I'm a man, man!

So the day was not off to a great start today, but I stumbled upon this web site, which turned things around right quick! Thank you to Heathen, a total stranger whose writing I love, for bringing it to my attention.

So anyway, the idea is to upload a picture of yourself and then this web site tells you which celebrity you resemble. I posted a picture of me enjoying my Ben & Jerry's at the factory tour in Vermont:


and was told that I most closely resemble....Jason Biggs! With a 68% match.

Scary, yes, but even worse was that the fourth celebrity that popped up on my list (following Grace Kelly, 58%) is OSAMA BIN LADEN (54%).

I think that I might have found a new favorite game, despite its wreaking havoc on my self-esteem.

------------------------

Update, 1:35pm:

Really, I'm obsessed with this thing. I uploaded a wedding picture -- assuming I looked less mannish that day than I did at Ben & Jerry's -- and I, the whitest girl in the universe, most closely resemble Aaliyah. Followed by Julianne Moore, Jennifer Aniston, Celine Dion and Alec Baldwin.

I think I'll quit while I'm ahead.

Tone deaf

I think that there's almost nothing worse than a conference call starting at 8:30 on a Monday morning. But then I realized that an 8:30 a.m. Monday conference call with a whole boatload of turfy, combative participants may be enough to ruin my whole week, workwise. Bleh.

How fitting

I'm trying to catch up on some editing projects today, but I'm having a little bit of trouble concentrating, and I'm finding distractions like watering my plants or cleaning out my in box. But more distracting is the song that I can't get out of my head, namely: "Can't Get it Out of My Head" by Fountains of Wayne.

I will point out that this is not ironic; it is the opposite of ironic, in fact. I think if I'd been the Miss America finalist who was asked about her pet peeve, I might have said "Misuse of the word 'irony,'" but I also think I would have had a really hard time narrowing it down in such a short amount of time, and I would probably have rambled on forever, much like the actual contestant did. She was so boring, I can't even remember what her pet peeve was.

But I do remember that now-Miss America, then-Miss Oklahoma, said without hesitation, "French fries dipped in Ranch dressing," when asked what she was looking forward to indulging in post-pageant. I don't myself like that combination, but Shari and I immediately agreed that that was perhaps the most awesome real-life pageant answer ever, although not quite as good as the "Describe the perfect date" response in Miss Congeniality:

"I would have to say April 25th. Because it's not too hot, not too cold; all you need is a light jacket."

Happy Mon-day

So I generally think I have a pretty good handle on proper grammar and usage, but recently I've been inundated with messages of "Hope you had a great week-end!"

Actually, it's only really two people, but they do it consistently, and it's such a strange construction, I think. I guess I think of the "week-end" as a very specific point in time: maybe it's the moment I drive out of the office on a Friday afternoon? The start of a Friday evening Happy Hour (which, by the way, used to happen quite a lot when I first started my job here, and now I never hear about them, and I'm not sure if it's me just not being as popular -- entirely possible -- or if the primary coordinators of these events have left, or a little of both. In any case, Christopher now works with tons of young people and they do happy hour at least once a week, which made me a tiny bit nostalgic, I think)?

But I am pretty sure that the Friday-Sunday duration is just "weekend," without additional punctuation.

Yes? No? Am I so 2005 to be calling it a weekend?

In other news, there is a deer outside that's just hobbling around pathetically, and it's really heartbreaking. Its little friends are all galloping around, perfectly healthy, but this one seems to have an injured front leg, which is reminding me of Owen Wilson's line in Meet the Parents about wishing he could help fix animals who hobble around with a little gimp.

A very sad way to come back to work after the week-end.

Sunrise, sunset

After a few months of virtually no travel for work, I started another little flurry of trips this morning, although my schedule the next couple of months won't be nearly as grueling as it was this past fall.

Anyway, I flew out this morning on the first flight to Atlanta, got bumped up to first class, read this week's New Yorker (which I liked very much, especially Tad Friend's story about police chase in LA, although I briefly wondered whether he makes up people's quotes, because they're all so perfect), and watched the sunrise out the window as I enjoyed my hot towel and hot breakfast.

It was a smooth flight; we landed early; and the directions to reach my meeting were painstakingly detailed, perfect for the directionally challenged. Really; even I can't screw it up when I'm told: "Go to the baggage terminal, take the escalator up, put $1.75 in the machine to get a token, get on the MARTA (all the trains go north), get off at Midtown station (about a 20-minute ride), and I'll meet you at the BACK entrance of the station (NOT the 10th Ave. exit!!), in a red two-door Explorer."

My meeting was productive and brief; my conference call from the airport on the way home was far more straightforward than I'd expected. I was shocked by how polite everyone was in the airport. Literally every person in line at the Quizno's said "please" and "thank you" like they meant it; people were pleasant and patient in the 30-minute security line; and a guy who unexpectedly cut past me as I was trying to turn into the restroom entrance said, "Oh, excuse me -- my fault!" Totally surreal. I enjoyed an US Weekly (I had no idea about Lindsay's anti-Scarlett graffiti! Scandalous!) with my toasted sandwich and was happy as a clam. The plane took off just before sunset, so I had another lovely view for the ride home, even though it was from Row 10.

The only minor downer was that I made the mistake of reading The Year of Magical Thinking on the plane ride home (thanks, SZG, for the loan!). I am liking the book so far, but it is not a book that I ought to be reading while I'm away from the Smelmooo for an extended period of time. Much like Little Children is not so much a book I probably should've been reading on our honeymoon.

Anyway, I'm home safe and sound, which is nice -- and Love Actually is on TV, so even better -- but it's weird and a little lonely being home for the second night in a row without either of my guys (Smelmooo is still out of town, and I left so early and got home so late that we had to leave Tucker at the resort for two nights). But I will make the most of it: catch up on some Ellens that have piled up on the DVR, eat Cherry Garcia straight from the container and get to bed early so I can get my little guy bright and early tomorrow.

I sound like a broken record, but especially after getting halfway through the Didion book, I feel compelled to say it again: Life is pretty darn good.

Miss Manners

Okay, so I'm admittedly a little bit rigid, and once in a while have unreasonable expectations about how people ought to behave in a given situation. I'm trying to loosen up a bit, and really, the Smelmooo has been a phenomenal influence on me in this area. Really. I know it's hard to believe, but it's true.

But still, despite this progress, I still find it totally absurd that grown-ups can sometimes be so badly behaved. We had a discussion the other day about how the Internet and other technological advances are ruining our ability to interact with each other in meaningful ways, and I have to admit I'm starting to agree. A short list of my pet peeves of the day (office edition):

-- Fairly regularly, if someone in our office doesn't pick up his or her phone after a few rings, someone else will answer. Sometimes it's the person's assistant; sometimes it's just some random other person in that same department. So, when I'm calling Mary, and you pick up the phone and say, "Hi, Tangent Woman," or even just, "Mary's office," I have no idea who the heck you are. Who are you? Help me out, here. If you're a random person half a mile down the hall from the person I need, you can give me very different information and help than if you're the person's assistant and sit right outside her office. A little help, please. And, really? Just common courtesy. Yeesh.

-- Put a damn subject in your emails. Really.

-- While I'm at it, don't type your whole freakin' message in the subject line, unless it's seven words or fewer. Maybe 10, if they're short.

-- While I'm at it, don't cry wolf with "high importance."

-- While I'm at it, I'll throw in Seth's email pet peeve, which I violated about 10 minutes ago, but I think it bugs him less when it's from a friend (I hope): Especially if we don't really know each other, use my name (a salutation, if you will) and yours (a signature) if you're sending me an email. Again, common courtesy.

-- Wash. Your. Hands. I still don't understand how people can use the (public!) toilet and not wash their hands, especially if they aren't alone in the restroom, and they're in there with other people they know and work with. Really, if hygiene isn't your bag, don't you at least have enough pride not to want to be labeled as a disgusting non-hand-washer and gossiped about by your co-workers? And, even grosser, someone just cited a statistic to me yesterday that I hope was made up: hospital doctors wash their hands between patients less than a third of the time. I'm sure that I can look this up somewhere, but I'm totally afraid of what I'll find.

-- If you have a foot injury, I sympathize. Really. It must suck to have to hobble around for months and to wear that big boot or whatever. But regardless, it's not okay to put your bare disgusting foot up on a conference room table, especially next to me. Elevating your covered foot on the chair next to me? Totally fine, and even doctor-recommended, I bet. But keep that bare foot with the disgusting toenails far away from me, please (although after seeing The Office last week, I guess I should count myself lucky with these foot injury people).

I think I need another vacation. Or maybe just to work from home more often (although I guess that wouldn't address my myriad email issues), because boy do people bug me.

Random thoughts lingering post-vacation

So I already gave the overview of our vacation in Puerto Rico, but a few more specifics:

-- The little opening reception for this "work" trip included a buffet dinner followed by karaoke. I wasn't drafted, thank goodness; some friends around the living room on New Year's Eve is one thing, but a whole boatload of my husband's work associates -- most of them virtual strangers -- is quite another.

-- There were a ton of kids on the trip, and I was consistently amazed by how mature and well-behaved and self-sufficient they were. They really just sort of went with the flow; I guess a few of them have been going on these trips for several years, and they're certainly more well-traveled than I was at their age, so they know each other and they know the ropes. But I was awfully impressed.

-- One of these kids, a girl who's eleven, was particularly fascinating to me, and I hope her parents didn't think I was crazy. She's at that stage where she's all limbs, like a baby deer, and she wears braces on her teeth. But she's completely un-self-conscious: she smiled easily; held her own in coversation with boys and girls, kids and adults; and without a hint of stagefright belted out an a capella Disney song during the karaoke (the other little girls mumbled their way through that Lindsay Lohan song, and that godforsaken Hilary Duff "Beat of My Heart" crap, which gets stuck in my head like "Tom's Diner"), and was impossibly gracious with all of the compliments she got afterward. I kept hoping that when I see her on this trip next year, she won't have been replaced by a sullen adolescent who's uncomfortable in her own skin. Growing up is such a shame, sometimes.

-- The resort where we stayed was absolutely breathtaking -- huge rolling hills, lush greenery, picture-perfect blue water -- but the hour-long ride from the airport was horribly depressing. We passed nothing but fast-food restaurants and Condom Worlds (really), and it made my bleeding liberal side feel incredibly guilty to be cruising through all of this poverty to get to my spa treatment and my five-course dinner. Our shuttle driver on the way to the rain forest told us the bars on the windows of people's homes are to protect against hurricanes, rather than to deter criminals, but I'm still a little bit suspcious that they're at best dual-purpose and he was just trying to make us feel better.

-- Not from vacation, but related to the bleeding-heart liberal thing above: after the Smelmooo and I got married, I emailed some wedding photos to an old family friend who lives several states away. As a result, I seem to have been added to her mass email distribution list, which she uses primarily to send forwarded notes that are decidedly right-wing. I don't think she does this in an attempt to sway me, but because it simply doesn't occur to her that I might not see the world in the same way that she and my parents do.

-- Sometimes, I really, really hate flying, not because of the turbulence or the delays or the cramped quarters, but because of other people. The plane yesterday was full of "that guy": that guy who takes up two full overhead bins with his crap; that guy who is hacking up phlegm the entire plane ride; that guy who apparently ripped the pump off of the soap dispenser in the restroom, rendering the dispenser 100% useless; that flight attendant who was totally unconcerned about the lack of soap in the bathroom, despite all the horcking and hacking happening on the plane. I'm so going to be sick by the end of the week, if only because I'll talk myself into it. But we had our portable DVD player, and that was really fun, and mostly made up for the sheer grossness happening elsewhere on the plane.

-- The San Juan airport had no bar in which to watch highlights of the Pitt/Indianapolis game, which ended just as we reached the airport (the guy in front of us was constantly refreshing updates on his Blackberry), and all of the shops and snack places but two closed at 7pm, but what it did have was an endless supply of vending machines and, inexplicably, Ms. PacMan machines. There were literally three that we could see from our seating area outside the gate. I played pretty well, and made it to the banana board before I choked, but my score was still pretty pathetic, comparatively. I need to practice some more.

-- As squicked out as I get from germs and critters, I was pretty much unphased by all of the iguanas (iguani?), roosters and rabbits scurrying around the outdoor restaurant on the island. I think I was fascinated by such a random assortment of creatures, and I also was probably just grateful it wasn't cats roaming around and jumping up on the tables.

Home

I am a true believer that there's no place like home, although I'm thrown a bit being home from this last trip. Almost every vacation the Smelmooo and I have taken has landed us back in NJ in the middle of the afternoon, so we have time to unwind, go through the mail, do some laundry and make the transition from vacation to reality before heading back to work the next day.

This time, we didn't walk through our front door until well after 1am, the Smelmooo is at work today and there's still no mail because of the holiday, so I'm feeling all kinds of off. Plus it's never fun to come from 80-degree weather to snow and ice and ick. But I'm getting into the swing: I've already dropped off my library books, thrown in some laundry, picked up our puppy and given him a bath (which made him kind of hate me, so I've spent the rest of the morning trying to buy his love with treats and tummy rubs). I'm hoping to catch up on bad TV before opening up my work email this afternoon.

Our trip was wonderful. The weather was perfect, perfect, perfect until right before we left, when the skies opened up and there was thunder and lightning; this in part contributed to our late departure and protracted flight path that made us so late in getting home. The more dramatic thing that delayed us less was that two huge police officers boarded the plane upon our arrival at Newark, and went to fetch two passengers in the back who'd apparently been smoking in the restroom and disabling the smoke detectors, which is a no-no, the flight crew kept reminding us. The weirdest thing about the whole situation, to me, is that the pilot told us, while we were taxiing, that it was possible that the authorities would be coming on the plane to get these people before the rest of us law-abiding passengers be allowed to get off the plane. I just kept thinking, "Holy crap; please don't have a gun or a knife or something." Which I guess was crazy, because security was fairly solid in the San Juan airport, but it seemed that at least some element of surprise would be helpful.

Anyway, the trip. We had a room with a nice balcony and an absolutely gorgeous view of the water. If I looked outside from the bed nearer the window (we had two absolutely tiny "full" beds in our room), I kept thinking we could be on a boat, the water was so close. There was a little water taxi that shuttled us from the hotel to a little island (also part of the resort) with a nice beach and tons of activities. We didn't get to go kayaking, but yesterday we went horseback riding on the beach, which was at first scary (I hadn't been on a horse for about 15 years, and I'd never ridden Western) and then just breathtakingly beautiful and pretty fun.

The Smelmooo and I got massages that were heavenly; we sat by the pool and read (although I'm still only about a quarter of the way through my New Yorkers...); we went to the rainforest and hiked down to this huge, gorgeous waterfall where tons of kids were splashing around in the freezing cold water, having the time of their lives. The Smelmooo spent some time in the casino and I ate a ton of ice cream, and life was good.

There was some work stuff -- the Smelmooo had a meeting one morning, and we had lots of working dinners at night, most of them actually pretty fun -- but for the most part it was just relaxing. There were tons of minor irritants at the hotel -- they didn't have our reservation for the rain forest tour; there were problems with the spa gift certificates I got for our massages; we had to ask six people and wait 45 minutes before we got our horseback riding trip scheduled -- but for the most part those rolled off our well-massaged backs.

And now it's back to the grind, back to reality, back to work tomorrow for me, back to the airport for separate, less fun work trips for both of us at the end of the week.

But still, for this brief little window, it's good to be home.

Just the facts

So the Smelmooo sent me this link about a little brouhaha over A Million Little Pieces, supposedly a memoir, containing information that's not really factual.

I read this book over the summer, and my reaction was a big fat "Eh." I thought the style was grating, the pacing felt wrong, and I didn't particularly care about most of the characters(although at the very, very end of the book, I realized I sort of cared about some of them), including the author.

Yes, I thought of the author as a character, because of course a memoir isn't a strict retelling of the facts, anymore than a work of fiction is pulled strictly from the author's imagination, without a speck of resemblance to actual people or events.

I took a great class in college called Living Writers, where we read a book a week, and every Thursday the author came and talked about the work and read from a work in progress. It was actually a ton of work -- we had to submit questions for the authors and got graded on those, and had to keep a journal of reflections, and we had to do a bunch of background research on the authors' other work in addition to reading the assigned text, but it was one of my easiest As ever. I loved listening to the authors, and when we read collections of short stories (like Amy Hempel's Tumble Home, which I loved), I would look up previously published versions of the stories in the New Yorker or Harper's or wherever, and look at how they evolved over time, and it got me so fascinated by the process of writing.

Anyway, I digress. One of our most common discussions was about the line between memoir and fiction, and the distinction between truth and fact. For me, truth always trumped fact, and it still does. I don't care if an author remembers word-for-word a discussion with his counselor in rehab; if the depiction of it in the book feels right, and resonates, and feels true, that's good enough for me. Memoir is the hot genre at the moment -- and it's a loooooooong moment, given that it was the hot genre in 1998 when I took that class -- so it obviously makes sense, if you want to sell books, to package and market a "based on a true story" novel as a memoir. So I don't really see what the big deal is whether Frey embellished or invented some of the elements of the story.

What I'd be more interested in -- although I won't, because I really didn't care for the book in the first place -- is to read the book again more closely to see if there's a shift in tone or style that makes it clear what parts are fact and what parts are fiction. I'm not sure there would be, because I don't think Frey is a strong enough writer that he captures the truth of many of the pieces of the story in a compelling way, but I'm modestly curious.

I think that my head is there also because I'm reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I expect I'll finish on the plane tomorrow before working through my stack of dusty New Yorkers. That book wasn't marketed as a memoir, but it's a somewhat fictionalized account of the author's childhood, and as I read it I often think that a particular encounter or experience must have really taken place in her life, because she captures its essence so perfectly, in a way that resonates so powerfully. And maybe it's fact and maybe it's fiction, but it's darn good writing either way, and I care about her and I sympathize with her and she makes me laugh and cry and smile, and she knows how to use punctuation and proper sentence structure, so bonus points over you, Mr. Frey.

The element of truth is what I liked about the movie The Family Stone, too; there was a lot about the movie that was totally implausible, but at the same time it felt true and real, and that trumped logic. Not so in the Jazzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Singer, which I watched last night, in part on fast-forward mode, because BORRRRRRRRR-RING. You know I love my Neil Diamond, but yeeesh. Implausible and untrue, plus impossibly narcisstic -- which I also felt about A Million Little Pieces, to some extent -- so it gets the biggest thumbs-down so far of all the movies on my list.

As Edith Ann would say, "And that's the truth....pbbbbbbbbbbbbt!"

I'm not listening!!

I didn't so much care about Nick and Jessica, and certainly not Renee and Kenny or Tori and Charlie (although I feel bad for Charlie, dummy that he is), and I secretly was happy this morning when I heard that Lance and Sheryl are splitting. But I was sad about Mike Myers and his wife breaking up, but not sad enough to post about it.

But Chad Lowe and Hilary Swank?!?!?! Unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. Go make up. Now. Watch the tape of last year's Oscars (not the one where she forgot to thank you, Chad), see how in love you are with each other, remember why you fell in love and how you both came from so-so TV shows (or maybe not...was Karate Kid 3 before 90210? I think yes. Either way, though), realize how silly whatever it is that you're fighting about is, and get back together, please. Please? You're so darn cute.

A lovely, lazy weekend

I got nothing on my "Things to do" list done this weekend, even the "This is my top priority" thing, things I should and could have gotten done. And it was a beautiful thing.

Friday night, the Smelmooo and I went to dinner at kind of a crappy diner that was crawling with a bajillion screaming kids. But our waitress was efficient and friendly and looked us right in the eye, and gave us refills on our sodas without being asked; and the fries were crispy on the outside without being too crunchy; and the placemats included tons of hilarious ads and coupons, including one for this fine motel, which I think I'd like to see on a 20/20 expose or something, but probably not in person.

Best of all, the diner had a Ms. PacMan machine. I sucked at it, but the Smelmooo rocked it, even though both of us had scores about one-fortieth of the high scorer. But it was so fun playing a little arcade game in a diner vestibule that it didn't matter how badly I played, or how vigorously I had to wash my hands afterward.

On Saturday, we went over to Seth and Leslie's for game night with another couple who we didn't really know, but whom I now love (and I'm not just saying that because one of them told me she reads this site...). I'm a misanthrope at heart anyway, but it sometimes seems particularly dicey, I think, spending time with friends' friends: sometimes people are turfy or aloof, or want to be super-best-friends immediately, or the guy is great but the woman is insufferable, or vice versa, and then everyone's uncomfortable and it's awkward and yucky. But Saturday was the opposite; it was normal and easy and enjoyable, and we played Cranium and ate cocktail weiners and had three kinds of dessert and chatted and just had a relaxed, low-key night and in the car ride home, way past our bedtimes, the Smelmooo and I both talked about how much we liked both halves of the couple. So yay, and thanks.

Yesterday officially marked the end of celebrating the holiday season (well, mostly; Sharico and I still need to exchange our gifts, but we had our holiday dinner already, so we'll call that one unofficial). Every year, my mother-in-law's dearest friend invites the whole Smelmooo family over for a Christmas celebration where she cooks up a storm and supplies tons of drinks and it's warm and cozy and boozy. We exchange gifts, and there are lots of "Remember when...?" kinds of stories. I love listening to those, even the ones that are the same year after year, or the ones I heard last week when the same group gathered for New Year's Day. It's just nice to think about the long history they all share, and how precious these kinds of surrogate family members are.

And Rutgers won and the Giants lost, so the Smelmooo was a very happy camper, and we went to the gym and to the Can-Can sale, and we finally bought a pitcher for the dining room, and we watched Goodfellas, and then started watching a movie we didn't get or like, so off it went, and I'm halfway through A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I love.

So it wasn't a particularly remarkable weekend, but it felt just perfect, and life seems very good.

This just seems wrong.

I understand it, and it makes logical sense, but geez, what a headline!

Study: Free booze benefits homeless alcoholics

Preferable to stupid Pat Robertson, though. He is disgusting.

Random thoughts on a Friday

-- This morning on the treadmill, I read that Vincent Schiavelli died, and I felt really sad, mostly because I had it in my head that he was the Hello guy in Crazy People. It turns out, though, that Hello guy is actually named David Paymer, and he's very much alive, and duh, also the guy in In Good Company and about a thousand other things, and I don't know why I had him confused with Vincent Schiavelli, who of course was also in Fast Times and Better Off Dead and Death to Smoochy. So I'm sad about him, too, and feel bad that I simply can't differentiate among actors sometimes (which is a somewhat common problem, although I bet most people don't get these two mixed up).

-- Speaking of Death to Smoochy, I found it so funny yesterday when a radio show was talking about Jon Stewart being picked to host the Oscars, and how it's sort of a weird choice because he's not so much a movie actor, and then one of the other DJs burst out with, "But he was in Death to Smoochy!!" No one else seems to be amused by this, but there you go.

-- I wish that professional people in the work place would all wash their hands after using the restroom, particularly when there are other people in there who see them not washing their hands. But you know what? At this point, I'd settle for people heeding the axiom about "If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat." Because, seriously, gross. This isn't Madison Square Garden or a Port-a-Potty, for pete's sake.

-- The Smelmooo was quoted in a front-page article in the paper yesterday, and I felt really proud of him, and my first peer-reviewed journal article is coming out on Tuesday, so I feel proud of me, even though it's kind of a piddly little article.

-- We leave next week for Puerto Rico, and I can't freakin' wait. I have had a hard time settling back into work post-holidays, and I'm looking forward to taking a break, reading tons of books and catching up on an obscene pile of New Yorker back-issues, and spending time with my hubby in the warm weather. Possibly not sunny weather, but warm at least.

-- I'm taking my nieces to see Disney Princesses on Ice in a few weeks. They are over the moon about it, and have already picked out their outfits for the occasion, which is making me feel a tremendous amount of pressure. I was only able to get nosebleed section seats, and Julia's going to see Beauty and the Beast on Broadway the day before, so I feel like she, at least, is going to feel disappointed. But it'll be quality time with the girls, whom I love desperately, and they have fun together no matter what they're doing, so I think it'll end up being okay. I can't believe I'm so anxious about showing a 6-year-old and a 7-year old a good time.

-- I got sucked into Dancing With the Stars last night, against my better judgment. But I found it totally compelling, and I'm figuring that one of the average couples will be sent home tonight because the viewers at home will take pity on Master P and think "Awww! At least he tried! Give him credit for that! And his partner is just so adorable! They can't be eliminated." Not that I called and tried to save Kenny Mayne. Nope. Not me.

-- Last week, I watched St. Elmo's Fire for the first time since, probably, my first year of college. It's amazing how well it's held up, and I get so much more out of it now than I did in high school or early in college. And I wish that I'd watched it right after college, when it would have resonated even more. The whole scene toward the end with Rob Lowe and Demi and the billowing curtains is still just annoying, and the subplot with Andie MacDowell is weird, but on the whole it's just such a good movie, with so many great lines:
"It's not the fat chick."

"It's your scuba suit."

"I'm giving Howie back, too."

"I always knew he was a Republican!"

"Prison."

In addition to my list of movies I've never seen -- which is growing ever-shorter -- I think I need to start re-watching the ones I've loved, like Stealing Home (which I just got on DVD, yay!), Say Anything, Shag, Heathers and probably a million others. This may be a slumber party in the making.

-- The Smelmooo visited me for lunch today, and it made me enormously happy. Hooray! A lovely start to the weekend.

Burn, baby, burn

So after a too-long hiatus, I've been starting to get back to the gym on a more regular basis lately. I always feel happy after I'm done, and glad that I've gone, but I'm still not accustomed to the new (well, new to me) equipment that doesn't have the reverse cross-train program that made me very happy on the old ellipticals, or the bikes that don't quite have the same setting that makes me feel like I'm properly positioned to work my abs as well as my legs and my butt.

So sometimes, as I'm trying to the new programs (like "cardio" or "interval" or somesuch), trying to find my new favorite course, I discover halfway through that it's kicking my ass, and I'm too out of shape to have gone down this road, but by god I'm not going to quit before that 50-year-old in the khaki pants (!) next to me does, so I stick it out and push through and I'm a big pink sweaty mess and I think I might die, but at least I didn't quit (except last week, when I inadvertently hit "reset" on the elliptical instead of changing the display on the timer, and took it as a sign not only of my idiocy but of a higher power guiding me to hop on over and do a brisk walk on the treadmill instead).

The newish set-up of the gym also has tons more of the machines facing a mirror, which is always fun to me. I'm ghost white and then, as I said, pink and just soaked, and it's just not a pretty picture. So I distract myself by reading a magazine, or listening to music, or watching the TVs that are above the mirrors. And on Saturday morning, the nearest TV was showing infomercials the whole time I was on the elliptical, first for a miracle acne drug, and then for the Sauna Belt.

I am consistently grossed out by these kinds of contraptions, but I was fascinated by all of the places one can burn fat while wearing the Sauna Belt! Watching TV! Making a grand entrance down an elaborate spiral staircase! In bed with your spouse!! Which, double ew, and weird. The closed-captioning told me, roughly, "I love taking off pounds and inches in a sauna, but sometimes it's just too inconvenient to get to the spa, and who wants to do all that work at the gym? I lost 3 inches off my belly in 50 minutes with Sauna Belt!"

I still can't quite decide if this room full of exercisers was the best or the worst possible audience for this infomercial. I kept looking around, expecting people to be either looking disgustedly or raptly at the TV, even hoping one of them might take a dramatic leap off a treadmill, with a, "Screw this! I'm getting a Sauna Belt! Terminate my membership, YMCA!" But no, sadly. I think people -- or this lot, anyway, mid-morning on New Year's Eve Day -- just pretend to watch the TV so they don't have to look at the clock on the exercise machine, but they don't really absorb any of the content. Because, really, blank stares all around in response to the Sauna Belt, and I felt very alone in my amusement.

I usually feel quite alone at the gym, which I find to be a good thing. I don't use the gym at work because I don't want to have to talk to anyone while I exercise (although sometimes the Smelmooo and I go to the gym together, and I'm fine with that, but it took me a while to get there), and I don't want to be all pink and sweaty in front of my colleagues and my boss and my boss's boss, and I certainly don't want to see them naked in the locker room.

When I went to Gold's, I always used the locker room, and there was this one totally crazy woman who would, in her sports bra and underwear, ask random other women to help her weigh herself ("my vision's not so good"), and people always looked kind of horrified, but no one -- myself included -- ever said no. And although I don't expect that any of my co-workers would pull that, it's still unsettling to me to have any interactions with them in any state of undress, mine or theirs.

And that, to my mind, is the most compelling reason to get a Sauna Belt.

A very happy new year

New Year's Eve was lovely. Our menu didn't turn out quite as we'd planned it -- there was a fire on the grill, and my homemade ice cream was icy and soupy because I'd forgotten to put the barrels in the freezer until that morning -- but no one seemed to care, least of all the Smelmooo and me. It was great to see friends we hadn't seen in too long, and just to have an easy, relatively mellow night.

We half-watched the Raiders-Giants game as we caught up, and we did karaoke at halftime. I take back that "worst-best gift" thing: I had the best time with the karaoke. The Smelmooo kicked it off with a rousing performance of We're Not Gonna Take It, and Leslie and Jamie rocked Summer Nights from the Grease CD. I was so impressed with Barbara's rendition of Baby's Got Back that I was reluctant to take the mike for Bust a Move. Matt, who I already knew can sing because I'm a groupie, sang Everybody's Workin' for the Weekend, and Chris chimed in enough to get points for participation. Seth just refused to participate, although his commentary and the fact that he was drinking his cranberry-and-vodkas out of my giant plastic turquoise cup made it all okay.

I was a little sad seeing Dick Clark so worn, but I was glad he was back. I was not happy to see so much of Mariah and Hillary Duff, for whom I have inexplicable hatred, especially with the new teeth and the weight loss and what not.

But despite dumb annoying Hillary -- and the fact that we missed Jack and Gina, who joined us to ring in 2005 -- it was a great night, and I'm a little sad that there won't be a repeat next year. Matt and Chris will be in Australia, Barbara and Jamie will be in Europe, probably, and Seth and Leslie will be hosting in their fancy new remodeled house that I can't wait to see next week. But Seth promised us the guest room (haha! No take-backs, no matter how many drinks you had!) for next year, and we'll bring the karaoke, and all will be well in the world.

Happy new year, everyone!