And I don’t think this date will move around. Also, I’m tired. Also, it’s really cold in New York. Also, this couldn’t be less witty or clever if it tried. Also I had a dream that I was wearing retainers and orthodontic rubber bands. I blame Cathy’s teeth below.
Q&A vlog part 2
scroll down for part 1
Q&A Vlog part 1
sleep, movies, narcissism
Sometimes I’m just sitting there and a brilliant idea will come to me. I’m sure you know how it is. Just kidding, I’m sure you don’t, but I didn’t want to alienate you. It’s cool, we can pretend we’re on the same level.
Anyway, earlier I was just sitting there thinking that I feel really sleepy and that I really haven’t felt AWAKE in months which is weird and what’s that about and then I was thinking that if I were to make a commercial for a sleeping pill I would make the slogan… ok here it comes… get ready…
To sleep… perchance to sleep?
It’s probably been done already.
Unrelated, I once received a promotional lavender filled sleep mask-shaped pillow thing (when you work at a magazine you receive all sorts of weird stuff) and it said “Goodnight wrinkles” on it. I think it was promoting a dermatologist or eye cream or something so it made sense that as a music critic, I received it. Anyway, I remember my sister was holding it and put it on her eyes and as she was doing so said “Goodnight wrinkles… see you in the morning!” It still cracks me up.
Last night said sister and I saw I Love You, Man! which I could see again right this minute. I recommend it highly. It was cute and sweet and silly and smart and silly and cute and sweet. Am I repeating myself myself?
Also, I’m sleepy.
I’m doing Strategy Room tomorrow so I need to read up on all the entertainment stories. That’s really what I should be doing now. Right now. Also… um… dammit I had something else to say.
Anyone see Grey’s Anatomy on Thursday? Gross. And sad. But that wasn’t what I was going to say.
Oh yes! I remember. The lovely Anna David made a video where she talked about taking Dr. Drew’s narcissism quiz. I scored 13 which was a surprise to me and also a surprise to myself and also to me. I’m wondering how you guys score? I’m also, like Anna, wondering about the accuracy of the test because in many cases you’re given two choices and neither feels right. Anyway, I found a link to the quiz here.
Ford Fiesta Movement Contest
So there’s this contest where Ford is giving 100 people Ford Fiestas for six months and then they have missions to complete each month and they make videos about the missions. Could that sentence have been less articulate? It’s all these bugs in my teeth and the wind in my hair and the smell of gasoline that’s making me kind of dumb but also road savvy. Also I got a hair cut yesterday and I’m pretty sure they trimmed some IQ points off the end of my hair. That’s where intelligence resides, right? In split ends? Anyway, to enter the contest (and they reached out to me because I have a such an impressive web presence and I’m the queen of social media, of course. Also because I shove videos down your throat. Also because I have a camera?) you have to make a video explaining why they should pick you. Here’s my entry. Please love it.
I'll be on Strategy Room Monday at noon
It’s totally going to cut into my sitting around and doing nothing time!!!!!!!
Too many exclamation points? Probably. I’ve radically changed my opinion about excessive punctuation. I used to hate it. But now I’m okay with it. Possibly even more than okay, provided I’m the one overusing it. If you’re the one overusing it? I don’t know. Let me get back to you on that.
And now I have to go do important things.
Puppies please!
In a blatant attempt to see if I can alter the ads that are appearing on this page (for fear that un-delightful things will become associated with me as a commenter pointed out) I’m going to craft some sentences with images I’m okay with including puppies, babies, rainbows, hot chicks, hot dudes, surfboards (?), panda bears, baby panda bears, bitchin’ rides, stylish shoes, BOOBS (may as well get some hot SEO action on here), Olson twins, Britney Spears, AIG, Madoff, Obama, top search terms, twitter, Hugh Dancy, coffee
That wasn’t even a sentence.
How I end up with stuff I don't want
A cup of something I didn’t want
I have a problem where I go along with stuff I don’t want which I think is why occasionally I have the recurring dream that I’m about to get married when I suddenly come to my senses and think, “Wait! I never wanted to marry this person! I was just going along with it as a joke and also because I wanted to experience what it would feel like to act as if I was going to get married!” And then in the dream I wonder how I let it go that far without realizing that this was the trial run, not the real deal. Then I realize I’m not wearing any pants and I have to take a test that day but the test is in Portuguese and I’m having a conversation with a puppy. Not really on those last three things. Remind me sometime to tell you about the other recurring dream I used to have which I had for years and years.
But ANYWAY, sometimes I not only go along with things I don’t want but actually select them. This morning I was going to get coffee at the little store I go to. I have an off and on relationship with flavored coffee and I’m currently in the heady throes of on. I sidled up to the French Vanilla spigot and lo and behold they didn’t have French Vanilla they had Hazelnut which was definitely not what I wanted. Could I get behind the filbert invasion?
Here to ruin your morningHm… I thought to myself, holding up the line. Hm… I thought some more. HM… I kept thinking while people loudly cursed me. Then I whipped out my cell phone to call a friend to get another opinion. Not about coffee but just about stuff. Then I made a list of pros and cons. Then I meditated. Then night fell and I dozed off. Then I woke up and went for the Hazelnut and only a splash came out. “It’s a sign!” I didn’t think to myself. The only other coffee was decaf. Did I want decaf? No! I specifically wanted caffeine and plus I could kind of tell that this was decaf that was going to taste weirdly syrupy. It was a headache in a cup. A headache with a splash of hazelnut dregs. A hazelnutache. (Not to be confused with what that word kind of looks like which is hazelnutstache which would be a mustache made of hazelnuts. God how I wish there was a picture of that.) And really, I could easily have just tossed the cup in the trash and been on my way but instead I poured the cup of decaf and then drank it and it was everything I expected it to be.
“Why did I do this to myself?” I wondered, while sipping the gross coffee and thinking about the various things in life I’ve selected for myself that I knew weren’t what I really wanted. To wit:
My last car
The gray-brown couch which thankfully I no longer own
My amp except that doesn’t quite count because I didn’t really know what I was buying at the time and needed an amp and etc.
The last apartment I lived in but also I’m not sure that counts
I feel like there are more.
Answer? I don’t really know.
Oh! Also at one point I was choosing between a job I really wanted and which I had good reason to think I would get versus one that had been offered to me and I chose the one that was offered to me because I was afraid to roll the dice and end up with nothing. I don’t know that that counts though because I could have ended up with nothing and then I’d be sitting here writing about how that was a mistake and etc. Plus the less desired job ultimately led to television, so perhaps this tangent doesn’t belong here. You are unwanted, tangent! Oh wait, now I’m thinking of another job type situation that would maybe fall in this category. But again, I think jobs don’t count because mostly you just work because you have to and because you need money and because it’s better to be working than not. To really love what you do is an amazing luxury. Also, it’s precious. But not precious like pretentious. Just precious like rare and valuable. Like every word that falls from my lips.
In other grocery store-related news, I bought some fresh herbs even though I don’t quite know what to do with them. Do I keep them refrigerated? Or not? See, the meringue experiment has taken a drastic turn and I probably should have kept you all abreast of the situation but for whatever reason I’ve chosen to shut you out. Don’t take it personally, it’s just that you can’t be trusted. I mean, I’ve given you ample opportunity to prove me wrong and you’ve failed every time. Every thyme! (Get it? No? Okay nevermind.)
Basil, RosemaryI decided the Splenda was getting out of control and so I’m not longer sweetening the meringues but instead thinking of them as savory cracker puffs. So long as I don’t overcook them and they get so dry and flaky I choke on the dust when I eat them and then gasp for air while coughing out a cloud of aspirated meringue, they’re semi-edible. I’ve been seasoning them with rosemary and sometimes basil. Could I be any more fancy?
Also, I have a headache.
I have other things to write about. I’ll make a list and then never write about them:
cravings
The Doug Benson Interruption
Throwing Muses
Will Ferrell on Broadway
mailboxes
Who, What, Where, When, Why: Allergy Edition
Who… handled shellfish?
What… is that scratching post doing over there?
Where… did all these old, dusty clothes come from?
When… did I do a bump of pollen?
Why… does this pudding taste like peanuts and ragweed?
Perception and Dianne Wiest
So yesterday I was meeting someone in the village and I noticed, as I was making my way there, that I passed a bunch of people with roughly the same face which is a situation I find myself in not infrequently. In this case, they all looked like Dianne Wiest.
All over the village yesterday
So here is the question: what’s really going on when this happens? Is it that there are only a limited number of faces, which is something I think I may have blogged about before? Is it really that people of a certain type live clustered together or that I possibly stumbled onto a pocket of Dianne Wiests? Of course not, right? So then it must be that for some reason my brain is processing certain stimuli in a certain way and lighting up with all the Wiest potential and either seeing it in everyone or rather just noticing a certain set of similar features and grouping them together. It’s an issue of parsing and perception. Sort of like how once you become aware or sensitized to a certain notion you’ll suddenly see it everywhere and wonder whether it was there all the time and you’re just now noticing it or it’s actually suddenly all around you. For example, I think people everywhere are absolutely in love with me and so I see that quality in everyone I come across. Also, I think dogs and babies are cute and so I see cute babies and cute dogs everywhere, particularly in pet stores and nurseries. Or also I just learned that there’s this place where you can get coffee called Starbuck’s and wouldn’t you know it, now I see Starbuck’s on every corner.
I’m joking, though not very successfully, but this is a situation I find myself in often when I travel. I’ll be in an unfamiliar city and I’ll see someone who reminds me of someone I haven’t thought of in awhile (someone from my past usually) and then I’ll see a bunch of people who look like that person. For example, San Francisco many years ago was filled with people who looked like a guy named Frank. Brooklyn is often teeming with people who look like someone named Michael. And apparently I also used to date Dianne Wiest. But it’s not just people I’ve been involved with, obviously. And all these thoughts make me feel like I’m wandering around in a Charlie Kauffman film. Another film reference? Ok then: Everything Is Illuminated had a scene at the end which captured this face thing perfectly. Did anyone see it?