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Monthly Archives: January 2012

January 31, 2012

Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.

By lucysfootball

*This is totally a lady-business post. Just a warning. So if you are squeamish about lady-parts and doctors of such, you can come back tomorrow. Also, if you’re a perv, ew. Stop being pervy. I SEE YOU THERE DING DONG JOE.* 

Listen, I am the most abjectly apologetic. I received a sad-face text from my BFF that he missed my blog today and that you were all probably going to riot. I certainly hope you’re not. You could get hurt. I mean, there’s pepper-spray and shit happening, I wouldn’t want to be the cause of that.

So if anyone’s been around for a while, you know I have been having long-standing lady-business shenanigans with Dr. Lady-Business, who wouldn’t let me see my own ultrasound and also laughed because I was dying one time. That was kind of the last straw, because if there’s anything I hate, it’s being laughed at while my pants are off. AM I RIGHT FELLAS? Sorry. Anyway. So I did some investigation and talked to some people and found a NEW lady-business doctor’s office that people were totally jazzed about and called them and they had a super-long wait, but that just means they’re really good, right? Totally.

So they told me to get my old office to send them my medical records two weeks before my appointment. So, like a good girl, I called the old office.

Actual conversation:

Me: I’d like you to send my records over to my new doctor’s office, please.
Scoffy receptionist: We don’t do that.
Me: I’m sorry?
SR: I mean, that’s not just something we DO.
Me: Well, they’re my records, and the new office needs them.
SR: You have to send us a REQUEST.
Me: This phone call’s not a request?
SR: I don’t know you are who you say you are.
Me: Um. OK. So, do I fax this to you, or mail it, or…
SR: Fax is fine. Then we’ll call you and counsel you whether or not leaving our practice if in your best interest. If we come to the conclusion it is, there’s a surcharge, PER PAGE, to get your records sent to the new office.
Me: So in other words, I send you this fax, and you may or may not decide I’m allowed to leave your practice.
SR: Yes. No. Send the fax.
Me: What’s the surcharge?
SR: We’ll discuss that in your consultation.
Me: You can’t just tell me?
SR: That’s not my department.
Me: You have a really small office. You can’t ask someone?
SR: Not without a fax.

So I sent the fax, and then a few days later I got my “consultation call” (listen, I feel like leaving this office is possibly like getting out of the mob, and I was a little scared I’d be kneecapped, like, were they not going to ALLOW me to leave? Were they going to pull me back in? I haven’t seen The Godfather in years, but I remember that shit, and it was NOT PRETTY) and the woman didn’t even counsel me at all. She just told me it was $.25 a page for my records, and that would come to $17.25. So I said fine, I’d pay with my credit card.

Counselor lady: I don’t think you want all of these.
Me: All of these what?
CL: Records.
Me: They’re mine. I do want them.
CL: I don’t think you do.
Me: Well, I don’t know what the new doctor will want, and what he won’t. I’d like all my records to be in one, centralized location. HIS office. The NEW doctor’s office. Since I’m not coming back to YOUR office. Could you just fax them to the number I sent you, please?
CL: But I don’t think you want all of them.
Me: I ASSURE YOU I DO.

So she said she was faxing them to the new office. THIS IS GOING SWIMMINGLY, I thought. Until a few days ago, when I got them IN MY MAILBOX. Because, apparently, “faxing them to the new office” meant “mailing them to the client.” I called the new office, very apologetic, and they just laughed and said to bring them with me today when I came in for my appointment.

So today was the appointment. I did not have high hopes. Listen, lady-business doctors and I apparently do NOT get along. But he had to be better than Dr. Lady-Business, right?

I walked in, and the office was lovely. Clean and there were fish and the receptionists were very, very nice and joked with me (but not weirdly, like, you know how some receptionists try too hard and it’s totally awkward? They joked WELL. I liked them) and there were adorable children playing on the floor of the waiting room but not in a gross way, like in a way that made me think maybe they were from central casting, they were so adorable and mop-topped and well-behaved. Aw.

Then the nurse brought me back and said, “First you’re going to meet with the doctor in his office for a consultation to discuss your concerns, and to get to know one another, and then you’ll have your exam.” WHAT? This is fancy. Like a fancy meeting! Like I am a CLIENT! I like that.

NEW DOCTOR! Aw, you GUYS! So adorable! Young, and totally happy and friendly and listened to EVERYTHING I SAID and had a good sense of humor.

When I told him the last doctor said that he thought I should probably just have a hysterectomy because I wasn’t using my lady-parts anyway, HE WAS AGHAST. Aghast! I approved of his shock and awe. “We do not give unnecessary hysterectomies to women who aren’t even FORTY yet,” he said, quite taken aback. I LOVE HIM.

He needs a name. He kind of looks like an adorable gay musical actor playing a doctor and also a little like an adorable Muppet. I’m going to call him Doctor Ernie. That’s not his name (ZOMG also? Totally told me to call him by his first name. I WILL THANK YOU) so I think he won’t sue me.

Doctor Ernie then did the LEAST UPSETTING EXAM I’ve ever had, ever (seriously, all the ladies reading need to move here and start going to Doctor Ernie for all your lady needs, because he ROCKS) and he explained everything he was going to do before he did it and laughed and joked and was just the cutest little man ever. I LOVE DOCTOR ERNIE.

Oh, also, he seemed VERY OPTIMISTIC I was about to have all the sex. I like that, Doctor Ernie. I like that, even though I told you I was not currently sexually active, you kept reiterating that “Well, WHEN YOU BECOME sexually active” like it was a FORGONE CONCLUSION. Not IF. WHEN. That is so cheerful! THANK YOU! I’m going to put that on my resume.

Then as I was leaving, he said words that would strike fear into the heart of any woman:

“Have you ever had a mammogram?”

Um. “No? I’m not forty yet?”

“You need one. Here’s a prescription. Next door down from our office is the lab, they can do it there before you leave the building today. So quick and easy!”

NO NO NO.

Listen, my mom has been WARNING me about these things for YEARS. “They’re going to be SO PAINFUL!” she’ll cackle with glee. “Wait til YOU have to have one of them! You’re going to hurt SO BAD! They just SQUISH YOU ALL UP!” Then I think she fattens children up and bakes them in her oven. Seriously, she’s been the Stephen King of mammogram stories since I was about sixteen.

But Doctor Ernie! So adorable! How could I tell him no? And the appointment wasn’t as long as I’d planned, and the office was RIGHT THERE!

So I went.

And here is a story.

MY MOM IS A HUGE HONKING LIAR.

Everyone at THAT office was just the nicest, too, and IT DIDN’T EVEN HURT. Now, please explain to me why my mother has been filling my head with lies for the past twenty years? Or maybe her techs are doing it wrong? Because was it briefly uncomfortable? Sure. Sure it was. But was it PAINFUL? No. Listen, I deal with cramps that could fell a mastodon on a regular basis, I know pain, mofos. This was NOTHING. This was A SLIGHT PINCH.

The lovely tech, when I asked her, after the first scan, “Um…do they get worse? Because that didn’t hurt at all?” laughed and said, “Thank you! No, they don’t get worse. Please tell all the women you know they don’t hurt at all, because that’s a big factor keeping women away from getting mammograms, and mammograms can save their lives.”

I didn’t tell her that I totally blab all my personal info all over the interwebs on a daily basis so I would tell LIT-rally (I seriously can’t say literally without invoking Chris from Parks and Rec, I’ve tried, it’s not possible) hundreds of people today.

MAMMOGRAMS DO NOT HURT.

If someone tells you a mammogram hurts, they are either lying to get attention, or their tech did it wrong.

Also, mammograms are life-savey, and I was seriously in and out of the office in fifteen minutes. It was that quick and painless. The most uncomfortable part was having a stranger stick your nether regions into a machine, but eh, whatever, it’s done in a few minutes, and it didn’t seem to be bothering her, so I didn’t let it bother me. I’m sure she’s seen a gajillion boobs, many much nicer than mine.

Go get your mammograms, ladies. Doctor Ernie, who’s totally trustworthy and adorable like a cocker spaniel puppy, tells me that he recommends women start as early as age 35.

OK. So, in conclusion: SUCK IT DOCTOR LADY-BUSINESS. Oh, when I was looking for their fax number online to send my letter so I could get my top-secret records from them, I found reviews of Dr. Lady-Business’s practice online, and they were so, so bad. People HATE that office. “Meat market” was used. “Unprofessional” was used. “I think this place is run by the mafia and why does Dr. Lady-Business have a saloon-style handlebar moustache” was used. (Fine, I wrote that last one.)

Also, Doctor Ernie! I adore you. Anyone who can make totally cute jokes to put me at ease while spelunking around my personal bits gets ALL THE PLUS ONES. If you live near me and want his real name, please let me know, I would be HAPPY to tell you.

Also, he assures me I’m not dying. That’s good news, right? I WILL LIVE TO ANNOY YOU ALL FOR A VERY LONG TIME. Yippee!

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33 comments | posted in advice, annoying, awkward, conversations, doctors, Followup, happiness, Humor, Women

January 30, 2012

The Three Lives of Senorita Thomasina

By lucysfootball

Mondays = the worst arghhhhhhh

Sorry, just had to get that out of the way.

My co-workers have to work on Saturdays during tax season, so I have a full day’s worth of work waiting for me to do Monday morning when I get in, on top of Monday’s work which starts coming in the minute everyone gets here. Blargh, says I.

ANYWAY. I did manage, between tearing my hair out and trying not to weep, to do my taxes today. It’s one of the few perks we have here, getting to do our own taxes for free on our software, and if we have questions – well, I have fifty co-workers who are able to answer them for me, now don’t I. And – REFUNDS BABY. Both state AND Federal refunds! Enough to buy my laptop, even! If I save a teeny bit more, enough to buy a FANCY laptop! And only a teeny bit more, seriously. This is very exciting news. I like when I don’t owe the government anything. Because I am totally poor and I feel like they should pay me some money every year just for working six days a week and not just giving up and going to live under a bridge like a troll or something, right? RIGHT.

Also, I’m scrupulously honest on my taxes. Every year, this confuses people. I have a couple of jobs that pay me miniscule amounts of money – like, less than $100 a year, amounts. They’re like these online-survey jobs. They’re not REAL jobs or anything. But they’re income. Therefore, I claim them and input them. And every year, my co-workers that check over my taxes for me before I release them LAUGH AND LAUGH and say “No one but you would bother with something like this.” Well, maybe if MORE PEOPLE bothered with something like this, we wouldn’t be in such financial ruin, hmm? I made the money. It seems improper to lie about it. It probably takes a dollar or two off my refund, seriously. It’s not like it’s taking that much food out of my mouth (or, in my case, fanciness from my new computer) to tell the truth on my taxes. Am I the only person in the entire world who tells the truth on their taxes? That’s a totally disheartening thought. Even people who I think are very, very honest otherwise think it’s fine to lie on their taxes. I guess because they see it as sticking it to THE MAN? I don’t know if it’s so much STICKING IT TO THE MAN as it is STICKING IT TO EVERYONE ELSE, including yourself, because tax money helps with things like roads and social programs and the arts and things of that nature. I know, it’s weird I don’t have an issue with taxes, right? I totally don’t. I think we should all tell the truth and we should all pay them and we should all shut up about it, because you made that damn money, and it’s part of living in this country that you have to pay taxes on it. I mean, if we didn’t have taxes, wouldn’t we all be living in the wilderness eating roots and shit? I don’t know, I might be completely wrong about this. Anyway! I totally tell the truth about my taxes and this is, apparently, COMPLETELY BIZARRE TO PEOPLE.

Also, aren’t people scared of being audited? I mean, I don’t think the IRS will murder you, or anything, but it’s a HUGE hassle. Like, you have to show them all the paperwork for everything you input into every single box on your return, and hopefully you saved all that, and if you’re a liar, and they catch you, can’t they just say, “hey, we have documentation here that you received $97 from this one place, WHY DIDN’T YOU WRITE IT DOWN?” and there are fees and such, and if you tell the truth, odds are much slimmer that will happen to you, you know? Although one year, I totally got audited. Which was a hoot, because I am ANAL AS HELL about keeping EVERYTHING. I have my taxes going back TEN YEARS. Every W2. Everything. And they wanted 2005! Well, here it is, in the envelope marked 2005. Faxed it over, bing bam boom, and they sent me a very apologetic “whoopsie!” letter about two weeks later and that was the last I heard from them. Which was kind of sad, though, because why are you auditing ME, who’s like the only honest human, tax-wise, left in America, and I could totally give you NAMES and SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS of lying liars who lie, you guys, seriously? And you’re wasting money auditing me? I’m like in the poverty tax bracket. I open my Social Security statement every year and canned laughter drifts out.

I mean, think about all the time and energy people expend trying to get AROUND paying taxes. Like, we field hundreds of calls in December every year from people about how they can reduce their taxes before the year ends. How much they can give to charity, because it’s a write-off. We had a client once who was writing checks to charity in January and back-dating them to the year before because she realized she was going to have to pay a bunch of taxes in the current year. Then there are the “is this a write-off? What about THIS? And THIS?” questions. IT IS INSANE. PAY  YOUR TAXES. Also? It’s always rich people. Poor people don’t care. Mostly because they didn’t make enough money to have it matter, I guess. But the rich people DO NOT WANT THEIR MONEY GOING TO THE GOVERNMENT DAMMIT.

OK, enough about taxes, my head is full of taxes, it’s not a fun place to be right now, very dark and twisty.

OK, so I got a new GPS for Christmas? And it is muy fancier than my last GPS. My last GPS wouldn’t update anymore, so often, you would be driving along and there had been construction and the road had changed, only no one had informed my GPS, so you’d be DRIVING INTO WHITE SPACE. It was very unnerving. Tom Tom (that was the last GPS’s name) would be all “recalculating…RECALCULATING!” and going into a tizzy and you’d be like, “All is well, Tom Tom, I’m just going to keep driving along here until you get your head on straight, we’re not in outer space, all’s well.”

So my dad got the old GPS, because he didn’t have one, and I got a NEW GPS. Which is also a Tom Tom, but I couldn’t just name it Tom Tom, because there already WAS a Tom Tom out there in the world, that’s like naming your new cat the same name as your old cat when your old cat passes away, that’s totally uncreative and kind of rude.

So the first time I used it, I thought, hmm, what shall I name this GPS?

My choices for voices were slim – a couple of men and a couple of women – so I chose the one that made me the least stabby. She sounds vaguely British. Kind of like Madonna or Gwyneth. Like, she’s totally American, but she WANTS to be British. And this GPS is fancy, because it tells you street names. The last one didn’t tell you street names. This one’s the TOP OF THE LINE GPS.

So I decided, this one’s definitely a girl. So her name will be Thomasina! Because I like to keep it in the Tom family, you know?

BUT HOLY HELL THEN. So Thomasina decided to start telling me some street names? And it is HILARIOUS, you guys, no joke. I don’t know who programmed this thing, but the word recognition software was NOT built for an area where a lot of the names are old Dutch names, or even names that aren’t like “Main Street.” Listening to Thomasina trying to say “Schenectady” has me in TEARS. “Ske-ne-k-teh-deee.” With huge pauses and very hard vowels. “Turn right onto HIGHWAY I-SEVENEIGHTYSEVEN” every damn TIME has me laugh so hard I almost swerve off the road because it comes out so LOUD and so SQUISHED TOGETHER, like she forgot to take a breath. So Thomasina sounds like a person for whom English is NOT her first language. And also a robot. She kind of sounds like this really early software on the first computer my parents owned where you could type things in and it would say them, but really choppily and in a funny weird robot voice, and my brother and I used to (of course, you’d have done the same thing) type in ALL THE DIRTY CUSSES to hear the computer say “effooque” because that’s how it pronounced the eff word, and also, if you typed in the letter “x” over and over and over it would kind of hiss out “kisskisskisskisskisskisskiss” like an insane sex-obsessed snake and this entertained my brother and me for HOURS. Listen, don’t even judge. This was pre-interwebs. We took our entertainment where we could get it. ANYWAY, therefore, her new name is Senorita Thomasina. I am madly in love with Senorita Thomasina, because she is the second funniest person in my car. (If you have to ask who the funniest person is, you can just suck it, because OBVIOUSLY it is me. I AM HILARIOUS IN A CAR. You don’t even know. I provide the BEST running commentary. I crack MYSELF up.) I sometimes use Senorita Thomasina when I don’t even need to just because she is so effing hysterical.

OH! Also, on that ancient computer, we had this matching game where you had to match things up and whoever matched up the most won a prize, and the prizes and the things written on the matching tiles were all spelled wrong. One was “a pet squirriel” and this was so, so funny. I can still make my brother laugh if I tell him I want a pet squirriel. And one was “a used toupe” and we were never sure if that was supposed to be toupee or maybe taupe, but a used taupe wouldn’t make a lot of sense, really. So probably toupee? But who wins a used toupee? There was also a Clue-like game where you put in the names of the people in this house, and one of them would be murdered, and you had to solve which of the other people did it. Which was awesome, because you of course put all your friends’ names in, and then one of them would be murdered, and if you were lucky, it was one of them you weren’t that keen on that day. The smart thing to do was to put in ALL YOUR ENEMIES. Then you never minded who got murdered. Ha! Good times! …and now you can see why I’m a total weirdo, because these were totally my formative years, spent making fun of how things were spelled on bootleg computer disk games and and making a robot voice cuss and killing off my middle-school enemies in knock-off Clue.

I think it’s pretty obvious I don’t have a point today. GIVE ME A BREAK IT IS MONDAY. So far today I’ve accomplished more than a human really should. I’m doing my best.

Oh, a crazy person called the answering service this weekend and first he said a little man was living in his stomach, and then he said he wanted to sue someone for stealing his pudding. TRUE FACT. I kind of have to say, I’d be pretty pissed if I had delicious pudding and someone ganked it. Pudding’s pretty sacred, yo. Also, two people cussed me out, one because I wouldn’t give her medical advice over the phone (because I…have a medical degree? I don’t know) and the other because I wouldn’t get in my car and hand-deliver her message to the person on-call, whose office was only a few miles away from our answering service. Um. That is not how the answering service works? We are not a COURIER service. Or the Pony Express. Or Kevin Costner in that movie where he was a dirty raggedy mailman. If the on-call doesn’t call us back for his or her messages, YOU HAVE TO WAIT. Sorry, lady. SO MAD. Even madder when she was all, “I WANT TO TALK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR” and I put her on hold and realized while she was yelling at me, the supervisor had left, and guess who the supervisor is after he leaves? Me. So I had to get BACK on the phone and be all, “Well! I AM the supervisor. So…I guess you ARE talking to my supervisor. I AM MY OWN SUPERVISOR.” (That’s kind of like being your own grandpa, only less incestuous.) This did not go over well.

Alright. It is lunchtime! I am going to eat a PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH! Because I am FULL OF THE CLASSY! Also because I forgot to make a lunch today and had to run around like looney this morning and that was the fastest sandwich to make. Happy day to you all! DO YOUR TAXES, YOU YAHOOS!

19 comments | posted in advice, America, busy, Capital Region, cars, crazy people, driving, government, Humor, Internet, Jobs, money, New York, rambling, random, technology, work

January 29, 2012

Oh golly! Gee, damn! (Or, how to watch a movie with Twitter and vodka)

By lucysfootball

So last night was Sarcastic Movie Night. Which you know, if you follow me on Twitter. You probably wanted to kick me in the head last night, actually, if you follow me on Twitter. SORRY. Sarcastic Movie Night! Only fun for people participating!

Here’s the genesis of Sarcastic Movie Night. I tweeted a while ago about whipped cream vodka, which I’d had in a mixed drink out one night with my friend C. The drink tasted like an alcoholic Dreamsicle, and was amazing. If I remember correctly, the food was not so amazing, but who cares! Alcoholic Dreamsicle! @lgalaviz and I started talking about whipped cream vodka, and she came up with the idea of how much fun it would be to watch a movie and make fun of it while drinking whipped cream vodka. WELL. I am never one to back down from a challenge. Well, no, that’s a lie, if the challenge is something like “I challenge you to climb a rope ladder” or something, I’ll back down. Effing moving-all-over scary rope ladders.

Choosing a movie was not easy. When choosing a movie for Sarcastic Movie Night, you have to choose a movie that everyone can make fun of, that no one has extremely strong positive feelings about, and that is readily available to everyone. This is only really a problem for me, since I am the only human left alive without Netflix. (SIGH, FINE, I will explain my aversion to Netflix. I don’t have any gaming systems and my computer’s a piece of shit and I can’t afford one of the boxes you need for your TV, therefore the streaming option is out for me. And I don’t have enough time to watch all the series and movies, and the one time I signed up for the free trial, movies sat unwatched for weeks watching me with their accusing DVD-eyes and I felt HORRIBLE. So I didn’t pay for it when the end of my free trial happened and it POOF went AWAY. Also, if you’re totally patient – and I am – you can get anything you want, pretty much, free from the library. And LISTEN. I love free, more than I love penguins.)

So we discussed and discussed, and @lgalaviz said she thought Breakfast at Tiffany’s would be a good idea. Now, I blogged about this before, but I HATE Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I know! Everyone loves this movie. It’s like on everyone’s short list as the best thing since kitten unicorn rainbows or whatever. But all I remembered is that Audrey Hepburn threw her cat (that she refused to name, argh) into the rain, and that Mickey Rooney played an Asian stereotype.

So @lgalaviz won out (mostly because she promised I could make fun of it) and we chose Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Now, at this point, we had talked about it on Twitter, and both had blogged about it, so TWO OTHER PEOPLE were interested. I KNOW. We’re totally inspirational. I mean, that’s like double the people we’d started with. Since everyone else has Netflix they just added it to their queues, but I had to either get it from the library (and you only get them for five days, and who knows when we were going to be able to match schedules to watch it?) or I could go online to buy it. And since I was pre-ordering the Bloggess’s book anyway, (by the way? Get your asses over there and pre-order this book and let’s get Jenny’s pre-orders up to like astronomical numbers, because I love her just about as much as any of my imaginary internet people and she deserves all the good things, and also, it’s going to be HILARIOUS) and needed to fill up my cart to meet the free shipping total (yeah, I hate paying for Amazon shipping, as mentioned, I LOVE FREE SHIT) I found it for $9 and purchased it. A MOVIE THAT I HATE. I’m totally committed to Sarcastic Movie Night.

Then I had to buy the whipped cream vodka. At the store, there were many choices. One of which was Swedish Fish-flavored vodka. I am not kidding. It was scary. I believe this might have confused @heinakroon who thought it was actually fish-flavored. However, like a mighty hunter, I stalked and murdered my prey. Or, found it on the shelf and brought it home. LIKE A BOSS.

FANCY.

Then we had to wait for Amazon to get their shit together and ship it to me, which took forever and a day because I foolishly ordered it with my pre-ordered book, and they were GOING to wait to ship it all together – IN APRIL – but then I went nuts and ordered three more books (by the way, who has too many books? That’d be me, thanks. But they were on SALE!) and then Amazon was all “FINE WE WILL SHIP ALL YOUR SHIT TOGETHER because you are AN OBSESSIVE SHOPPER DAMN” and I got it yesterday.

I'm already Siskel and Eberting this movie, before we even had movie night.

Then we set a time. 8pm! Saturday night! I work until 6 on Saturdays, so that worked out FINE. They wanted me to work late but I was all NO WAY SUCKERS. Sarcastic MOVIE Night. And they were all, whatever, Amy, I think you’re making shit up right now, and I was all NO I AM NOT.

So first I made a nice glass of whipped cream vodka. What did I mix it with? NOTHING. Why? I DIDN’T PLAN THAT FAR AHEAD. I know. I suck. See, all I had for mixers were fruit punch and cherry limeade? Those would be HORRIBLE with whipped-cream vodka. Right? Totally.

Um…whipped cream vodka…tasted like burning. Like barely whipped-cream flavored burning. This wasn’t going well at all.

BUT I SOLDIERED ON.

So! For our crew, we had @lgalaviz, @patrixmyth, @julierosesmk, and myself, and then @zippy219 (who didn’t have Breakfast at Tiffany’s but was watching Carrie and snarking at it WITH us, so she was participating IN SPIRIT, because she is AWESOME.) Then we had @lahikmajoe, who lives in Germany, and who was asleep. But we included him in EVERY SINGLE TWEET. Why did we do this? I have no idea. I don’t think he ever showed any interest in being involved in Sarcastic Movie Night. I think someone just started including him and he got swept away in the tide of tweets. So poor @lahikmajoe is waking up tomorrow to probably 200 or so tweets. SORRY, @lahikmajoe. WE MISS YOU WHEN YOU ARE SLEEPING.

(SIDE NOTE! @patrixmyth ALSO lives in Germany. However, he participated. I think this is because he is made of magic. Seriously, the man never seems to sleep. I’m in awe of him.)

Now, here was the first problem. Well, other than the fact that my father, who you KNOW thinks everyone online is a., imaginary, and b., a psychokiller, thought the whole plan was a trick to get me murdered. No, I’m not kidding. He said that the next thing my “imaginary friends” were going to ask me to do was to drink “Jim Jones Koolaid” and he hoped I didn’t do that. I told him I already had Koolaid in the cupboard so I was ready in case that plan was put into place and he didn’t think that was funny at ALL. So first I had to calm him down by explaining that watching a movie with people on Twitter while drinking whipped cream vodka was not, in fact, very dangerous, and it was more dangerous, probably, to go to a bar and pick up a stranger and have unprotected sex with them in a bathroom stall, and then he was all “WERE YOU PLANNING ON DOING THAT, TOO?” and I had to explain that no, I was NOT, actually, planning on doing that, it was just a COMPARISON, to show him that I could be doing things that were a lot scarier. This took a lot longer than I’d planned and almost caused me to miss Sarcastic Movie Night.

Back to the problem. Have you ever tried to coordinate four people starting a movie at the exact same time when you’re all in different places and times? It is not an easy thing to do. We were, on average, five minutes difference from each other all night. So one of us would be all “whoa, look at that hat” and the other one would be all “why is that person crying into a mirror” and no one was on the same scene in the movie, ever. I can’t imagine that any of us would be very good spies. You know how spies always have to synchronize their watches? We would not be good at that.

Also, it is VERY HARD to tweet and watch a movie at the same time. I think I missed important things. Like, at one point, everyone but me noticed that one person at a party was wearing a watch on her ankle. I didn’t notice this important plot point. I’m sure I was busy tweeting. The movie probably would have taken a very different turn for me if I had noticed an ankle-watch. Also, @patrixmyth noticed that at the end, Paul paid the cab driver, and I thought they just ran out of the cab without paying. It’s hard to pay attention to both a phone and a television at the same time.

Anyway. Sarcastic Movie Night was a grand success. Much hilarity was had; I would put tweets in here to show you how awesome it all was, but again, Twitter hates me and won’t allow me to put tweets into my posts yet, so you’ll just have to imagine how awesome it was. Because it WAS.

But here is what I learned, during Sarcastic Movie Night. YES, I learned something. I KNOW. It was like a Very Special Episode of Blossom, what with the learning.

Are you ready?

Breakfast at Tiffany’s isn’t as bad of a movie as I’d thought, the first time I watched it.

I KNOW.

Are there horrible things? YES.

Mickey Rooney’s racist landlord character is still the worst thing ever.

It's worse than this. He also used an offensive accent, and ran into things with his head.

“Moon River” is a very annoying song. “My huckleberry friend?” Give me a break. If someone called me their huckleberry friend, I’d poke them in the eye. Except for Doc Holliday in Tombstone. As previously stated, he can call me his huckleberry ANYTIME.

Holly Golightly’s character is flighty and doesn’t care much for others for most of the movie, and this is annoying. Characters who are so devil-may-care make me stabby. There are no CONSEQUENCES! Nothing matters but ME! Aren’t I CUTE! Look at my adorable WHIMS! Gag.

This is really a movie about two whores who fall in love, and I’ll fight you if you say otherwise. They might not be streetwalkers, but Paul and Holly are whores. They sleep with people in exchange for money. That’s whores.

“Sally Tomato” is a very stupid name for a gangster.

The scene where they pilfered from the five & dime was annoying, because I hate thievery. But then they wore these masks, which reminded me of that scene from The Shining that gives me nightmares, and THANKS A LOT BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S.

There is nothing cute about these masks. These are Manson-family-style masks.

Refusing to name a cat because you have issues with owning things because YOU are a wild thing that REFUSES TO BE TAMED and then throwing your cat into the rain isn’t cute, it’s animal abuse. You suck. Along the same lines, refusing to call someone by his given name, and calling him “Fred” throughout the movie, is not cute, it’s affected and annoying.

Paul telling Holly, “I love you! You belong to me!” was just about the worst admission of love, ever. I’m with her when she freaks out over this. Telling someone this is a lot like saying “I love you! I want to wear your skin like a cape!”

Their relationship is not doomed to end well. Neither of them has any money; she has very high-price tastes, and he seemed to have $50 to his name and be not-a-very-successful writer. I mean, love’s grand, but it doesn’t put tater tots in your belly at the end of the day.

HOWEVER.

The movie was gorgeous. Not just the costumes, or the actors (although they were) but the set design and dressing as well. And the city, of course. I love New York, and I can see how this movie made people want to visit it. New York is a character in this movie, for sure, and you fall in love with it (more than Hepburn or Peppard, actually – about as much as Cat – because it is blameless in the “I’m so CUTE!”-ness of the two of them.)

Audrey Hepburn was really, for a completely annoying character, just stunning. I mean, those costumes! And she’s just exquisitely beautiful. Look at her. I mean, just look. How can anyone, even me with my heart of stone, not be charmed by this?

I usually hate hats, but DAMN can she pull them off.

There aren’t a lot of photos where she doesn’t have that dumb cigarette holder that’s a mile and a half long that she kept setting shit on fire with and I refused to put a photo of her up here with that thing. Also, I like this hat.

Also, George Peppard. Can this guy ever wear a suit. Whoo!

Yes, I'm aware this scene wasn't in the movie. LOOK HOW HANDSOME. I couldn't resist.

If you only know Peppard from The A-Team, well, listen, he used to be Mad-Men handsome, I’m telling you right now. *swoon*

@lgalaviz was in love with the cars in the movie. I promised her I would make her a remixed version of the movie with only cars and card catalogs and dial phones and such. I don’t know how to do this, so it was an empty promise. The idea is sound, though. At one point, there was a red cab with fins. It made us happy. (Also, when they went to the library, there were card catalogs, which made me drool.)

For all the annoying pre-hipster hipsterism, there was some genuine emotion happening in the movie. I know. I even noticed it being all drunk on whipped cream vodka and making fun of it on Twitter.

I’m not sure what happened. I HATED this movie the first time around. This time, I actually didn’t mind it. I hated the things I listed above, but the beauty of the movie itself kind of won me over. Am I mellowing with age? Was it the vodka? Am I broken now? Was I broken the first time I watched it?

ANYWAY. Sarcastic Movie Night! A success!

Also, the whipped cream vodka progressively got less offensive. I mean, it never got GOOD. But I think it burned off the first layer of my tastebuds so it got less horrible to taste as the night progressed. I can’t say I went back for a second helping, though. (Oh, and by the way, who was the classy broad drinking it out of a commemorative theater coffee mug given to her by the cast of a show she’d worked on recently? That’d be ME. Yeah, I have no glasses appropriate for liquor-drinking. I thought it might eat through a plastic Tupperware tumbler. I KNOW, I AM THE CLASSIEST.)

This morning, @lahikmajoe wasn’t even mad he woke up to about 200 tweets (just another sign that he is my secret sibling) and I had the headache from hell for the first couple hours of being awake, THANK YOU WHIPPED CREAM VODKA. I’m sticking to magic wine from now on. Ugh.

We’ve chosen the next movie for Sarcastic Movie Night! Are you ready? I know you’ll want to join in, because it is sure to be MISS KITTY FANTASTICO. Ready?

Dun dun DUNNNN.

I haven’t seen this movie since 1996, and that was the first time (and only time) I saw it, and I was forced to watch it (along with the other two movies in the original trilogy) all in a row by the boy I was in love with at the time and I was SO TIRED and he kept saying “Come on, this is BRILLIANT” and I was all “I AM SO TIRED WHATEVER” and so I have this weird irrational hatred of all things Star Wars. But I have been assured I’m allowed to make fun of it if I want. Also, I suppose, if nothing else, I can drool over young Harrison Ford, right? RIGHT.

So this is how you watch a movie with Twitter and vodka and snarking. Aren’t you glad you know how? I know you are. You, too, can do this same thing with YOUR friends! Only, I’d avoid the whipped cream vodka. It seems like a good idea, until you’re actually drinking it. Trust me on this. I made that mistake so you don’t have to.

25 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in actors, actresses, advice, analysis, animals, annoying, cars, Cats, cell phones, characters, clothing, costumes, fashion, friends, Humor, Internet, judgments, love, movies, New York, opinion, pets, romance, Television, tips, Twitter

January 28, 2012

Upside: less likely to break your heart. Downside: so many papercuts, damn.

By lucysfootball

It’s come up a lot over the past few days who your top literary boyfriends are. First, Mandy blogged about it, and she and I have some similarities, because we are both awesome, of course. Then @nikkisticks and @thebooksluts both mentioned it on Twitter, and I’d link you to their tweets about it, but I STILL don’t have new Twitter (seriously, Twitter, I’m starting to feel like the last wallflower at the dance, here, what the hell? PICK ME DAMMIT I WORE MY PRETTIEST DRESS AND I’M TOTALLY SLUTTY) so they wouldn’t look right copy/pasted in. So I thought, you know what everyone loves? Literary boyfriends. They are HOT right now. They are the HOT THING.

Then Susie and I were talking about how we feel bad having literary crushes on characters who are in happy relationships. I’m in agreement with this. This is why when I go into a happy reverie about my literary boyfriends, I kill off their significant others. NICELY. I mean, I don’t have them PSYCHOKILLED or anything. Sheesh. Something nice. Like a nice cancer! Or whatever. Then they are free to be MY literary boyfriend, and we’re all happy. Well, probably the dead wife or girlfriend isn’t happy, but they’re dead, so their happiness is really inconsequential, now, isn’t it?

So, without further ado: my list of literary boyfriends. I looked online and a couple of these are, like, NO ONE’S literary boyfriends. So that means I get them all to myself, right? Right. Or it might mean I’m broken. Hard to say.

This is in reverse order. I’m saving the best for last. As you do.

Heathcliff – Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

I know he's bad for me. But look at him. How can you resist that?

I’m allowed one abusive, emo boyfriend, right? Right.

Listen, I’ve had a crush on psychopath Heathcliff since I was 13. I can’t leave him off. Even though I KNOW he’s bad news. So dark! So broody! So single-minded in his love for Catherine! So proud! So…um, yeah, kind of an abusive ass. I get that. I do. BUT HE LOVED HER SO MUCH YOU GUYS.

I know. I’m not overly proud of this one. All I can say is, I met Heathcliff at a very impressionable age when I thought “dark and twisty” equaled “good boyfriend material” and it’s warped me forevermore. Let’s just move on, shall we?

Steve Finn – Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite

They never made a movie. I know. It's one of my great regrets of the '90s. Here's the book cover.

Steve Finn is real in a book full of unreality. He’s messed up and he’s a little broken and he tries really, really hard to do the right thing, and he fails, sometimes, but he’s honest, and he’s proud, and he’s loyal to a fault. I’ve read this book more than a dozen times since I bought it before a long bus trip, spur of the moment, and every time, it’s like coming home to Steve. I want things to go well for him, just once. I want him to get the girl, to live a nice, if somewhat unremarkable life in the South, singing in bars, coming home to Ann. If he can’t have that, well, I’ll take him in. Hell, I like musicians.

Inigo Montoya – The Princess Bride by William Golding

I do like a saucy Spaniard who's good with his...sword. WHAT. What did you think I was going to say? You have a dirty mind.

I like how single-minded in his revenge plot Inigo is. I like how driven and loyal he is. I like how scrappy and serious he is. I like how courtly and regal he is. And, YES, it doesn’t hurt at ALL that he’s played by Mandy Patinkin in the movie. But he’s my BOOK boyfriend. And if you haven’t read the book, do yourself a favor and pick it up? You’ll be surprised, but it’s EVEN BETTER THAN THE MOVIE. And the movie’s fantastic. Go, go. But hands off Inigo. He’s mine.

Richie Tozier – It by Stephen King

Best TV movie casting ever. Total crush on both of these guys.

This isn’t creepy because I read this book for the first time when I was thirteen. So it’s totally not creepy pedophile time at all.

Listen, I have always been in love with the class clown. There is nothing, nothing, NOTHING sexier than the smart guy who can make me laugh. NOTHING. Seriously. First guy I ever had a crush on in the history of me? Class clown. Most disastrous relationships I’ve been in? The guy wasn’t funny, but I thought, “eh, maybe it’s not as important as I thought it was.” NO. It is TOTALLY important.

It also doesn’t hurt that Richie’s a ginger. Add ginger into class clown and intelligent? Total swoon-fest, sincerely.

SIDE NOTE: Mandy picked Bill from the same book, so we’ve decided we’re going to go on book double dates to the soda fountain. Awesome!

Gilbert Blythe – Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Remember when he called Anne "carrots?" Aw.

This is one of the book-boyfriends I feel badly about stealing from his lady. Because Anne and Gilbert were so damn perfect together! But Gilbert Blythe! One of my first book boyfriends! He was so in love with Anne! And he respected her BRAIN, you guys! He never wanted her to be a stupid, simpering idiot! He LIKED that she was intelligent, even back in the day when women weren’t encouraged to be intelligent!

A couple of years ago, I got to see Jonathan Crombie in a musical? And seriously, I almost DIED. I was in the same ROOM. As the guy who played GILBERT BLYTHE. I mean, I was pretty far away, so I could barely see him, but he totally sounded like Gilbert. Little pre-teen crushing Amy would have been SO PROUD of her adult-self!

Jaime Lannister – A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin

SHUT RIGHT UP. He is DELICIOUS.

Very few people had Jaime Lannister on their lists when I was scouring lists online. I assume this is because (spoiler alert, kind of, but if you haven’t read the first book or seen the miniseries yet, you probably should get on that, April first is coming quickly) he slept with his sister? Listen, I’m going to give you ANOTHER spoiler alert, but it’s sort of minor. You will, I guarantee you, see Jaime in a different light by the third book. Now, with the way Martin treats his characters, I can’t guarantee you that by the fourth book Jaime’s not eating puppy brains, or something, but I don’t know if it’ll matter. I am HEAD OVER HEELS for Jaime right now, damn. Also, the casting in the miniseries did not hurt one teeny tiny bit. Gulp.

Nick Andros – The Stand by Stephen King

I am...not in love with this casting choice. You take what you can get, I guess.

Nick, and his tortuously lonely backstory and his pride and his intelligence and his bravery and his delight at finally being accepted into a group and then his inevitable sacrifice – ugh. KILLED ME. Mostly because he was totally my book boyfriend pretty much from the get-go. Sure, there are some excellent characters in the book, don’t get me wrong. But it’s all about Nick and his black curls and his laughing eyes and his quick hands. None of which the miniseries got right, dammit.

Tyrion Lannister – A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin

I like this one because he looks HAPPY. I could make Tyrion happy.

You know he won me over when he said “I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples, bastards, and broken things,” right? Because I love all of those things? And then he sealed it with his “A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

I love that Tyrion keeps his head about him, even though everyone has counted him out and are, for the most part, laughing at him. I love his intelligence and his humor and his curiosity and the fact that he’s usually one step ahead of everyone else in the room and no one even has a guess. I love how bawdy and ribald he is. I love how deeply emotional he is. Also, it doesn’t hurt that he’s played by Peter Dinklage, who is just a handsome, handsome man. I can’t wait to see what he does with Season Two.

Aloysius Pendergast – The Pendergast novels by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

You have to use your IMAGINATION, yahoos.

OK, so after all my blathering and blah-blah-blah on and on and ON about it, you’ve all watched the BBC’s Sherlock and you’re in love, right?

Pendergast is the American BBC Sherlock.

He’s quiet and he’s brilliant and he’s kind of a recluse and no one really knows him and he solves these crimes no 0ne else can solve and he has this one great love, and one best friend, and oh, also, he’s SOUTHERN. And TALL. And BLONDE. And well-read, and intelligent, and…oh, sorry, think I might have been drooling a little. Sorry about that.

One of these books was made into a movie. THEY CUT HIS CHARACTER OUT. Yeah, I don’t know, either. Tom Sizemore was in the movie. I think it was pre-Celebrity Rehab. Probably best they left my man out.

Jamie Fraser – The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon

Sorry. I want a movie, too. SO BADLY. You have NO IDEA.

So I hate romances? Like, with a fiery passion? I mean, I don’t mind some romance in a book I’m reading. But I won’t read a straight romance novel, because they make me itchy and bitter and are usually written so badly it makes me want to scream.

Nope. Read this series, please. Because, Jamie Fraser. Who is my #1 of all time book boyfriend. Scottish. Tall. Ginger. Gentlemanly. Multi-lingual. Intelligent. Protective. Funny. Loving. Hard-working. Proud. TOTALLY THE SEXIEST YO.

Also, the sex scenes are so steamy and well-written you will totally blush WHILE YOU ARE IN YOUR LUNCHROOM, WITH OTHERS and that’s not at all awkward and weird AT ALL NOPE. Seriously. SO GOOD.

And yeah, I feel a little bad stealing Jamie from his wife, who he’s spent all this TIME and EFFORT getting back together with considering she’s from the future and all. But LISTEN. He is MY Scottish Highlander. I’ll totally fight Claire for him, no joke. WHEN AND WHERE, CLAIRE.

Happy Saturday! May your book-boyfriends (and/or girlfriends – I have three of these, too – Lyra Silvertongue from the His Dark Materials trilogy, Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the sequels, and Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, only I don’t so much want to make out with them but be their BFF and kick all the ass with them) treat you well!

18 comments | posted in actors, adaptations, Books, characters, crushes, lists, opinion, reading, romance, Stephen King, writing

January 27, 2012

“On this show, they solve murders real good.”

By lucysfootball

It’s Friday and I’m a frazzled human. Tax deadlines! Unruly hair times a million! All the filing! Listen, our office decided to go paperless a couple of years ago, which means I have to scan like every single piece of paper that comes into the office? And I’m sure Al Gore is all yay, Amy’s office? So you’d THINK that means there’d be less filing. NOSIREE BUB. There’s still hours of filing. And it isn’t ameliorated by the fact I put it off for days and days because I hate it like fire. LIKE FIRE. I always get some sort of super-spurty papercut when I file, it’s like a proven fact. Then I’m all “who has a Bandaid” and no one ever has a Bandaid and they’re all “boy you sure are bleeding” and I’m like “YES WOULDN’T BANDAIDS BE HANDY” and they just laugh. WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING I COULD BE DYING RIGHT NOW.

Also they’re painting our office right now. Which would be nice? Because the walls are currently a color that I’m sure someone sold them as “salmon” but really reads as “Pepto-Bismol”? But guess what color they chose. PUTTY. Could anything be more depressing than that? Only accountants would think that a better wall color choice than Pepto-Bismol pink is greige. They’ve actually had NUMEROUS meetings about this, and I heard one of them say, “I don’t know, that seems like a really bold color choice.” IT IS PUTTY COLORED. The only thing LESS daring would be to have the walls painted INVISIBLE colored.

So anyway, right now they seem to be in the “making a mess and prepping” stage where they putty all the holes we put in the walls (while tutting at us – no, seriously, the painters are going “tut!” while puttying over the holes, like we’ve personally offended them by putting up our calendars with tacks) and last night they pulled off all the baseboards for no apparent reason so the place is filled with what I’m sure is dangerous plaster dust and looks like rats were industrious while we were sleeping last night. Also, we’re all sneezing non-stop. So I’m pretty sure we’re all dying of black lung, right? Or maybe tuberculosis. Does that make me a lunger like Doc Holliday in Tombstone? Because if I could quip like him, that’d be alright. I embarrassingly love that movie more than almost anything. Like, it’s in my top ten. I KNOW SHUT UP. Also, in order to get in and out of my office today, I have no choice but to WALK UNDER A LADDER. I’m just waiting for them to tell me I also have to smash a mirror and for a black cat to come careening across my path to make this day totally break all the rules of luck.

ANYWAY! You totally get random crap Friday; I don’t have the brain power for anything else.

LeRoy hits the big time, baby! 

Remember I talked about the Crucible teens in the town where they claimed to have made Rough on Rats but probably that was a lie? WELL, my father informed me last night that Erin Brockovich is now launching an investigation into this, so apparently she doesn’t think it’s mass hysteria.

Now, my dad gets all his news from Fox News, so I always have to research things for myself to see if they’re actually true or not (I don’t even want to go into what happened the time Stephen King got into a fight with my dad’s hero Glenn Beck; let’s just leave it at there are certain things my father and I don’t discuss, because we love each other and they tend to get us very red-in-the-face and screamy, and most politics are on that list.) So I of course researched it and lo and behold! It is/TRUE!

Apparently there was a toxic chemical spill 40 years ago in LeRoy and this has Erin Brockovich all in Scooby-Doo mode. Guess what was spilled there? No, not arsenic. I know, I was so hoping there was a Rough on Rats correlation. Cyanide. What the hell’s going ON in LeRoy? Also, a BOY is now experiencing the mass hysteria symptoms. Aw, he didn’t want to be left out! Affirmative action mass hysteria, you guys!

I guess this is a big deal? I don’t remember a lot about that movie. I find Julia Roberts distracting. Too many teeth. So much hair. And her boobs were all sticking out for the whole movie. Mostly I was just watching it for Aaron Eckhart. SIGH. I love him like a crazy person. LOOK HOW HOT.

I would climb him like a damn tree.

I love him so much that even when he was being an asshat in In the Company of Men I adored him. Even as TWO FACE I adored him. Love, love, love.

Yeah, so anyway, I suppose now that Erin Brockovich is involved this is going to be a big old deal. I don’t know. I still think it’s shady and probably false.

Why my father is the funniest person I know

So my dad’s back from Florida. His plane got in last night. Here are some things he told me on the phone last night.

“Your uncle made us watch NCIS every single night while we were in Florida. Do you know why? Because he said ‘On this show, they solve murders real good.’ I told him that it’s just a show and they aren’t real murders and he started talking about DNA but I ignored him. Also, one of the actresses slept in a coffin. That seems like it would be uncomfortable.”

“I tried to watch Fox News when I was in one of the hotels but the channel it was supposed to be on was ESPN even though the channel guide CLEARLY STATED it was supposed to be Fox News. See? And you always say there isn’t a government conspiracy against Fox News.”

“We stayed in some hotels that I wouldn’t recommend you look in the corners of. Also, your uncle thinks there might have been bedbugs. I told him that we weren’t itching, so we’re probably ok, but he’s still planning on leaving his luggage outside in the snow overnight. I guess that kills bedbugs. He saw it on 20/20.”

“There was a good breakfast at the last hotel we stayed at but I didn’t eat anything in case I had to go to the bathroom on the plane. There were even sausages. But I didn’t eat any. Listen, you never want to go to the bathroom on a plane. Those bathrooms are really small and uncomfortable. You can barely turn around in there. I’m really dehydrated right now, though. I haven’t had anything to drink in like 24 hours.”

These things might not crack up anyone but me. Seriously, I was dying. It was like this one-man travelogue of awesome complaints of weirdness. I think he should write a book.

Could have DIED

So yesterday we had like a teeny, tiny bit of snow. Almost no snow. And so I drove home like a native New Yorker might – normally. Cautiously, but not, like, 12 miles per hour or anything. It wasn’t that bad out. There was about an inch of snow on the ground, and it was kind of slushy. That’s it.

BUT, since I had no food in the house but eggs and pasta and I was not HUNGRY for either of those things and I got paid yesterday (YES, some of us are SO POOR we have to wait til PAYDAY to grocery shop, I know, isn’t the economy grand?) I had to go grocery shopping, even though it was ZOMG LOOK OUT snowing.

So I did, then I drove home in the slightly snowy slushy conditions that were making people drive like it was a blizzard and I will, if I heavens-forefend live to be 100, never understand that.

Then I had to get my mail. My mail doesn’t come to my home; I have to go to the mailroom to pick it up. Because I am FANCY. So I pulled into the office parking lot AND TOTALLY WENT OFF THE DRIVEWAY ONTO THE GRASS.

The car did not stop! I was going about 10 miles per hour at that point and it wasn’t even that slippery out, I don’t know how there was ONE slippery spot in the entire WORLD and I found it, but yeah, I turned left, the car went right. And there was totally a signpost right there that the car was about to smack into. So I was all “shit shit SHIT SHIT” and then the car just stopped about an inch from the sign.

COULD HAVE TOTALLY DIED.

OK, probably not at all died but I could have scratched the shit out of my car.

I seriously have the worst luck when there’s like no snow on the ground, I have no idea what’s up with that. The other time I went off the road and hit a sign was in similar conditions. And that time I was also going very slow because I was coming up to a stop sign. Which I hit. It was either hit that or the car in front of me, and I didn’t think the stop sign would have asked for my insurance card and made me wait in the weather for a cop. I CHOSE WELL GRASSHOPPER.

When I told my dad I could have died he said, “You know, I sometimes get the feeling you might exaggerate for effect.” WHAT? NO NOT ME. I AM APPALLED AT THAT ACCUSATION GOOD SIR.

Come see me! IN PERSON!

My show opens in two weeks!

Look! PRETTY POSTER!

February 10-26, Fridays and Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 3, pay-what-you-will preview February 9 at 8. Tickets are $15, but if you are a state or government employee, they’re buy one get one free, or if you’re a student, they’re $10, or if you have an Entertainment book, they’re buy one get one on Sundays. Best deal in town! Neil Simon! Lots of comedy! People acting like looneys in evening wear! Adult beverage consumption onstage! Many doors being opened and closed! My awesome friend directed it and I love her more than almost anyone! Oh, also this is the play where they say, “They’re YOUR friends, Jesus.” I mean, that’s worth your price of admission, right there, isn’t it?

So I’m stage managing (so you KNOW it’s going to be stellar, obviously) and also running the light and sound boards. Which means I’m running around like a crazy pre-show, up in the booth during Act I, running around like a crazy during intermission, up in the booth again during Act II, and then cleaning up post-show. I have been promised we have plenty of hospitality staff this time so I don’t have to serve coffee or sell raffle tickets. Which is good, because listen, I am very, very bad at those things, I’m not even kidding. Come and see me! I will give you at least one hug, possibly two. It’s a fun show, and the actors and crew have been working their tailfeathers off, and I love them all to bits.

Also, heads-up, starting February 5, I’m going to be even MORE insanely busy than normal, because it’s tech week. Also known, if you are a theater person, as Hell Week. For good reason. Because you have rehearsal every night until 11 or so and you work your butt off and then you go to work and work your butt off and then it’s back to rehearsal and then you have a SHOW, with PEOPLE LOOKING AT YOU, and you’re so tired you kind of sometimes weep in the bathroom and maybe also yell at people who don’t 100% deserve it. But it’s totally worth it. Expect stories of tech week shenanigans!

OK, back to the insanity. LISTEN, I was totally not kidding about the unruliness of my hair. IT IS OUT OF CONTROL TODAY. Like, there’s this one poky bit and I’m pretty sure I look deranged. Although it might be keeping people away from me? So maybe it’s a good thing.

Happy weekend, everyone!

16 comments | posted in actors, Albany, busy, Capital Region, conversations, crushes, driving, family, famous people, Followup, Friday, friends, Humor, Jobs, random, scary, shopping, snow, Stephen King, Theater, weather

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