Sex & the Spoilers

There is so much to complain about in this movie I don't know where to start.

Oh wait - I do know where to start: with the STUDDED BELT. Because if you're going to have one wardrobe piece used repeatedly throughout a movie, it should by all means be a STUDDED BELT. Carrie wore hers FIVE TIMES. FIVE TIMES. A STUDDED BELT. Does that sound like a movie you want to see? I thought not.

Someone saw fit to add a woman of color to the movie. Unfortunately, the role was completely superfluous to the plot and Jennifer Hudson overacted the shit out of it. And how is it not offensive that the character was basically a servant? Saint Louise from St. Louis with her borrowed 'Louise' Vuitton. It was all a bit forced. Okay, more than a bit.

The little Chinese girl playing Charlotte & Harry's adopted daughter must have been someone's kid, because she sure as hell wasn't an actress. Is it funny that a 3-year-old answers the phone by saying, "Sex"? I want to find that clever, but it makes me feel kinda icky on the inside.

After all the years of waiting for Charlotte to be a mommy, there was no mommy storyline whatsoever. It's like the writers didn't know what to do with all these extra new characters.

There were precious few Sex-isms, those terrific one-liners that made the TV show so witty and fun ("Miranda's dating an overeater, and he overate her."). Seriously, there were like, two. And one of them was a joke about someone shitting their pants. Ho ho. Funny stuff there.

Speaking of forced, there were several gratuitous scenes of naked male behinds. I'm sure some of you can appreciate that. But they were just thrown in for no apparent reason. I seem to remember it all being a little more natural and organic when it was on tv.

Also didn't love:

• the Fergulicious soundtrack
• the lack of lines for any straight men
• SJP's bony-ass body, all muscles and veins popping out (eww)
• wardrobe choices that didn't even make any sense, like when the girls came over to help Carrie pack up her apartment...in their designer dresses & high heels, or when the four of them went to dinner at their Mexican beach resort...in long dresses (above).

And let's not forget: the bride-of-Frankenstein bird in Carrie's hair (we've all seen the photos).

There were some decent performances. Most notably: Carrie's very dramatic meltdown and Miranda's bitterness at all she gave up for the sake of her marriage.

If you loved, loved, loved the tv show and desperately want to sit through an episode that's been painfully stretched out into two hours, this movie is for you.

If you feel compelled to clap when the theme song plays at the beginning of the movie, you will probably love it no matter how slowly the middle drags on.

If you always wanted more than anything else in the whole entire world to see Carrie & Big live happily ever after, then this is probably the series finale you were hoping for.

Sex Poll

Friday is not only my 15th wedding anniversary (crystal is traditional, in case you were considering a nice gift of Swarovski), but possibly THE most-awaited film opening ever by designer-skyscraper-wearing women as well.

I'm...uhh, ambivalent about this movie. Sorry, I'll give you a minute to wipe the coffee off your monitor. I have gone on record about my feelings about SATC. I did love it for a time, and I think it served its purpose. But I reached a point where I had to break up with the New York nookie. It's not you, SATC, it's me.

I've seen the pictures from the set of the movie, and frankly, when the "fashion" becomes more Bjork than BCBG, then watching it no longer interests me. If I'm not going to love what I see, then it's no fun watching.

Which leads to the characters. Who I don't hate. But there really is just that one burning question, right? Involving Big. And a ring. But I think the real question is:

WHO SHOULD CARRIE HAVE MARRIED?

A) Big

B) Aleksandr

C) Aidan

D) Miranda

Cross-Marketing

**Read about my strange adventure on the road last week here.** My confidence in the future of humankind has just been knocked down a couple notches.

The Year of the Rat ends in January

I ordinarily don't talk much about politics here, because I know readers come from all sorts of backgrounds and have all sorts of views. But I am so fed up and so disgusted I just can't stand it any more.

I told Elijah during Bush's first term, "He will go down in history as one of our worst presidents ever." And I had no idea at the time how bad it would get.

Bush is the lowest of the low - a war profiteer. And as the price of gas keeps going up and up and up, all I can think of is that more and more and more money is going in his pocket.

To make matters worse, he's the one WHO STARTED THE WAR. So he's not just profitting from it, he created the damn thing so he (& his vp) COULD profit from it.

Never mind all the lives that have been lost. Never mind that we're more hated around the world now than we were even on 9/11. I'm pissed off about what the war - and the price of oil - has done to our economy. About all the jobs lost as a direct result of the high cost of oil. I'm pissed off about all the lives he's ruined.

I hope he rots in hell for what he's done.

/rant

Another Question

What time is an appropriate summer curfew for an almost-15-year-old-technically-a-sophomore-now boy with a social calendar to rival hollywood celebutantes?

Question

Let's say you're the husband. And you discover that your wife bought a can of carpet shampoo. Do you assume :

A) That she bought it with the intention that you dick around and waste almost the entire can trying to spot-clean the living room carpet?

Or do you assume:

B) That she had other intentions, say...TO SHAMPOO THE CARPET???

I'm just asking. Not that this happened at my house or anything.

That's the definition of IRONY

The job hunt is going well, thanks for asking. My old, old job (2 jobs ago) wants to contract with me to do some work for them. Which is great b/c it gives me a little elbow room, to have some $$ coming in while I search for my next dream job.

I've also had about six thousand interviews at a Fortune 500 company in town. I filled out the 38-page application, had my 2-hour psychological evaluation. Things were looking good.

Then they told me that they have a very strict no-freelancing policy. Which broke my heart. Because my freelancing is something I'm hoping to develop and grow, not something I'm ready to give up.

So I told them that this job must not be for me. And they said 'Well wait a minute. Come back in and let's talk about it.' So I did.

And I've spent the last week or so defending and fighting for my right to write.

Meanwhile, I can't come up with a single damn topic for a blog post.

Libraries, Books and Writing

OK, I want to know about this secret back room at the library.

Every time I go to my local branch, I look up some books on the online catalog. Books that I find listed as "on the shelf," I go in search of. This is how you use a library, right?

And invariably, the book's not there. On the shelf.

So I go up to the Information desk. And I say, "Hi. I'm looking for this book, and the computer says it's on the shelf, only I can't find it on the shelf."

I mean, it's fiction. It's shelved alphabetically by the last name. Not like there's any complicated decimal system to contend with or anything.

And the librarian asks me the name of the book, and of course it's something completely embarrassing, like Gods in Alabama which may not be embarrassing in YOUR library but keep in mind that I live in the big silver buckle of the Bible belt.

She'll raise an eyebrow at me like I asked for a book on Wican rituals and says, "GODS in Alabama?" Yes, I confirm. GODS IN ALABAMA. Do I need to write it down? Or spell it?

She looks it up in her computer, which I'm guessing gives her some kind of secret insider information that's not available on the germ-laden public PCs.

And she says to me, "It's probably in the back." And she gets up, goes in the back and comes out with my book.

Happens every time. So I'm just wondering what this back room is exactly and WHY ARE ALL MY BOOKS BACK THERE?

This week I checked out two books that I've only read once and wanted to re-read - All Over but the Shoutin' and A Confederacy of Dunces.

I also found an Augusten Burroughs I hadn't read - Possible Side Effects. Or I don't know - maybe I did read this before. But if you're going to re-read a book because you were too drunk the first time, none better than Augusten's.

You want to know why I love Augusten Burroughs so? Because he writes sentences like this:

“And with these words – I don’t think you’re supposed to be aware of your own heartbeat – this unknown woman in a burnt orange poncho doomed me to a life of pathological overawareness of my own cardiac activity.”

That right there is just fucking brilliant writing.

In the chapter "The Wisdom Tooth," Augusten & Dennis go on vacation and stay at an inn owned by a doll collector. It is CLASSIC.

In the chapter "Locked Out" he talks about becoming a writer. And it is so powerful, I have to keep going back and peeking at it bit by bit. Like a kid who's found a porno mag.

"And it was so clear to me what I was doing. It was suddenly perfectly clear.

I understood, I need to write. Live here, in my words, and my head. I need to go inside, that's all. No big, complicated difficult thing. I just need to go in reverse.

And not worry about what to write about, but just write. Or, if I'm going to worry about what to write, then do this worrying on paper, so at least I'm writing and will have a record of the anxiety...

And as soon as I saw this life, I realized I was making it more complicated than it needed to be. I didn't need to move to a small college town [or beach house. or French countryside.]. I could just begin writing, right now. Here, in my hovel...

By the seventh day I had written a book. At least, I thought it might be a book. It contained one hundred and fifty pages and they were in order. That's more than a monkey could do.

I called it Sellevision."

New Posts

Friday Five is up at iDiva. Go over there and honor your mother.

Also, someone twittered the other day asking how important is an About Me page on a blog? Do you go to it and read about the person when you visit a new blog? I said that I did, but then thought, "Hey, do I even HAVE an About Me page?" And it turned out that I didn't.




So now I do. ==================>>>

The ongoing shopping dilemma

Remember last summer when I looked all over Chicago for a yellow dress and couldn't find one anywhere?

Yeah, well, as usual, you can't stroll the mall this season without being completely molested by yellow dresses.

Like THIS ONE.

And THIS ONE.

And THIS ONE.

Also HERE

HERE

And HERE

Shall I GO ON?

Because I have MORE

OK, you probably get the message. And while I still kinda want a cute yellow dress to go with my red shoes, I have a new search now.

Yellow shoes.

Which I imagine will be all the rage next year.

Guilty Pleasures sure beat Innocent Miseries

I have a guilty pleasure and it is this: television shows about spoiled rich teenagers.

90210, The OC, Gossip Girl. I can't explain it really. I like to watch for fashion ideas, but I also really care about the characters. OK, that may be overstating it a bit. I get sucked into their lives and I like to watch. And that's the whole point of a guilty pleasure, isn't it? That I know it's crap and I like to watch anyway?

I actually never watched 90210 when it was in primetime. I either thought I was just old enough to poo-poo it, or I had a small baby and wasn't watching a lot of TV at the time. Either way, I've more than made up for it in syndication. I'm pretty sure I've seen every single episode by now thanks to FX and SoapNet. And can I just say, the fashion choices in the first several season are prittt-teeee adventurous. Baby doll dresses with combat boots were actually some of their more conservative outfits.

Nice vest, Vanilla Ice.

Now, The OC - that was really a good show. (The first season was, anyway.) That was a show that the three of us could agree on and watch as a family. It had smart writing, more pop culture references than you could shake a Star Wars light saber at, and Christmukkuh. Oh, how we loved Christmukkuh in our interfaith household! It was brilliant! If The OC had been on when I was a teenager, I TOTALLY would have had posters of Seth Cohen on my wall.

Seth is feeling a little smug because he has Jesus AND Moses on his side.

The fashion was high, but not very daring. (Except for that stupid hat Marissa wore that one time with the green bow. That wasn't just daring, that was suicidal.) You wouldn't get a lot of style inspiration watching The OC unless you were wondering which Chanel handbag would be hot this season.

Marissa Cooper gives new meaning to the word "bowhead."

The OC didn't last as long as 90210 (only four seasons) but you could argue that it burned brighter and therefore burned out faster. When Brenda and Dylan had sex for the first time, it caused a huge uproar that high school students were having sex on TV. It was shocking and the cause of many media debates. On the flip side, kids were smoking, drinking and having sex in hot tubs in the pilot episode of The OC. Whooosh! Like dry paper, baby.

Now we've got Gossip Girl, where private high school teens meet at Upper East Side hotels for cocktails. The fashion is stylish but classic, with pretty party dresses, headbands and not a bare midriff in sight. Finally, style icons with classic elegance rather than their ass hanging out.

The girls of St. Jude's discuss how tights, headbands and colorful jackets can make their uniforms more stylish.

To further illustrate my point, here is what the swimsuits looked like on 90210:



And here's what they look like on Gossip Girl:


The storylines are typically teen-soap but the fashion is always a ratings success. Light-colored dresses with dark tights were a popular look on the show this winter, one that I really liked and adopted for myself.

This is how Upper East Side teens dress for brunch. On the menu is cheating with a side of blackmail.

GG has its work cut out for it, going up against HIMYM (which admittedly, that show is awe...wait for it...some.) But I'm telling ya, it's the most stylish show you're not watching.

Wonder Years

A friend sent me this in an email saying "You might recognize some of these..." It brought back so many memories I had to post it here.

IF YOU WERE A LITTLE GIRL IN THE 70s...
You owned a bicycle with a banana seat and a plastic basket with flowers on it.

You learned to skate with actual skates (not roller blades) that had metal wheels.
Man, my friend Rachel Tsuchitani & I lived on skates just like that.

You thought Gopher from Love Boat was cute (admit it!).

You had nightmares after watching Fantasy Island.
I have to admit, it did freak me out a little bit.

You had either a 'bowl cut' or 'pixie', not to mention the 'Dorothy Hamill' People sometimes thought you were a boy.
Mine was more of a pageboy than a bowl cut. But I did have a pixie. And dude, what about the SHAG?














You had rubber boots for rainy days and Moon boots for snowy days.

You owned a 'Slip-n-Slide' , on which you injured yourself on a sprinkler head more than once.

You owned 'Klick-Klacks' and smacked yourself in the face more than once.
I don't know what these are?

Your Holly Hobbie sleeping bag was your most prized possession.













Mine was actually a Raggedy Ann sleeping bag, but I did have a Holly Hobbie lunchbox that I thought was pretty cute.

You wore a poncho, gauchos, and knickers.
Yes, yes and yes. Sorry, no photos.

You begged Santa for the electronic game, Simon.
Never got it either. But I did get a Baby Tenderlove that drank a bottle and peed.

You had the Donnie and Marie dolls with those pink and purple satiny shredded outfits, or the sunshine family.
Oh. Emm. Gee. YES! THOSE EXACT OUTFITS!!

You spent hours in your backyard on your metal swing set with the trapeze. The swing set tipped over at least once.
Funny story: I drove past the skeleton of an old metal swing set the other day and said to Elijah, "Look at that old swing set!" He swore up & down that couldn't possibly be a swing set. Apparently he's never seen a metal swing set.

You had homemade ribbon barrettes in every imaginable color.
This was kind of more of an 80s thing...?

You had a pair of Doctor Scholl's sandals (the ones with hard sole & the buckle).
And I bought them because the ad said they would give me shapely legs.

You also had a pair of salt-water sandals.
Don't know what these are.

You wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder really bad; you wore that Little House on the Prairie-inspired plaid, ruffle shirt with the high neck in at least one school picture; and you despised Nellie Oleson!
Dude, I had a whole trunkful of LH dresses, aprons and bonnets and we insisted on calling our parents "Ma" and "Pa."

You wanted your first kiss to be at a roller rink!
I did, but alas, it was not to be so.

PONG 'video tennis')was the most remarkable futuristic game you've ever heard of.

Your hairstyle was described as having 'wings' or 'feathers' and you kept it pretty with the comb you kept in your back pocket. When you walked, the 'wings' flapped up and down, looked like you were gonna 'take off'
Valerie Bertinelli was my hair idol.

You know who Strawberry Shortcake is, as well as her friends, Blueberry Muffin and Huckleberry Pie.
Huckleberry was the boy, right?

You carried a Muppets lunch box to school and it was metal, not plastic. With the thermos inside some were glass and broke the first time you dropped them.
I actually remember when they came out with the new and improved unbreakable thermoses with no glass. It was like freaking sliced bread.

You and your girlfriends would fight over which of the Dukes of Hazzard was your boyfriend.
And also over Johnny and Roy on "Emergency!"

YOU had Star Wars action figures, too!
I didn't. But I knew some girls in my class who did.

It was a big event in your household each year when the 'Wizard of Oz' would come on TV. Your mom would break out the popcorn and sleeping bags!
Uhh, no. My mom was completely freaked out by that movie. I never even saw it until I was a Senior in high school and away on a choir trip.

You often asked your Magic-8 ball the question: 'Who will I marry: Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett, or David Cassidy?'
It was my friend Lisa Green's 8 ball, actually.

You completely wore out your Grease, Saturday Night Fever, and Fame soundtrack record albums.
Lisa & I drove our parents absolutely up the wall acting out all the song & dance numbers from Grease. We totally had no idea it was all about S-E-X.

You tried to do lots of arts and crafts, like yarn and Popsicle-stick God's eyes, decoupage, or those weird potholders made on a plastic loom.

You made Shrinky-Dinks and put iron-on kittens on your t-shirts!
I had a shrinky-dink charm bracelet. Classy, I know.

You used to tape record songs off the radio by holding your portable tape player up to the speaker.
Ha! Yeah, I did.

You had subscriptions to Dynamite and Tiger Beat.
Not subscriptions, but I did beg for them at the store. Especially if it promised a fold-out poster of Shaun Cassiday which was like, every issue.

You learned everything you needed to know about girl issues from Judy Blume books. (Are you there God? It's me, Margaret.)
And boy issues, too.

You thought Olivia Newton John's song 'Physical' was about aerobics.
Yeah, that's another 80s one. By 14, I got all the horizontal references.

You wore friendship pins on your tennis shoes, or shoelaces with heart or rainbow designs.
Nope. 80s.

You wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer.
We actually made fun of the Solid Gold dancers. And watched religiously every week.

You drowned yourself in Love's Baby Soft - which was the first 'real' perfume you ever owned.
My sister had Love's Baby Soft. I had Charlie. "There's a fragrance that's here today, and they call it - CHAR-LEEE"

You glopped your lips in Strawberry Roll-on lip-gloss till it almost dripped off. I absolutely did. I can only imagine now how gross that must have been.

Another movie review

I rented Atonement though I'm not altogether sure why I did.

It's taken me forever to realize it, but I read this book. I can't be sure if I finished it though. Surely that's because it was too fucking slow for human consumption.

(Big Daddy came in at one point and, seeing the scene on the TV, asked me if much of the movie was about war. I nearly laughed at him. Since there is seriously no action in this movie.)

But there is this: A girl who wears her hair in the same childlike bob for her entire life. And a musical score that incorporates noises from the film, such as typewriters clicking, balls bouncing and guns firing. And Keira Knightley speaking so quickly that I had to turn on the subtitles to understand her. Even though it turns out that all she really ever says is, "Come back. Come back."

Oh, and apparently you can atone for completely and utterly ruining people's lives by simply writing the truth in a book at the end of yours, as long as you create a fictitious happy ending for them this time. I'll have to keep that in mind for future reference.

You know what? I AM IRON MAN

There are any number of reasons why I don't go to movies with my boys. For starters, we don't like the same movies and it seems kind of silly to blow 10 bucks to sit with them in a darkened theater and not be at least partially entertained. Also, there's that whole thing I have about being surrounded by the unwashed masses and HOW MUCH THEY FUCKING ANNOY ME.

But, I told Big Daddy that I wanted to go see 'Iron Man' because I'd heard that it has a smart and funny script and OMG everyone is talking about how good it is and how it's going to make $100 mil this weekend and I thought he'd get a kick out of me saying I wanted to go see an action flick with him.

(Elijah opted not to go. He was waiting at home for a UPS delivery of his new airsoft gun. In fact, he texted me from school and asked if I would check him out if his gun came! Do I LOOK LIKE the kind of mom who would check you out of school because your GUN CAME?? How does he not know me better than that by now?)

So we went to the 6:30 show because we figured earlier would be better and we got there and sat in front of the most annoying motherfucker who was talking nonstop (seriously dude, take a breath already) about the most mundane details of his job - like describing in detail opening each box and pulling out each air purifier or some such shit. I thought we were going to have to move. And I'm so weird about that. To go into a theater, sit down, and then get up and move. Because it's obvious that you're moving because of the people around you. Which we totally would have been.

Anyway, the theater is getting fuller and fuller and it is getting SO LOUD in there. Big Daddy tried to tell me a story about something that happened on his trip this week and I thought I would run screaming from the theater. I had to put up my hand and say, "Please, I can't follow this right now, it's just so loud in here." and then he was all, "What is wrong with you? When you were talking to me last night on the cell phone you said it was too loud." Actually, I told him that on TWO calls while he was gone. There was so much background noise in the phone that I couldn't hear what he was saying. It's like my hearing is getting particularly acute as I age and I am completely ill-equiped to deal with it.

ANYWAY, (the movie was far better at staying on point than I am.) it was indeed smart and funny and except for the whole crazy-guy-tries-to-get-his-hands-on-a-weapon-so-he-can-take-over-the-world plotline (which, I'm pretty sure all superhero movies have one of those), it totally KICKED ASS. And it had a kick-ass ending, too, and you know endings are seriously important to me. A mediocre book (or movie) with a kick-ass ending will totally notch my review up a star. BAM!

Robert Downing Jr was so snarky and funny and not at all the actor you'd expect to be cast as superhero. Terrance Howard is in it, and he can pretty much do no wrong. And that guy from 'Old Christine'? Also in it. And, since I'm a credit-watcher, I know that the director of the film actually played 'Hogan' in the film. I have no idea who 'Hogan' was, but if you're going to see the movie, keep an eye out for him.

Would it still be harassment if I wore daisy dukes and a tube top then?

So, Hannah Montana's "Pretty Baby" photo has kind of overshadowed it, but you know there's another ongoing celeb controversy: Lowes v. The Nannies. Heeeey, someone should make that into a reality show! It's threatening to drag out at least until next season.

First, there was one nanny, who said she suffered from sexual harassment on the job. Then another former nanny popped up to corroborate the first nanny's story. Then I guess the Lowes countersued for breaking a confidentiality agreement or something. Which, I mean, it's not like they wrote a book for pete's sake. Is coming forward with claims of sexual harassment really breaking a confidentiality agreement? Like the contract said, "You're not allowed to talk about things that go on behind closed doors, like if Mr. Lowe STICKS HIS HAND DOWN YOUR PANTS."

I don't know enough about the details to take sides on all this. And I sure did like Rob Lowe on "The West Wing." But my question is this:

One of the nannies' main complaints seems to be that Mrs. Lowe walked around naked. They're calling that sexual harassment. What do you think? If you hire someone to work in your home, are you then restricted with what you can wear (or not wear), as that is now a work environment? Because I'm thinking I should be able to walk around naked in my own house if I want to.

What say you?