered and those who didn't bite my head off the moment I said "Hi" were ready to do so once I mentioned the reason for my friendly banter. It was a humiliating three hours.
Thankfully the next day my store supervisor actually apologized for making me don the apron and I'm hoping that translates into my never having to wear it again.
Only around nine more months of this and then it's off to Italy, Austria, Croatia...ahhhh.

Oscar Thoughts

2006-03-10T15:45:00.000-08:00

Since I just got my computer yesterday, I have not been able to jot down my random thoughts about last weekend's Oscars. However, I am now back on line and trying to remember everything I wanted to say.

First of all, I know that he was nervous at the start, but overall I think Jon Stewart did an incredibly admirable job. The opening was hysterical, especially Jon's little victory dance once he realized that he wasn't dreaming that he woke up right next to George Clooney (because who would want to wake up next to Mr. Clooney?) and the Bjork/Cheney joke was expected but well crafted. He also took good advantage of the acceptance "speech" by the 3-6 Mafia (?) for Best Original Song. Indeed, why were they the most excited people there??

Second, I must express my dismay that "Crash" won for Best Picture. I mean, c'mon! Is Hollywood that shallow that they'd rather give the prize to a movie that is all about LA and was shallow and obvious rather than...pretty much any of the other four nominated movies. Of all the movies nominated I would have preferred to see "Capote" take home the Oscar; of all the movies released last year, the best picture was "The Squid and the Whale". Both of those are complex character studies and full of memorable and compelling performances. Both are movies that I look forward to seeing again; I have no desire to see "Crash" again.
As I've said time and time again, "Crash" can be summed up in the song "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" from the musical Avenue Q. You don't need two hours of melodrama and hysteria to get the message across.

Third, despite the fact that the rest of the awards were predictable, I was mostly happy with the outcome of the major categories (though "Crash" did not deserve Best Original Screenplay). Phillip Seymour Hoffman, George Clooney and Rachel Weisz were all at the top of my list. Having not yet seen "Walk The Line" I cannot comment on Reese Witherspoon, but I am skeptical that she was better than Felicity Huffman in "Transamerica" or Laura Linney's unnominated performance in "The Squid and the Whale". Reese was mildly entertaining as Elle Woods, but is she really Oscar worthy? There have been a lot of complaints that the awards were too predictable, but I was not much perturbed. Isn't it better that the right people won than the wrong people winning but the show being a shocker?
Considering the viewing numbers, maybe I'm wrong.

And that brings me to my fourth point.
So what if the viewing numbers were down.
They always say know your audience. The average American didn't see the five nominated films. Why? Not because they weren't good movies and not because they weren't readily available across the country. The average American doesn't like movies where something doesn't blow up. Of course the blow up movies haven't been raking in the big bucks like they used to, which is why half of the Oscars was dedicated to begging viewers to see movies in the theater.

Fifth - who in their right mind thought Lauren Bacall should be doing an intro to film noir? She was lovely and talented in her day but she could barely utter a complete word let alone a complete sentence. It was just painful watching her struggle through the introduction. As many have pointed out it was this year's version of the Elizabeth Taylor/Golden Globe speech, aka the drugged/drunk/ancient mutterings of the aging Hollywood Star. Just sad.

Overall it was an enjoyable evening and should they tap Jonny-boy to host again, I don't think it would be the worst thing in the world.

Movin' On Up

2006-03-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

In around 8 hours from now, I will fly out of LA and heads towards what I hope to be a brand new life in Boston.

As I believe I have made clear to every single person I know, I am more than a little freaked out about the move - but I'm still going through with it.

My boxes have all been packed and shipped; my luggage is bursting at the seams; and I've said my goodbyes to my family.

It is truly pathetic, but I'm a 29 year old woman who wants her mother to live across the street. I guess sometimes you never really grow up.

As I prepare to head into the great and mysterious unknown, I hold onto the knowledge that in various locations over the US there are people who care about me and wish me well, and that this is more of an adventure than anything else and I need to hold onto the excitement of it all and the opportunities I will hopefully be presented with and let go of the anxiety.

And if all else fails, I am parting on good terms with my mom so I can always come home.

But I really hope that's not the case.

It's the Most Craptacular Time of the Year

2006-02-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

We're now in the post-Oscar/pre-Summer daze, the time of the year when studio executives look at the films gathering dust on their shelves and say "Man, I gotta get this crap out of here!"
Yes, it is January/February/March - the months when the cineplexes are stuffed full of garbage that the studio should have never funded in the first place. The time of year when people are so starved to see something, anything that they made Kangaroo Jack number one at the box office a few years ago (and then complained because the kangaroo didn't talk enough!). Just look at this week's top three movies: Madea's Family Reunion (it's like the sequel to Big Momma's House 2), Eight Below (another Snow Dogs but without Cuba Gooding Jr. to make an ass out of himself), and the Pink Panther (which much to my shame, I saw and god was it embarrassing).
Not a single one of these movies deserves to have the phrase "Number 1 a the Box office!" attached to it's ads. And in the coming weeks, there's precious little to look forward to.
These doldrums of late winter are the dumping grounds for the studios and you'll find all the poorly made horror films, tactless comedies, unromantic romantic comedies, and over the top dramas that you could ever want.
Last weekend, the movie "Freedomland" with Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore came out and you'd think that with these two fine actors the movie would be worthwhile. However, one does need to question why the studio waited so long to release it. Most critics and most moviegoers have trashed this film, saying that Moore and Jackson have given some of the worst performances of their careers. I don't begrudge the actors the need for taking work. Neither of them is at the top of their earning bracket (though I'm sure they do just fine) and when a movie that seems good comes along, I understand why they'd take it. But the movie appears to have been just one gigantic crapfest of melodrama and obvious racial stereotypes and money or no money, this movie probably should not have been made.
If this coming summer is anything like the summer of 2005, we are in real trouble. I'm crossing my fingers that all the blockbusters will be entertaining and the few quality movies that get released before Fall will actually be quality.
The movie industry put out some fine films in 2005, but they have a lot to answer for (Fantastic Four, anyone?) and so far, 2006 ain't doing it for me.

You Gotta Have Friendship

2006-02-26T21:06:00.000-08:00

At the wedding I attended in NY, I became reacquainted with a number of people I had been friendly with earlier in my life. Mostly people I knew from my year in Israel between high school and college. Former roommates, former dormmates, essentially former friends.

And I honestly reconnected with a couple of them.

At times when you aren't sure of where you're going or who you are trying to be, it can be eye-opening to meet up with someone who knew you 12 years ago and has a very clear idea of who you were.
It's so easy to forget who we've been and that can help figure out who we're going to be.

At least that's how it's been feeling with this one friend in particular.
She was one of my roommates in Israel and whereas I'm fairly loud and boisterous, she was quieter and far less attention grabbing. Yet, we clicked. Of course I went to college in NY and she went to Michigan and we essentially lost touch.
But we bonded again immediately at the wedding and have been in contact since.

I suppose it's just nice when people end up not being such total shits - it can surprise you.

It's Me and the Pilgrims Now

2006-02-15T23:53:00.000-08:00

Overall the rest of the NY trip went well. My friend's wedding was insanely over the top - but gorgeous. My big joke is that their flower arrangements would pay off my student loans.
Luckily, they also had A LOT of booze and I enjoyed myself. Enjoyed myself six glasses of wine and 4 vodka tonics.
And yes, I was pretty darned tooting drunk afterwards, passed out in my dress and awoke with a raging hangover.

And the next night I accompanied my sister to a vegetarian/vegan restaurant for dinner. God bless my sister - she actually thought the food was tasty. I thought it tasted like dirt and soy sauce.

Anyway, now I'm packing up for my big move to Boston. Well, freaking out and packing. There's something about putting your life into a bunch of tiny boxes that just shakes you to the core. I have packed books I've had since I was a child, books I had to read in college, and books I picked up on a whim from a sidewalk vendor. I went through papers and found letters from men who used to matter to me and pictures of friends I haven't spoken to since the new millenium.

I've sent out the "new contact info" to all my friends and family - though in the age of email, who really needs your physical address anymore except to send you bills.

While I know that this is the right move on many many levels, I can't help but second guess myself (mostly because that is where my real talent lies). Is this really the right time/place to move? Do I have any clue what I am getting myself into? Am I running towards something new or running away from something that I just can't deal with anymore? When is the next time I'll see family? How will I make new friends? Will I ever meet a guy who isn't a totally self-absorbed, emotionally distant asshole? Can I make it work in a new city?

So I pack to quiet these questions best I can and hope that my instincts are right for a change and that Boston might really be a great place to start over.

I'm still a NY girl at heart, though, so don't expect me to start becoming a Sox fan.

I Heart NY

2006-02-02T21:58:00.000-08:00

I'm back in the city of my dreams...New York.
Sure I'm moving to Boston, not NY, but that don't mean that NY ain't my true love.
Seriously, I love this place like a person; yes, I admit to my sickness - I just don't want to do anything about it.

Finished my last day of work yesterday (thought I owe 2 days of writing) and hopped on a plane that night. I love the red eye; someone always has to have a 9 month old with colic. Funny thing is, I finished work yesterday but somehow I got 3 calls from work today. And I had to call a client. I'd like to be egotistic and say I have the magic touch, but I think it's just the jitters over the transfer of duties.

So I'm in NY and staying with my sister at Barnard. Yes, I'm 29 and staying with my sister who's in college - but it's cheap and I'm on a budget so I figure it's not such a bad deal. The thing is that being up here is bringing back a total wave of memories from my years at Columbia.
And since my years at Columbia were almost solely tied up with one ex-boyfriend, these memories are bittersweet to say the least.

I walked down College Walk, with the trees all lit with little twinkly lights, and remembered walking the same path and having a great argument over a movie here, stealing a good night kiss over there; in this corner he peed - in fact, I could do a whole walking tour of campus where my ex relieved himself. I thought of the friends I made here and those that I lost contact with over the years. I wondered how my life would have been different had I not been an Orthodox Jew during my college years and what sort of person I might have been now. I remembered all the classes I took, the professors who were interesting, some who weren't, and a few who were just downright odd. I walked by the West End and recalled how after my last final in college, my Shakespeare professor took a few of us out for drinks; we all had beers and he downed 2 straight gins before any of us had finished our brewskis. He then went on to tell us the secrets of the English Department. And I thought about what I imagined my life would be like at this point and how I'm a million miles away from any vision of my future I held in college.

I was also walking all over my old neighborhood from where I lived after college. And of course nostalgia got me again.
All the friends I had in my 20's are married, with kids. Most of them no longer live in Manhattan, some even happily so. I wandered past the 96th 1/9 station where I had waited for so many subways; I walked around on Central Park West where I had to wait for everyone to get their ass in gear every time we'd go out; I went past the supermarkets I used to swear by and the Korean grocers who'd save my ass when I needed something at 11 pm on a Tuesday night. I passed three of my old apartments and knew that no one I'd known lived there anymore.

All in all it's been a day of memories and a wee bit hard to assimilate to be honest.
My ex is now married with 2 kids. I try to remember what he looks like, but all I have flashes of features and expressions.
The friends I had when I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan have scattered all over the East Coast. I haven't met most of their children, though I have flipped thru the myriad of photos sent over the internet.

It's all different and of course I'm different. I'm more cynical and more jaded, but at the same time less certain of what is actually going on with this world. I'm better traveled and more anxious to see the rest of the planet. I have just as little direction as I did in 1996, for better and for worse. And as such I'm not closer to whatever I might believe is my purpose in life, but I'm trying harder to enjoy the ride.

Over the next few days, I'll be having reunion upon reunion with friends from my year in Israel and friends from college. Despite my status as the sole single person in these festivities, I'm going to try to keep a stiff upper lip, though I can't promise anything. I will get all tarted up for this fancy shmancy wedding on Sunday and try to keep up with the insane schedule I planned for myself.

But most of all I hope to try and enjoy this city that I have missed with heart and soul for the past three years. Every short trip is just a tease. And I hope, one day, to be lucky enough and worthy, to move back here and start a whole new life with new memories to be made - and I hope I'll be just that much stronger to be able move beyond the personal history I feel every time I walk these streets.

(Sorry for the maudlin aspect of this post...being back in NY after 7 months will do that to me)

Me: 1 Acrophobia: 0

2006-01-24T00:31:00.000-08:00

Because I have been traveling for 18 hours straight, my full trip report will not be done tonight.

Suffice it to say that Costa Rica is nothing short of awesome. The people, the scenery, the animals, the food - everything but the roads.

Despite my desire to go everywhere, I will definitely have to make it back to CR; I only saw a tip of what the country has to offer and I need to see it all.

More after I've showered and slept.

If Only George of the Jungle Were Real

2006-01-18T14:06:00.000-08:00

Despite some previous posting, in the end, I am indeed heading off to Costa Rica tonight. The trip has been shortened a tad, but I'm still getting to see Monteverde, which was a high point for me.

I'm in no way prepared for this trip. I have no clue of what I'm doing, where I'm going, where I'm staying...in essence this is a totally non-me trip. I love to overthink and have contingency plans right and left.

However, similar to my trip to France in September, I'm going into this blindly and I'm beginning to think it's a good thing. Far be it from me to say that having control over everything is something bad, but perhaps I should be a little bit more easy-going with vacations and just see what happens.

Of course if that easy going attitude leads to my being bitten by an ebola monkey, I totally take it all back.

Calling All Escorts!

2006-01-16T13:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm not really going to hire an escort, but for the moment it seems like an easy solution to a permanent problem.

In a few weeks I'm going to NY for a friend's wedding. As I have been told several times, I'll be the only single female at the wedding and quite possibly the only single person in my age bracket. And just my luck, all my married and dating friends are going to be there with the assorted spouses and significant others. To add insult to injury, I have to attend a dinner that Friday night which will be me and four couples.

Can I please slit my wrists now?

Granted in the grand scheme of things, to other people this might not seem like such a big problem. You suck it up, go, and feel like the charity case of the group. Thing is...after years of the sucking it up and years of feeling like a charity case, enough is enough. At some point, you want to be one of couples, one of the people there who feels that even if no one talks to them, they have a built in companion. I never feel more alone then when I'm with a group of couples.

So either I find a boyfriend by February 3rd or I find a Will to my Grace (i.e. a gay man to be my escort to such embarrassing functions).

And since I see neither option taking form before the due date...look for me that night, I'll be the one drinking arsenic in the corner with a bleach chaser.

The Squid and the Whale

2006-01-15T17:08:00.000-08:00

Finally doing what hundreds of critics have been telling me to do, today I saw Noah Baumbach's hilariously sad "The Squid and the Whale" and I cannot figure out why it took me so long.
(OK, I know why it took me so long; only recently did it start showing in a theater close to my house...there are only a very few moves that will get me on a bus and they'd better be longer than an hour and a half)

"The Squid and the Whale" is the story of a family going thru a divorce in the mid 1980's. Both parents, played by Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels, have PhD's in English and while Bernard's literary career is dying out, Joan's is just taking flight. They have 2 sons, Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) who is in high school and his younger brother Frank (Owen Kline). Whereas Frank is hurt by the divorce, but willing to go with the flow for the most part, Walt immediately sides with his father whom he idolizes completely. Rather than read a book or watch a movie and formulate his own opinion, Walt adopts his father's bombastic and pretentious opinions as his own. When he tells a girl he's interested in that the F. Scott Fitzgerald book she loved so much was only one of Fitzgerald's minor works and that Gatsby is his crowning achievement, the humor lies in the fact that we know he's never read either.

This quiet little movie contained more truth about life and our feelings of guilt, pain, loss, love, and happiness than almost any other film this year. Based on the writer/director's own childhood experiences, he captured the honesty that can be revealed in times of crisis. When Bernard tells Walt about Joan's extra-marital activities, and Walt then goes to Joan and throws them back in her face, the barrage of emotions Laura Linney displays perfectly echoes the reaction of someone who is simultaneously hurt and utterly pissed off.

And while the bulk of the film revolves around the reactions to the divorce, the film is also dedicated to that moment in life when you realize that your parents aren't perfect. Each of us at some point in our lives is faced with that completely devastating moment when we realize that our mother and father might not belong on the pedestal that we had previously installed them upon. For Walt this realization comes almost too late and Bernard almost catches it, but he is so self-involved it passes him by.

William Baldwin and Anna Paquin are both wonderful in their small roles as the boys' tennis coach and Bernard's student/lover, respectively. William Baldwin's Ivan is calm, easy going, and blessedly simple, all the things that Bernard is not. Anna Paquin's Lily is a young writer who falls in love with the writer and not the man. Though the characters are there to help exemplify the ever-growing valley between the parents, Paquin and Baldwin do such a wonderful job, you want to know how each of them got to this point in time.

Though many people are calling attention to the performances of the sons, to me this film solidified Linney and Daniels more than anything else. Linney has been nominated twice for an Academy Award (for "You Can Count on Me" and "Kinsey") and every performance just brings her closer and closer to the hearts and minds of the discriminating movie-going public. Jeff Daniels, on the other hand, is still trying to be taken seriously as an actor. With roles "Dumb and Dumber" and "My Favorite Martian" it can be easy to forget that Daniels is an accomplished actor who won Mia Farrow's heart in "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and assumed the needed gravitas in "Gettysburg". This year Daniels had a small but well acted role in George Clooney's "Good Night and Good Luck", but it is with "The Squid and the Whale" where he truly shines.

In a year when films seem to require a gimmick or special effects to be noticed, it is good to see that this movie is slowly, but hopefully surely, gaining a well-deserved audience.

Who Knew Brosnan was so good?

2006-01-08T00:50:00.000-08:00

With not much of a desire to see any particular movie, I ended up seeing "The Matador" tonight and honestly, I'm damn glad I did. "The Matador" is a darkly humorous buddy comedy about a chance meeting between an assassin entering a midlife crisis (Pierce Brosnan) and a salesman at the end of his rope and the end of his luck (Greg Kinnear). And while some of the ground the movie covers might seem familiar, in the end this tidy little flick might very well surprise you.

Brosnan's Julian Noble is a man who likes his booze, his women and his men who look like women. He also likes his job, which just happens to be facilitating the removal of particular people, as he once puts it. While on a job in Mexico City, he befriends a fellow barmate, Kinnear's Danny Wright. Wright is in Mexico to close a big deal that he hopes will break him out of his three year run of bad luck which began with a family tragedy and continued through to a household disaster the morning of his flight down to Mexico. Danny is at the bar that night celebrating what he thinks was a highly successful meeting earlier that day. What ensues is a disjointed conversation between the two that is highly humorous and fairly revealing. As they talk Danny reveals what haunts him and Julian reveals his own emotional delinquency.

The rest of the movie continues on from there including a terribly funny sequence at a bullfight where Julian is showing Danny exactly what he does for money. But the big turn is later on in the film several months later Julian shows up at Danny's house in the middle of the night, seemingly out of nowhere, desperate and needy. This is where Hope Davis as Danny's wife Bean steals every scene she's in. Her excitement at housing an assassin is unexpected, but truly fitting for the movie's tone. The chemistry between Davis, Kinnear, and Brosnan is at the same time easy and electric and I wish there had been a chance to see more of it. But since in essence this movie is more about the relationship between the two men and their chemistry was just perfect, you don't notice this desire till later.

As the movie rounds the bend, the main characters basically switch places; Julian falls apart and Danny is the strong and stable one. (Though to be fair, Julian was never stable) And as the tables turn, the friendship strengthens to the point where they are both on equal footing. This brings up both stated and implied questions of morality where one wonders how much assassin is in each of us when pushed to the limit. "The Matador" has its own notions of the answers to some of these questions and leaves the rest up to the audience.

After playing James Bond for the past few years, Pierce Brosnan seemed to settle into a comfortable smarminess. He is wonderfully freed from this stereotyping in this role. Whether strolling through a hotel lobby full of well-dressed businessmen while dressed only in a speedo, sunglasses and boots, breaking down in an abandoned stairwell, or seducing a young women with barely a wink, Brosnan embodies Julian Noble's highs, lows, and everything in between...you even forget that he once had to pretend Denise Richards was a physicist. It is perhaps a blessing in disguise that Daniel Craig is taking up the license to kill as now Brosnan will be free to explore the darker and more bizarre side of himself and caricature the rut he almost fell into.

Not My Day

2006-01-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

Well...I just emailed my friend and told her that I can't go to her wedding in Costa Rica.
An unfortunate and very large medical expense just came up which all but wiped out my savings.
And since I don't have a job yet in Boston, I can't afford to take a trip.

And then my MP3 player broke.

I believe the term for what I'm going thru is hemorrhaging money.

And yes, I am not afraid to admit that I shed a few tears as I looked at my bank statement and made the necessary calculations in my head.
Sometimes the fates conspire against you. And there's always that lovely little cliche, "man proposes, god disposes"

Sounds like the theme of my life lately.

Ode to an Annoying Coworker

2006-01-06T09:47:00.000-08:00

For almost two and a half years I have worked beside you in our office

And Monday thru Friday for those two and a half years I have had to look into your jowly face, your piggy eyes, your scraggly chin hairs, and your greasy ponytail.

And pretend to be happy to see you.

You never learned how to work our in office system

You never learned how to speak to a customer without offending

You didn't know what "insubordination" meant - even after you were warned for that very thing

You spent every day at your computer narrating your every action, like a dimwitted

DVD commentary

You wore clothes full of holes and the same shorts everyday during the summer months

Don't you own more than one pair?

Can't you buy another?

You sang any and every word that seemed interesting to you, much to the dismay of all around you

You still don't know how to read our order program

And continue to give customers misinformation

You think you can never be wrong and you are mostly wrong

You laugh at your own jokes and pat yourself on the back for such brilliance

We just want to muzzle you.

For almost two and a half years I have thought and dreamed and planned revenge

Revenge for the raging headaches, the unnecessary phone calls and apologies for your mistakes

Revenge for having to listen to you rant and rave about all the "evil people" all over the world

Revenge for not being able to laugh in your face when you told us you had been abducted by aliens

For two and a half years I have waited to say this to you:

JUST SHUT THE HELL UP!

Jonny Be Good! (Please)

2006-01-04T22:41:00.000-08:00

According to the LA Times, it would appear that my secret boyfriend, Jon Stewart, will be hosting this year's Oscars and despite my undying love and devotion to Mr. Stewart...I'm hesitant.

I'm not hesitant because I don't think he's funny or smart or capable. I think he's all of the above. But the Oscars is not his milieu. It's almost no one's milieu except for Bob Hope and Billy Crystal. In recent memory they are the only 2 hosts not to have bombed with full medals. I will say that I enjoyed Steve Martin, but Steve is just to classy for the Oscar crowd.

Hosting the Oscars is a thankless job. If the monologue doesn't include a song, today's audiences won't like it. Then the rest of the show is trying to pick up the slack from the actors who are forced to recite those painfully awful jokes while they present the Award for best editing in a feature film. While Jon can quip with the best of them, he's not particularly good at kissing ass. If you don't believe me watch his interview with John Kerry - ouch. Jon is at his best when he's leading some political pundit down the long and winding road towards self-incrimination. And when it works, it is a thing of utmost beauty. But this is not the venue for such beauty.

The expectations for Jon are so great that he just has to do OK and the poisoned pens will race to bash him. And that is just not necessary. If it is true that Jon is indeed hosting, I pray he rocks the fucking house, for his sake.

In other related news, the vitriolic and downright nasty comments on the LA Times page just appalled me. I know that the LA Times is a relatively conservative newspaper (I wouldn't read their coverage of US or Middle East politics if you paid me), the anti-Semitic bent of their readers was a total shock.
Like Jon, hate Jon just leave your "Jews control Hollywood" at home.

It Has Come to My Attention...

2005-12-31T03:43:00.000-08:00

It has come to my attention that some of my siblings might on occasion read this thing and so to them I would like to issue an apology for any hurt feelings or bruised egos.
I do not write this blog to be spiteful or hurtful - I do it to get out those thoughts buzzing in my brain that I need to see as words to be rid of them.
Please do not take to much to heart what I say and if you do, know that I do love each and every one of you, despite whatever fights and issues we may have. Families fight and we do more than most, with my causing just as many as anyone else.

To anyone else who might read this, I would like to make sure I that openly acknowledge that I am no saint and in no way perfect, especially where my family is involved.

This blog, like most writing, is inherently selfish and much of the personal items I write should be taken with a giantic silo of salt.

I am truly sorry if I've hurt any of you.

Moving Right Along

2005-12-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

This week my office moved locations and if I thought that things were scatterbrained in the daily operation of this place, then I was given a real treat during this move.
Rather than spend a few weeks prepping the move like most other places might do, we did everything slapdashedly in a matter of three or four days. True, we're not a terribly big company, but every office environment has paper and we are no exception.
Thankfully everything seemed to make it over in one piece though our temporary office space (the permanent one being fixed up) seems to be radically lacking in electrical sockets.
Since I will be gone in 2 weeks from today, this shouldn't bother me. I guess when you've spent the better part of three years worrying about the daily operations of business, it's customers, and it's intraoffice politics, it is a hard habit to break.
But I'm sure a few days in Costa Rica will help fix that.

And plus, I'll have a whole new set of office worries once I have a new job in Boston. Hooray!

Nickel Creek

2005-12-21T13:55:00.000-08:00

I've been a huge fan of the band Nickel Creek for around four years. Their blend of bluegrass, pop and instrumental music is essentially infectious. The band consists of Sara and Sean Watkins (brother and sister) and Chris Thile, a sort of mandolin protege. The three of them are from around San Diego way and seem to have been doing this forever, despite being in their early-mid 20's. I saw them 2 years ago at the same venue and this time I had much better seats and as this was the last show of their current tour, the band was a bit punchy and lot more relaxed than last time.

They had someone named Andrew Bird open for them - which was an excellent choice because his music was just as eclectic and varied as Nickel Creek's. Andrew Bird's music seemed to involve a lot of violin (both legato and pizzicato), electric guitar, a xylophone, and whistling. Yes, whistling, which is actually much cooler in actuality than it sounds. I've since become very obsessed with a few of his songs and have listened to them daily.

As for Nickel Creek, they just rocked pure and simple. How can a sorta bluegrass band with a mandolin, guitar and violin rock? Just trust me. Along with a great selection of their songs, they found ways to incorporate other artists' songs into their playset. The most amusing and best received cover was "Toxic" by Britney Spears. Yes, that Britney Spears. But my favorite cover was done in the middle of an instrumental piece called "The House of Tom Bombadill" (yes, the Tom Bombadill from The Lord of the Rings) - right in the middle of the piece, they segued and started playing Randy Newman's "Short People". This was terribly funny since Sean and Sara Watkins are both of fairly small stature and they're singing a song that says "short people got no reason to live". Priceless.

The whole venue was pretty much energized by their performance and they did 2 encores. Though they finally ended off with "Why Should the Fire Die?" a quieter number from their new eponymous album, their first encore was a raucous version of "The Fox" based on the old folksong. Mid-song, their base player got up and did a tap/jig to a standing ovation and was joined after a couple of minutes by Chris Thile, clearly the clown of the group.

Even though I went alone, there was that short-lived camaraderie with the rest of the audience at the Wiltern, and together we rejoiced in music that made us all quite simply happy.

The Internet is For Porn

2005-12-14T13:58:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I went to Vegas for what is the fourth or fifth time this year.
Yet this trip had a larger purpose than just getting me the hell out of my house for the weekend. I was actually getting my birthday present from my friend David. And yes, he is a very nice friend for doing this for me. Oddly the trip to Vegas wasn't the actual gift. The actual gift was 2 tickets to see "Avenue Q" at the Wynn.
For those unaware of it's brilliance, Ave Q is a Broadway musical that is essentially Sesame Street for adults. The main characters are mostly puppets, much like Burt, Ernie, and Cookie Monster. The show won a Tony for best new musical and after seeing it, I understood why. The songs are fun and very much in the vein of the Sesame Street songs, but the lyrics include lines like "it sucks to be me", "everyone's a little bit racist" and yes, "the internet is for porn". But at the same time there are some very touching songs such as "There's a Fine Fine Line" (between love and waste of time) and "I Wish I Could Go Back to College" - something I've thought about on many an occasion. The actors were brilliant and managed to make the puppets seem like real people. Plus, it was hysterically funny.
The rest of the weekend was spent doing pretty much nothing - and that worked for me. Saw the new Narnia movie - and yes Virginia, there is a Jesus-like lion in the movie.
Other than Avenue Q, the other highlight of the weekend was a very snazzy meal at a restaurant at the Four Seasons. How snazzy? They will give you a napkin to match - black if you're wearing dark colors, white if you're wearing lighter colors. Instead of bread, they served freshly baked foccacia on heated stones. And we must have had five waiters. The food wasn't bad either - they served one of the best Caesar salads I have ever had, and the scallops with garlic butter that I ordered were remarkable. The coolest thing they did was the dessert; we ordered something called the American Pie Sampler and it was four mini pies with accompanying sauces (Strawberry-Rhubarb pie with strawberry coulis, apple and almond pie with creme anglese, cinnamon pumpkin pie with cinnamon cream, and lemon meringue with mango coulis) - it was delicious and beautiful at the same time.
Of course the flight back was a disaster, we waited almost 40 minutes on the security line and then the flight was delayed for another 30. But all in all, one of the better birthday presents I've gotten in a while.

And Back to the Big Apple I Go

2005-12-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

Despite my newly imposed budget and shortage of time in the month of February, I have now committed myself to be in NY on February 5th for my friend's wedding.

With my big move in mid-February and no income from January 13th onward, I'm trying to keep myself within both time and financial limits. But with a flight to Costa Rica on January 18th and a flight to NY on February 1st, it doesn't seem to be working out.

The Lackluster Go-Getter

2005-12-06T09:28:00.000-08:00

Since I plan on moving within the next 2 months, I am finding it very hard to muster any real motivation at work. For almost 3 years I've pushed and exerted effort and tried to be the best employee at this god forsaken company. And for the most part, I've succeeded. I started in April 2003 and by September I was a low level manager. By this point I manage the whole office. So I should feel some need to be...proactive. And yet...

These days I spend most of my time at work surfing the web, reading the NY Times online, emailing and IM'ing friends, and occasionally picking up the phone to make a work related call. I figure I can't be fired at this point since I am still keeping things going and I'm still doing some work. But I guess I'm just surprised at my lackadaisical attitude towards work. For the first year here I was petrified that I would get fired (having been fired thrice in the past) and I worked my ass off. I'd get in at 8 and work straight thru the day till 6, even though I was only getting paid for 40 hours a week. At this point, I get in at 8:30, still take no lunch, but I'm out of here at 5 on the dot most days.

I've sort of started my countdown to leaving this place and I'm sure that has something to do it. But I've also considered that perhaps I'm just done with the job. This has stopped being the good kind of challenging and now I just want something else; not sure what that "else" is but I know I won't find it here.

Tis the Season

2005-12-01T13:35:00.000-08:00

Despite the fact that the year has 12 months, the movie studio execs see a year as containing less than half that. The three months of summer and the end months of winter tend to be the only times that we the movie going public get the good movies, the movies that haven't been sitting on someone's shelf for three years, just waiting for an open weekend to sneak out and make a paltry sum.

Slowly but surely I will see them all, but thus far here are some of the major contenders of the season, with a few thoughts:

1. Jarhead
Many critics had problems with the fact that this movie based during the first Gulf War doesn't take sides nor does it go in depth about the main characters background. What I found is that the movie makes about point about these two items of contention. For the most part the soldiers are all very openly not choosing sides on the war; they don't care what the reasons are or whether it's a good thing that they are there. They are there simply to do what they are told and that is the end of it. Sure there are a few characters who do manage to question it all, but it is quite clearly not the main mindset of the rest of them. Similarly, the movie literally shuts the door on Anthony Swofford's life outside the Marines. We are told we will not see what has happened to his sister who is in a clinical facility, and that we won't learn about his relationship with his parents. These soldiers who are all essentially boys are trained and trained but never get called upon to do that which they have been trained to do. The movie can be almost claustrophobic in its scope, but that is only because we the audience are feeling the limits felt by the characters - the limits of their environment, of their mobility, of their information, and of themselves. Jake Gyllenhall is excellent as Swoff and Peter Saarsgard as his partner Troy is, as always, the consummate actor. The movie isn't perfect, but for a hard unflinching look at what war can be like for those in it.

Capote
The movie itself becomes almost forgotten in the face of Philip Seymour Hoffman's brilliant performance as Truman Capote, the high voiced writer embraced by society who eventually fell victim to his own talent and preciousness. Revolving around the events recounted in Capote's book "In Cold Blood", the movie is less about the actual events and more about the author's own processes. Two men killed an entire family one night and Capote decided to write his next New Yorkers article about the affect this had on the small town they lived in. Evolving into a book, the subject matter took hold of Capote, and nothing more so than Perry Smith, one of the murderers. Capote seems to have fallen in love with Smith but uses those affections for his own purposes and to further his ambitions for his novel. Hoffman never falters in portraying Capote as the catty and manipulative man that he was, but he also doesn't shy away from showing us Capote's vulnerability and desire for love and attention that seemed to never be sated.

Good Night and Good Luck
Like a good wine, George Clooney just seems to get better with age. In his second directorial outing, Clooney has directed this tense movie about Edward R. Murrow and how he took on McCarthy. Casting himself in a supporting role as Murrow's producer Fred Friendly, Clooney allows David Strathairn to shine as Murrow, from the very specific vocal tones to the ever present cigarette. Clooney assumes the best of his audience and doesn't spend too much time lingering on who Joseph McCarthy was and just jumps straight into the bare bones of the action. During a time when most people were afraid of sneezing in McCarthy's presence, Murrow dared to openly question him and call him out on the House of Unamerican Activities Committee. This could have spelled the end of Murrow's career, Friendly's career and could even have caused the downfall of the network. But Murrow and his staff stuck to their guns and helped bring down one of the more dangerous people in the US government. The cast is peppered with wonderful small performers such as Frank Langella as William Paley and Ray Wise as Don Hollenbeck, another reporter whose end is less victorious than Murrow's. But the picture belongs to Strathairn and the black and white film serves him well.

Brokeback Mountain
Dubbed by most as the "gay cowboy movie" Brokeback Mountain is so much more. Yes, at the center of the movie are 2 cowboys who one summer tending to a flock of sheep up in the mountains discover a rare and passionate affection for each other, but the movie is less a pornographic jaunt than a subtle and tragic love story. Because of the society they grew up and their own feelings of obligation to marry and have a family, Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhall) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) never live the life they both want. Instead, they push their every day existence waiting for the occasional "fishing trips" during which they could openly indulge in their love for each other. As Ennis's wife, Michelle Williams gives us the portrait of a woman who suspects who her husband truly is, but doesn't really want to admit it to herself. Ledger and Gyllenhall are both amazing. They never get campy or engage in any stereotypes or allow their characters to become the cowboy member of The Village People. Both Twist and Del Mar are victims of both circumstance and their own hungers and desires. Directed by Ang Lee "Brokeback Mountain" becomes a meditation on love, desire and loss between 2 people; their gender is only a second thought.

Going to the Chapel...

2005-11-29T14:59:00.000-08:00

Though it's not I who is getting married, of course. It's literally everyone else I know. Ok, to use the word literally would imply that EVERYONE is getting married, when in fact it's really all the females I with whom I went to college.

In the first four months of 2006, I have at least 3 weddings to attend. And lord only knows how I'll manage all of them.

January 20: My friend Michal is getting married in Costa Rica and I already have my ticket for this one. Not only have I known Michal since I was 13, but who passes up a chance to go to Costa Rica? My plus 1 cancelled on me so I'm hoping to meet some dashing Costa Rican who will entertain me for the duration of the trip.

February 5: This is the wedding for my first college roomate, Tali. And this is a wedding I really want to attend. She is getting married at the Pierre Hotel and the event promises to be rather swanky. Of course timing and money might interfere, but if I can get to NYC, I'll be feting it up with the best of them.

April 2: And finally, my friend Rushie's wedding. Rushie is also a college friend and an absolute sweetheart. She's had a rough few years and I couldn't be happier for her. Barring alien abduction or any other unforeseen events, I should be at this one as well.

The big question is this: is it rude to wear the same thing to each wedding?

Firing Ain't Easy

2005-11-28T14:07:00.000-08:00

Too many times I've been the one on the other side of the desk, listening to whatever words the employer felt would be the nicest way to tell me that I was being fired. Usually the feeling was mutual and I wanted to leave as much as they wanted me gone, though there was that one time I really did want the job...

Over the past 2 years ostensibly I've been the manager at my place of employment. I've been the one you get transferred to when you're furious and need the manager; I'm the one who gets held responsible every time one of our employees acts like a jackass; I'm also the one who has to deal with all in the intraoffice politics. Luckily my office is just chock full of lunatics, so there's never a quiet and peaceful moment.

One employee in particular is causing problems, the one who believes he has been abducted by aliens (twice), who believes that he's psychic, and who believes that he has never been wrong a day in his life. Oh, and this employee has been physically threatening to me on a couple of occasions. Despite my desire to see him go over a year ago, I believe the time is finally nigh.
And while I should be rejoicing, and part of me is, I feel sorta...bad.

The man is a 40 year old loser, no two ways about it. He has a thinning pony tail, jowls, and a beer gut. He smokes pot everyday and lectures about how everyone else is "evil." Before we hired him, he was unemployed and made a living by selling all his old vinyls on Ebay. He is probably one of the more pathetic individuals I've met in my life. As much as I can't stand him, I pity him. I know that whether we fire him or if he quits, he probably won't have another job for many a moon. He'll probably live off the profits of whatever records or DVDs he has lying around and will sit and smoke up all his money. I'm not judging him - if this is what will make him happy, godspeed. But yeah, I'm judging him. That's just sad.

And so I believe within a couple of weeks I will finally get the chance to be rid of this loose cannon who makes every day at work a living hell. As happy as this will make me, I won't relish the moment.

Then again, he is a crazy fuck so who knows.

Damn

2005-11-22T16:29:00.000-08:00

Just found a roundtrip ticket to NY for next weekend for $187 - including tax.
Unfortunately, I'd have no where to stay and no people to see...
What good is a sale that you can't use?

The Truth About Thanksgiving

2005-11-22T16:09:00.000-08:00

(This is a copy of the 10th semi-annual Turkey Mail that was sent out to about every person I know or have known)

On the first Thanksgiving the then-Indians-now-Native-Americans shared with the Pilgrim settlers the bounty of the land and the two soon to be warring sides ate together in a happy union. Every year at the end of November to commemorate this event, families and friends across the US gather together to feast and celebrate all that they are thankful for. They sit around the table and eat turkey, ham, or other festive meats, with all the trimmings of the day. Everyone warms in the glow of their loved ones, the satiety of a good meal, and the happiness of having the day off from work. All over the country it is a time of happiness, celebration and good will.

But everyone is joyous under false pretenses and the smiles and laughs only mock the dead.

After almost 300 years of lies and deceit, it is time to tell the truth about Thanksgiving.

Until recently, very little was known about the great Turkey Uprisings of the 17^th century. Much like the version of the Bible that has Jesus married to Mary, the secret Roman history in which Marc Antony stabbed Caesar instead, and pamphlet that explains how Elizabeth I was actually a robot controlled by aliens from the Planet Neptune, the story of the Turkey Uprisings has been largely kept under wraps. Oh, to be sure there have been mutterings throughout history – even Abraham Lincoln was told to said to Congress on more than one occasion “South, shmouth, what about the Turkeys?” And as much as Joseph McCarthy was fighting the spread of Communism, he was also trying to protect the secret history of what transpired back in the early 1600’s.

There are good reasons why the story has been hidden these many years. And there are those who would wish it to remain hidden still, but the silence and shame have gone on for long enough and this year as we sit down to our stuffing and pie, we shall do it knowing the truth once and for all.

(Please note because of lack of documentation and overall proof of veracity some names, dates, fact and events will be at the author’s discretion)

In an effort to escape the religious persecution they were experiencing back in Ye Olde Englande, the Puritans fled to whatever shores would take them in. Seeing the land East of England was uninhabited or rather inhabited by Godless, soulless red-skinned heathens who didn’t really count much in the first place, the Puritans chose this land to be the lucky recipient of all their piety and ethos of hard work and little vacation time. They packed up their black and white outfits, nifty hats, shoe buckles and Bibles and headed for America.

It was a tough ride over and tougher still when they landed and realized that though they might not have considered the people native to the land, the natives would most certainly factor the Puritans into their thoughts. And so, the first few years were difficult, trying to make these heathens see the light of God and Jesus, all while trying to hold on to their children, their scalps, and their lives. The two groups could barely see eye to eye and social snubs were the norm; at parties the Puritans would stand to one side and the Natives to the other, each too afraid of being killed or lectured at to make any friendly overtures.

And so it stayed for several years. Of course there were a few cases of friendship, but the rest of the Puritans blamed the Devil when one of theirs defected. It seemed as though nothing could bridge the gap between them and the God-fearing and the God-less were doomed to live in awkward and sometimes violent opposition for eternity.

However, that all changed the day the Turkeys took to the streets.

Every year as winter would approach the settlers would try to stock up on poultry and meat for the cold months ahead. Wild turkey was abundant at that time and every house would have at least 4 or 5 carcasses on ice to last them through the snows. It became a habit to display the turkey plumage on the front door of the poorly constructed houses, the more brilliant and lavish the plumage, the greater the turkey supply for that family that year. Turkey feathers became a sign of wealth and privilege. This custom became so wide spread that even the Native American began to use only turkey feathers in their costumes and headdresses, trying to keep up with Joneses. (Please note that the Joneses were the family who year in and year out consistently displayed the best plumage on their front doors) Much like the whale during the age of whaling or dolphin in the age of tuna-ing, the great and magnificent wild turkey was being not-so-savagely hunted to the point of maybe one day nearing extinction.

What no one knew then was that the wild American turkey had once, many hundreds of years ago, been worshipped as a God. Their natural stupidity combined with the abundance of their species provided for an oxymoronical existence that seemed to the peoples inhabiting North America to be the very sign of a Supreme Being. The fact that turkeys are known to drown in the rain by not knowing when to shut their mouth made them only that much more mysterious. For years the turkeys were prayed to, catered to, even sacrificed to. Eventually the people got smart and realized that having a blatantly stupid land fowl as a God wasn’t doing much for their crops or any of the other myriad of items they prayed to the turkey for on a daily basis. And once more the turkey became a valued food item instead of an omnipotent being.

What no one knew even more was that the expectation and attitudes of godhood had somehow imbedded itself in the turkey psyche and was passed down through the generations. Though no longer worshipped, the turkeys never forgot the days when the lived the good life and were fed instead of feed. They harbored great resentment in their DNA, though most of them thought it was just some sort of indigestion from eating that extra bug in the middle of the night even though they know they shouldn’t have but it was just so juicy they couldn’t help it. And through years the turkeys held this secret in the recesses of their subconscious, just waiting for the right trigger to bring out their discontent.

Watching their brethren being slaughtered, eaten and so garishly displayed, provided that trigger.

It is unclear as to when exactly the settlers and the natives notices that the turkeys were acting oddly. Because of lack of documentation from that era we can only surmise it was on Wednesday June 7^th 1619. The precise time will remain a mystery to man. It was not that the turkeys were necessarily doing anything suspicious, they just seemed to be gathering in larger groups than normal and constantly looking back at the human after making what sounded like a very angry point. These meetings were noticed all along the occupied areas and at first everyone thought nothing of it. After a few weeks of feeling as though they were being watched by Meleagris gallopavo, however, they decided maybe these birds weren’t so innocuous.

But before they could deal with what the settlers had labeled “Ye Olde Turkeye Difficultye” and the Native Americans had called “Turkey who dances with switchblades”, the turkeys attacked.

To our time and sentiment it might seem odd that a turkey would attack a human but armed with sharpened sticks and pointed pebbles, the turkeys descended upon both human encampments. The first attack was a massacre. The turkeys showed no mercy and killed without discretion. It was only after a settler named Rayon Mather ran out brandishing a shot gun did the turkeys disperse. And the Native Americans suffered the same losses, quelling the attack by waving around a nine inch machete.

But the turkeys were bold and came raging again and again. After several rounds attacks, the settlers and the locals decided to meet and figure out an end to turkey terrorists. Many suggestions were bandied about at this meeting, amongst them letting the turkeys kill the Native Americans and hope that would appease them (this suggest was quickly rejected after the settler who suggested it was immediately scalped), the idea that they lure the turkeys to the edge of a cliff and then trick them into running off, praying was attempted but neither group could agree on which god worship and that ended in its own bloodshed.

Finally, Rayon Mather, the Pilgrim who figured out that the turkeys might be afraid of guns devised the winning solution. He had observed the turkeys’ stupidity when they managed to drown themselves and thought this defect could be used to their advantage. He realized that should they leave out enough bread, vegetables and cranberries for the turkeys to consume, their natural inability to know when to stop shoving food down their gullets would eventually cause them to die from gluttony.

It was a tough plan to put into motion – since most people had to be convinced that giving up a bit of their bread and veg would be worth saving their lives. But after a midnight raid, everyone agreed to the proposal.

Late the next night, the Pilgrims and their new friends littered the surrounding lands with bread crumbs, celery, potatoes, cranberries and corn a.k.a maize. The layer of food came up to mid-shin before everyone went home to hide … and to wait. The turkeys arrived, armed to the waddle, and ready to do battle. When confronted with the bounty of food droppings in front them they dropped their weapons and began the gorging. For at least 6 hours the turkeys devoured all the victuals covering the ground. Much like the Romans, they would binge and purge over and over again, never knowing that they were dooming themselves. As time went by, one by one the turkeys dropped dead – some of heart attacks, some choked on their own vomit, and some pushed their cholesterol levels beyond acceptable levels.

By the next day, all the turkeys were dead. The noble enemy vanquished, the humans rejoiced. In the face of such fearsome foes they banded together and saved humanity. All divisive thoughts of soul-less savages or witless-whitemen was put aside as the two communities celebrated as one. They took the most recently deceased birds and feasted upon them. And all was right with the world. (Please note all was not right with the world and only a year after this, the Pilgrims gave the natives a gift of their own, the flu, and wiped out a huge portion of the population.) The remaining turkeys that’d stayed in the forest saw what had been done to their relatives and seemed to have learned their lesson. All involved people involved agreed to never talk about their near destruction by one of natures most obtuse animals and turned the day into a commemoration of interracial harmony and eating rather than hard won victory over the turkeys.

So while you sit down this week and demolish a turkey drumstick or savor that last bite of stuffing, remember that it was only toil, anguish, and ingenuity that we survived to enjoy the day. And never forget that though they seem docile, the next wave of massacres by the hand of the vicious turkey might be just around the corner.

Why Life is Unfair

2005-11-14T15:52:00.000-08:00

Last Friday Fox announced that they are cutting back on the number of episodes for season 3 of Arrested Development. Now for those who aren't aware of this, Arrested Development is quite possibly the funniest and smartest comedy on television. And Fox is treating it like the left-handed step child you keep in his room when company comes over.

AD has a rabid fan base and has been the darling of the critics. It has won several Emmys including an Emmy for Best Comedy back in its first season. And yet....and yet...

And how does this connect to life being unfair?
Just look at what is currently being offered on TV: Stacked, War at the Home, Still Standing
All CRAP. They leave this on the air on AD gets cancelled.

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, when the revolution comes theTV execs will be the first up against the wall.

Springtime for Hitler - For Real

2005-11-08T13:56:00.000-08:00

There is a new musical that opened on Broadway called "In My Life" and it is supposed to be bad. So bad, in fact, that Ben Brantley at the NY Times said it was as if Springtime for Hitler was brought into real life, i.e., a musical so bad that it would be an immediate flop. Though, Bialystock and Bloom did find that it became an immediate success..

Either way, there was a recent article about the media blitz surrounding "In My Life", as they attempt to drown out the highly negative reviews with advertising. And I found this wonderful little summary of the plot:

For those who haven't seen it, "In My Life" tells the story of a young singer suffering from a broken heart, a brain tumor and Tourette's syndrome who finds a girl whom he loves and who loves him. Little do they know that their lives are being observed - and fiddled with - by a transvestite angel named Winston and a slouchy, bicycle-riding deity named Al. There are more than two dozen musical numbers, including one involving break-dancing pirates, and no intermission.

Is it just me or does this sound like the musical to beat this year at the Tony's??

To See Clearly

2005-11-03T15:37:00.000-08:00

After weeks of blinding, searing headaches I finally went to the eye doctor.
I've probably needed glasses for a long time, but vanity and stubborness have kept me from finding out.
Turns out I have astigmatism (or as I used to jokingly say when I was younger, a stigmata - hey I said it was jokingly, that doesn't mean it was necessarily funny). Looking at a computer screen all day has done nothing but put stress on my already overworked eyes and as such, by the end of the day I want to rip my eyes out of my head. So I need glasses for work and long term reading, but not 24/7 as was my initial fear. However, since I do have to be seen in public with them, I bit the bullet and paid a bit more for the frames and lenses.
These are approximately like what I bought since I can't find the actual frames online. They're also Tommy Hilfiger and brown and they'd better last me the rest of my life considering how much I paid.

Plans for a New Life

2005-10-30T22:05:00.000-08:00

Over the past couple of weeks a clearer view of my future has come to mind.

With Los Angeles proving to be an arid wasteland and New York devoid of so many of the individuals who once made it feel like home for me, not to mention to huge financial burden of moving back to the city, I have decided to move to Boston.

It's not a totally insane move - I have a place to live with a friend and the city has a large Jewish population as well tons of art, culture and history ... so much of what I find lacking in LA.

The basic plans is this:
Work at my current hellhole till the first week of January. And then, joy of joys, I get to quit.
Spend a week recovering and packing and then head to Costa Rica for a week for a friend's wedding. Travel around Costa Rica, do some hiking, ride a horse, see a monkey, try not to get burned by a volcano and eat some tropical fruit.

I get back and within the next week and a half move out to Boston.

It's scary, but I have a plan and I hope for once, it is a good one.

Why I'm A Great Older Sister

2005-10-19T01:40:00.000-07:00

Not to brag, but I think I'm a pretty good older sister when push comes to shove.

When one of my brothers was in college, I'd take him out and feed him and invite him to parties where I knew there'd be free booze.

If there is a movie playing that any of my siblings want to see, I buy the tickets and whatever concession treats they want.

And I tend to ask for little in return.
OK, that's a lie. I do ask for some recognition, even just that I'm older than they are and might know a wee bit more about life. I usually never get it. Sometimes I'll just want a "thanks" which I will get on rare occasion.

So I guess I'm just waiting to see what I get over the next 2 weeks. Three of my siblings are having birthdays and knowing from recent experience how much it both sucks and blows when your siblings forget your birthday, I have bought gifts - ranging from a gift tower from Harry and David for the food lover to a bunch of girly stuff from Sephora for my fellow makeup addict sister.

And no matter how much I pride myself on being the cool older sister who'll do such things, I tell you now, if these brats don't even say "Thank You" it's going to be a sad October next year my friends. I mean...I'll sit here and smile benevolently, knowing that even if they don't acknowledge it, I did something nice.

New Music

2005-10-17T11:39:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to 2 new or relatively new CD's lately and I want to heartily recommend them.

The first is the CD Plans by Death Cab for Cutie; they sing the addictive song "Soul Meets Body" which is on the radio now. The CD is fairly mellow and while I haven't really listened to the lyrics yet, I'm just really enjoying the music. Plus their name is just so bizarre you have to give them a shot.

The second is the new album from Franz Ferdinand, You Could Have It So Much Better. I didn't know much by them except for their big song last year, "Take me out", which I loved. Then last week I heard on them on the radio during an interview interspersed with acoustic versions of some songs from their new album and I just flipped. The music is sort of jaunty and just really fun, for lack of a better descriptive. And they were very entertaining during the interview, so I thought I should give them a shot.

Trip Diary Part VI - Toulouse

2005-10-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

France, 10/2/05 (I messed up the dates here somehow)

We took the train from Souilliac back to Toulouse and checked our luggage into the left luggage section at the station.
Since we didn't really know what we were doing, we did a lot of wandering around the city trying to find a place to have lunch. Again, we were thwarted by the fact that everything was closed at just the right time one would eat lunch. We did find a couple of places, but no one could agree on any one place. Needless to say I was a bit frustrated. FINALLY we sat down at a French version of the London chain of Pizza Express called Pizza Mazanos located in the Capitol square. The food was nothing to write home about, and we had a terrible carafe of sangria. The location was great, but it started to pour. We headed into the restaurant (we'd been sitting outside) and waited for the rain to stop. When it did we headed towards the big church in Toulouse, which was just amazingly gorgeous. Since it had been raining, the sky was still dark but the sun was shining and it just lit up the church spire. Then we walked over a patisserie for our final taste of French pastry. Needless to say, the chocolate eclair I had was better than anything I've had stateside. The whole store was the size of a walkin closet, but had more than 20 different varieties of bread in addition to all the pastries. As soon as we stepped out of the store, it began to rain and I mean RAIN. It continued to pour for another half hour or so, right up until we had to head back to the train station and pick up our luggage.
The latest bus we could take back to the airport was at 7:20 pm. And we got to the station for our luggage at 7:11 pm. We managed to get to the bus at 7:19; the driver wouldn't open the luggage compartments for us and we had to drag our huge suitcases onto the bus. When we got to the airport, our flight was delayed for another 45 minutes, which left ample time to hang out in the tiny duty free shop and try on every perfume they had on display. By the time we got on the plane, I was ready to throw up from the smell. The flight was OK and we managed to hop on a train back to London from Gatwick right before it left.

All in all the trip was wonderful. I ate way too much, saw some amazing things, met a couple of really fantastic people, and got to reconnect with an old friend.
If only I could spend my whole life on vacation....

Trip Diary Part V - Loubressac/Carrenac

2005-10-16T13:10:00.000-07:00

France 9/29-30/05

We had to walk through a bit of Loubressac to get to our next destination, Carrenac. However, we were taking the detour to the Geoff di Padirac, a series of underground caves. The walk from the hotel was around an hour and a half.
When we got the caves, Kerrin decided she didn't want to go since is a bit claustrophobic. To get to the caves, you had to take 2 elevators and walk down 2 flights of stairs and down a walkway to a dock. Then you take a big rowboat down an underground river, past stalactites (or stalagmites, whichever come down from the ceiling), all the while hearing some sort of lecture from the French boatman. When we disembarked, we were taken on a tour through the caves, up a series of stairs, past little pools created by calcium deposits and past a huge formation. Since I don't understand French, I kept my own version of the narration in my head. It involved underwear gnomes a la South Park. After the tour we headed back to the boats and to the first dock. God bless the elevators which took us back up because by that time, I was limping nicely.
When we got out, we chucked the lunch the hotel had given us, and got sandwiches at a local cafe. The entire area was catering to the tourists going to the caves. We started on to Carennac and after 10 minutes I realized that I would never make it on the blisters I had. So, yet again, I had to take a cab for the second half of the walk. And again, I couldn't really talk to the cabdriver, so it was another fun ride.
We got to Carennac and I went up to our rooms. Everyone arrived right before Shabbos and after we had all changed and freshened up, we headed down to dinner:
-artichoke hearts stuffed with cheese and bacon and deep fried (Jack had an omelet and Kerrin and Debbie had very pretty salads)
-faux fillet in a wine and shallot sauce with a stuffed tomato and potatoes au gratin (Jack had some sort of fish and Debbie had a whole trout)
-dessert was an apple tartin with vanilla ice cream, probably the best dessert on the trip (the others had profiteroles with ice cream) And we all had infusion tea.
We chatted for a bit in the lounge area and then went up to our rooms to read.
In the morning we had breakfast and when Kerrin decided that she wasn't going to do the circuit walk that day, she and I decided to take a cab to Rocamadour, a nearby city built into a cliff. Jack and Debbie left for the walk and Kerrin and I headed off in our cab.
Rocamadour is actually Roc or Rock Amadour, the rock of St. Amadour who was found there in 1166, his dead body fully preserved. The top of the cliff had the ramparts, with a lift down to the next level where the church was located. The church contained the famed Chappelle de Notre Dame, which contained the apparently famous Black Madonna statue. From the church courtyard, we went down a very long flight of stairs to the main road which was a bit touristy, with lots of little shops selling souvenirs; but they also had several shops selling local food and wine, including a foie gras specialty store. There were also a few stores selling the work of local artisans, and I saw a really amazing grandfather clock made out of one block of wood. Kerrin and I had lunch. Wandered around a bit more, and headed back to the hotel.
When Jack and Debbie came back from their walk, they were wet. It had rained for most of the end of their walk. But they got changed and warmed up enough to go down to dinner:
-terrine de foie gras de canard with sauteed peppers and the normal accoutrements
-duck breast with vegetables
-since it was so good the first night, I had the apple tart again
Everyone else had almost the exact same thing they had the night before; Debbie did have the exact same thing as a matter of fact. We all split a nice Bergerac wine which was my favorite wine of the trip and Kerrin and Debbie had a local dessert wine (which I thought tasted like feet). It was our last dinner together and we had a good time; times things got even funnier when Debbie ate everything else on her plate except for the trout. We all hung out in our room for a while - I packed while everyone else lounged - then we headed off to sleep.
In the morning we started out early, since we got picked up from the hotel at 11 am and taken to Soulliac for the train back to Toulouse.

Trip Diary Part IV - Lespinasse/Loubressac

2005-10-16T12:46:00.000-07:00

France, 9/28-29/05

We walked through the village of St. Jean Lespinasse, which had some truly beautiful houses. We deviated from the trip notes a bit and made our own way to the village of Autoire, and had lunch on the outskirts.
Autoire is a beautiful medieval village in the bottom of a valley. The hills surrounding had these great rock formations and the village seemed nestled into its location. Since we arrived between the hours of 12 and 4, almost everywhere was closed. Unlike the US, France believes in the lunch hour, except it's more like a lunch three or four hour. It had gotten a bit chilly and we wanted something hot to drink, so we stopped at the local Auberge for some cake and tea. We had some walnut cake, considering that the entire region was just silly with walnut groves and it seemed like the natural choice. At the Auberge we met up with an elder German couple who were walking the breadth of France. And I could swear we had seen them the previous day as we were leaving Gagnac. As we sat outside on the porch, every few minutes we'd smell something just foul. The woman from the German couple explained that the Auberge didn't seem to have a regular sewage system; that was being installed over the next year. So the moment was slightly ruined.
Because my feet hate me, I had been walking for the past few days on some very hurty blisters and I decided to take a cab to the next hotel and skip the second half of the walk. The cab driver was incredibly sweet, but since I spoke no French and he spoke almost no English it was a bit awkward on the drive. However, the scenery made up for any silence. We were staying that night in Loubressac, a village at the top of a mountain. The hotel we were booked into, the Relais de Castelnau, was at the very top and the view was just breathtaking. It was a very modern hotel and had a dining room that looked out onto the valley. I had only been at the hotel for around an hour when everyone else showed up; it had started raining and they had gotten a ride from an Englishman who now lives in the region and had been kind enough to give them a lift. Of course, he was a bit dodgy it seemed, but a free ride is a free ride.
We eventually made our way to the dining room for dinner:
-started with a Kir Royale, my first and probably last
-a terrine of vegetables
-fillet of sole with roasted tomatoes and pan boiled potatoes
-the cheese board, of course
-some desert of peaches, cookies, and chantilly cream
This was probably the weakest meal of the trip; not bad, just not up to par with the other places we'd been to.
Jack and Kerrin spent most of the meal finishing a crossword puzzle and in general we were all a bit talked out so dinner didn't last the usual 3 or 4 hours it had thus far.
When I woke up this morning, I looked out the floor to ceiling window in the room and marveled at the dense fog that had covered the entire valley. You couldn't see anything that wasn't right in front of the window. Slowly as the sun rose, the fog burned off and the verdant green of the surrounding area could be seen.
We all met for breakfast, this time including cereal into the mix, and talked about the upcoming walk. After breakfast some of us went outside to read by the pool, which had the same amazing views we had from the room. The sun had just started shining and it was a very peaceful place to read for a bit. Since no one seemed in any hurry, Jack and I took a wander around Loubressac. The views were amazing and the buildings were old and beautiful. Everywhere I looked I saw some quaint little building or area. The local church was open and we encountered a very strange man, who I'm convinced kept trying to cop a feel. By the time we got back to the hotel, everyone was - eventually - ready to head out.

Trip Diary Part III - Gagnac/Lespinasse

2005-10-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

France, 9/27-28/05

We set off late again from Gagnac because of rain. Right before we left, the owner of the auberge, whose father had been the original owner back in 1954, invited us to have quick drink with him at the bar. We went over to the bar and he pulled out a big jug of raisin wine or rattafia, and poured us each a large glass. Turns out, he made the wine himself; it was a bit too sweet for me, but tasty nonetheless in a homemade wine sorta way. He also had a collection of electronic toys like a Big Mouth Billy Bass and a chicken that clucked the music to the chicken dance and when you strangled it, it made choking noises and its cheeks lit up red. We finally started walking and went through the small hamlet of Gagnac. It was full of "makeshift medieval" stone houses and an small church from 1662.
Next we walked thru Glans, a lovely village where everyone seemed to be part of a large coop of vineyards and everyone made wine. We stopped to admire a really beautiful house and the owner came out to talk to us. Of course I understood not a lick of what he said, but when I got it translated apparently he was explaining the coop situation. After Glans we headed thru a long road flocked by walnut orchards and vineyards. Next we just passed by what seemed like endless herds of cows and finally past a working quarry. After what seemed to me to be too much discussion on the matter, we stopped for lunch. We were at a sort of crossroads a bit off from a lone horse in a field. Our lunch stops were at least an hour, since Debbie and Jack felt the need to take a nap. I just can't sleep on dirt with bugs, too afraid they'll crawl all over me. When we eventually got everyone up, we started our trek to the next hotel, another 2 hours away.
To while away the hours, Kerrin suggested a number of games. The jukebox game consisted of find a number of songs for each letter of the alphabet, in order. I just have this very distinct memory of Jack jumping up and down while singing ABBA's "Dancing Queen" as we wandered through a field of tall grass. Then after a quick bout of "are we lost?", we started playing the name game. This consists of saying the name of a celebrity or fictional character and then the next person had to name another person whose first name starts with the last name of the previous mention: Bob Ross -- Raquel Welch. That lasted a bit longer than the jukebox game did. And after a bit of frustration on my part since one of my walking companions insisted on walking really really slowly and I just wanted to get where we were going, we made it to our next hotel, Les Trois Soliel du Montal in St. Jean Lespinasse.
This was the very nice restaurant we paid extra for and it was worth it. They had an elevator and had taken the luggage to our rooms for us. We all relaxed for a bit and Jack ran out to take a quick swim in their pool, despite the fact that it was no where near warm. Once we were all changed and looking presentable, we went down to dinner at their Michelin starred restaurant. Dinner for me consisted of:
-an amuse bouche of some sort of meat pate flavored with cinnamon (much better than it sounds), mini omlettes with mushrooms on toast, and small yellow cherry tomatoes with fresh herbs
-foie gras de canard, served with pieces of toasted bread, coarse sea salt and pepper, and a sort of sandwich with thin slices of dried pear, a slice of foie gras, and pieces of fresh pear. (Everyone else either had salmon tartar with dill and creme fraiche surrounded by limes)
-roast lamb, which was almost buttery, with assorted roasted vegetables including roasted garlic (which was just begging to be spread on the lamb), 2 different kinds of mushrooms, eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes (the others had either the lamb of whole sea bass served with vegetables)
-the cheese board, where I had some reblochon and some other regional cheeses.
-desert was an upside down lemon tart for me and Jack; Kerrin had dark chocolate leaves with chocolate mousse and bitter orange coulis and Debbie had 3 small creme brulees, one vanilla, one pear, and one fennel
We had gotten a bottle of some local white wine for dinner and that paired with the cocktails we had before dinner sort of kept us from ordering any after dinner drinks. So we all had mint tea and sat for a while, luxuriating in the insanely good food we'd just eaten. During dinner Kerrin introduced a game called Notte-Notto, which was fun till we all got frustrated. I told my special special Ned and Ted joke and surprisingly no one killed me.
After dinner, we went back to our respective rooms and Jack and I sat on our porch, looking at some castle lit with flood lights a bit off in the distance and had a quite serious discussion about religion: why would one believe, why would one choose not to believe, and everything in between. Before I went to sleep I decided not to chance another shower and took the longest bath in my life, which felt very nice after trekking around in nature all day.
All too soon it was morning and we had breakfast. A word about breakfast: every place served at least baguettes, croissant, butter and jam. Some places, like this one served fruit and yogurt as well. The butter in France tasted nothing like the butter here in the US and I must admit we all indulged quite a bit in that heavenly butter. It rained a bit, so we waited around the hotel and Jack went for another swim before we headed off. The water was apparently freezing and Jack went in very very slowly. After I teased him, he jumped in and popped up after a few second and yelled "FUCK IT'S COLD!". And I just laughed and laughed.
Debbie and Kerrin came down the pool with our lunch the hotel had packed, and they were freaking out. The hotel owns some animals, a few donkeys and 2 goats, and one of the goats had "attacked" them and they had to throw one of the sandwiches at it. Little did they know that the goat had followed them to the pool and started running around the pool in a circle. It was funny and bit odd at the same time, and Kerrin was just scared to death of that goat. When we went back inside so Jack could take a shower and we could leave, we told the owner what happened and she just laughed and had the kitchen prepare another sandwich for us. Turns out the goat was always very naughty; it had been lying on a lounge chair by the pool one day and 2 patrons had thought it was just a very hairy man from far off and then another day it ran to the pool and ran around it while some older ladies were swimming. She said that some days she threatens it that if it doesn't behave she'll tell her husband to turn it into pate..
Once Jack had changed and everyone had futzed around for long enough, we headed out of Trois Soliel and toward Loubressac, our next destination.

Trip Diary Part II - Beaulieu and Gagnac

2005-10-15T22:52:00.000-07:00

France, 9-26-27/05
The trip down to Beaulieu was...long. We had to get to Gatwick airport, fly to Toulouse and then take a bus to the train station, take a train to Soulliac and then an hour long taxi ride. For a good portion of the day we were arguing with Inntravel (the tour group) over a major misunderstanding about 1 leg of the trip; in the end we paid a bit more and got what we wanted: a night at a very nice hotel with a Michelin starred restaurant.
When we got to Soulliac, the driver who picked us up was a very funny old guy who drove like a madman and critized everyone else on the road. We finally got to Le Manoir de Beaulieu, and went for a 2 1/2 hour walk, which seemed to me to be almost all uphill. We toddled back to the hotel and had a very nice meal:
- smoked duck on a red pepper puree
-goat cheese terrine
-poached sea perch with beans in a coconut sauce
-cheese
-palate cleanser of chocolate mousse and banana puree
-tiramisu with fresh figs
We also had a white wine, which I can't quite remember, I believe it was a Sancerre.
Dinner conversation was fairly amusing since we were all pretty tired. But at one point we were discussing the whole kiss on the cheek bit and Jack was doing some demonstrations for us. We chatted up the maitre d', who was actually from Montreal. There was a bit of a language barrier and at points we had no clue what he was saying, but we laughed at what we assumed were jokes anyway. After dinner we sat by the fire in the lounge for a bit and I had a nice talk with Kerrin.

The next day we didn't start out till very late - Debbie needed medicine and Kerrin needed sunglasses. I took a short walk around the village and walked by the Dordogne river for a bit. Finally at 2:30, we headed out of Beaulieu. The first hour and a half were basically all uphill and my calves felt it later on. Granted the views were gorgeous and we passed by some really pretty houses in some pretty tiny hamlets, but the first part was murder. There are a lot of farms in the region; everywhere we went we saw apple and walnut orchards, pumpkin patches, tomato vines and vast fields. We eventually stopped at the top of the mountain we were climbing and had picnic lunch packed for us by the hotel. We stopped for about an hour. When we started up again, after only a few minutes we ended up in front of a barbed wired fence, which was not supposed to be there. It took around 25 minutes and a conference with a local farmer on his tractor to find out we were on course. Of course we had to trek some nice thick mud to be back on that track. A bit later we started our descent and walked thru parts of a forest that can only be described as "fairy tale spooky", with some dense foliage and it seemed almost nighttime as we walked through. And did I mention the tons of mud and gigantic red slugs? We had seen some the day before and I had hoped that was the last of them. But no, they reappeared in the forest and since they looked just like red leaves you had to be very careful where you stepped.
Just before the sun went down and it got pitch black, we hit the hamlet of Port de Gagnac and headed to our hotel, the Auberge du Vieux Port, Gagnac. As soon as we arrived the owner asked us if we had gotten lost, since the walk is usually only 3 1/2 hours, and chastized us when we told her we just got a late start. Everyone got changed and we went down to dinner, which was quite fantastic:
-tomato surrounded by puff pastry and covered in melted bleu cheese, with a salad with figs and walnuts
-duck breast in some wine sauce, with potatoes and zucchini
-a serving of Cabecou, a goat cheese which struck me as slightly brie-like
-a lovely sorbet trio surrounded by chocolate: strawberry, blackberry and pear
Everyone else had trout almandine and pears with chocolate and whipped cream.
With dinner we had a nice Bordeaux and infusion tea with dessert.
We were all just exhausted after the meal and went to back to our rooms right after we ate. I took my shower before I went to bed and managed to slip and fall, giving myself a gigantic black bruise on my butt that hurt for the next three days.

Trip Diary Part I - London

2005-10-15T22:34:00.000-07:00

London - 9/23-25/05

The flight was pretty good considering... I sat next to a very friendly woman named Fiona and we ended up talking for almost half the flight, which was a good thing because the movies sucked big time. She even paid for a couple of drink when we took off, which is always the way to my good side.
I managed to get into London on the Heathrow Express with little stress and Jack picked me up at Paddington Station. We went back out to get some groceries for shabbos and got caught in the driving rain. Just what one needs after sitting on a plane for 10 hours.
Unfortunately, I spent the next 24 hours in a total daze. Weeks of exhaustion and the general tiredness of travel made it impossible for me to really go anywhere on Saturday. Friday night was just me and Jack and we had a very nice shabbos dinner. He made some Brazilian fish dish he had when he was in Brazil earlier this year, something with coconut, very yummy. Saturday Jack had 2 friends over, Jeff and Tanya. Jeff sings in the shul choir with Jack liked many of the same things I do, to the point where I got a bit freaked out. Amadeus was in his top 3 favorite movies of all time and it's my number one. Tanya referred to herself as a "lapsed barrister" and was very funny and friendly. It was so nice to talk to adults my own age again. I really do miss being social.
After trying to figure out what we were to do on Saturday night, we ended up playing it by ear. Went to a hotel near Jack's flat for drinks and lovely view of the London night skyline; then we stopped by somewhere and I had my first official fish and chips and mushy peas. I need to find out what "plaice" is [Still haven't figured that out yet] And then we ventured into town. Despite the loud and rowdy crowd outside, we went to see the late show at the Comedy Store. And weren't we surprised when the comedians turned out to be really funny. We took the night bus back home and apparently encountered the Kurdish Mafia, which seems to be comprised of stupid and drunk potheads. Oh and some guy was waving around his friend's tighty-whiteys, gotta love the night bus.
On Sunday I had plans to see the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy exhibit at the Science Museum with my friend Naomi. But she was too sick and when I got the museum to go on my own the exhibit had been cancelled. I thought I'd catch an IMAX show, but the one I wanted to see had already shown. I ended up wandering aimlessly for a bit and then headed to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Some amazing stuff there, along with a delicious tuna sandwich for lunch. Then after not finding the tube, I prayed I was going in the right direction and walked from there to Knightsbridge and Harrod's. Luckily, I went the right way and spent over an hour wandering around Harrod's food courts, just lusting after all the various foods. Eventually I dragged myself away and went back to Jack's flat and read at Paddington Green for a bit.
Sunday night I went to St. Mary's Church, which is right down the block from Jack's flat, for a performance that was part of the Little Venice Music Festival (Jack lives in Little Venice). It's a tiny church that seems to have been around since at least the 1820's. They performed an odd mix of music including a Bach violin sonata, a Mozart flute concerto, and some Gershwin and assorted showtunes. Jack's friend from Oxford, Deb joined us. Afterwards, Jack and I went out for a quick bite to eat.

Back to Civilization

2005-10-10T08:39:00.000-07:00

I got back from Europe a week ago today, but the combination of exhaustion, holidays, and jet lag have sort of given me excuses for not writing about my trip.

In my defense, I did upload all my pictures and label them.

I kept a fairly detailed trip diary, including the menus for all the amazing 4 course meals we were served. Hopefully, whenever I get awake enough to see straight, I'll get that up here.

Suffice it to say that the trip was incredible. I was in the middle of nowhere, essentially, and surrounded by the vast countryside of an area that I would have never visited otherwise. Though I didn't speak the language, everyone we encountered seemed very friendly and even though the trip involved a great deal of walking, it was immensely relaxing.

I'm thinking of doing a similar trip in Italy at a future date, cuz boy would those dinners be delish.

It's off to Europe I go...

2005-09-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

This evening, I finally head out on my grand French adventure.

For some reason I'm just chockfull of anxiety, much more so than excitement. Not really sure what the deal is with that, but I'm hoping somewhere over the Atlantic one dissipates into the other.

On the plus side, I found my camera and it's charger, so there's a good chance I'll be able to take some pictures of ... whatever I'm going to see.

I have a couple of books, some magazines, and around a week's worth of sleep to catch up on, so I'm hopeful the flight goes by quickly.

Ah well, vive le France!

Simon Wiesenthal

2005-09-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

When I heard this morning that Simon Wiesenthal had died, a sort of chill went through me.

As the years pass, there are fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors remaining to tell their tale and be a living testament to the atrocities that took place during World War II. Growing up Jewish, the history of the Holocaust is part and parcel of my education and something that lurks intermittently in the back of my mind. But there are too many people in the world today who can easily deny the genocide that occurred and soon there will be no one left who saw these things with their own eyes.

After having been put into 5 concentration camps, Wiesenthal managed to survive long enough to be rescued by American troops and ever since has been a strident and important voice in the fight to bring to justice those that tried to escape it and remind us all never to forget.

With him gone, we lose one of our generation's most vital figures and I worry what the future, so far removed from what Simon Wiesenthal saw, will bring.

Sunny in Philly

2005-09-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

I have discovered the next great TV comedy, "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia".

I assume most people have never heard of this show; it's on FX and has barely been advertised. However, I have no laughed this much at a new show since Arrested Development.

IASiP is about 4 friends, 2 of whom are brother and sister, who own a bar in South Philly. The bar is a failure and the more you know about the main characters, the less you wonder why. Not only are they all pretty witless, they are also some of the most selfish people I've ever seen portrayed on the small screen. But I mean that in the nicest way possible.

The comedy on the show is surreal; episodes focus on big topics like racism, homophobia, and cancer but never are you made to feel that "awww" that most sitcoms would create at the end of any such episodes. The music is almost circuslike throughout the show and there's no laugh track which contributes to the surreality.

I've 5 episodes and and crave new ones. It's not for everyone, but for me? this show just slays me.

Random Birthday Thought

2005-09-08T16:09:00.000-07:00

As much as it pains me to admit this, today I turn 29.

Sure I'm grateful I'm not in New Orleans or Iraq and all that other stuff that really makes live difficult to live. However, there are existential crises that one also has to weather.

I'm not at all where I thought I'd be by this point in my life; I thought I'd be married, and have a career doing...something.
Instead I'm painfully single and working at a job that is just a job without much future or fulfillment.

I thought that by this point in my life I'd know who I was and what my place was in this world. Instead I feel more confused and unsure than ever.

Of course in some ways I do know myself better and I do have more of an inkling of what the hell I'm doing on this planet, but no where near in the amounts I had hoped.

And then it's always a surprise who remembers.
I've had friends from childhood forget and friends from the past 5 years remember; I got a call from Australia and a card from a coworker. So far 3 of my 6 siblings have remembered and thankfully so did my mother.

Three people have made very serious statements about how much my friendship means to them, which is always nice. And 2 of the people I'd hoped to hear from but not really expected to, fulfilled my expectations and remained silent.

Next year is the big one, the big 3-0 as they call it.
If I am no longer living in LA, I think I'll be able to call my 30th year on this planet successful.

Horatio Hornblower

2005-09-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

Now, I'm someone who loves tales of the sea, so to speak. I loved Moby Dick and all those classic tales of ships at sea, especially when it involved the British Navy.
When Master and Commander came out 2 years ago, I fell in love. Not just because of Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, but the adventure, the pure unadulterated zest that these characters seemed to embody was infectious and the soundtrack didn't hurt none either.

So it would be a bit of surprise that I just started watching the A&E series, "Horatio Hornblower", based on the books by C.S. Forrester.

From what I can glean after watching the first episode, the series revolves around Midshipman Hornblower and his experiences in the British Navy. As stuffy as this might sound, it is precisely the opposite of that. War with the French, problems with other officers and internal struggles make this series tense and thrilling. Unlike - it would seem - the majority of viewers out there, I do not get confused when there are many characters with similar accents and possibly similar names, and as such, I have no problem keeping track of everyone on the show.
Must say I don't much get how people get so easily confused when watching television or movies, but I guess it is not my place to judge.

Anyway, I'm very excited to watch the rest the rest of the series and the fact that the lead is played by Ioan Gruffud is only the icing on the cake.

Some Resolution

2005-09-07T10:28:00.000-07:00

The guy who committed the fraud quit.
Huzzah.

Of course this leaves us with a major employment shortage and the remainder of workers in the office are going to be overwhelmed, so that's fun.

But the guy just wasn't trust worthy and I'm sure it's better in the long run that he's no longer here.

More Office Drama

2005-09-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

Today we discovered that one of our employees has defrauded the company.

He set up 40 multiple year subscriptions to be sent to his house, though not under his name. Then he changed the system to make it look like we processed the fake credit card he put on the orders. The total of the order was over $4000.

Once he found out that we found out, he deleted all the orders from the database and tried to delete them from the backup server as well.

I am now waiting for my boss to mete out proper punishment...which would only be firing.

It's Official

2005-09-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

This morning I called the UK and shelled out a good portion of what is in my bank account to pay for my trip to France.

So I'm supposing this means that I really am going on that walking trip.
I'm excited, but I think work and life have worn me down to the point where I keep waiting for something to go wrong so I can't get too excited about it.

Of course, I imagine that once I'm actually on the plane, I'll get pretty hyped up.

The thing now is find a pair of shoes that won't make my feet turn into 2 giant blisters. This is surprisingly more difficult than one would imagine.

4:30 am

2005-09-04T04:24:00.000-07:00

And I'm still awake.

Sigh.

It could be the five glasses of iced tea I had at dinner at 9 pm.

It could be the movie I saw tonight, "The Constant Gardener", which sticks in your conscious mind as strongly as it sticks in your subconscious one.

It could be that my youngest sister is headed back to college after a year off for personal reasons, leaving for the airport in 30 minutes.

It could be the thoughts that I will be 29 in 4 days and I haven't done anything of note with my life nor have I gotten my life to where I thought I'd want it to be by this point.

I sit here by my computer, occasionally getting up to help my sister pack, and I listen to music that puts me in a somber frame of mind: bits from the soundtracks of "The Last of the Mohicans" and "Finding Neverland"; a few songs from Sarah Maclachlan's latest album; a song or two from the Beautiful South. The advantage of having a ton of music on your harddrive is that all the music you'd want for your melancholic and introspective moods are right at your fingertips. I guess that's for better or for worse.

I wrote my sister a plane letter, encouraging her to be brave as she heads back to school. I told her how her life is really just beginning now and that she has spent this past year learning from her mistakes and gaining the strength to deal with them should they arise again. I reassured her that she is indeed a wonderful, bright, caring and beautiful woman who has the world open to her - all she has to do is realize it.

I wonder if any of that can or should be applied to my own life.
And can it when you're no longer 20?

Maybe that's why I can't sleep.

Random TV Thoughts

2005-08-31T15:02:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the beauty of the internet, I've been able to catch up on a few television series I never got into while they were originally on TV. Here's a smattering:

Veronica Mars: As I once described it, it's about this teenage girl who's a private investigator of sorts...but cooler than it sounds. The first season involved a season long story arc that provided for much of the drama and suspense. I'm curious to see how the show will play out now that that arc has been resolved. But the acting and the dialog are both engaging enough to keep me watching even without a major mystery that needs to be solved.

Firefly: Despite hearing all the good things about it from everyone I knew, I never caught this while it was on the air. Then, I saw the "Serenity" movie trailer - the movie that is based on the TV show and realized that if the show had half the humor the trailer hinted the movie had, I would enjoy it. And indeed I have. I've downloaded most of the episodes and when I couldn't download them fast enough, I rented the DVD's from Netflix. The show's bizarre combination of Chinese and the Old West creates a fantastical world that is just familiar enough to work. All the main characters have histories that are only hinted at, but you just know they are fascinating and worthy of exploration. I only hope the movie explains a lot that was left unexplained by the show.

Battlestar Galactica: While I am now watching this show on Sci-Fi, I missed out on the whole first season. Never remotely a fan of the original series, this reimagining of the old 70's TV show just blew my mind. The characters were all so strong and yet so full of human weakness and frailty that even though the show is wholly unrealistic, you feel so much for the people involved you can completely suspend disbelief. Even though the show has taken on a religious bent that I'm not 100% sure of, I can't stop watching it with hungry eyes.

The basic thing I've realized about all of these shows is the amount I actually care about the characters; when they are in danger, my pulse quickens; when they're happy and joking and laughing, I find myself laughing as well. Television shows can be interesting, suspenseful, funny, and all other adjectives that would describe a good program, but without that need to know where the characters are concerned, the show never achieves true greatness.

My Dumb Luck

2005-08-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

Would someone, SOMEONE out there tell me why it is my luck to work in the one office that I would regularly encounter my ex-boyfriend?

His father handles our insurance and apparently he now works with his father.

Granted the relationship ended (in tears of course) years ago, and without a doubt I know I am over him...way over him. However, does that mean that I should ever have to deal with him again?

I mean, c'mon!

Six Feet Under 2001-2005

2005-08-21T23:01:00.000-07:00

Slowly recovering from the series finale of HBO's extraordinary series, Six Feet Under.

I don't know if I've seen a more beautiful ending to any television series or much else to be honest.

In a show about death, it was only fitting to see the deaths of everyone we've come to know and love; even if it was sad, that's life and Six Feet Under never shied away from something true just because it was painful.

What is wrong with our society? Part I

2005-08-17T14:41:00.000-07:00

So it's a grand suggestion to think that I know what is wrong with our society; I barely know how our electoral system works.

However, I think that as a casual observer with the occasional witty thought, I am just as qualified to make these pronouncements as anyone...or at least anyone without a professional degree.

One of the more immediate problems I keep seeing time and time again, is our country's obsession with celebrities. If I have to see one more magazine cover discussing Brad and Jen and Angelina, I am going to take a torch to all local newsstands. The most popular periodicals are the one touting secrets about celebrities' careers, diets, and love lives. And it's not just magazines; the TV is flooded with infotainment, because the daily activities of Britney Spears are far more newsworthy than actual news.

Now I'm not solely blaming the media here. If the public didn't express such a rabid hunger for the insignificant details of the lives of the rich and famous, the various media outlets might not cater to it. Of course the question of which came first, the supply or the demand, does linger in ones mind. But that is like trying to understand Paris Hilton's appeal...just not worth it and bit painful.

Yes, we all want to know what it would be like to be rich and famous, tons of fabulous clothes, go amazing places and essentially live that life. But is it worth our national soul to make that the focal point of our interest? Iraqi war aside, there is so much else out there in the world to know and investigate that what Hillary Duff said about Lindsey Lohan should be at the very bottom of our lists.

In an bizarre effort to make celebrities seem approachable and human (since most of the time they do appear to be a different breed), magazines are now featuring spreads showing how celebrities are actually JUST LIKE US. Look - This one buys milk at the grocery store! Ooh, and this one takes his kids to the park! And that celebrity wears jeans and tshirts, just like the rest of us!! Doesn't that make them great??

Anyone who is surprised that a parent takes their child to the park, no matter how famous that parent is, should be immediately and summarily bitch-slapped.

It is no surprise that even people who make millions on a crappy picture still require the necessities of life and might even be seen acquiring such needs themselves. And it is a sad, sorry statement on our culture that this even needs to be a point of discussion.

While it might be easier to concentrate on someone else's fantasical life, rather than our own, and make their suffering over lost loves a part of our real emotional existence, it is delusional and not particularly helpful. There's no reason not to enjoy a little gossip, but when that becomes the focal point of your life, it's time to put down the glossies, take a few minutes to think about the real world, and reevaluate.

Sorta Pathetic

2005-08-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was chatting online with a friend that I've known for the past 10 years. Granted, we've never been particularly close, but we've always maintained a peripheral friendship.

She mentioned how her birthday is this Sunday, on Tisha B'av - probably the second worst day to have a birthday (Yom Kippur being the first). But her boyfriend is taking her out tonight, so she says she'll deal.

Then she wrote "Isn't your birthday coming up too?"

And it took me a minute to think about that.

And then I realized that she was right; in less than a month I turn 29. And it has all but slipped my mind.

As opposed to other years when I've felt the need to be around friends on my happy natal day, this year I have no plans. Last year I planned a big dinner that, while nice, was fraught with many problems and overall my birthday ended with the feeling of a giant let down.

This year, I won't be anywhere near any friends, save one - the only friend that I have in LA. I do not expect to hear from any of my "friends", as this year I am choosing not to remind anyone and I have no expectation that anyone will remember on their own. At this point, I'm hoping my mother remembers.

Perhaps if I ignore it and prevent myself from the ultimate let down that always is September 8th, maybe my 30th year will start on a better note and won't have the air of disappointment hanging over it.

Hey, it's worth a try.

Foie Gras, Truffles, Red Wine and Me

2005-08-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

So as far as I am aware, come the end of September, I'm off on a 6 day walking tour in the Southwest of France.

I'm not quite sure what awaits me, but I've read that the region (Perigord) is well known for it's foie gras and truffles...which leads me to believe I'm going to be eating very very well.

The tour is actually a self guided walk arranged by a British travel company; they'll transport the luggage, give you all the info you need and you go at your own pace during the day. At night, you stay in quaint village inns, where they feed you and let you rest your weary bones.

I started reading up about the region and it turns out that this is one of the first sites of culture in the annals of human development. Back in the 1940's 2 young boys stumbled across a bunch of caves with complicated and beautiful drawings showcasing various aspects of what we assume to be a caveman's life, including what is now called "The Great Hunt". The region also served a vital role in the French/British relationship over the years.

I'm just hoping to have a moment where I'm sitting along side the Dordogne River, munching on a crusty bagette, some truly wonderful French cheese and sipping some red wine from a green glass bottle. Hopefully a big ass Medieval castle will be somewhere in the background.