some ironic title.

When I can't sleep.

2012-01-24T22:49:00.000-08:00

I think about the man who shattered my heart in April. I think about that final night last spring when we sat in my little Chevrolet that I had driven since I was sixteen. I remember how I cried in his arms and he just held me, letting me shake until he kissed my forehead. Then he said, "Good-bye, Brittany," and drove away in his red truck - that familiar truck with the rattling noise, that we had once laughed in and eaten gelato in and had wild steamy sex in- leaving me in the parking lot of our favorite sushi restaurant where they always remembered our order. He was gone. So.... completely...gone. I sobbed uncontrollably in that little car for what felt like hours.

That was the last time I would see him.

I roll over to my left side in bed and stare at the empty pillow next to me. I can almost feel him there, still, almost ten months later. His athletic shoulders, his warm tan skin, his blonde hair, his boyish smile, and those goddamn blue eyes and giraffe eyelashes. His nose had a barely-there bump in it and his chin jutted out slightly with an under bite... and he made me melt with just a glance. His hands were large and knew how to touch me to make me feel altogether sexy, strong, and safe. Now I won't even let myself look at his tumblr because it pinches my heart.

I groan into my pillow and roll to the other side. I shake my head like an etch-a-sketch, willing my brain to reboot. Do I have time to wash my hair before class tomorrow? I'd rather sleep an extra hour and throw it in a messy chic bun (who am I kidding... messy bun). I wish it wasn't so empty in my little one bedroom apartment. Maybe I will put on some reruns of The Office in the other room, just to hear a familiar voice, to hear Dwight calling Jim an idiot.

I get up for a glass of water, anything, just to move, to do, to get me away from that empty pillow. I'm irritated that Ryan Gosling is all over Hollywood now. I can't watch Ryan Gosling movies anymore - he looks too much like him. That walk. That smug grin. That hair and those eyes. Fuck. Sometimes I want to hate him, because it's easy. It's his loss, I think. It lasts only a few seconds, though. We both lost something.

I pass by my full-length mirror and pause, looking at my body as if it were a stranger's. Sometimes I don't recognize her. Do I even exist if no one sees me? I left up my shirt and run my hand down my chest, the way he used to. My body is still soft and warm and strong, just as it was when he had me. My long dirty blonde hair grazes my bare back, long and soft; he used to grab it gently when he kissed me and I would sigh and our skin would buzz, electric. Nothing has changed... But everything has changed.

I pull gently on my hair now. I feel nothing.

I lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. My phone blinks with a text from a new guy, a sweet and genuine guy who thinks I am intelligent, unique, special.... I want so badly to feel something, but I can't. There's something broken inside me. It's self-destructive. I feel attracted only to those men who I know will never fully love me.

I think of him again, and what he might be doing... what new woman is sharing his bed.

I wonder if the connection I felt was just a massive chemical fuck, a combination of my falling in love with him during the sweaty months of summer, our skin dewy and sweet, and those long hedonistic nights of drinking wine, swimming in that eerily lit pool, and making love on the porch, our skin tan and smelling of chlorine. Our neighboring apartments were like one pleasure pod; we slipped back and forth from one to the other, always with bare feet, sometimes wrapped in just a sheet or towel.

I wonder if I'll ever again feel that gentle euphoria from swimming in his arms, weightless, flying. I want to call him. To hear his voice. I want to believe he'll show up on my doorstep one day and tell me he has always loved me and kiss me like we're in a movie. But deep down, I know the truth: he doesn't exist anymore.

And I know I have to move on and start thinking about my new life and the possible future in my blinking phone.

Sometimes I cry, or "feeling the lump."

2011-11-19T01:02:00.001-08:00

When I was 17, I went to see The Notebook with my mom and my friend Laura. At that time, Laura was my most bad ass friend. She had her nose and eyebrow pierced, often had blue or pink or green hair, and wore accessories with spikes on them. She drank hard alcohol and listened to punk music. (For the record, Laura is still a bad ass, but in a softer way.) I was quiet and bookish, and bordering on nerdy... ok, maybe not bordering so much.

It didn't make sense for the two of us to be friends. People gawked at us palling around in gym class like they were watching a duck befriend a grizzly bear. (I am the duck in this scenario.) But it worked, and we remain very close friends to this day.

Here's my point. Are you ready? Good. So we went to see the Notebook, and it came to the scene at the end with all the Alzheimer's and forgetting and death and sadness where everyone is supposed to break down and blow snot bubbles. And sure enough, the theater began to echo with the sound of muffled sniffles. To my right, my mom sniffled. To my left, Laura, was sniffling through her nose ring. Tissues were being broken out and mascara was being dabbed. When the lights came on, I turned to grab my purse. Laura looked at my incredulously, tear stains on her cheeks. "Are you kidding me? Are you, like, dead inside?"

I shrugged. I wasn't really sure what had happened either. Because I do cry sometimes. A lot, in fact. I'm not prone to emotional outbursts, but I'm certainly not dead inside. And I can't even use the excuse that this story was too contrived and cheesy, because there are plenty of contrived and cheesy romantic cinematic moments that make me cry. This particular one just didn't do it for me.

Because the thing is, it has to be a moment. The stars have to align. You have to be in that vulnerable place, where your heart is wide open and ready to get fucked with. And when you do finally find yourself in that place... it still might not work! Not even if it's Ryan fucking Gosling!

Still, isn't it funny how some things will just get you? They catch you off guard. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. One minute you're a normal human person munching on some kettle corn and then bam, your chest gets tight aaaaaaand......throat, meet your new friend lump.

I was surprised to feel the lump the first time I saw the following scenes:

1. When Pam and Jim get married at Niagara Falls

Remember the part where Pam has a meltdown and says she looks fat in her dress, and everything is going wrong, but then Jim says she looks beautiful and then snips his tie in half to say, "Fuck it, I don't care about anything right now but marrying you, damn it!" And then they decide to go get married in secret on a boat in ponchos and there's this shot, just after he tells the camera that he has wanted to marry Pam since the day they met, where she is resting her head on his shoulder and her hair is all wet and he looks over her head at the camera and just BEAMS. And I am crying, and also smiling like an idiot. I am cryling.

I see you cryling.

2. When Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski pull up to their new house in Away We Go.
They are pulling into the driveway and Alexi Murdoch is singing a song originally written for the movie called "Wait," and it's timed just so that when they turn onto the dirt road, he sings "Feeling on the verge of some great truth... where I'm finally in my place." And suddenly it's everything that Garden State was supposed to be but wasn't. It's hard to explain, but it is magic. Just play the song and imagine the scene, and you might understand.

3. In Blue Valentine, when (SPOILER ALERT) Michelle Williams is supposed to get an abortion but can't go through with it and goes outside and breaks down and Ryan Gosling wraps her up in his arms and holds her tight. And he does the thing where he puts his hand on her hair and face and like, cradles her. I can't handle face cradling. I'm done. Put me to bed.

4. "Your hands are cold."
Do I have to explain this one? It doesn't work when you just watch the clip. You have to watch the film from beginning to end, without pausing, and just let it wash over you. The music, the gorgeous cinematography, the mood, but mostly the BUILD.

I will say, at the risk of sounding like Natalie Portman.... sometimes, I look forward to a good cry.

Wait, am I allowed to wear sequins after I turn 25?

2011-10-27T01:21:00.001-07:00

You guys. It's my birthday on Monday. Again. Holy hell. They just keep coming at me like baseballs in a batting cage behind the dive bar and it smells like stale beer and I have helmet hair and I just want to go home and watch Parks and Rec.

In the last few weeks, a lot of people have been asking me what I want for my birthday. Like, more so than usual. In the past, my response to this fairly routine question has always been to shake my head and say something humble like, "Oh, you're so sweet! You don't need to get me anything! Your gorgeous presence is all that I desire in life! The sun shines out your butt and I bask in its glow, didn't you know?" Which is okay, I guess. I think everyone does this to a degree. We don't like to look selfish, do we? And the thought is what counts.

But you know what? That's kind of dumb. Because you end up with something kind of creepy and useless like monkey socks or pirate earrings and you try to be happy because it was such a nice gesture but you can't help thinking WTF do I do with this now?

And furthermore, what kind of lame life philosophy is that? When the world asks, What do you want? you don't answer, "Um, I don't know, a minimum wage job and a messy divorce and an illegitimate child, I guess?" NO! You say, "I want to be the motherfucking CEO, bitch!" Reach for the stars, because the stars don't have arms to reach for you! - Zach Galifianakis playing a pageant dad on SNL that one time.

Oh wow, I forgot for a second how perfect that sketch was. Phew, I remember now. "You're nasty!"

So, in the spirit of wanting to be a motherfucking CEO, when my parents called me the other day and asked what I would like for my birthday, I paused for a second and then blurted out, "A Crosley vintage style portable USB turntable?" And that's what they got me! And everyone was happy and nobody cried.

YES.

So I encourage all of you sexy Scorpios whose birthdays are coming up, or those who are already panicking about Christmas: Don't be afraid to ask for something you might actually enjoy! It's not selfish. You're really doing everyone a solid. It's a win-win-win. I'm not sure who the third winner is, but I have to believe there's someone out there winning besides Charlie Sheen.

Because I just saw 30 minutes of a movie that infuriated me enough to write this.

2011-09-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

Today I came home from getting an oil change, because I am a modern single woman who gets shit done, and turned on the TV for background noise while I made myself a PBJ sandwich, because I am a modern single woman who can't afford a lot of groceries. The channel was on TBS, which is one that I can rely on for five-hour Office repeats and midnight movies starring Owen Wilson.

Anyway, as I was reaching for the strawberry jelly, I glanced over and noticed the screen. A circa-2004 Julia Stiles and a dashing blonde blue-eyed fellow who looked painfully like my ex-boyfriend were sitting at a library table and playing verbal footsie with each other.

You understand what I mean by verbal footsie. This is a thousand times worse than actual footsie because it will literally make you vomit if you are unlucky enough to witness it in real life. It goes like this: "Stop staring at me, I'm trying to study." "I don't know what you're talking about, you're the one who keeps looking at me. I'm just trying to learn science." Smile, wink, laugh, barf. Then, he reaches out and holds her hand! Oh, this shit just got real.

"You know you wanna get with this."

So the whole scene culminates in them suddenly running to some secret corner of the library and her ripping his shirt off and are they really going to have sex in the library? This is Julia Stiles circa 2004, after all! But no, this is a PG-13 movie, so they are interrupted by a group of paparazzi chasing them down for a scandalous picture. Then they have a big dramatic fight in of-course-the-rain where it is revealed the he has hidden his true identity from her, and he is actually a famous playboy Danish prince, and Julia Stiles is pissed because she spent her whole life working to be a doctor and now her picture is going to be in the tabloids and it is all ruined, and he is exactly the kind of distraction she was trying to avoid, and she was "Not pretending!!"

And then I got a text and I must have missed a scene or something because the next thing I knew, Julia Stiles is reciting Shakespeare and realizing she can't live without this ass hat, and look, she just got a letter of acceptance from Johns Hopkins Medical School, but fuck medical school because she is in love, goddamnit, and needs to max out her credit cards and fly to Amsterdam or Denmark or wherever the fuck. Then about 10 minutes later she is a princess or some shit and going into the underground jewelry safe with the queen and dancing at the ball in a pink dress and then I threw my PBJ crust at the screen and turned on my laptop to write this.

"This is way better than being a doctor."

I vaguely remember seeing this movie, which is cleverly titled The Prince & Me, when it first came out, back when film heroines were allowed to have short brown hair, and Julia Stiles was a thing and modern Shakespeare re-tellings were trendy, and for some reason they both smashed together because now all I can think about is Julia in 10 Things I Hate About You and O, both of which I have on DVD, but that's not the point, and what ever happened to Julia Stiles? Is she okay? Does anyone know? But I don't remember being so infuriated by it that I had to throw food at the screen. Of course, that would make me sixteen/ seventeen at the time, and apparently I was a hopeless romantic and not terribly feminist back then.

So the point I am trying to make is this: If this shit movie in any way leaked into my squishy teenage brain and influenced my expectations of true love, and this somehow led to my heart being broken by a guy who looked remarkably like this playboy Danish prince, then I am suing Julia Stiles and generic blonde actor and the horrible writers, and TBS, for that matter, for perpetuating lies and ruining lives.

Because I am a modern single woman.

"I want your ugly."

2011-07-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

I have this reoccurring fantasy.

Ok, fantasy is not the right word. It's not kinky. Don't get excited. Or get excited, do what you must. But more like a daydream? Daydream. Where all of the guys I have dated and/or slept with are gathered in one room on a sound stage that resembles the set of The Dating Game. They are all sitting on cheap plastic stools (I did not spring for couches, I guess?) wondering what they are all doing here. They get to talking and realize their shared connection: me. How long would this take? Hours? Days? Would I ever come up in conversation? This is no longer a talk show, it is more like a Twilight Zone episode. Like that one where everyone is inexplicably stuck in a white room with high walls and can't get out. Or that Bunuel movie about a dinner party where the guests suddenly realize they can't leave and start eating each other? I haven't really fleshed out the details. My daydreams are not big on exposition.

Does this make me self-absorbed? Probably. Has everyone thought about this scenario at least once? I'm willing to bet most definitely.

I always wonder what they would say about me. Would my high school boyfriend remember our first kiss that summer afternoon in my driveway? Our last kiss? Would they remember our ugliest fights and our most passionate moments? Did I make any lasting impact on them? Do any of them miss me or hate me? Why did all of these relationships end, again? And, most importantly, have I left them alone on that sound stage for too long without food, and are they now trying to eat each other?

My mom told me yesterday that the secret to a happy marriage is to marry an ugly person. She didn't elaborate much, but I think she meant that physical attraction and passions inevitably fade, but at the end of the day, when all the pretenses drop away, and you are left with all of the ugly, your faded alma mater t-shirt and your mouth full of Crest whitestrips, that they still want to be there. That they stick around, for whatever reason.

I've never gotten to the point in a relationship where I am comfortable being naked. I don't mean physically naked. I'm pretty satisfied with the situation I've got going on right now. I moisturize and eat fruit and sometimes try those pilates moves from Self magazine. But naked as in completely myself. Like, ugly me. Glasses-wearing, unflattering-lighting me. I got pretty close in my most recent relationship, but I was always a little conscious of that other presence. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it pushes me to be better - to be the best version of me at all times. But is it really better? Aren't I just as lovable with a big t-shirt and dots of zit cream as I am with a push-up bra and skinny jeans? Maybe there is a happy medium I can get to. But in the end, is it my heart and compassion and sense of humor that really matter? I'd like to hope so.

Lady Gaga once said, "I want your ugly. I want your disease. I want your everything as long as it's free. I want your love." I think she was right - to truly love someone is to love even their ugliest qualities, maybe even especially those qualities. But she also once wore a dress made of raw meat and said, "Let's have some fun, this beat is sick, I wanna take a ride on your disco stick." So, there's that.

That being said, I don't really agree with my mom. I want to think that I will find someone I am attracted to in every way. Don't get me wrong; he doesn't have to be Alexander Skarsgard or anything. In fact, I'm not too comfortable dating a guy who is prettier than me. But I want to find someone who makes my heart skip a little when he smiles at me and shiver when he kisses my neck, someone who knows how to cook one great dish, who will drop whatever he's doing to pick me up at the airport, who's witty as hell, with excellent taste in music and movies, an endless passion for life, and a huge, huge heart that he isn't afraid to share with me. And maybe he will come with a receding hairline or really hairy feet, but I will love him for it and he will love my waffle addiction and the bump in my nose, and it won't matter because he will be kind and want to stay in bed with me for hours on a Saturday morning.

But for the record, if you're reading this, Alexander Skarsgard - I would never turn you down. Call me.

"Shut the fuck up, already."

2011-02-22T17:45:00.005-08:00

photo courtesy of Flickr

-UPDATE-

Guess what, everyone? The universe must read my blog because I got a job! Actually, two jobs! And not entirely unpleasant jobs, at that! I now work at both the gift shop and the cafe of the local botanical gardens! I'm surrounded by beautiful flora and delicious baked goods all fucking day!

This is all proof that if you bitch about something long enough, the world will say ShutTheFuckUp already and will give you whatever you want.

Since this is a short post, I will include an anecdote of an adorable experience I had working at the gift shop:

The other day a little boy around the age of six came into the store with a crumpled five dollar bill. His mom said he was allowed to pick one toy in the store.

After careful deliberation, he picked up a toy lizard, reached up and placed it on my counter, pushing the wrinkled bill towards me shyly.

"Thank you," I say to him with a smile, "Would you like a receipt?"

He shook his head and said no, taking his lizard from me.

On his way out the door, he looked up at his mom and asked, "Mom, do you know why I didn't want a receipt?"

"No," she replied, "Why?"

With a serious look, the boy answered firmly, "Because I love lizards so much."

I can only hope to one day understand the kind of love that doesn't require a receipt.

The other day I was driving my car and just started screaming.

2011-01-22T18:10:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I feel like Jim Carrey in the Truman Show. Sometimes I think there is no possible way that the world could be this much of a fucking bitch unless I was secretly being taped for a massive psychological experiment reality show that would later pay me millions of dollars for having tortured me for so many years.

Recently, I was driving my car and suddenly started screaming. My brain was entirely unaware it had decided to do this. Yet I screamed and screamed, louder and longer until my throat was dry and I felt satisfied that the world knew what a fucking asshole it was being.

Because what the fuck is up with the world right now? Right and wrong and sanity and fairness and everything good in life is going to shit, and the epicenter of all this shit is Tucson and my life.

It must be my fault. The first mistake I made was not deciding exactly what the fucking fuck I was going to do for the rest of my life the minute I graduated high school. They say college is a place where you are free to "explore" your "interests." No one tells you the truth - the more you explore, the more you are punished. Apparently, splitting your efforts between two unrelated majors does not translate as "well-rounded" when applying for grad school - it translates as "uncommitted."

Which all results in my being rejected from grad school at my own alma fucking mater for not making up my mind soon enough. Fuck me for exploring my interests. Fuck me for taking a risk on something and finding out it wasn't for me. Fuck me for trying to go back and take another path. And fuck me for getting less than a 4.0, because grad school is no place for all those idiots with a 3.7.

Also, fuck me for borrowing 30 grand in student loans for a degree that couldn't ensure me a position at a gas station. Last year I was in an intense and challenging grad school program; last week I went on an interview at Starbucks. I sold the living shit out of myself for minimum wage, cleaning toilets, and ensuring that all the doctors and lawyers and accountants and real estate agents and fucking everyone else who decided at age 18 exactly what the fuck they wanted to be will ENJOY A DISGUSTING CUP OF SHITTY OVERPRICED "COFFEE."

For the time being, you can either find me behind the counter at Starbucks or in the parking lot screaming in my car. Good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight.

"Ghosts, like ladies, never speak 'til spoken to."

2010-10-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween, everyone! Here's my best Edie:

I hope you're being safe and looking as whorish as physically possible. It's my birthday and I'm off to celebrate! Cheers!

And many more

2010-10-16T00:26:00.000-07:00

My birthday is arriving on October 31st!

So just in case a magical genie or Robin Williams appears and promises me 10 birthday wishes as long as I can name them in less than a minute, I have compiled a handy list. Just to be safe.

1. Brown leather riding boots, black leather motorcycle boots, a black leather jacket.... just more things made of leather, basically.

2. Parks and Recreation on DVD

3. Alexander Skarsgard singing Happy Birthday to me in his underwear

4. A guest spot on Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis

5. Abs of steel

6. An endless supply of cupcakes, champagne, and Miss Dior Cherie.

7. A Brigitte Bardot hair day

8. One perfect night at home with my pseudo-boyfriend

9. To laugh with my friends until I pee a little... or a lot

10. A baby deer

In which we've come a long way, baby.

2010-09-25T13:58:00.000-07:00

"Does this floor make me look fat?"

Sometimes, I just get pissed.

Pissed at society, at men, at how tough it still is to be a girl in 2010.

As you can perhaps surmise from my fascination with sexist vintage advertisements, this is a topic I feel super-strongly about; it almost makes me want to put a tampon in a teacup. (Any Ghost World fans in the house?) But I know that sexism and feminism and gender roles are big issues to tackle in a single blog post, so I just intend to dance around them a bit. You know, like a lady.

I once asked my friend if, knowing what she knows now about the world, she would choose to have been born a guy. Without hesitation, she said, "Fuck yes. Are you kidding?"

"Really?" I replied, then paused in thought. "But... then you'd have to walk around with a penis every day. That would be terrible." I was only half-joking.

I guess I didn't expect my friend to react so strongly. I mean, this is a tough question. I personally think about it all the time. Because, much like Nancy Kwan and Doris Day and Sarah Jessica Parker, I enjoy being a girl... but I see my friend's point.

Men have it easy. (White men have it easy.) Rather than being instantly sexualized or judged, they are treated as professionals- intelligent, capable, strong people who can get the job done. Women still have to fight for respect when we crawl out of our dens of domesticity.

On the other hand, sometimes I think that overt sexualization and feminine mystery give us a little bit of power over men. As much as the media treat us like objects, men are still utterly mystified by us.

Let's break for story time. Growing up, I never had a super strong feminine role model. My mother had three older brothers and is a tomboy in every sense of the word. I had to learn how to put on make-up and curl my own hair. I remember friends' moms looking elegant and effortlessly put-together. My mom was always a bit quirky with a big warm personality. She never wore clothes that flattered her enviably tiny frame, choosing to live in oversized men's tees, baseball caps, and jeans. She would sometimes top off an outfit with gaudy make-up and costume jewelry, as if imitating what she thought a woman was supposed to look like.

As a teenager, my family made me feel guilty for wanting to feel feminine. On the weekends, my mom, dad, and brother, a stellar athlete, would play baseball or basketball or tennis, and I was constantly teased for being "girly" and uncoordinated.

One day, I realized that I shouldn't feel ashamed for happily being a woman. Now, I own my femininity instead of trying to hide it. I am proud that my silhouette is curvy. I know femininity isn't just about my sexuality, but I like the feeling I get when buying lace underwear, the way a dress swishes against my thighs as I walk, the way tight jeans hug my butt, and that indescribable feeling of making that click-clack-click-clack noise when strutting down a hallway in pumps. And even though I'm terrified of it, I look forward to a day when I might carry a tiny human in my body.

Being uber-feminine doesn't mean I'm not an uber-feminist - quite the opposite, in fact. I am a raging crazy when it comes to issues of inequality between the sexes. I am the first person in a room to get offended by an offhand "that's what she said" comment.

As an undergrad, I took a class called the Sociology of Gender. One day, we were looking at pictures of "girls' toys" and "boys' toys" on the Toys-R-Us website. Girls' toys were pastel-colored and domestic: kitchen sets and vacuum cleaners and baby dolls. Boys' toys were primary-colored and involved occupations outside the home: pilots, doctors, firefighters, scientists.

This pattern wasn't shocking or novel to any of us. But then my teacher posed the question: why is it generally acceptable for girls to play with both types of toys, but when a boy plays with girls' toys, parents often worry that he will be gay? When you look a bit deeper, you see two forces at play here: one, that society celebrates any desire to be masculine, even a female's desire, but condemns a male's desire to be feminine. In other words, we are all supposed to want to be men. Secondly, in a certain way, parents generally aren't as concerned about what their daughters want to be than with what their sons want to be. This practice has a name- androcentrism - and there is clearly a hierarchy here.

That being said, it's tough dating a med student while studying art. I can't help thinking that he is saving the world one life at a time while I am looking at pretty pictures, and that I subconsciously chose a "feminine occupation" and rejected math and science because of my Barbie dolls and Fisher Price kitchen set. How will I ever know for sure if I am doing this because I love it or because I am supposed to love it?

Cheer up, ladies. Things will get better... sort of.

We all watch Mad Men, and last week's episode "The Beautiful Girls" taught us that we've come a long way from Peggy and Joan and Mrs. Blankenship. We've got our own slim cigarettes now, for example - tailored for the feminine hand.

Still... sometimes I'd rather be Don Draper.

Commercial - Virginia Slims Cigarettes 1967 (You've come a l
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A brief letter to the idiot hairdresser at Cost Cutters

2010-09-17T17:30:00.001-07:00

I don't have the strongest math background.

I rushed through honors algebra, geometry, and trig in order to finish all math requirements by my sophomore year of high school, and I've never gone back, save for a brief period studying for the SAT and GRE (and sometimes to calculate a 35% off sale at Macy's.) But I am fairly certain that a quarter of an inch is never, in any math class or alternate alien universe, equal to three inches.

I understand the concept of "you get what you pay for in life." But apparently at Cost Cutters, $15 gets you the opposite of what you want. Who cuts hair blunt and straight-across anymore, unless it is specifically requested? And even then, you may get a few strange looks. ("Really? Straight across? Are you sure that's what you want? It might look weird.") If my regular hairdresser hadn't gotten fired, I would not be in this situation.

I know what you're thinking: it's just hair. It will grow back. But will it, really? I mean, okay, yeah, I know it will, really. But that is not the point! Hair isn't "just hair." In fact, I'm pretty sure I read once in Cosmo or Allure or Generic Women's Magazine that your hair is your greatest accessory.

My greatest accessory was just punched in the face.

How to build a man trap.

2010-08-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

"That devilicious whole ham flavor is

the surest way to your man's heart."

I'm back on the interwebs! And I'm no longer the pitiful product of an ended relationship. Not because I'm no longer pitiful, but because the relationship isn't over. He's actually decided he wants to give this thing a try while he's at med school. His exact words went something like: "I'm sorry. I was just scared. I appreciate you and want you in my life." Or something like that. I was too busy pinching myself to commit his heartfelt words to memory.

This is the cue for all you poor girls reading this who actually are suffering through a miserable break-up -downing a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in your bathtub while listening to Cat Power and weeping through your mascara, wishing for a fairy-tale miracle reunion with your guy- to be furious at me. I was you a month ago, and now look at me.

Go ahead - hate me. I deserve it. This defies all laws of human relationships and I feel like I cheated.

This has never happened to me before. I've always had to suffer through the stages of an ended relationship, to gradually get over it, to endure peaks and valleys of highs and lows, until finally I'm me again. Instead, this time I just had to get through Stage 1 (admittedly, the worst of the stages). At one point during Stage 1, while walking the dog, I said silently to the sky:

ME: "Hey, Universe, what the hell? I've done this shit way too many times. Can I get a break? I'm a good person. I recycle. I try to send out positive energy. Why am I always getting shit on by you, Universe?"

UNIVERSE: (Silent)

But something must have happened that day. Because things have sort of worked out exactly as I wanted them to. I wanted to be with him through med school and for this relationship to get a little more solid around the edges.

And that's what I got. Only I sort of feel like I tricked him into this. In agreeing to stay friends and keep in close touch, I kept a claw in him. That way, when he moved, we were still connected. I visited him immediately and transitioned ninja-style into his new life. I casually demonstrated that things didn't have to end. And he suddenly realized that he didn't want to let me go, apparently.

Not that everything's perfect. I go visit him on weekends and during the week we talk on the phone. He is disgustingly busy with that bitch they call med school. (She and I are gonna have some issues, I can tell.) Most of the time I spend with him is quizzing him, offering moral support, or rubbing his shoulders while he tries to make sense of Biochem aloud. He does tell me how much he enjoys having me there and wishes he had more time to spend with me. He feeds me a carrot of a compliment every now and then and tries to give me attention. But I'm beginning to realize that this is the beginning of a new kind of relationship built around SACRIFICE... which is a deceptively nice-sounding word until it recalls bloody hearts being carved out of chest cavities.

All I know is.... I adore this guy. We have a thing. It's a pretty damn good thing, as far as things go. And so what if I'm not technically his girlfriend? So what if we're not a solidly defined couple and he still refers to me as his "lady friend"? Life isn't perfect. Life is a whole lot worse for a ton of people. People in Africa or the Middle East, for example.

Sorry, Universe. I'm still working on the "being a good person" thing. Please don't take this away.

Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere.

2010-07-28T21:27:00.001-07:00

Today, I thought about Miss Taylor. No, not Elizabeth. Don't worry, I'll explain later.

You may have already pieced together through my vague self-pitying whines that my Pseudo-Boyfriend-Neighbor-I've-Been-Dating has just moved a few hours away to go to med school, marking an end to our "relationship" and the beginning of our "staying good friends." Whatever that means. Does anyone know what that means? I have this feeling it will be a "slightly more than friends" kind of friends.

So we spent every waking (and sleeping) minute of that last week together. It was a dramatic saga of breathless highs and miserable lows, each of us alternating between wallowing in the suckyness of the situation and trying to put on a brave face for the other. Our last night spent together involved picking up a pizza from our usual place, quietly helping him pack up his increasingly empty and cold apartment, taking a last dip in our beloved pool, and squeezing each other close all night, neither of us able to sleep.

In the darkness of my room that night, he quite suddenly pulled me closer and cupped his hand around my cheek, that gesture that makes every girl's heart flutter and stomach drop. "I'm going to miss you," he whispered earnestly. It took every drop of self control in my body not to beg him to fight for this relationship, that I loved his guts and wanted to be his girl, in a pure-as-fucking-snow kind of way. Instead, exhausted from this constant inner turmoil and lack of sleep and utterly resigned, I sighed, "I'll miss you, too," and kissed him deeply.

He left the next day. "It's not good-bye," he said. No, I thought. It's a bittersweet heartbreaking mess of suck.

It's been four days. I'm pretty sure I'm experiencing sex withdrawal. We've talked on the phone a few times and texted like it was going out of style. And God I wish it would go out of style, already - I love/hate texting. It's total shit to go from walking five feet barefoot in pajamas whenever I want to see him to waiting like a ravenous raccoon for a fucking text message that will probably say something entirely inconsequential, like "I have 100 channels!" or "Just watched the new True Blood, wtf." Texting is somehow addicting and insulting. While it's nice casually quipping throughout the day, it always leaves me utterly unsatisfied since I've been spoiled with a relationship of seeing and touching and kissing and sexing.

It's disgusting. I hope we citizens of the world someday find a reason to make texting illegal. I'm constantly looking at my phone to see if the little orb on the bottom is glowing with a pulsing white light, the signal that I have a new message. Some sick and twisted engineer cell phone designer monster at HTC decided it would be cute to make me wait NINE whole seconds between flashes, so I'm constantly looking over at my phone for nine seconds at a time. Every nine seconds I am disappointed.

Yesterday, sometime after inhaling a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream smothered in caramel sauce and my third consecutive meal of quesadillas, I realized that I could no longer wallow in my fridge. I need to take care of myself. I need groceries, goddamnit - adult person groceries. Chocolate stars dipped in peanut butter is not breakfast. Even if the peanut butter is organic.

So I put on my big girl shoes and drag my mopey and newly chubbier butt to Safeway to pick up a few healthy essentials and comfort foods: salad, tons of fresh fruit, cheese, green tea, a loaf of French bread, soup, Italian soda, and some dark chocolate. I feel a little better with each item I drop in my cart.

At the checkout, I punch in my parents' home phone number to get my club member discounts. Before my parents got this number ten years ago, it belonged to a woman named Cindy Taylor who registered it at Safeway. My parents never bothered to switch the club member account to their name, so whenever any of us uses it, we are told, "You saved eight dollars today, Miss Taylor" or "Have a good day, Miss Taylor" or "Would you like help out with that today, Miss Taylor?" Maybe not my dad, though. Maybe they call him Mr. Taylor. I don't know. That's not the point.

Anyway, today I'm told a simple "Thank you, Miss Taylor," and for just a moment, I forget my anguish and heartache. I've always been curious about this mysterious Cindy Taylor and over the years I have invented a little identity for her in my mind. She is young and blonde and chic and very American. I think she looks like a supermodel, like Cindy Crawford + Nikki Taylor. She's probably an important book editor in New York City, living a glamorous life of black-tie events and romantic weekend getaways. I imagine her jet-setting to Venice, China, Morocco, Sao Paulo, all while wearing head-to-toe white and bright red lipstick. I wonder where she is at this very moment. Is she cooking with her husband? Playing with her children? Taking a bubble bath? Brushing her teeth? Playing the cello?

For a brief moment, I'm lost in Miss Taylor's world .... and then my eye catches a glimpse of that glowing orb.

In My Head: Part 1

2010-07-20T13:05:00.001-07:00

1. I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love, which means I am officially the worst break-up cliché since getting a haircut. I am also thinking of getting my hair cut next week.

2. Last night I had a Sonoran hot dog for dinner. Today I ran two miles and ate only salad and fruit. In the end, I think the Sonoran hot dog won.

3. I am thoroughy enjoying the Franklin/ Tara kidnapping subplot on True Blood. "Hoooooker, hooook-ah, that's a water pipe! Watch how fast I type 'motherfucker.'" Franklin is the best thing to happen to vampires since Eric.

4. There's nothing as simultaneously satisfying and guilt-inducing than sipping an over-priced iced latte while browsing glossy magazines in sub-arctic air conditioning at Borders.

5. Beware Shania Twain's "From This Moment On" if you are going through Stage 1 of a breakup - the cheesiest love songs will make you cry uncontrollably in your car.

Side effects may include

2010-06-12T16:52:00.001-07:00

Dear young women in birth control commercials,

I would give my new black Michael Kors wedges to be you. You're classy-gorgeous, and all your friends wear flowy skirts with perfect accessories (the oversized watch OR the statement necklace- NEVER BOTH), and they all have different hair colors (but never blonde- blondes have that slutty vibe). You're thin like Diane Kruger but not Kate Bosworth skinny, and a little bohemian, like Kate Hudson, but not dirty, like that Kesha person who has a dollar sign in her name. You wear cute flats while riding your beach cruiser to pick up fresh flowers. (Who buys fresh flowers? Flowers are expensive. I like to eat, thank you. Pizza beats flowers like rock beats scissors.)

You like to paint your house in the middle of the day with your cat- but it's not sad, it's adorable. You cut your own bangs on a whim, without a mirror, and they turn out perfectly Zooey. For some reason, you often fall into empty bathtubs in fits of giggles. You are always in a car on a never-ending road trip with your girlfriends, where someone must have done a really good Derek Zoolander impression because you cannot stop laughing like an idiot. In the evenings, you go to fancy art galleries and black tie events with even more trendy people. And the lighting around you is always soft and flattering.

I know you're happy because I assume you're getting sexed on a fairly regular basis. Except you never seem to be having sex, or to be anywhere near men. Where's your boyfriend? Isn't he why you're on birth control? Or are you just whoring it up Sex-and-the-City style? (Are there really no other contemporary references for female sluts than SATC? Isn't it funny how everyone immediately recognizes the acronym SATC now?) But I suppose if you are having this much fun, you don't need a man.

With great affection,

Desperately-Seeking-Yaz

The Ponte Pant

2010-03-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I did a very bad thing: I got a J. Crew credit card while at the factory outlet.

Here's the deal: I kind of hate/love J. Crew because their outfits are usually ridiculous and only wearable by waifish models whose thighs don't touch, but every once in a while I am blown away by their sheer brilliance in styling. Anyway, yesterday I found myself in this magical retail land of pastels and ruffles and sequins and pearls. One thing led to another, and... I was weak and seduced by an extra 10% discount, and I had very low blood sugar at the time, okay?

I do not need another credit card. This was definitely a mistake. I'm thousands in debt, I earn $75 a week working part time, and my plans for grad school have recently fallen through. I am in danger of having to move back in with my parents to save money. And yet I got this damn credit card because of member benefits and coupons?

Actually, no. I got it because of The Pants. These pants that I just had to have. I was Claire Danes and these pants were my very own Jordan Catalano. They are known officially as the Ponte Pant, apparently last year's version of this year's Pixie Pant. (All that seems to have changed is a shortening of the length.)

They are like skinny stretchy ski pants/ riding pants but with a gold zipper up the back. The material is thicker and more structured than leggings. And apparently when you climb your way into them and zip them up, your hottness factor instantly skyrockets 3 points. They are a fashion enigma and I had to have them.

But I'm a reasonable girl; I'm 5'9 with child-bearing hips. I understand that what looks okay in a catalogue on a size-zero model might not be appropriate for daytime wear.

So, I ask you, dear readers and subscribers, and whatever poor soul stumbles upon this page at 3am:

The Ponte Pant: Yay or nay?

The Ponte Pant from Brittany C on Vimeo.

*Please excuse the poor quality of video and dancing - I was flying high on espresso.

Note: Due to the recent realization that this video comes up in a Google search for my first and last name, I've had to make it private (if only for the sake of my future career prospects.) But please do add me on Vimeo if you want to watch it! Cheers!

How to impress friends and strangers with your DVD collection

2010-02-11T17:10:00.001-08:00

I like to think that people are not defined by their possessions. However, I never fail to judge strangers by the shit they own. It's not fair, but it's real life, folks - split-second stereotyping. The following is a helpful guide on how to acquire a solid DVD collection that is guaranteed to impress everyone who happens to pass through your living room.

Ok! So, you should have a smattering of each genre, but none should be too heavily weighted. Start with a core of basics. I like to call this The Foundation, or the classics that everyone agrees are classics. These include the Godfather, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Pulp Fiction.

A few comedies are necessary, but only solid-gold classy comedies like Coen Brothers films; if all your movies star Will Ferrell and Sean William Scott, no girl will ever date you. (On the other hand, if you are a girl and own these movies, you are sure to attract assholes.) You are allowed exactly one Judd Apatow movie (If I were you, I would make it Freaks and Geeks, which is not actually a movie but a TV show, but it counts as a comedy). Also, if you own The Hangover you will become everyone's favorite person, because apparently everyone freaking loves that movie.

Similarly, ladies, you can only own a couple of great rom-coms, or you will scare straight guys away. You are allowed one movie starring Julia Roberts or Kate Hudson. Rom com suggestions: Annie Hall, Love Actually, Benny & Joon, My Best Friend's Wedding, How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days.

A few black and white films will make you seem worldly and knowledgable. You can never go wrong with Alfred Hitchcock, or a really killer film noir like Double Indemnity. Also good: To Kill A Mockingbird and The Thin Man.

"Ahhhhhhhhh! Is that...a copy of The Lake House!?"

Next, you need some strong indie films. Again, not too many, or you will seem like an elitist hipster snob. Some classics are Goodbye Lenin, Amelie, Wristcutters: A Love Story, and Ghost World (which is totally still relevant, remember?).

To balance this out, you need a blockbuster or two, just to further prove that you are not the aforementioned elitist hipster snob . I would recommend Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one) or one of the Lord of the Rings movies.

A couple foreign films will make you appear cultured and interesting. Amelie is always a crowd pleaser, as is Paris Je'taime, Y tu mama tambien, anything by Pedro Almodovar, and Pan's Labyrinth.

Next are the guilty TV pleasures. These can include, but are not limited to, box sets of Gossip Girl, True Blood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, and Gilmore Girls....Hide these under your bed, unless your friends are very forgiving.

*Interestingly, any DVD of a 90s-era Nickelodeon show will impress your friends that were born between the years 1982 and 1990. (I 100% guarantee this or your money back.) Take your pick from Pete & Pete, Salute Your Shorts, and The Secret World of Alex Mack.

One biopic.... eh. On second thought, biopics are consistently terrible. Pass.

Some serious movies that are only really watchable once, yet you know they are very important and well-made, so you have a copy. These include films about the Holocaust or other particularly bloody war or genocide, period films, and films about people dying of an incurable disease. like The Pianist, Schindler's List, There Will Be Blood, Hotel Rwanda, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

"The Feel-Good Movie of the Year!"

Some indisputably great and watchable TV series. These can include Arrested Development, Mad Men, LOST, Weeds, Dexter, The Office, or 30 Rock.

Exactly one zombie movie; make it 28 Days Later or Zombieland. Be careful, any more than one can be classified as "having a thing for zombie-shit." However, you may include another post-apocalyptic or threat-to-mankind type movie, like War of the Worlds or Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Exactly one serial killer movie. I repeat: ONE. Any more and you will be the Creep With All Those Serial Killer DVDs. I would recommend American Psycho or Zodiac.

And then, the movies you love like a child and don't need to justify to anyone. For me, these include everything that Sofia Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, and Wes Anderson even breathe on, as well as Almost Famous and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

So that's my list, kids. Keep in mind that it is by no means exhaustive -many great films were excluded in the spirit of efficiency. So if you only take one bit of advice from this, make your mantra "Everything in moderation."

Also, consult the list at Videogum of the Worst Movies Of All Time for films to avoid like an apocolyptic zombie plague (although I admit to shamelessly loving some of their "worsts"- I'm only human.) If you can follow these rules, you will surely impress your friends, because there is no better way to instantly win people's affection than by letting material possessions speak for your personality. Why else would buttons, bumper stickers, and magnets exist?

Addendum: My dear good friend Manders has pointed out two very important categories that I have failed to include: the Guilty Pleasure category and the Cult Classic category. This is tricky, because in my experience, few people truly appreciate these. But if you are Lady Gaga about Guilty Pleasures, go nuts. Who am I to stifle your awesomeness? These may include deliciously terrible melodramas (Selena), plaid-filled teenage angsty shows from the 90s (My So-Called-Life and Wonderfalls, anyone?), stuff from our childhood (Fern Gully, An American Tale, Olsen Twin movies, Space Jam), amazingly awful 80s movies (Earth Girls are Easy is a personal favorite). Cult classics will include everything John Hughes and Mel Brooks, along with gems like Cool Runnings and Billy Madison.

Also, remember that this is not a list that would impress me personally, but rather a list that should satisfy the general Joe Schmo or Jane Schmane. If you are trying to win me over, I will immediately marry the first guy I meet who owns True Romance or Dead Man. Seriously, this is legally binding - I've already written up the documents.

And for the record, I was not that impressed by The Hangover. I'm still waiting for the feature length version of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis.

What the crap is going on with Gossip Girl?

2010-01-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

Nate:"Do you remember back in Season 1 when we had personalities?"
Chuck: "I'm Chuck Bass."

I know I just lost major cool points with all nine of my subscribers (as if I really earned them in the first place), and for this, I sincerely apologize. I might as well admit that I also watch True Blood, which is basically vampire porn meets Days of Our Lives.... You are welcome to hit Unsubscribe at any moment.

But seriously you guys, what the frak is going on with this show? Since it is on hiatus at the moment, I'm hoping there is still enough time to straighten some shit out. Therefore, I am sending into cyberspace a final plea to make this show good again.

Open letter to the writers of Gossip Girl:

Please kill Jenny and her stupid raccoon face and Courtney Love hair and thighs that don't touch. Either that or give her a nice healthy drug addiction.

"I can haz more coke and eyeliner, pleez?"

While you're at it, kill Serena. She has the moral fiber of a goldfish, and I won't be surprised if in a plot twist we learn that she is actually a golden retriever that can shape shift into human form. (Or maybe I've been watching too much True Blood). Still, the resemblance is striking...

Also, kill Rufus and Lily, who are the worst TV parents ever. And Vanessa and Dan, because, do I even have to explain?

Vanessa: "No, you're the worst."

Dan: "No, you're the worst. Also, I love you now, 'cuz Hilary Duff dumped me."

Quit treating your characters like dime store hookers. Is anyone else keeping track of all the characters Nate has slept with? Serena, Blair, Jenny, Vanessa.... How am I supposed to root for a couple when it's just relationship-spin-the-bottle? I need you to tell me how to feel, Gossip Girl. You do the math, there are about 10 characters on the show. To find the number of possible couples you can make, you multiply 10 x 9 x 8 ... etc.... Right? I was never very good at math. Oh, and now that threesomes are allowed, it changes the equation....Shit, I am going to fail the GRE.

Nate: "Which one are you again? Serena?"
Jenny: "Don't worry about it. Just shut up and kiss me."

More Chuck and Blair, please! But give them their sexual chemistry back, they are acting like the grandparents of everyone on this show.

And could you PLEASE keep a story arc for longer than one episode? I am getting whiplash from your stupid confusing plot twists.

Blair: "Wait, are we friends again? Weren't we fighting in the last episode?"

Serena: "I don't remember, but I want to go swim in that pond and chase birds. "

If you're going to have guest stars, please make them good actors to balance out all the bad acting already on the show.

How is it that all of these kids get served at bars and let into clubs? They are baby nineteen-year-olds. Millionaire baby nineteen-year-olds, but still.

Chuck is a soggy wet noodle, and what happened to his voice? He only talks in whisper. I want Badass Chuck back. Have him join a band and gain a British accent, or something. Oh wait, that's Ed Westwick.

Blair: "Why is everyone still here? Don't they know this is our show?"

Chuck: "I'm Chuck Bass."
Blair: "I still can't hear you."

We can basically call it the Chuck and Blair Show now. Nate can guest star sometimes to play polo and rugby without his shirt.

XOXO,

GGFan4evr

Why Ghost World Is Still Relevant

2010-01-06T11:36:00.000-08:00

It's 2010, you guys! When you read that, did you pronounce it "twenty-ten" or "two-thousand-ten"? My friend and I are in the middle of a debate about this. We think "twenty-ten" sounds far more futuristic and badass, but it doesn't seem to be catching on. Let's make it a trend, bloggers. Pass this shit around like it's H1N1 (H1N1 is sooo two-thousand-nine).

Oh, and if you haven't yet realized, it's also a new decade. As Entertainment Weekly and the E! network have kindly reminded us, it is time to reflect back on the past decade and determine what was really relevant and life-changing and what might be better off lost to history (Tila Tequila, I'm looking at you, kid).

Year-end lists are fun. But decade-end lists seem downright indulgent, and who can afford to be indulgent in times like these? I refuse to participate in this ritual, but mostly because so many of my favorite films or albums couldn't possible make the cut. It reminds me of that day my freshman year of high school when I found out I didn't make the basketball team, and cried and ate Twizzlers for a week. Not Red Vines; those are the weak man's Twizzlers. (FYI, I did make the team the next year, and it wasn't nearly as fun as I thought it would be. )

So I refuse to make a list of my favorite films of the decade. Yes, Amelie and Eternal Sunshine have hooked their sweet indie claws into my heart and still haven't let go. Sure, I will always love Almost Famous and The Royal Tenenbaums. Little Miss Sunshine and Pan's Labyrinth never fail to make me cry. And Sofia Coppola seemed to literally tap into my soul with Lost in Translation. But no, no lists. (See what I just did there? Pshhh, indulgence. Let them eat cake.)

But thinking back, there was one little film from 2001 that has really stayed with me. That film is Ghost World. For me, Ghost World has stood the test of time and is still completely relevant nine years later. This movie is not only darkly funny but also just plain dark. It's incredibly poignant and excruciatingly morose. It is a story of solitude, of unflinching loneliness and isolation, and Don Knotts and Skip James and Jaan Pehchaan Ho. This film is timeless and hilarious and heartbreaking and I will love this movie until I die.

"Gimme all your money, bitch!"

By now, this film has turned into somewhat of a cult classic. But for those few of you who haven't seen it, here's a quick synopsis: it follows two "quirky" best friends, Rebecca and Enid, played by Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch. They are entirely anti-establishment and so scornful of their "mainstream" peers that they live in total isolation. They are strong women who seem to only know what they stand against, not for.

Oh, look, here's the trailer.

Not very much actually happens in the film, which is what I love about it. The girls graduate high school, and we become voyeurs to their everyday activities they use to define themselves and distract themselves from their existential angst. These include trips to the record store, video store, movies, tacky diners, and coffee shops. Quick, witty, and scathingly sarcastic dialogue ensues while we become privy to the dynamics of the girls' friendship. When they play a prank on a pathetic middle-aged man named Seymour (Steve Buscemi, at his most pitiful) whom Enid later befriends, a rift begins between Enid and Rebecca and their relationship slowly dissolves as they go their separate ways. I won't say anything more because this description has already failed to do the film any justice, except to say that it's full of subtle brilliance. It's wry, sarcastic, ironic, and witty as hell....and way more succinct and graceful than this synopsis.

Rebecca: "Wow, this is so bad it's almost good."
Enid: "This is so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again."

So, now that that's out of the way, I will relay to you why I think the themes in this film are timeless without spoiling too much for those who haven't yet seen it.

1. Ghost World is set in Anytown, USA.
The vibe is a bit 90s, but mostly indeterminable. Anyone who grew up in suburbia, or even just a small town, can recognize the themes in this movie. Mini-malls and giant multiplexes are taking over the town, transforming it into a bland landscape of signage and pavement, until it is just a ghost (!) of what it once was. Unfortunately, this is the experience many of us have had, or will have, in our hometowns.

"How many times I tell you? No shirt, no service. Get the hell out of my store. What do you think this is, Club Med?"

"It's America, dude. Learn the rules."

2. Cynicism and rejection of the mainstream, or the birth of indie on film.

Whatever you want to call it, the Indie/ hipster/ anti-establishment subculture is far more antagonistic today than how it was portrayed in this film. Today, the whole culture seems to be based on the rejection of something else, but with Enid it felt heartfelt and authentic, that she genuinely did not belong in the mainstream but in her own world of obscure culture. She was not following a subculture trend but creating her own. I can relate to certain aspects of this theme, although I think the general negativity of my teenage years has blossomed into a much healthier selective cynicism.

"I think only stupid people have good relationships."
"That's the spirit."

3. The portrayal of the modern art world
Enid is enrolled in, as she puts it, "a remedial summer art class for fuck-ups and retards." Maybe it's because I've had one foot in this world for the past few years, but I thought this storyline was pitch-perfect and so much fun. Enid's teacher's pretentious experimental b/w short film entitled "Mirror, Father, Mirror" features a doll's body parts being flushed down a toilet. I especially love when Enid's poignant caricatures are snubbed by her art teacher, who favors an air-headed girl's minimalist piece made of clothes hangers meant to represent "a woman's right to choose" because it's more "political."

"I feel it says so much about who I am and what it feels like to inhabit my specific skin."

4. Alienation and Isolation
This film is soaked with it, from Enid's existential angst, to her single father's apparent loneliness, to Seymour's depressing bachelorhood and crazy Norman's never-ending wait for the bus that never comes. I think isolation is a growing problem in today's techno-happy world. The very existence of so many social networking sites shows how desperate we are for any kind of human connection. Yet we still spend far more time Facebooking and texting and tweeting people than actually having face-to-face conversations with them. In fact, anyone reading this should shut their laptops, walk outside, and go talk to the first person you see on the street. I don't care if you have to ask Fred the homeless man how his invisible pet rabbit is doing, just make a human connection!

5. Hoarding
At one point, Seymour asks Enid, "You think it's healthy to obsessively collect things? You can't connect with other people so you fill your life with stuff."This may sound weird, but I think the act of hoarding says so much about a person. Enid and Seymour are both hoarders. I'm fascinated by this kind of obsessive collecting of weird objects and memorabilia and think it's very much tied to a person's emotional state. In one scene, Enid tries to sell her stuff at a yard sale but ends up not being able to part with most of it. Without sounding too Dr. Phil, in my experience I've found that people hold on to objects because they make them feel comforted and safe, something they lack from human relationships.

6. Lost friendship
Everyone at some point has grown distant from a best friend who was once very close. I know I have. It's a natural and normal part of human relationships, but it doesn't make it any less devastating when it happens to you. You often grow apart so slowly that you don't really notice it, until one day it's apparent that you are in different places and your connection is gone. This transition is handled so gracefully and truthfully in the film and really makes you reflect on your own ended friendships.

7. Graduation and Transition.
Graduation, whether earning a degree from a university or college, or just graduating from a specific time in your life, means transition and change. At any point of transition, you inevitably question yourself and often falter in deciding where to go next. This is exactly where I am now, having recently graduated and unsure of what exactly I want to do with my life.

Anyway, I've memorized most of this film and it is very quotable. Some of my favorites:

"Sometimes I think I'm dying of sexual frustration."

"Oh, we have to get together this summer!"
"Yeah....That'll definitely happen."

"I'm tired of all these extroverted pseudo-bohemian losers."

"Mostly I just feel like poisoning everybody."

"Hey look, pants."

"Go die, asshole."

I could go on and on about this movie for hours. I love Enid's relationship with her dad, and the subtle comments on American suburbia, and the crazy vintage fashion, and the soundtrack is fantastic. But I'll stop here. If you haven't seen it, go rent it. No, don't put it on your Netflix queue. March your lazy American ass down to your local video store right now. (Or you can watch the whole thing on YouTube now. Shhhhh, don't tell the YouTube police.) Also, sorry if I've ruined the whole movie for you, but it's been out for ten years, man! Because it's twenty-ten, remember?

Google Search

2009-12-07T18:27:00.000-08:00

Today I jumped on Google and began to type in "How to..." and paused. Several previous entries lingered in the ether below the box. I commenced to scroll through them and discover my life through Google's eyes:

How to convert wav to mp3
How to decorate a condo
How to fix bangs too fringey
How to get rid of a runny nose
How to live alone
How to make a pillow case
How to make french toast
How to wear white jeans

Conclusion: I am single, sad, and boring, and probably eat way too many carbs.

However, next I typed "the" and BAM:

The antisymmetry of syntax
The atoms of language
The borg
The day the earth stood still
The dead weather horehound
The deal of the century bilbao
the decisive moment
the edge of love soundtrack
the elephant man
the fags
the fame monster
the hills
the jesus mary chain
the office dinner party
the rain in spain
the rock of gorgotha
there's a she wolf in my closet

Conclusion: I am awesome. I'm cultured but not snobby; I can read about Shakespeare and formal syntax as well as Shakira and reality tv.

And now I will delete my browser's history. Because of evidence.

"What if it's all just bullshit?" : Considering a career in The Art World.

2009-12-01T23:23:00.001-08:00

"Art is what you can get away with." - Andy Warhol

Ever since graduating, I've been considering applying to the Contemporary Art graduate program at Sotheby's Institute of Art in New York. I have somewhat valid reasons for this: I love art. I love looking at art, I love reading about art, and I love discussing art. But I can't shake this sinking feeling that there is something so vacuous and phony about the modern art world. I mean, I read fashion magazines, but this doesn't mean I'm cut out for a life of air kisses and designer threads. There's a reason I didn't go to business school and recoil at the very idea of it.

The Golden Calf, with 18-karat gold hooves, from the Biblical story warning against the worship of false gods

Damien Hirst recently made history by bypassing the traditional route of selling work through dealers and put 200 of his pieces up for public auction at Sotheby's; he made over £50 million from the sale of his diamond-encrusted skull alone, entitled For the Love of God.

Obviously, Hirst is aware of the irony in the unabashed fetishism of his pieces. The guy is clearly a marketing genius, and maybe he deserves the millions he gained. But that doesn't resolve the fact that this is still fetishism, ironic or not, and that there remains a fundamental moral quandary in the astronomical pricetags of contemporary art.

"Don't go worshipping false idols.... "

When I mean to say is, I'll admit to being prone to pretentiousness. I have a degree in Art History with a focus on contemporary art (yes, from a state college, but still). I enjoy a good Koons or Murakami as much as the next person. I like sipping espresso and love to work the term "postmodernism" into as many conversations as possible. There are moments when I catch myself acting more Elitist Hipster Snob than I might like.

But the other day while waiting for a class to start, I overheard an art student telling a friend how she brought in her i-pod for her class to listen to while they painted. Assuming the crash position, I gritted my teeth and braced myself for the name-drop of some obscure indie band. Instead, I heard this:

"It's this CD of just the sounds of, like, the waves crashing against the rocks in some, like, sacred cave in Thailand, or something. So, yeah, it was so great."

My first thought was: DEAR GOD. The heights of pretentiousness are apparently infinite. But my second thought was even more horrifying - Do I sound like that?

The great accessibility of art is that it reflects the human condition. And since everyone is human, they feel that they have the authority to weigh in on contemporary art; and they do, to a degree. This is simultaneously great and awful. It's like the sociology class I took two years ago, where everyone thought it was relevant to recall their personal anecdotes from their childhood in order to explain and justify human behavior. I'm sorry, but your charming story about getting wasted off of your mom's Blue Hawaiian wine coolers at thirteen is not appropriate for a serious class discussion on alcoholism.

Takashi Murakami

My experience in art class usually goes like this: at first, I'm delighted that we have been generating relevant discussion for 30 minutes about a single piece. How wonderful, I muse to myself, that a simple object can spur such a passionate and engaging dialogue about the state of contemporary society. But soon I start to get that sinking feeling -what if this is all complete bullshit? And I just sound like an asshole?

Some days I'm optimistic and believe in the power of contemporary art as a purely humanistic achievement. On my worst days, I worry both about the superficiality of the contemporary art world and the pretentiousness of elite intellectualism.

Right now, I'm faced with a tough decision: whether to pursue a doctorate in art history or in linguistics. (I majored in both.) I really do enjoy both, but I can't seem to commit to one and abandon the other. In any case, I would love some witty input or banter on the subject.

What the crap is going on with Gossip Girl?

2009-11-18T23:16:00.000-08:00

Nate:"Do you remember back in Season 1 when we had personalities?"
Chuck: "I'm Chuck Bass."

There, I admit it. I watch Gossip Girl, alright? And I don't mean, like, "Hey, Gossip Girl is on, I might as well watch it since I don't have plans tonight." I mean I religiously watch every single episode online (because I don't have cable - why get cable when you have the internet? It seems redundant). Perhaps worse, until this year I was watching almost every episode of The Hills, but that's a nightmare for another day.

I know I just lost major cool points with all nine of my subscribers (as if I really earned them in the first place), and for this, I sincerely apologize. I might as well admit that I also watch True Blood, which is basically vampire porn meets Day of Our Lives.... You are welcome to hit Unsubscribe at any moment.

But seriously you guys, what the frak is going on with this show? Since it is on hiatus at the moment, I'm hoping there is still enough time to straighten some shit out. Therefore, I am sending into cyberspace a final plea to make this show good again.

Open letter to the writers of Gossip Girl:

Please kill Jenny and her stupid raccoon face and Courtney Love hair and thighs that don't touch. Either that or give her a nice healthy drug addiction.

"I can haz more coke and eyeliner, pleez?"

Also, kill Rufus and Lily, who are the worst TV parents ever. And Vanessa and Dan, because, do I even have to explain?

Vanessa: No, you're the worst.

Dan: No, you're the worst. Also, I love you now.

Quit treating your characters like dime store hookers. Is anyone else keeping track of all the characters Nate has slept with? Serena, Blair, Jenny, Vanessa.... How am I supposed to root for a couple when it's just relationship-spin-the-bottle? I need you to tell me how to feel, Gossip Girl. You do the math, there are about 10 characters on the show. To find the number of possible couples you can make, you multiply 10 x 9 x 8 ... etc. Right? Oh, and now that threesomes are allowed, it changes the equation....Shit, I am going to fail the GRE.

Nate: "Which one are you again? Serena?"

Jenny: "Don't worry about it. Just shut up and kiss me."

More Chuck and Blair, please! But give them their sexual chemistry back, they are acting like the grandparents of everyone on this show.

Could you PLEASE keep a story arc for longer than one episode? I am getting whiplash from your stupid confusing plot twists.

If you're going to have guest stars, please make them good actors to balance out all the bad acting already on the show.

How is it that all of these kids get served at bars and let into clubs? They are baby nineteen-year-olds. Millionaire baby nineteen-year-olds, but still.

We can basically call it the Chuck and Blair Show now. Nate can guest star, sometimes, for eye candy.

XOXO,

GGFan4evr

Pathetic funny.

2009-10-25T23:08:00.001-07:00

What does a bad parking job have in common with a panda trying to climb stairs? It's all the same funny.

What is it about the FAIL phenomenon that makes it so god damn satisfying to insert into a sentence? I want to marry Fail Blog and have its Fail babies. I wish I had studied FAIL psychology so I could have some insight into the great FAIL pleasure we gain in watching others' EPIC FAILs.

Anyway, this is a sad excuse for a post. POSTING FAIL. I've started writing a few (1. Why Ghost World is Still Relevant, 2. Why Jeff Goldblum is God, and 3. What If It's All Just Bullshit-Considering A Career in the Art World , to name a few) and just lost interest. Plus there's this thing called Grad School that is demolishing my social life. I know I know, EXCUSES FAIL. Until I get my shit together, watch the damn panda.

How the Manic Pixie Dream Girl ruined my adolescence.

2009-08-05T13:08:00.000-07:00

As crazy people are prone to do, I often display dangerously obsessive behavior. Mostly, though, I just become enamored with a fascinating pop culture phenomenon, and in order to scratch that itch I will read and read until my eyes bleed, True Blood style. For example, my last obsession was with the dozens of intriguing articles written on anti-feminism, co-dependency, and all around abusive relationship behavior in the Twilight series.

My new obsession: The Manic Pixie Dream Girl. This is my two cents on the "new" female cinematic archetype. If you haven't yet heard the term, you will absolutely know what it's referring to.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl:
A phrase coined by Nathan Raban (after seeing Kirsten Dunst's character in Elizabethtown) to mean, as he so perfectly describes: "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." They are "ideal muses whose beauty, sweetness and gentle, studied eccentricity renders them entirely docile."

One great example of a MPDG is Ms. Zooey Deschanel. I know I gripe about her a lot, but I'm a bit resentful at how she seduced me with her quirkiness until I realized I was being duped by a soulless MPDG. This (among other things) is what bothered me about 500 Days of Summer. Where is Summer's back story? Why does she shrink away from Tom? Who the fuck is she? She must be a deeply sad person. This is interesting. I want to know more. WELL, WE DON'T GET MORE.

So, the MPDG. You know her. We all know her. And that bitch ruined my life.

See, when I was in high school, I watched a ton of movies that featured MPDGs, and I believed the key to happiness was to be that girl for some lucky unsuspecting boy. I figured I needed to breathe new life into a miserable 17 year old. So, I did what any true academic would do. I studied these docile heroines' quirky behavior and feverishly took notes. Be spontaneous. Do something slightly illegal. Make a stupid face, swim in a public fountain, steal an umbrella. It helped that I was pretty quirky to begin with. (At the time, I would compulsively lie a la Natalie Portman in Garden State.)

I wanted to be that weird-as-fuck muse. But there was a fundamental flaw in my logic - If I shoplift a cat mask and run around like an escaped mental patient in New York City, do I get to kiss George Peppard in the rain? Of course not - I'm not Audrey Hepburn.

See, the MPDG as we know her doesn't exist in real life. Because in real life, she is that pale girl who used to sit in the art hall at lunch wearing a Batman cape and eating salami. But because she doesn't look like Zooey or Kirsten, she's no one's muse - she is just weird as fuck.

This movie should be titled My MPDG.

Normally, I don't feel sorry for men. I'm one of those girls who goes feminazi at the slightest hint of inequality between the sexes. But there are surely unsuspecting guys out there who are looking for their very own MPDG to pull them out of their terribly boring lives. But herein lies the problem:

Ok, I know this guy. We will call him Jason. Jason is obsessed with a girl who he thinks is his "muse." She's quirky and has bangs. He writes songs about her quirkiness and her bangs. But for all intents and purposes, I should be his MPDG - I am spontaneous and never reveal too much about myself. I nurture his talents and assuage his insecurities. I'm also sexy and coy and capricious and reckless, and at the end of the day.... he isn't writing songs about me. He isn't even calling me. Because apparently to be an MPDG, you also need to be drop dead gorgeous.

Furthermore, I failed to catch on to another rather obvious trait of this muse figure. Yes, her sole purpose in life is to save some uptight guy's life from monotony. But she is also completely fucking crazy. Just bat shit insane. In the real world, this girl would be hospitalized. She would be Drew Barrymore in Mad Love (a character I had actually idolized, despite her suicidal tendencies.)

Thankfully, I came to my senses right around the time Zooey played her 5th MPDG in Gigantic when she asks Paul Dano shortly after meeting "Do you have any interest in having sex with me?". I realized that if I continued down this quirky manic path, I was going to end up like doomed MPDG Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine, completely insecure and unsure of myself to the point of self-destruction. Or even worse, with blue hair. (What's totally fascinating is that she actually realizes that Jim Carey is regarding her as an MPDG and it ends up ruining their relationship.)

"I'm just a fucked-up girl looking for her own peace of mind. I can't save you."

Plus, what would happen if we saw the next 5 years in these relationships? Would Zach Braff ever make a sequel to Garden State about Natalie Portman's manic episodes or bouts with depression? (No, because he's busy being a douchebag, but that's another issue. ) As a side note, anyone who orders "Listen to this band. It will change your life" needs to get the shit kicked out of them.

"I'm so manic-pixie I could pee. "

Somewhere along the line, this archetype of an unstable woman became romantic and desirable. According to these films, it is attractive for a woman to be carefree to a point where she does not think about money, security, a career, or open communication. Well, I happen to like being a law-abiding citizen and sometimes staying home on a Friday night. Does that mean I won't fall in love or change someone's life? If it means giving up my own storyline for a guy, I'll wait for the sequel.

Unless, of course, that guy is Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

***

I hardly like to encourage obsession. But if you happen to stumble upon these pages, I couldn't be blamed.

The Rescue Fantasy Needs Rescuing

16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls

The Scourge of Modern Cinema

Even NPR jumped on the bandwagon.

Bite-sized truths.

2009-08-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

*I say bite-sized because I hate the term "fun size" and refuse to propagate its use. A 2-inch candy bar is not more fun than a normal-sized candy bar. Ask anyone. (Ask a kid, because kids never lie.) Maybe it's because I'm American, but I can't think of a single situation in which bigger is not better. Sorry, fellas.

I am of the belief that if you are exceptionally good at something most people find rather difficult, it is best to showcase this rare talent as often as possible. For example, I am strangely awesome at unscrewing tight lids (that sounds like a euphemism, but it's not), so I am the first to offer to tackle the pickle jar. Even though I hate pickles. Ew.

Also, I happen to kick ass at parallel parking, a skill which I attempt to demonstrate every chance I get.

Bite-sized truth of the day: Who you are in life is entirely reflected by how good you are at parallel parking.

Because what girl doesn't want a guy who can skillfully pull in and out of tight spaces? Wink wink, cheeky laugh, oh alright I'm done.

Because I'm worth it.

2009-07-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

I'm not necessarily what one would call a "girly girl." I don't wear a lot of pink and I look like a drunken giraffe in heels.

But I do like beauty products. I'll admit that. They are bright and colorful and usually smell good, which is all I really ask of anything in life. When I get to that shiny aisle in the drug store, I am full of hope and wonder, like those bratty kids in that damn chocolate factory. But soon, shit starts to go down - kids are dying strange sugary deaths, and things aren't quite so fun anymore.

I start with foundation. There are so many options here. Liquid or powder? Matte or shiny? And then I have to choose a color. Am I... a beige? Fair? Natural? I find myself comparing my skin to celebrities'. I'm pretty fair, but I'm no Anne Hathaway. But I'm not exactly a Jessica Alba either. I guess I'm more of a Drew Barrymore. My red-headed friend says, "I am lighter than you, so you can't be the lightest one." That takes one color out of the running. "And you have yellow undertones, not pink like me." Okay. Only I'm not exactly an expert on detecting undertones. Same goes with the top and bottom notes in a fragrance. I mean, I can usually discern whether something smells "woodsy" , "floral", or "fruity." But asking me to pick a peony from a pansy would be like asking me to find Yemen on a map - I got nothing. Similarly, if someone pointed a gun to my head and asked "Am I a summer or a fall?" I would probably end up in a ditch.

Then it's hair. This is what gives me the most trouble so I try to pick products through elimination. My hair is very long and medium blond, so I first rule out the products for short and dark hair. I feel good about myself for a moment.

It also tends to be a bit unruly, in the sense that I almost always wake up with giant "morning after" sex hair as opposed to the more tame "bedhead" hair even if I spent the night alone watching The Office and eating left over pad thai. And look! There's a product for unruly hair! I grab a bottle and turn to leave...

But wait. My hair is also dry, and here is a product that is extra moisturizing. Hold on - there are also products that promise to mend my split ends and others that claim to deep condition and repair months of damage. But still, here's a product for straight hair, wavy hair, and curly hair. And for color treated hair, which, who the fuck doesn't have color treated hair?

As much as I hate to admit it - I am highly influenced by advertisements. Look, its Stacey from What Not To Wear. She's sort of a bitch but she's got great hair, so I should go with Pantene. Pantene girls look like they just dipped their hair in a vat of extra virgin olive oil. Which I would happily do, but that E.V.O.O. shit is expensive.

Now there is Long and Strong - ok, my hair is very long, but does it need to be strong? Fucking Garnier and their ridiculous commercials assume I wish to tie my hair in a giant knot or attach it to a fence and demolish it like a goddamn donkey.

Inevitably, I end up trying everything once but bring home whatever smells the best. Kind of like my love life. Hah, just kidding. Not really, though.

That chocolate river of death is looking pretty damn good right now.

My love affair and violent break-up with Zooey Deschanel

2009-07-23T20:40:00.000-07:00

On the eve of the release of the over-hyped "anti-romantic comedy" (500) Days of Summer, I can finally quite confidently declare: "Zooey Deschanel - I am so over you."

So, in honor of this epiphany, I wish to tell the story of our relationship - the good times, and the bad.
*Inevitably, some days (i.e. films I haven't brought myself to watch) will be skipped.

Day (1) -We first became acquainted when you appeared in Almost Famous, a fantastic movie with great heart and soul and Tiny Dancer and Penny Lane and Band Aids. Maybe it was because your lines were so few and dialogue so well-written, but I thought you were the best thing since sliced anguished older sisters-turned stewardesses. You had me at "Someday, you will be cool."

Day (35) - Then came Elf. You were blonde, and it took me a minute to realize who you were. I apologize for this. But on second thought, maybe you should apologize for going blonde. (You really should). But we still sing along to your version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" every Christmas.

Day (59) - You appeared in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This was our first fight. You slept on the couch for a week.

Day (100) - You guest starred on Weeds as Andy's psychopath ex-lover from Alaska. Our relationship was like new again - we frolicked in the park and made pancakes and went to the drive-in.

(Interlude - by this point in our relationship, you had become an Indie Princess. You with your bangs and vintage dresses and quirkiness. I am starting to fear you are cheating on me with the lead singer of some band called Taxi Cab for Susie. )

Day (300) - The Happening. You moved out for a month, and when you finally came over drunk and begging for forgiveness at 3am, I conceded, with the promise that we would never speak of this time in our lives again.

Day (350) - You released your first album as She & Him. I liked it, but you started to think you were better than M. Ward.

Day (500) - You starred in Gigantic. I accused you of being mentally disabled. Inevitably, we broke up. You moved out, and I have not seen or heard from you since. From what our mutual friends have told me, you now live in a vacant laundromat in Williamsburg in your ongoing quest to be the most indie human alive.

Let Them Have Cameos

2009-07-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

I look back fondly on 2006. It was a time when it was entirely socially acceptable to wear gaucho pants 5 days a week to class (at least on our campus). And I accepted the inevitable risk of catching fat girls picking their wedgies to be able to wear arguably the most comfortable pants ever created without social stigma. Yes, the good ol' oh-six was a simpler time, before Tweeting and Facebook status updates. If we had to convey important information, we could simply text each other. And perhaps best of all, Edward Cullen was not a household name.

Anyway, when Marie Antoinette was first released back in October '06, my life as I knew it was over and I fell in love.

Actually, my love affair began months earlier when the teaser trailer was released. All I needed to know was : Sofia Coppola + period piece + Versailles + Jason Schwartzman + a soundtrack of 80s post-punk bands like Gang of Four and Siouxsie and the Banshees + Air = recipe for the best god damn movie of all time, not to mention a costume designer's wet dream. And as far as I was concerned, Lost In Translation and The Virgin Suicides should have been Best Picture contenders. (Those old farts at the Academy want action and drama, how about Bill Murray on an elliptical?)

When the first full-length trailer was released, I posted it to all my friends' MySpace walls (Facebook was still unfamiliar, and I'm suspicious of new technology. I mean, have you not seen The Matrix? I don't want to be a pod person.) "Looks cool," they would muse. I assumed they must have overdosed on muscle relaxers and let them remain my friends. I then proceeded to print out glossy, highly saturated promotional photos and tacked them up around my room.

Then the two-disc soundtrack was released on October 10. When I saw that the discs were labeled "Music for the party... and the morning after," I squealed like a Twilight fan-girl who just touched Robert Pattinson's elbow. I brought it home, locked my bedroom door, and lay on my bed listening for 3 full rotations.

The movie was released two weeks later. After the first viewing... I wouldn't say I was disappointed. That's a strong word. I'm disappointed when I see a god-awful movie with an amazing trailer that convinced me this movie was gonna save my fucking soul (i.e. The Happening - "What could be happening?! Trees! Death! M. Night Shymalan! I have to see this movie!" and Gigantic - "Quirkiness! Chinese babies! This movie is going to save my fucking soul." - btw, Ms. Deschanel, you sure can pick 'em.)

I went on opening night by myself - the theater was 75% empty. About 30 minutes in, I realized that the dialogue in this movie was... minimalist, at best. About an hour in, I began to appreciate the film for its strengths - the costumes, sets, and music, and mostly just the tone.

After several viewings, I've decided that the film is lovely. I could write an entire post with my thoughts on this film, but I'll just say -It wasn't what I'd expected, but in some ways was better than I'd imagined. I still watch it regularly, because while the characters may not have been fully three-dimensional, the aesthetics are always rich and sumptuous. It makes me forget the stresses of my modern life for 2 hours to lounge in a frilly dress and eat cupcakes and drink champagne. Which is not entirely dissimilar to when I watch Breakfast at Tiffany's in a black dress with coffee and a danish. Plain and simple- it's an escape.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is that as perhaps the biggest Antoinette- fan in the country, I failed to notice two rather obvious cameos in the film. And not to toot my own horn, but I am a pretty damn astute viewer. Those converses in the I Want Candy sequence- caught 'em right away.

The cameos are by two of my favorite and Frenchiest bands, Air and Phoenix. Phoenix is a rock band from Versailles, and their vocalist Thomas Mars fathered Sofia's first child. Air did the Virgin Suicides soundtrack, and both bands are featured on the Lost in Translation soundtrack. Videos for both cameos below:

So I guess what I'm saying is - I am the worst fangirl ever.

Treat Me Like Your Mother

2009-07-16T12:28:00.001-07:00

Just came across the new music video for The Dead Weather's Treat Me Like Your Mother. Concept: Alison Mosshart and Jack White clad in head-to-toe black leather marching straight at each other in an empty lot shooting rounds of ammo into each other's chests.

Not much else to say except I kinda wanna do Jack White.

Summer reading list.

2009-06-12T13:51:00.000-07:00

I bought this book for several reasons.

Reason 1: I saw an ad for it on Stereogum, a site whose bloggers' collective taste is very similar to mine. Thinking back, though, Stereogum/ Videogum never actually endorsed or reviewed it - and after reading it, I think if there were to be a review, it would be titled "Upper-Middle-Class Nineties Nihilism is the Worst" and would appear under their "hate-watching" section alongside The Hills and The Real Housewives of New Jersey. It would also likely include their oft-used, charming gif :

Reason 2: The title - a great, classic Joy Division song. How could a book go wrong with such a promising title?

Reason 3: The premise - angsty youth + the promise of tasty eighties/ nineties pop culture references.

So I began what I thought would be a fun, light summer read. The story is about a group of friends who reunite in their small hometown in Rhode Island for the wedding of old friends Danny and Lea, the Prom King and Queen of the novel. They've all essentially run away from their pasts and are now forced to face their respective demons. Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character and is titled with a classic song from the late 80s or early 90s - Madonna, Nirvana, Metallica, Depeche Mode, The Cure, Radiohead - you get the picture.

After a while, I realized that the song titled chapters were more gimmicky than clever, as they really don't relate much to the story. The characters are incredibly unlikeable, and not in an endearing way. Bridesmaid Alex is a self-destructive and selfish coke addict who is still pining for the groom Danny, her former lover. Alex's best friend Shawn is the beautiful and tortured gay musician whose high-school love interest committed suicide. At least these two characters have some depth, especially Alex. But then there are the tortuous chapters of Ben and Cort. Ben is the misogynistic frat boy Best Man whose one-track mind is tedious and whose homoerotic tendencies are left unexplored. Cort is the naive dread-locked hippie (she has never even heard the word "sustainability") who ran away from home to tour with Phish and is returning to a mother dying of cancer. Neither character really grows at all, and both are painfully cliche.

All of the characters were put into the "gifted" program as children, and therefore all feel a sort of solidarity. They are meant to be seen as sympathetic social misfits, but the author fails to sell me on this point -all of the characters are beautiful and popular, confident and self-entitled.(In real life, would Rachel Leigh-Cook, even in overalls and glasses, really be considered the biggest nerd in school? I don't think so.) They are nihilistic brats who whine about anything and everything. And they all have a drug problem.

Sure, there are undertones of broken families, neglecting parents, and the darkness of upper middle-class suburbia. But this all stays on the surface, as does the suicide of their most mysterious classmate, Jason (unlike the Virgin Suicides, which dives into this darkness fearlessly).

Additionally, the book was just poorly written. The author, in an obvious attempt to be hip, neglected to use quotation marks in speech and even made certain passages she felt were important BOLD AND IN LARGE FONT. This was just plain demeaning to the reader. The book really should have been placed in another section at Barnes & Noble - if I wanted a young adult novel, I'd be reading Twilight.

As far as the juicy pop culture references I was expecting, not only were they few and far between, they were sadly formulaic and forced. They were sprinkled on top but didn't really soak in. It was as if Rainone would leave a blank space in certain chapters, look up a random popular pop culture reference, and insert it later on.

Overall, there were some okay chapters- mostly Alex's. Her self-destruction was actually pretty compelling. But the book ends with a whimper, and you realize nothing has really happened.

Next up - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!

working at CCP, day dreaming of my Diana

2009-04-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

My Diana came in the mail yesterday. It was sneaky - the postman left a note that said to pick it up at the post office (apparently when you get a package straight from Korea, they need a signature) which I conveniently found at the bottom of my mailbox at 4:55pm. ZOOM! to the post office I went, and...

It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I can't wait to put a roll of film in it.

Anyway. I'm still working on my presentation but have pretty much given up hope on it being anything more than border-line satisfactory. I realized today that I have a deep problem being average at school - I have this inner drive to kick ass and take names when writing a paper or doing a presentation. Maybe its a constant need for praise from my superiors - maybe I just feed off of the feeling of success. In any case, on the eve of my college graduation I finally realized something - it is OKAY to be average. A life-time without C's is not character-building. And damnit - I might just get my very first C in my last semester.

I went to Bookman's this morning before work. Book/cd/magazine-browsing always calms my soul like a tranquilizer dart to a panda. I left with the Lost in Translation soundtrack, an old copy of Nylon with Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman on the cover (apparently I was feeling very Sophia Coppola today) and an art book on Gustav Klimt.

Also - The Kills show on Monday night was fantastic fun. I've been listening to the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album It's Blitz! and the Adventureland soundtrack.

This video is mesmorizing.

2009-04-11T00:39:00.000-07:00

Greed and Roman Polanski

2009-04-11T00:26:00.000-07:00

Le petit air freshener

2009-04-10T22:33:00.000-07:00

I picked up The Little Prince today for 4.99 I've always wanted a copy and finally justified the purchase to myself today. Although I also justified an air freshener for my car that says "Jesus Says This Car Smells Awesome." So my priorities might be a bit out of whack.

Jane Austen and Zombies

2009-04-05T16:41:00.000-07:00

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! is now available for purchase. Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly thought it was delightful, and I usually agree with Lisa Schwarzbaum. In her review she reveals this juicy excerpt:

"Mr. Darcy cut the two zombies with  savage yet dignified movements. He then made quick work of beheading the slaughtered staff, upon which   Mr. Bingley politely vomited into his hands.''

"You always stop at the same part, when it is very beautiful"

2009-03-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

David Fincher + Spike Jonze + Tarsem + Lee Pace = One Magnificent Adventure

Fascination: Anti-Feminism and crappy prose in Twilight

2009-03-05T16:52:00.000-08:00

Articles I found fascinating:

"Dangerous Liasons." by Lucy Mangan, the Guardian.

"Sexual Longing in an Ab-only World." by Sarah Seltzer

"Is Twilight Anti-Feminist?" by Kim Voynar

"A Virginal Goth Girl" by Gail Collins

"Breaking Dawn: What to expect when you're expecting a vampire." by Anna N.

"We should worry about whether the books themselves are awesome. Because awesomeness promotes thinking, and thinking promotes becoming the kind of adult we all want more of in the world: the kind who can understand the message of a book — or a movie, or a blog post, or a presidential candidate — and decide for herself whether she agrees."

Fantastic.

2009-03-02T23:39:00.000-08:00

O man. Best ever.

"You think you can defeat me with your rebellious beard?"

2009-02-12T18:01:00.000-08:00

My new favorite thing is....Devendra Banhart's music video for Carmencita. A blue Kat Dennings seduces Devendra away from Bollywood goddess Natalie Portman.... and its all in Spanish with phoney Indian subtitles. How could it get any better?

The King of Kitsch Meets The King of France

2009-01-25T11:08:00.001-08:00

The latest issue of Interview magazine came in the mail today. It has a great article on Jeff Koons' exhibit at Versailles. Jeff Koons was recently called the King of Kitsch by Art News. He has since proclaimed that he hates the title.

Jeff Koons at Versailles, Sept-Dec 2008.

Contemporary Camera Obscura - Abelardo Morell

2009-01-25T11:08:00.000-08:00

Abelardo Morell

Alexander Gardner's accidental modernism

2008-10-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Ruins of Gallego Flour Mills, Richmond, VA, 1865, albumen silver print from glass negative
(panorama from two negatives)

We saw this slide in American Art last week and my teacher asked if we hadn't known the date and context of the image, what period would we think it was from? Early modernism from the 1920s?

The photo is actually from 1865 during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, and it's overexposure is the result of the early camera's limitations. Sorta funny how things aren't always as they appear.

Anyway, Richmond became the capital of the Confederacy in 1861 (it was previously Montgomery). The Union army invaded in April of 1865, and the city was evacuated in anticipation of their arrival. Before they left, though, they made sure to basically burn the city to the ground so the Union soldiers were unable to use their supplies. This area became known as the "Burn District," and Alexander Gardner took several photos at the site.

After this week's unit on the Civil War, I've gained a new appreciation for (or complete horror of) the absolute devastation our country experienced. My teacher explained how just days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Lincoln was assassinated. Four years of tragic loss followed immediately by the fall of a national hero. I guess it would be the equivalent of Barack Obama being assassinated after securing peace in Iraq. Maybe not the same, but sort of similar.

I really hope history doesn't repeat itself in this case, for America's sake.

Hey look, they are both on the cover of TIME this week. Weird.

The machine in the garden.

2008-10-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

Jasper Cropsey - "Starruca Viaduct," 1865

Today was an unusually chilly morning for early October in Tucson. It was almost as if the weather gods knew we would be looking at sumptuous autumnal landscapes in American Art class, and wanted to supplement the experience with a certain briskness that led me to bring along a mug of hot tea. In actuality, we spent the day discussing pictorial representations of Manifest Destiny in the 1860s and 70s, which included dozens of images of trains embedded within vast landscapes... the oft named"machine in the garden."
Anyway, back to autumn. While discussing this painting, my teacher described autumn today as "mournful." I've never heard it articulated that way, but yet I have always felt it was so. Growing up in New Jersey and Virginia, the fall was always the most exciting time of year for me, with school starting in September and my birthday in October. Halloween was taken very seriously in my house. It was, to us, the most important celebration of the year. But lest I be upset that I had to share my birthday with a holiday (even one as fabulous as Halloween), we were always sure to have two separate celebrations. In the New Jersey years, we often had three: one party for relatives from the city to visit, one for local friends, and one for Halloween night.
And what a party it was. Our house was the place to be on All Hallows Eve. The whole neighborhood would arrive in costume. Early in the evening, we wrapped each other with toilet paper and stumbled around the yard like drunken mummies. We tied doughnuts to strings and dangled them just out of our reach and ate them with our hands tied behind out backs. Once the cold started to reach our bones, we went inside and bobbed for candied apples. The house was transformed: black lights, skeletons, cobwebs, fake spiders, and cauldrons filled with dry ice. And the half-dozen meticulously carved Jack-O-Lanterns... I could write an entire blog on the annual search for the perfect pumpkin in the patch. Finally, we would roam the neighborhood in an enormous parade and collect chocolates in pillow cases, our cheeks turning a cherry red and our exposed skin blistering from the harsh cold.

Many years have passed and autumn is different now. Halloween isn't as carefree with an exam the day before and a research paper due the day after. And autumn just isn't the same in the desert. It's missing that orangey metamorphosis of foliage, the most melancholic aspect of the season. And its something about the east coast... people tend to find themselves in crowds more often. Everything is ancient and dirty, with cracked walls and creaking floorboards. The streets are narrower, the buildings smaller, the malls teeming with people. You inevitably bump into one another, and that small touch creates such a great sense of community and shared experience. Here in Tucson, we live in an oasis, a sort of eternal Summerland that seems to never change more than a few degrees a month... no blizzards, no orange leaves, no devastating hurricanes. Just static. And there is so much empty space here. Everyone has heaps of space to himself, and with no subway system or even crowded buses, we hardly ever touch one another. Everything is clean and new.But, I suppose, who can complain about living in Eden? Our emotions are so intertwined with our environment, so it must be better for us to have such vast space to ourselves and such calm surroundings.

But I still get a little flutter of nostalgia when I see pumpkins being sold on street corners and coffee shops offering spiced lattes.

Artist of the day: Dale Chihuly and his passion for glass

2008-09-20T16:42:00.001-07:00

I first encountered glass-blowing artist Dale Chihuly's work at the Bellagio, whose lobby ceiling is decorated with one of his pieces. I remember looking up at the vivid shapes and colors and feeling like I was in some exotic ocean surrounded by rainbow-colored jellyfish. A year or two later, my mom's aunt, apparently a huge Chihuly fan, showed me her collection of Chihuly coffee table books, prompting me to research him a little more. Each of his pieces is so unique and bright, I'm drawn to them like a kid in a candy shop.

Chihuly is having an exhibition at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix from November until May - can't wait!

Photographer of the day: Nan Goldin

2008-08-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

Photographer of the day: Richard Avedon

2008-08-12T17:30:00.001-07:00

richardavedon.com

Fun with long exposure in Flagstaff

2008-08-09T17:57:00.001-07:00

Macro flowers

2008-08-09T17:28:00.000-07:00

Form/Color assignment

It's fun to shoot flowers in macro; it's very hard to make them look bad.

This pink flower is part of Ginger the librarian's garden. Thanks, Ginger!

These sunflowers always remind me of my first summer in Flagstaff -the summer of '99. We rode our bikes every day for miles and would get caught in monsoons on our way back up the hill. For me, sunflowers are pure nostalgia.

Portales

2008-08-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

This was my final project for my digital photography class.

I did a series on doors in downtown Flag. I wanted it to have a vintage vibe and to look almost like peeling fading paint, which much of it was. I like the way some of the images turned out after playing with the b/w layer.

The project was inspired by this red door. The strawberries in the window remind me of Across the Universe a bit.