Tick Warning

If someone comes to your front door saying they are checking for ticks due to the warm weather and asks you to take your clothes off and dance around with your arms up, DO NOT DO IT!! THIS IS A SCAM!! They only want to see you naked. I wish I'd found out about this warning yesterday. I feel so stupid.

Guitar Hero

I did it. I bought a guitar. It's a Bullet Strat from Squier by Fender, if that means anything to you. It's really more of a seafoam than blue, like in this picture. I can play Ode to Joy and Yankee Doodle and the first two phrases of Fidelity. 

Venice Beach

Mixing work and pleasure Aisy and I had a blast in Venice Beach. (To hear her side of the story click here.) I learned a lot professionally and personally from Aisy. You should get to know her. We thought it was a good omen when Flo Rida finally came on the radio. The song, incredibly catchy and degrading, was the theme of the weekend. (Not that our weekend was catchy yet degrading but just that we sang the chorus of the song all weekend.) After driving around for a half hour, with Aisy stressin' and me just rockin' out, we finally found a parking space. Then we took a long walk to the beach. First stop: toilets. It was a laugh or cry situation. I laughed and Aisy got hit on. My stall had no toilet paper, something on the metal seat, and a used maxi pad on the floor mixed with toilet paper. We enjoyed the street performers and a little people-watching. Skaters, dancing roller-skaters, a drum jam session, and tumblers. One guy was hawking his rap CD by previewing it on a disc-man. It was pretty skillful and not holy. He was a little too touchy-feely but he had real PR. 

This is where Aisy introduced me to Mims "This is Why I'm Hot," with very intelligent lyrics (cough, cough). And I don't think bikinis should come in plus sizes.

The best part was the beach cruisers. We rode from Venice to Santa Monica with the beach on one side and a wonderful conglomeration of humans on the other. The air was warm and the wind was in our hair. Imagine a bike path over two miles long with that kind of atmosphere. Heaven on earth! We ain't got that where I am. 

I got asked where I would go for a weekend away. This may be the place. 

These are a few of my favorite things

If I were an authority on everything, then the following list would be valid. I expect disagreements, but what is a blog but for discussion? Also, I must point out that I made the list not after hours of thought, but in the moment; therefore, I reserve the right to change any part of the list without prior written or verbal notice. 

Best modern chick flick: You've Got Mail

Best classic film: Casa Blanca

Best P and P adaptation: BBC

Best Rogers and Hammerstein: The Sound of Music

Best actress: Emma Thompson

Best teen movie: She's the Man

Best book you are forced to read in high school: The Great Gatsby

Best dessert you don't know about: Arby's chocolate criossant

Best television show currently: Pushing Daisies

Best Disney character: Sleeping Beauty, Aurora, Briar Rose... it's all the same. Pink dress rocks.

Best color: pink

Best British movie you've probably never seen: Cold Comfort Farm 

Best television show of all time: Cosby Show

Best Judy Blume book(s): Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing, but I can read the Luckiest Girl over and over and over, and the same goes for Are You There God, It's Me Margaret. 

Best Harry Potter book: 5

Best looking movie (the way it's filmed): A Little Princess

Best college activity: anything at the Hari Krishna temple

Best hot chocolate: Seattle's Best Coffee, the cocoa trio

Best ride at Disneyland: Splash Mountain

Sugar, We're Going Down

The song just does something for me. I think it's his voice. And it's just a fantastic song to turn up loud. I resisted it for a long time because I thought it was violent but then somebody said it was all a metaphor. I decided to just "seminary style" the song, and accept it as is. But I have some other questions with the lyrics, moral and otherwise. And I'm not sure exactly what they are. Here are my confusions.

1. Which of the following is the correct lyric?

a. "Wishing to be the friction in your jeans"

b. "Wishing to be the friction in your dreams"

c. "Wishing to be the friction in your sheets"

I'm thinking "a" is correct. I'm not sure that's a great answer, but I think it's the right one... although sources disagree.

2. Which of the following is the correct lyric?

a. "A loaded gun complex, cock it and pull it"

b. "A loaded god complex, cock it and pull it"

I find more instances of "loaded god complex" but I think "loaded gun complex" makes more sense. 

What do you think of the song as a whole (check it out on the music player on the right) and what do you think the correct lyrics are?

The Perfect Outfit

Sunday was a rough day. I just didn't know what to wear. It took about an hour of trying on this and that. My bed was littered with rejected outfits. Finally I found something I felt good about. I had never worn that combination before but for that moment it was perfect.

Being the intellectual I am, I discussed the whole kerfuffle (sp?) with a friend and she explained a vital truth to me. The truth was this: For everyday there is just one outfit and we must find it.

I believe that. 

Jazz

If I were the type to hang posters of famous men in my room, over whom I would swoon and fantasize about our lives together, and if those men had to be professional athletes, I would choose the following three:

Jaron Collins (right), because he is gorgeous and really doesn't have facial hair.

Kyle Korver (bottom photo on the left), because he is just cute. Also, I am told he resembles Ashton Kutcher or Zac Efron, which is interesting as those two do not resemble each other.

And Matt Harpring (top photo on the left), because he is hot and educated. He graduated college with a real degree in like business or something. So, if I were younger I would hang pictures on my wall. Being older, I hang them on my blog.

Saturday's Warrior

Saturday's Warrior is the story of the Flinders family -- a family of unspecified religious beliefs and their ups and downs with this darn life. It all starts in heaven. Heaven is a place where everyone wears colored spandex with silky, sheer flowy skirts or over-sized button-up shirts with stretch pants. It is also very foggy there. One lady runs the whole show- commanding people to climb to a platform where they evaporate. Here we meet the Flinder's children -- Jimmy, Pam, (like on The Office, but these are twins) Julie, Benji, the older sister, Ernie, the little red-headed girl, and Emily. We also meet Todd, Julie's one true love. And Wally and Elder Green -- endearing imbeciles who are going to save the world. Everyone sings and dances around in a way that is intense and yet, you just feel weird watching it.

Once we hit earth life, we discover that Jimmy is not as good as he was in heaven and that Pam is, gasp, in a wheelchair when her pre-earth live-long dream was to dance. Julie is in love with Wally! Ernie and the older sister despise each other. Emily is still in heaven, yet the little red-headed girl is the same age as she was in heaven so explain the age differential to me. And the dad is -- anything but this -- Marvin Payne! 

Jimmy has fallen in with the wrong crowd.  This inebriated, sports-car driving, workout-clothes wearing crew spends their time lounging about and talking about tough world topics like over-population. So deeply do they feel about the fact that there aren't enough resources to go around that the main macho guy sings a little ditty about it. It's pretty much the coolest scene in the whole movie. 

Pam tries to save Jimmy by being perpetually cheerful, also by being perfect, and by helping Jimmy understand that stars don't all shine at once. But Pam's got her own little set of troubles -- her wheelchair makes her terminal, apparently.

Julie sends Wally off to save the world (which he isn't very good at) and is so anxious to sew that she drops Wally and almost marries this other guy. Her mom's advice when Julie tells her parents that she can't through with the marriage? "But Julie, the wedding's in three days." At this point you wonder if Julie will turn around and say, "Oh, you're right, Mom. What was I thinking? I'll just marry someone who is so not Todd, my one true love, who I promised myself to in heaven!" You wonder if her mother was ever in love. 

On Jimmy's birthday everyone gives him gifts. His parent's gift? Another kid. What? You couldn't have gotten him a soccer ball? Jimmy's steamed (soccer ball!) about his parents eating up all the world's resources so his dad smacks him one and Mom goes, "Oh, oh." Jimmy storms off on some spring break adventure with the macho guy and his crew where they sing an environmental number about a summer of fair weather. Jimmy runs into Todd, Julie's one true love, and Todd knows that Jimmy's non-denominational belief system -- which Jimmy refuses to talk about -- is the answer to all his problems. In a really surreal scene, Todd appears in Julie's room and she in his park. Also, Julie's mirror, doesn't have any glass.

While on spring break Jimmy finds out that Pam died. The moment of reckoning. What's a guy to do. After four and half minutes of inner turmoil, Jimmy decides to go back to his family and drop the macho guy and his crew. 

Julie goes to meet Wally as he comes home from saving the world. Turns out he brought Todd home with him. Julie and Todd's eyes meet, and Wally's story of true love becomes a sequel about him getting a girl that he didn't really want in the first place. Todd whisks Julie away, somewhere.

Jimmy is there to welcome little Emily into the world in what has to be the fastest birthing in history. It's a family show, so you have to wonder if it was a ad-lib or in the script -- "Bob, you did this to me!" yells Mom. Jimmy holds little Emily in his hands and knows that everything is as it should be. 

Black Nail Polish

I wear black nail polish sometimes.

I ran into my childhood piano teacher. It took her a moment to recognize me. When she did I was greeted with this, "Black nail polish!"

One of my kids called me emo and wanted to check my wrists for cuts.

Black nail polish is high fashion, not a sign of a disturbed mind. To support my thesis, a brief history of black nail polish. In ancient China black and red polish were reserved for royals and was ultra hip in the sixties and seventies. In the mid and late nineties the beautiful black polish was usurped by scary creatures such as Marilyn Mansen, heaven help us. But then Gucci models sported it and Chanel came out with a version (running $100 a pop) and everything was ok again. And I've seen Stacey London wearing it. Granted, the black does give a rebellious air but I think regular, chic people can pull it off. So let's just own the black nail polish.

Art

I’m able to feel emotions. I would even say that sometimes I am neurotic. But I struggle to feel the emotion behind art.
In college I took an art class which I hated. The book was ginormous and overwhelming and all I saw was church-approved porn. Although I did fall in love with impressionism, especially Degas. Later, talking with Crolace, I realized that there is so much in poetry that I do not see. There is so much that I miss in novels; though heaven knows I enjoy novels more that any poem. Architecture is art. Movies are art. Fashion design is art – and you know it must be ‘cause ain’t nobody wearing some of those creations for real (or at least they shouldn’t). Cuisine is art. Nature is art.
When I hear people, like Crolace, or Azir Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, or Julia Robert’s character in Mona Lisa Smile talk about art – in all forms-- I see the deficit that I have in relating to it emotionally. I think too concretely.
I think it is largely an issue of education. When the emotion behind something or the story behind something is explained to me, then I get it.
But what good is it if I always require commentary. I wish I could just feel it.