Thursday, March 30, 2006

Think I'll have a salad for lunch

I don't hate Rebecca Romijn. I actually have a perverse affection for models these days. Seems in the last five years or so, the female cultural ideal has morphed into something far more insidious than the runway paragon of yore. It's all about the hat trick these days: classic beauty AND wicked intelligence AND wild, nascent success. It's why Reese Witherspoon was destined to win the Academy Award regardless of performance and why I've lately had to slog through about 18 thousand magazine profiles of CBS's Lara Logan. Models, even models turned actresses, feel far less threatening by comparison. Give me a ludicrously provocative fashion spread over another breathless profile of a beautiful, flaxen, well-bred, 25-to-30-year-old Manhattan media professional any day.

Still, RR has been a minor splinter in my thumb for years. My best friend's ex-boyfriend's roommate was Rebecca's sister (swear to god, no, really), and so I'd hear a lot of fourth-hand tales about her beauty and her charms and her success (and how very very stupid and weepy John Stamos was). Then, a few years later, my now-hubby worked with her on a TV show for a few months, which led to this conversation one Saturday morning:

"Hey baby, how'd you sleep?"

"Really well, actually."

"Yay, that's great! Did you dream about anything?"

(Silence) "Promise not to get mad?"

(Knowing sigh) "Yes..."

"Well, so I was making out with Rebecca Romijn..."


So when flipping through my latest dumb women's magazine, which contained a profile of the Lettucehead, I must say I enjoyed this passage about her new TV show quite a lot:

"Romijm reveals a flair for physical comedy, including running full tilt into a bus shelter in pursuit of a story. 'There's no way to fake that,' adds [the show's produer]. 'Rebecca's willingness to make fun of herself and play with her image is courageous.'"

That's right, Rebecca -- you run into that bus shelter as much as you need to get the scene right. Courage, Rebecca. Courage and faith.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006

I finally get it

My upstairs neighbor told me a joke when I was very little: "What's worse than finding a worm in an apple?" "What?" "Finding half a worm!"

I did not get it. Half a worm, half the trouble, I figured. But this didn't prevent me from telling the joke over and over for a year or two, always half-terrified some dimwit like me would ask me what it meant.

Today I have a variance on that joke for you:

What's worse than finding a worm in your organic, home-delivered apple?

What?

Finding that half your organic, home-delivered apple has been eaten away by some maggoty brown substance that tastes like vomit and coats your mouth with an acidic aftertaste that can't be gargled or Sonicared away.

Grr.
Sunday, March 19, 2006

Memo to Aussies

Guys, in the future, don't bless a Category 5 cyclone with a name like "Cyclone Larry." Despite themselves, certain television viewers of dubius cultivation may not be able to take the storm as seriously as they should every time the words "Cyclone Larry" appear onscreen.

Follow-up

Turns out that Guinness is indeed good for you, but two Guinnesses and an Advil Cold & Sinus are really, really good for you.
Friday, March 17, 2006

Green day

Seems like I've read a half-dozen treatises against St. Patrick's day today, some political, some personal. I understand perfectly well the case against forced festivities, and I'm well aware that green frosted cupcakes do not a culturally correct celebration make.

But here's why I like it. One, its symbols and superficialities are so over the top that no one should bother be offended by them. (Is it really worth the emotional energy getting miffed over shamrock streamers and food-coloring-tinged beer?) Two, it's the one holiday on which uninspired types get to shine. No innovative costumes are required, and no one expects you to blow their minds with never-before-imagined evening plans; put on some green pants, stick yourself in the corner of a dark bar and you're good to go. Three, it usually takes place on a weekday, which leads to mid-week, mid-afternoon inebriation, which, frankly, I find far more charming than that derivative weekend drunkenness crap.

And four, I'm one-quarter Irish, boast a classically Gaelic name, and sport the full-faced countenance of your prototypical comely lass. In other words, for one day, I am golden.

Unfortunately, I'm really sick. So I'll probably have to make due with drinking a single pint before bedtime. Tomorrow I'll let you know if Guinness really is good for you.
Thursday, March 16, 2006

Doggy Dogg Snoop

You know those creepy guys who hang around outside preschool playgrounds? Those middle-aged, corpulent, onetime D&D obsessives with the black leather trenchcoats and dilated pupils and thinning ponytails? The ones who aren't technically conducting themselves in an unlawful manner but who ogle the children with such chilling intensity that you wonder if you should call the police before they have a chance to make a clean getaway in their thrice-repainted, windowless vans?

Drop a few years and pounds, keep the ponytail but make it fuller, think Super Mario Brothers instead of D&D, swap in a Toyota Corolla for the van, and change the setting from "preschool playgrounds" to "Boston-area animal shelters," and you have me these days. When I visited the local dog shelter the other day for the third time in two weeks -- just, you know, to check out the latest dog wares in case the perfect puppy had happened to come along -- I got some pretty pointed stares.

I hope there isn't some master SPCA watch list circulating around out there.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006

This isn't even counting the Wrestlemania VHS tapes

When we moved, the hubby and I made a vow: No more crap. No more buying of crap, no more gift-exchanging of crap, and certainly no more shuttling of crap from one apartment to the next.

And yet, currently sitting on our bookshelf are the following items:

1 plastic crow named Drinky
1 plastic jug bearing the letters "XXX" belonging to Drinky
1 velvet yamulke from a wedding two years ago
1 stuffed teddy bear
1 stuffed lobster
1 stuffed Wally the Green Monster
1 adirondack chair for Wally to sit in
2 plastic Barbapapa figurines
1 broken typewriter
2 broken watches
1 wooden dog
1 wooden hippo caller
1 wooden hand giving the "We're Number One" finger sign
1 white satin sash bearing the words "Homecoming King"
1 Leaning Tower of Pisa figurine wearing a top hat
1 framed dollar bill
1 framed photo of a bench
1 framed photo of a chicken in a car looking at a Pizza Hut sign
1 shark stapler
1 Millennium Falcon pin
1 candy cane
3 mini-golf pencils
1 cannibal fork

How does this happen?
Monday, March 13, 2006

Just like that, the excess cat-rage dilemma solved

I just joined a kickball league.

Cat Power

I have to give her credit -- after flying under the radar for most of the weekend, my cat Trout emerged from the shadows, located my one piece of discarded clothing worth anything (a black cashmere sweater), puked all over it, and then faded back into the darkness of our bedroom closet. Now I have all this pent-up cat-kicking energy that I don't know what to do with.

The first casualty of wore is innocence

There's a typo on the New Yorker home page. I may never recover.
Friday, March 10, 2006

A is for Asinine

I know I should be quivering with anticipation for the new Wachowski Brothers movie, but I'm having a hard time getting past that "Nip/Tuck" Carver-meets-Oil Can Harry masked villian. Do curlicued mustaches really intimidate anyone anymore?
Wednesday, March 01, 2006

There are only so many synonyms for "brain fart"

I've done some pretty damn amazingly moronic things in my day, but I don't know, this latest one may take all: yesterday I did a quick food-shop and then also shopped for a couple of belated hubby birthday gifts. Guess which "gifts" I subsequently hid in the closet? Milk, refrigerated chicken broth and two types of soft cheeses. Happy birthday, babe.

P.S. The cheeses still taste okay. I'm waiting for the cats' verdict on the milk.