Needful Things

In times like these, some fashion items cross over from accessory to necessity. Like this this,for instance.* There was a time where I was going to make a necklace out of my wisdom teeth dipped in bronze, but it turned out that making it was far more work than just acting like I was going to do it until the novelty wore off in my mind.

In other news, I have lost my voice for what is now the second day. The first (yesterday), it was this little cracking, off-key, in and out honking voice that rasped up at the end of each sentence, making them all seem like questions which made it sound like I was an undergrown goose with a cold.

Today, it's so bad it's a whisper. I never have lost my voice before, but I remember being twelve and wanting to, because I thought it sounded sexy. It, as it turns out, sounds like emphysema, which is decidedly un-sexy. Luckily any jobs I have require me to write, not speak, and now that I'm working from a variety of coffeeshops and living rooms, I can just tap all day. I need that computer voice so that I can communicate with people. You know the one.**

*Thanks for sending, CD!

**How do I use that? I'm pretty inept at computer programs but assert that because I have a Mac, the option's got to be on here. I mean, I could record play the guitar on this thing, or so says some icon at the bottom of this screen that I'm not cool enough to click on.

A Poster on Gawker Sums It Up Best...

About this AIG mess from today's Gawker comments:

"I'm sure there are individual bankers who did their job, did it well, and probably deserve some extra compensation. But the notion that these bonuses are somehow promised compensation is absurd. Every employer I've ever worked for that offered bonuses took great pain to specify that bonuses are just that - an add-on to your salary. They've also taken great pains to specify that the terms of the bonus can change almost without notice.

I don't begrudge (some) people in the financial services industry their money; they do a job that, in many cases, I don't understand or comprehend. But the notion that hundreds of millions of dollars are required to retain "top talent" - in many cases, talent that oversaw the actions that got us into this damn mess to begin with - is absolutely absurd, and not in keeping with, you know, the overwhelming majority of Americans. Regardless your level of employment, if you work for a firm that was required to take bailout cash to continue functioning as an organization, I'd say that pride in your organization is misplaced (regardless of what area you work in). I work in support operations, and if our marketing group does an awful job conceptualizing or releasing a product, the product is a failure regardless of whether the support operations are solid or not.

In short, fuck them."

Minetta Tavern: Crispy Pork Trotters, Lamb Saddle and Grand Marnier Souffle...

Sure it's the most impossible reservation to get in town, but that didn't stop my more-than-lovely friend Emily from inviting me to be her date to Minetta Tavern's opening week. It helps to have friends from the food world...

From FOOD & WINE and my darling friend, who described what we ate better than I ever could:

"Even better, chefs Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson (who, as alums of Balthazar and Pastis, are used to running popular restaurants) are already turning out some great dishes, including tender Berkshire pig's trotter mixed with mushroom duxelles and pork forcemeat that’s deep-fried and crispy. It’s a classic French dish that fits seamlessly with the bubbling café vibe. Juicy lamb saddle with belly meat intact is excellent, and so is a bright, billowy Grand Marnier soufflé flecked with orange sections."

Check out the rest of the article here and tell her she did a great job!

Everyone is Pregnant

Is there something* in the air? No less than four of my good friends are pregnant. Of course these fine young women are off married in other states. Is this a suburban** vs. city thing? Or is it just the whole world against NYC thing?

Are we all destined to continue a prolonged adolescence in New York where we don't want to get married until 30 if even then or have babies until 35+?

So many questions remain unanswered. Like how they're figuring out to pay for school for their unborn, and how I'm trying to figure out how to pay for school***...for myself****.


*My choice not to use "semen" instead of "something" proves that I am actually mature.

**My choice to use "suburban" even those these lovely girls live in Seattle, Philly and Jersey proves that I have finally succumbed to the wave of pretension around me, and therefore am not mature, and am simply, a pompous jackass who thinks NYC is the end-all be-all of the world.

***My choice to apply to schools everywhere except New York proves that I am less of a jackass than previously thought.

****Less of a jackass, maybe. But no less selfish....hey no one's going to make my life cool for me. It's up to me to do that now. And you know, I promise when I have a baby I'll spoil it rotten. Until then, there are plenty (about to be) around to teach me how.

Life Plan, Here We Go

I'm unemployed on a regular basis.

So I get to be lazy (between futile job searches and freelancing assignments and classes, that is).

BUT, not lazy in a usual sense. Systematically choosing new MFA programs to apply to has occupied my time (if at first you don't succeed, try try again--I'm looking at you 2006, the worst year of my life: Dad got cancer, my long-term live-in relationship ended, I changed into a horrible job and I was an absolute mess because my boss from the last job took me with her to the new and she hated it, I applied to schools because I liked how they sounded so far away, and I got in to some...with no financial aid, and decided that running off to Hawaii was not the answer to solving my problems, it was staying and facing them. It was hard, it was ugly and it was my finest moment. )

I'm inspired again (you know how I get that way) because my new book is just fun in a way that my old one isn't (God I'm sick of those old characters!). But I'm inspired by those around me, friends getting into spectacular programs: top ten in social work, top five in marketing, top everything. These are my friends, this is my group. I've got to hold up my end of the bargain.

So back to the flurry. I've enrolled in a Stanford writing course on Voice in Fiction, which (fingers crossed!) I will get an A in and then squeeze out some info from the prof on applying to Stanford's writing program (here's a hint, it's impossible to get into, ugh). I've enlisted an amazing editor to take a long hard look at my first novel about how to turn nearly good into definitely great (meaning I'm frantically changing things starting TONIGHT so that I can get it to him by April 10th). I've also tracked down some really prestigious writers who I want to get advisement on choosing the right programs for me, and the right writing sample--(I've got hundreds of pages to choose from and it's impossible to pick what's right). Oh yeah and I'm writing the children's book and hoping to get it to agents this summer.

Writing to come tomorrow, today I'm planning out my schedule and begging NYU to send me my transcripts from the ONE Tisch class I took which apparently all grad schools require the grade I received: B plus, damnit.

Unspecial

Excerpt from my newest book...for kids (some adult themes are explored, btw)...

Today I turned ten and guess what I got? A cake full of mayonnaise, that’s what.

Mom’s gone on another site dig, so Dad had to make the cake and let me tell you, he’s basically the worst at cooking. Whoever said the greatest chefs were men never met my lunch. When Dad makes my sandwiches there’s never any mayonnaise, just the baloney and the bread. So what’s with the mayonnaise in the cake, I say when I blow out the candles. He says try it.

Henry makes a face and takes a pretend bite when Dad’s watching me cause when it’s your birthday everyone pays you too much attention and stares when you eat. Henry’s too old to warrant Dad making a sandwich. Henry gets money instead. He’s in seventh grade so he’s at middle school. He gets to have a really big locker that he’s always forgetting the combination to. I’d never do that.

“Mmmm,” I say and just lick the frosting. Trails of smoke from the candles are swimming all around Dad’s face. I must have blown them to the side.

“You didn’t try it,” Dad says, and sighs.

So I take a bite. It doesn’t taste like mayonnaise. It tastes like cake. Maybe a little burnt, but it’s chocolate so it’s hard to tell. “Where’d it go?”

Dad beams like he’s won the lottery and we can all go live in Hawaii. “We were out of eggs and then I thought, what’s mayonnaise except oil and eggs? Two ingredients on the back of the cake box are oil and eggs, and here I had both, already mixed!”

I want to interrupt that my birthday was no time to play around, this was the most important thing I’ll eat all day, but I don’t. Dad’s a biomedical engineer, which is just a fancy label for scientist, and he loves breaking down and building up things. He thinks didactically. I forget what it means, but I suppose it’s an answer to some question I never asked.

So here I am, eating the cake and still Henry won’t take a bite. He doesn’t like what he can’t see. Dad loves that about Henry, says it means he’s a verifiable brain-in-training. I said Henry’s an idiot, and my supporting evidence was people can’t see planets moving or see evolution. That’s just a leap of faith. Henry said I got it backwards, as usual, and waved a book in my face, The Beak of the Finch. He said Charles Darwin saw it because he was patient, unlike me. I go, I’d read that book myself just to shove it in Henry’s face if it weren’t so freakin’ boring.

Dad said don’t say freakin’, it’s unladylike. Another thing Henry gets to do that I don’t. I’m supposed to become a lady and he gets to be a man, which aside from not being able to cook seems a lot better because you don’t have to wear lipstick and no one judges you by how big your bra is. Dad says talking about a bra before I need one is also unladylike.

You’re exasperating, I said to Dad, because he always says it to me. He said don’t push it, so I didn’t because, you know, he was making that face. He was making that same face to Henry about the cake so Henry took a bite really fast.

“Hey this isn’t half bad,” he says, and with his mouth full too. And then he keeps eating, just wouldn’t stop eating it. His piece was gone in like, a millisecond, I swear. I count in my head. At that rate, the whole thing would be gone in one point two minutes.

“Don’t pig out! Leave some, I want to eat this all week!” I tell him.

I’m starting to regret that my birthday party isn’t until next Saturday. You can’t have a party on Sunday night, not with your friends cause no one will come, so we’re having our little party as a family. Plus the bowling alley would be more fun on the weekends. Rachel and Andrea and Sammy have never eaten a mayonnaise cake, to my recollection. They would have told me if they did.

“I can make more,” Dad says, probably as a cue for us to pipe down.

So we all keep eating it and I don’t say out loud how I wished Mom were here to try it. She’s missed my birthday before—she’s an archeologist and is basically always gone—but I guess I thought she’d be here for my graduation into double digits, since today I turned ten. That’s a big number, especially now that I’m in fifth grade, the last grade before middle school. It seems important to have your mom around for that kind of a thing. But then again, I wouldn’t have had a mayonnaise cake if she were here. So I didn’t say anything about Mom missing the cake out loud. If she were here, it couldn’t have been mayonnaise cake at all. That’s what Dad calls an impossibility.

Lesson Learned?

So remember when I took the huge artistic stand? And was preparing to get fired from the publication? Well turns out, acting like a man about it (this is my theory, when I act assertive and full of confidence and like I don't accept something less than what's a little bit more than I'm worth, I'm not a bitch, I'm acting like a man...this gives me some sort of Oprah-esque boost where I prance around in unflattering pants and go "I'm FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABulous!") actually worked! (So far, I can be proven wrong at any given moment).

Throwing my theoretical balls out on the table showed everyone I wouldn't accept less than, pointing out the mistakes made in a non-threatening, non-emotional and somewhat authoritative way actually showed that I was a professional (mwah, hah, hah, they'll never know the truth) and I got respect in return! I mean, no one's asked me to write a feature or come on staff there or anything (pssst, I'm totes available to fill a position there, please please please?).

So uh, I'm worth it? Coincidentally which is also some sort of makeup commercial I think. Maybe she earned it? Maybe it's Maybelline!

Oh Brain, Where Art Thou?

Pardon me, I've been away,
Where exactly I can't quite say,
Burning bridges, Just about
Stamping career embers out....

Yes, about that. So there comes a time in every youngish-getting-old-as-hell writer's life when he/she is faced with a job opportunity which would essentially be managing person on a very large editing project but that is not offered full-time, nor permanent and would interfere with other projects that writer has going, so she has to turn it down. Fine.

But does that very same youngish-getting old as hell writer have to take an artistic integrity stand on another little project, one with a magazine she actually loves and hardly ever gets work from?

Because she spent so much time crafting a *fair and subtly balanced profile that was oh so nuanced (hey, we all think we're geniuses--zing!)* that after a revision became something she wasn't so happy to put her name on (PS Yes, said writer knows that she is an absolute nobody and does not have clout to flex) ?

With a bulleted email, no less, because the edit doesn't do the subject matter justice even though said writer kinda disliked the thing said writer was profiling? Bulleted in such a way so that the incensed email pointed out where the new director had not only substantive errors, but stylistic? Did said writer have to point out to editor, and by proxy, new director where they had made grammatical, fact-checking, and, by God, punctuation errors just to make a point?

In this economy, with this writer, the answer is yes. In the words of Homer Simpson, "I wish, I wish, I hadn't killed that fish."

SH*T. Guess I'm not getting hired there anymore. Hey, at least I fought the power...right? Right. Back to the children's book, which by the way is going swimmingly...no seriously, it's pretty awesome.

Extreme Makeover: Life Edition

It started small, they always do. Turn the T.V. off a half hour before sleeping. Insist boy that buying a rug will indeed make his pad more homey. Just say no, a thousand times to Vegas, only to be bamboozled into it, and watch as boy unceremoniously takes it out on the rug.

Work on Children's Book until I get back my oldie but goodie (that's Saturday). Listen to new music (Handsome Furs, that new Eminem song--I'm not kidding it's just great). Make a lot of wine dates with various factions of still-employed girls. Write a really bold email proposing a job to a place that's not hiring (that's how I roll). Spend the weekend eating sushi and playing Wii. Hooray for Super Smash Bros. No longer wonder why I want to write Children's Books.

Talk my parents to taking the family out to lunch at Chanterelle (you have not lived until you've tried the grilled Seafood Sausage) now that the economy has made it, for the first time in the restaurant's 30 year history, possible to order a la carte.

Get asked to buy a dirt bike for my interview subject. Promise him it can be so, only if he picks up his other bandmate in NY and drives back to their home, cross country, with snot streaming on their cheeks a la Dumb and Dumber style. Do not hear about dirt bike again.

Try to want to see any of the Oscar award movies. Say to myself that's selling out to see them just because they're recognized even though I'm not as interested as I should be. Listen to Lady GaGa instead and hang my head in shame.

Keep browsing overstock.com. The wishlist on there is as long as a wedding registry. Consume inordinate amounts of White Tea. Decide honey can be used as a condiment for anything.

Buy a new pen. That's the reality here, people. This is revelatory.

Email about an apartment in Paris, because, why not?

Think about new recipes. Knit two inches of a scarf while letting laundry building into a teetering tower of Pisa.

Watch a whole lot of Anthony Bourdain. Make new outfits from purple tights, a black and white dress and a green sweatshirt, even if I'm called Punky Brewster by more than one person.

Ride on a Ducati a lot. Realize that it's the motorcycle equivalent of the thong.

Sing for no reason when someone scares me on the street. Realize this, in turn, scares them.

Got a long way to go...

Yellow Cucumber Pie

That was the name of the book my team wrote in class last night. Two guys are fantastic illustrators. Note to self: steal them once the class is over.

And now to cull the best of my childhood memories: when my father engaged in an explosive mailbox war with the teens in the neighborhood, when I punched Sonny Lubin in the nose when he had his pants around his ankles because he was a jerk and otherwise engaged as he was learning to pee standing up, when my brother was a turkey on Thanksgiving and threw ours away, when I had two cats named Peaches and Cream and though Peaches got run over, I had Cream until I was big, the fact that my father stayed home with us kids during the 80s and when I cried that I couldn't be in the girl scouts because there were no mothers available to us to run it, he became the state's only male leader, and hot glue gun and stapled on my badges on my sash, and for my birthday made brownies with mayonnaise in them (because we were out of eggs and what was mayonnaise but trussed up eggs, god damnit?), when my parents told me the Golden Mosquito would leave me a present if I was good for the babysitter and I thought he looked just like C-3pio, when my parents thought my fourth grade class should see the pictures of my brother's birth with a post-it positioned over the naughty parts as an educational aid, when they told me he was coming and I had hoped it was a kitten instead so dressed him up while he was asleep with feathers and sequins, when I won the summer reading award four years in a row...yeah I think I've got some Judy Blume in there, some David Sedaris for kids...I hope.

This Is Why You're Fat

Have you been here?You don't know what you're missing if you haven't! Hooray for America, even in times of recession, we can dream up new ways to be even fatter. (That second picture would be Krispy Kreme Donut Bacon Cheeseburgers, oh yes, you heard me).

File this under WTF

Dear Lord.

His girlfriend...is twice his size. He's four feet tall. He's 13 and she's 15. They had a BABY! At least the British press writes it hilariously, though it is a sad, sad tale. I'm glad the baby is healthy and there are two sets of involved grandparents but who the hell thought this was a good idea? Starting with the fact that they were dating in the first place!

Avert your eyes

Buttermilk fried chicken, sour cream and ricotta chocolate cake. The fridge is full for my imaginary ten child family.

The cooking continues, the descent into madness deepens. The hurry up and wait game, that's not under my control either. There are promises of jobs, but no jobs, there are hands extended with glittering assignments that would be perfect if only that restaurant didn't just close, that band just didn't break up over depleted funds, that boutique design startup with the cute pleating whose parents' just cut their talented but precious children off.*

And while all that happens, the government cheese is drying up (some issue at the unemployment office because of...what's the word, oh yeah recession) and my traveling tendencies start kicking in. It's an addiction, and it's not pretty. Especially when there is no no no no money at all to take it!

So, don't think about it, keep making cake, keep watching videos of kittens falling asleep, keep ordering Vietnamese hot and sour soup, keep scrubbing the floors, pick lint from cushions, refold quilts, neatly write and rewrite to-do lists and scratch through tasks done with a satisfying stab of a red pen.

Catch up on movies, Aliens, Body Heat, King of New York, Dressed to Kill, classics and eighties thrillers, melodramatics, period pieces, arthouse pleasers (do not see "Nightmare" even though it was on the IFC circuit and On Demand with a really great trailer), see Coraline 3-D and then go all the way back beyond rentals to the Free Movie Channel on Demand (Friday the 13th 2 anyone?)

Read. Read until I feel like writing. Conversely, write. Write until I feel like reading.

Stack magazines. Cancel magazine subscriptions. Stare longingly at old issues of Oprah, Real Simple, Time Out. Rinse and repeat.

Make green tea like it's going out of style. Try peppermint to mix it up.

Lose iPod. Try not to freak out. Find it, realize all the music is at least a year old and bemoan lost status as the go-to friend for music.

Tape every show I used to miss, without abandon. Sleep until 11 AM without abandon. Start flossing on a regular basis.

Avoid haircuts, nibble nails and put on woolen socks to cover three month old pedicures, knit badly, take lots of hot showers and keep going to the gym, wear a scarf because it's very very windy outside and try to ignore the texts of people I really want to go play with who have warm weather dreams, the South, the West, my pregnant friends in pretty places, and all the rest. It's winter in the city, it's deep in the recession and I'm a cheery person, so to save my sanity and my dreams, I'll bury myself in busying myself, or else we all know where that leads: Nicaragua and beyond...

*Damn you parents! Take care of us until we're forty!

Go Hang a Salami, I'm a Lasagna Hog

Read: the above title. There was a time when I was little and I loved palindromes. Insert thrown rotten tomato/nerd alert comment/anything else. Yes I loved reading! And words! And reading words! And I had pink glasses with smurfettes at the corners and bangs that were cut by my mom and I wrote my first book when I was in second grade and wrote it about two poodles who solved crimes and drew pictures of them with big fluffy heads and enormous black noses and purple trees. It was a big hit in Mrs. Tropiano's class, other kids even checked it out of our homegrown library.

Anyway, back in those days I had a book, titled "Go Hang a Salami, I'm a Lasagna Hog" (I know, it makes no sense, but had a cartoon of someone eating a lot of lasagna when someone is offering them a big salami) and at that time it was the longest palindrome that I could find. The others were "Llama Mall" or "Boob". And today, I'm thinking about words, and well, lasagna. Because I just made one, yes I have become that domesticated. I went out, bought a tub of ricotta, shredded mozzarella, strips of pasta, sweet sausage, a big yellow onion and garlic, and parmesan cheese. Combining those with a faulty oven, a too small dish, an uneven stovetop and a a stolen jar tomato and basil sauce from my parents' house, I made lasagna. For no reason. I'm even going out to dinner tonight with my uncle, and my roommates are vegetarian, weekday salad eaters and working late nights at school (in that order).

So what, I'm unemployed, and now a lasagna hog too. Hey, as I said yesterday, all the good restaurants in New York are closing. I've got to make my own. Speaking of that, now back to knitting...

Don't Let That Stop You

There was a time when I was paid to eat. And not just eat, but eat too much, pork belly, duck eggs, french fare, little chorizo tapas plates, spicy pickles, juicy turkey burgers and pad thais till the cows came home.

It sounds easy, it was actually hard: ordering things I didn't want to, clandestinely jotting down notes in a little pink moleskin, sizing up the hostess, assessing the crowd, casually asking about the materials used in a wrap-around bar, a banquette, a lush gathering of drapes. Don't get me wrong, I love to eat--I've asserted more than once I'm a fat person in a fairly skinny person's body (that's thanks to my trainer, and I can't imagine this body will last past 35 even if I go macrobiotic, so why not go bacon now?). But the work around eating, the assignments, the scoping out, that's not just a leisurely meal. That's work. Cool work, but work, I promise. There was calling of chefs, checking up with purveyors, grilling the manager on the wine list choice, demanding why the paella wasn't as crispy as advertised once I revealed myself behind the curtain I'd drawn. And then there was the new way to say tables, seating, booths and cubes. Figuring out how to describe ten mediocre bistros in a way that would give you, dear reader (of another place, not here, a place far more legit, where I had a great editor who would make me tear up because I wanted to do right by her so badly, this is a mark of a good editor--one that brings you to tears, I'm sure of it) is not easy.

Eating until I need to be rolled out of a restaurant is. Not ordering the cocktails (which are not covered, of course), until I have fully assessed the joint to my powers, that was another story.

Well in such economic times, sadly the restaurant writing has temporarily (I hope!) dried up. They've slashed and burned across the boards, all the great food mags, all the great food sites, they need to keep their high paid talent and cut the lowly staffers and permalancers (that's me). I get it. In times like these, people can't eat out as much. Great places are shuttering left and right: the unbelievable fried green tomato, southern fried classics and Jamaican jerk chicken restaurant in Chelsea will go this week. The neverending (we had wistfully said once over lattes with rock candy stirrers) gastropub brunch spot where they didn't shove you out the door and still had market fresh ingredients every damn day has already closed its doors.

And when the work dries up, the solace is found in meeting in dimly lit places, cocktails and small plates and commiserating. Except we have no money, we have no new places and our old favorites are gone, and yet, we've become addicted to the rich life that we led. It's a spoiled brat problem. And my friends and I are suffering from it. We're back to our first few months in the city, canned soup and skipped meals, which isn't bad, in fact it's a damn decent way to live. It's proud. If only we hadn't eaten to near gout proportions before. If only it hadn't been my job to see every new place and go in, and eat every damn thing there. If only I hadn't been lucky enough to taste it all, in New York, in the first place. I'd feel less addicted now, and far less foolish, drooling over the fancy people and their fancy meals, just like I had when I was twenty...

Oh my God, this is the funniest thing I've read in months. I can't stop laughing.

I totally have an Ex that fits into this category

A choice letter from my favorite new website, Psychotic Letters from Men:

(This is to GET HER BACK! These are the words he uses??)

"Hello

You should reconsider not being with me, Im sure you can understand, that the longer this goes on, the less likely I am to believe that this is all a terrible nightmare that I will wake up from, in a cold sweat rubbing my tear streaked cheeks praying for the nightmare never ever to become a reality.

I am aware that, in cutting off our noses to spite our faces, we have said some horrible things to each other, and our egos have forced us to up the anti so to speak, and make the things we say even more horrible each step in order to provoke as much hurt on the other as possible.

This is something that we are both guilty of, and I am sure that you would agree. Let the records show that, while I’ve said some very nasty things, but it was nothing that’s not true. I did it to make you a better person.

You are making a big mistake not being with me, you will see. You will fall down the slippery trail of scumbag ex’s, I know being the slut you are….

I am sorry that I have been mean lately. I am sorry that I have let the pressures of running a small business in an ailing economy get to me so much that I take my despair out on you. I am sorry that I can't be the perfect wonderful every second is a dream boyfriend that you read about in story books.

I mean, it’s not like you are perfect. I mean, my friends give you a 5/ 10 and that’s because you’re with me. I mean, you aren’t going to get anyone better than me are you, you’re not exactly a size 2 anymore.

We both must take a step back, take a deep breath, take a good hard look at our actions, then think

What would the magical leopluriton do?

Why, he'd whisk you away into a magical dreamland and make everything better, of course.

And that is what, to the best of my ability, I intend to do.

Please, don’t throw us away, I know things can be perfect, if you just try not stuffing your face all the time, and I will be more accommodating of your rapid mood swings.

I suggest you think about it. Hard.

Paul"

Read them, and weep for humanity here.

Lost in Lost

Now that I am a lady of leisure (and how!) I find I have become once again addicted to the following shows with diminishing returns: Gossip Girl, The Office and Lost.

Let's start with Lost (though I'd like to quickly say that if Blair and Chuck don't make it soon or if Pam and Jim don't break up in the foreseeable future--come on they're so dumpy, it's like watching grits congeal with the two of those sadsacks, and what's with them trying to make her hot? She was way better as the underappreciated frump. Also, fire Kevin after the Hilary Swank argument. That was awful. I demand more Creed. The Creed and Stanley Hour, perhaps).

So, I get it. Time travel. Hey, if the island is just magic then any rules apply! You jerk writers. You expect me to forget everything that happened before then? As if time travel is the catch-all that makes everything else make sense? I mean I like it as a plot line but where does that fit in with drug smuggling, psychological experiments, Whitmore's bloodlust to turn the place into some sort of themepark and all the rest?

Okay so let's just discount the four-toed statue (is anyone going to explain this??), the smoke monster, the polar bears, the people that lived on the island first (the other others?) and everything else. Unfair, but okay. Clearly the writers were just given carte blanche and mushroom tea for the first four years of this. But now, that we are back on ground, can we please address where Walt is, why Jack can't make it with Kate and how unfair it is for him to say that she's not Aaron's mom (um dude, birthing and abandoning a kid does not a mother make, how about the woman who saved him at his mother's behest and raised him for three years?? What a jerk! I want to like him but sheeesh) and why Hurley still hasn't lost any weight? I mean, we laughed about it a while but come on. And do you even know that that dude is dating some hottie in real life? Ugly dudes and hot women go together like peanut butter and jelly. So unfair.

Also why is it that I am attracted to Sayid? He is gross and I love it. Oooh all that assassin stuff. And also why is Desmond always dressed like a foppish dandy in rose-colored glasses and silk scarves? So many questions, so few answers. Lost. You bastard. Why can't I quit you.

Idiocy

In times like these, blogs, links. books and communication are more important than they ever were before (plus I've got a lot more time to read them!).

I always loved the rejection letters given to now long dead and famous actors ("'Lolita' is nothing more than an exercise in perversion, and not even a very good one at that' comes to mind). And today, as we're all feeling like we're not good enough, smart enough, adept enough to handle the economic downturn*, I give you those smarter than us, who also act like idiots sometimes.

Inept literaries. Love them.


*I have a friend who upon learning his job was gone, immediately got drunk and then decided he would leave the apartment he's already paid the month's rent for, move in with his mother-in-law in LA as his wife stays behind in the apartment, left to clean up everything and find a job in LA all by herself, and she's a newlywed. Oh and did I mention that the gentleman in question has no prospects at all in LA, and could instead stay with his wife as she tries to pick up their lives together instead of insisting that she do it alone, while he goes and will of course, hate LA, having no resources and staying with HER mother without his wife, thereby forgoing any chance of a lasting relationship because they already don't get along and now there is no buffer. Oh and PS, they aren't hiring in LA either--it's not a magical world where jobs exist, there's no gold mines anymore.

Hooray for Kittens (AKA Yes, I'm Unemployed, What's it to You, Huh?)

Kitten cams...hooray! Now when I'm staring at the wall trying to figure out where it all went wrong, with one hand stuffed into a bag of Milano cookies and the other clutching a tear-stained copy of my resume, I can do this between crying bouts!

Honestly, I love kittens and this is why the internet was invented--to promote fluffballs of joy. They spend all day jumping on each other! This is the same reason I always wanted a bunch of siblings.

Sweet.