Wowza. Someone turned the dial all the way up to crazy last night. So... this story has hella long backstory, but it's worth it.
Anyway. I'm on the Twitter. I also like to eat lunch. So if you use key words in your Tweets (boobs wang penisy), people can find you and follow you. So there's a certain restaurant that started following me. It sounded good, so I went to get food from there. I had a little trouble finding the place, had to pass by a homeless dude masturbating TWICE to get there, but fuck it all, I was determined.
I got there, the guy behind the counter gave me a free cookie and a wink. My, how flattering!
Got back to the office, tweeted the Homeless Diddler story and Thanks for the Cookie to said restaurant.
Suddenly, I had a new follower! It's the cashier. Hey, no problem. Seemed nice. Seems nice in DM's (that's Direct Messages, for the Twitter uninitiated). We flirt via DM for a day or two over the weekend, because that's what the kids do nowadays.
Last night, the Twitter is all up in arms about how hot it is. Said restaurant is very excited about the heat. I am not, and decide to tell them so, which starts the DM frenzy with cashier guy again. The following is cut and pasted from my DM feed. Names and avatars have been deleted using my mad photo editing skillz to protect the pervy.
***BIRV YOGA BREAK***
Tick Tick
Tick tick tick
Tick Tick Tick Tick
BOOM
So. YEAH. I have a kitty in my pants and baby talk and free food is all it takes to get to see it. Meow.
I recognize that I could have ended the conversation sooner, and that this is what some may view as an utterly misguided attempt at flirtation (REALLY, though??). Here's the thing. You've probably read some of my previous posts, and most likely, you know me personally. I'm a robustly foul-mouthed girl, and I have ZERO problem with dirty talk, texts, photos multimedia, smoke signals blahhhhh potato. However, I usually like that sort of messaging to happen some time after the "So, do you like dogs?" level of conversation. Or when our actual real life interaction is something more than me giving you my lunch order.
Questions, yeah sure. I'll answer questions. I wear panties. I've had sex before. However, I can't remember what your face looks like. Let's not start dog-earing pages of the Kama Sutra just yet.
PS, when you intimate that you're predicating our dating success on the answer I give to how many times I'll fuck you during a week, I lose faith in men as a species and crawl into bed and imagine that Neil Patrick Harris is straight and wouldn't ask me how wet my pussy gets before asking my last name.
Awesomely, as I've been cobbling this post together, "My Heart Will Go On" has been playing on the radio. Sheer fucking poetry, I tell you.
What are you a part of that brings you joy? If something makes you happy in an otherwise mundane existence, does it matter what other people think about it?
Between texts with BFF (IF YOU DON’T LIKE THIS SHOW YOU AREN’T MY FRIEND ANYMORE!), I couldn’t stop squealing with delight over how much I loved this show.
So much happened in the pilot of Glee that it felt much longer than an hour. Songs! A capella interludes of classic music (you haven’t lived until you’ve heard Quincy Jones’ "Soul Bossa Nova" Glee style)! Jane Lynch, pitch perfect as the hyper-competitive cheerleading coach, yelling about hepatitis!
Potentially cliché characters are given depth and humanity. Rachel Berry, a would-be starlet with all the Machiavellian eagerness of Election’s Tracy Flick, is given a background shown during her audition solo, “On My Own” from Les Mis. As her star-quality voice rings out, the audience sees just how unpopular Rachel really is- cyberbullied, drinks thrown in her face, spending more time on MySpace than with real people. Finn, a fresh-faced jock (that TOTALLY would have been my freshman year crush from afar) reveals that he’s so eager to please everyone because he watched his mother’s heart get broken time and time again.
Storylines are real- setting up an early flirtation between the upstanding family-man/Spanish teacher/Glee Club chaperone Will and Germophobe/Nutritionist Emma will surely add weight to what could have been a flighty teen series.
This is so much more than a “musical”. All I can say is when it comes out fully this fall, you better watch it, or we may have to have a talk about our friendship.
This show may even bring back a Cubs fan’s affection for Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'”.
PS- Since this IS Fonzipan, I couldn't NOT post a little Amy...
These aren't photoshopped. I can't decide if I would rather they were, or to know that the stylist spent FOUR HOURS of his life on each horse.
According to the Daily Mail, it's all advertising photographer Julian Wolkenstein's fault:
Julian hit on the idea of experimenting with horses' hair during a chat with a fellow advertising pal. 'The idea for these images came from a discussion with a friend who said, 'Hey wouldn't it be fun to shoot horses with big hair?',' says Sydney-born Julian, 36. 'It is important to do personal projects just for fun, not to sell anything, but just to remind you why you make images, but mostly, and simply, to make you smile.'
I'm hoping there's more than three... humor comes in numbers here.
Before I get to reviewing the 5 minutes of Howie Do It that I could stomach last night, I have to point out this link to Local Restaurants.org... that for some reason has my blog linked to a review of South Side Diner in Toms River, New Jersey. I've never been to Toms River, and certainly never eaten at the South Side Diner, but I figured, why the hell not? I'll give them a review.
The South Side Diner in Toms River, New Jersey is filled with a delicious take on traditional diner fare. Francheezies, Tuna Melts and Coleslaw come cheap and tasty at this local Atlantic City hot spot. Come for the food, stay for the pie, and try the best damn cup of coffee this side of the Hudson. Go South Side Diner!
Here's their address: 380 Dover Road Toms River, NJ 08757, and their phone number (732) 341-4410. After this stellar review, you'll be sure to need a reservation.
My weight is a battle I am ever waging. I have a vision that the day my thighs drop the saddlebags and the jiggling of my upper arms no longer causes the butterfly effect, I will magically meet any one of my imaginary boyfriends (Lee Pace, I'm looking at you tonight), and he will fall in love with me instantly, from across a crowded room. Naturally, as we're walking towards each other, eyes alight with finding our soul mate in each other, a giant, many-tentacled alien will destroy the planet. Such is my luck.
Wait, where was I? Oh right... I'm fat. Anyway, I've been hanging with the peeps at Jenny Craig lately, and have been losing some weight. Yay! The downside, people have eyeballs. When people notice things, they love to talk about the things they notice. Somehow, in the Great American Lexicon of Poor Manners, I missed the chapter that a change in your appearance becomes an open invitation to random passersby to dissect your personal style.
I am completely flabbergasted by the nerve of my co-workers- indeed, some people with whom I have NEVER spoken- to come up to me and discuss not only my weight, but my hair (color, cut, whether I wear it up or down), my makeup (my particular favorite was being called "dewy, but too heavy on the eyemakeup"), whether I look better with glasses or contacts, the clothes that I wear, the collection of shoes under my desk, what I eat ("is that Jenny approved?" Who knows? Keep working on those curly fries). It's like working on a noticeable flaw gives people carte-blanche to point out everything that is wrong with you. Settle down people, I'm rehabbing the kitchen, not rebuilding the house.
Throughout these overweening conversations, I inexplicably find myself dumbstruck, smiling and trying to explain my fashion choices to my meddling turkey of a conversant. Why of course I DO look better with my hair down. You're right, I should go and buy hairdye tonight! Better yet, I'll do it at lunch!
It's only after these overfamiliar exchanges have taken place and the intrusive peck has walked away from my desk that I feel the sting of the back-handed insult buried in there.
It brings me to ask, if this is you with a filter, what are you really thinking? However, I often wonder whether or not people really do have a filter when it comes to situations like this. People genuinely think they are being helpful, and tact doesn't come into play when giving unsolicited advice. People blurt out whatever alights on the gentle breezes of their minds.
For all my self-righteous indignation, I'm no exception. I am an overly-opinionated bossy boots with enough knowledge to talk about anything, and abounding gall to fake what I don't know. So where does this verbal diarrhea come from? Why do we feel compelled to say whatever is on our minds about how others live their peaceable existences, without any regard for what is likely a carefully thought out personal choice?
Simple- we always think we're right. It is human nature to judge others by our own pushy, self-assertive life code. It is inconceivable to think that others live by an equally effective, though disparate set of choices/values/plans. This is the delicate eggshell-thin construct of our own EGO. We are constantly checking the mental checklist of our life (choices, actions, experiences) against those of other people. Are we normal? Are we appropriate? Are we right?
Deep down, I know that most people don't have vicious intentions when scrutinizing every aspect of my being. For most, it is a message of solidarity, their way of showing that they are supportive of my lame attempts at self-improvement. I just wish that I could be going through rehab or something less noticeable... maybe then Joyce would keep her hands to herself and not pull the top of my shirt up: "You're a pretty girl. You don't need to rely on your tits. Cover those up."
phew!! I am exhausted. This November has been the social season I never thought I'd have in my life. Two weddings, three plays and operas, getting stood up by Pseudograndma, Twilight/BFF extravaganza, Thanksgiving and two birthdays, all crammed into four little weeks. To top it all off, I am, yet again, sick as a dog and can't hear a bloody thing... stupid head cold. My neighbors probably hate me, because I am listening to my TV at top volume.
SPEAKING of which, yes, I did get cable this weekend. Is it hypocritical of me, after railing against it for so long, to be mildly disappointed that I didn't really get more channels? I was starting to become excited by the idea that I would have BBC America and Cartoon Network. However the only channels I seemed to have picked up with my new "cheap as it can get" cable package are MSNBC and TBS. I was more than a little disappointed to realize that I have a TV lineup that now includes cyclical showings of Tim Allen in The Santa Clause and Jungle 2 Jungle.
Oh well. I spent all of yesterday catching up on my Tivoed network shows from the last week, and it took most of the day, so I suppose that I have enough to go on. Plus, joy of joys... my new Tivo records two shows at the same time! Gossip Girl and Chuck, there is equality among you!
Only four more episodes of Pushing Daisies to be had, before I have a glaring hole in my heart where a Bryan Fuller show should be. After watching last week's episode, I've become really down-hearted and frustrated with ABC for pulling the show without giving it any promotional effort whatsoever. There hasn't been an ad for a Pushing Daisies show on ABC since the season premiered in October. I'm gobsmacked that ABC is so ready to give up on a show that garnered 12 Emmy nominations in it's abbreviated first season (especially to revive a dead, seven year old show from another network!), so forgive me while I jump on my soapbox.
It's a rare show that doesn't become formulaic and lazy, and Pushing Daisies continues to surprise me with each episode. While we usually know the "killah-killah" from the beginning of the episode, the writers of the show continue to delight me with how they manage to bump people off, and the slowly unfolding mystery of Ned and Chuck's fathers and their relationship with Dwight Dixon has me wondering. The show's simple, goofy, deliciously naughty moments delight me ("stakeouts are only fun if there are enough binoculars for everyone", the comment about Emerson Cod's tight balls... of yarn, Ned's complete oblivion to key parties), and the subtle jokes abound, and there are always a few that I find myself laughing about 10 minutes after they've aired-such as the brief(and entirely non-verbal) moment where the Pie Maker realizes just what the dead millionaire meant by "trophy room".
There's a part of me that doesn't want to finish watching the show, knowing that I will only be incredibly disappointed by an unsatisfactory ending to the several character arcs that have begun to bloom on the show. Naturally there's a much larger part of me that wants to smack that unloyal, nasty part of myself about the face, and I know that not only will I loyally finish out the season, I'll most likely be buying the DVD when it comes out.
Oh well. Screw originality on TV. When looking for something new to take Pushing Daisies place in my own personal TV lineup, I can only hope that we'll get a new procedural crime drama soon. I sure could use another one... I'm by no means satisfied with just CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Law and Order, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Criminal Minds, NCIS, Without a Trace, Cold Case, The Mentalist, The Unit, Eleventh Hour, Life On Mars, Numbers, Bones, Fringe, My Own Worst Enemy.
This is a looong 'un... written entirely while I was waiting tonight. Who says one can't be productive with nothing to do? Feel free to skip to the material for short attention spans below this post if you like.
I have dined alone at a restaurant before, though usually by my own choice. I have been lucky enough to say (minimal though my dating history may be) that I have never been stood up. Tonight, however, I must admit that this is precisely what’s happened.The embarrassing truth is that tonight, I was stood up by an eighty-three year old woman.
I’ve discussed Pat, the woman I call my “pseudo-grandma” on this site before.Having first been introduced when my mother worked at the law firm at which I was later employed, Pat took a shine to me and she and I see plays, operas, the odd night at the symphony.She’s one of the few people I can count on to always be up for something “cultural”.During the fall, we have season tickets to The Court Theater, located on campus of University of Chicago. Nice digs, indeed. We usually meet for dinner before the show, and we decided to try someplace new.
Earlier this week we had planned on meeting at Orly’s, a restaurant recommended by the theater at 6 pm.I arrive a few minutes late, and I am enthusiastically greeted by a short, round host with a very heavy, yet unplaceable accent. As I’m being seated, I take in the odd décor- garish murals depicting a range of themes: mainly centering on tex-mex, baking and barbecue. I also have seen enough to realize I am the sole patron of the place tonight. Being a new restaurant to our repertoire, I realize Pat must be late.
I’m starting to grow a little bored, so I begin texting a friend to pass the time, a captain’s log of sorts: “Pseudo-grandma is late. I’m the only one in the restaurant. I feel like I’m a castaway on a desert island, with the locals staring at me.”
I sit, and while I eat a dry, but warm cornbread muffin, I jovially explain to the host and my server that someone will soon be joining me. After fifteen minutes, I try calling Pat. Her cell phone is off, which is not unusual- at eighty-three, she detests the thing and it gives an unholy squeal in her hearing aids that I can usually hear across the table.
Dressed as I am in my theater finery, and experiencing an atypically fantastic hair day (an ode to the power of hemp oil shampoo!), it is natural for my attendants at the restaurant to assume that I am waiting on a date. My waiter asks “Is he running late?” to which I respond with an inadvertently cryptic “She.” My waiter gives me a double take that I don’t immediately understand. As he walks away, it dawns on my why he looked at me with somewhat unflattering surprise.
“Captain’s Log: 15 minutes and waiting. The natives are friendly, and have brought me sustenance. Through a possible error in comprehension, my waiter could possibly think I’m a lesbian.” Due to a few low-toned and completely distressing comments to me about how he wouldn’t ignore a girl that looks as good as I do, I make no effort to dissuade him of this notion.
I order chips and guacamole. The guacamole is pre-made and still frozen and the chips are stale. I continue to eat them, partly because I want to look like I have purpose in the restaurant, and partly because the idle wait staff is standing right by me… staring. With only me to attend to, I am experiencing a bit more attention from the wait staff than I’d like, particularly while I am waiting longer and longer for an individual who is clearly not going to show.
“Captain’s Log: 30 minutes and waiting. The natives are now looking at me with pity. They appear to question whether I had a dining partner at all. Indeed… at this point, so do I. Did I create pseudo-grandma as some deserted dining mirage??” I try Pat’s cell phone several more times, each time going straight to voicemail. While I wait, the music, a generic piano concerto that isn’t quite Muzak and isn’t quite worth listening to repeats three times.My waiter, waggling his eyebrows in a suggestive manner, asks me if he thinks my date isn’t going to show. I decide to finally set the record straight, but trying to explain my relationship with Pat is difficult, and I end up babbling non-sensically to the guy. As I look at the bemused expression in his eyes, I realize I am giving him far more information than he cared to know, and probably asserting in his mind that I have gotten stood up by a date and I am now trying to save face. I should have just told him she was my grandmother.
Forty minutes in, and I am genuinely worried about Pat. The woman does more in a day than a Marine, and stays up later than any 21 year old I know, but she is in her eighties and driving in from the suburbs. I know from personal experience that driving with Pat is a singularly terrifying ordeal, and I begin to worry that she has gotten in an accident.I decide to call her house number, which she answers. She has forgotten the play.
“Captain’s Log: 40 minutes and final entry. It’s official, I have been stood up by an 83 year old woman. I shall never leave the dining island. There is no hope!!”I finally break down and order ribs, and from my waiter’s smug expression as I hang up the phone, I know that he is certain that I have been stood up.As he delivers my ribs, he says in a quiet voice that shows that he is hoping his boss won’t hear “you look too good to leave alone tonight!”Wide-eyed, horrified, I use my best defense mechanism for when someone (sadly, anyone) shows interest in me; I laugh far too loud, and pretend I don’t understand him until he walks away.I choke down my ribs as fast as I can manage, which is difficult, because they can only be described as a boiled shoe covered in ketchup and cherry jam.
I ended up paying $35 for my crap dinner tonight, a wholly wasted experience. I did meet Pat at the play, which was like the CLIF notes version of MacBeth. The best thing I can say about tonight is that it ended quickly. And that I still have amazing hair.
This is actually a monumental day for blogger Birv... if you type Fonzipan into Google's search bar, the search assistance actually comes up with my site at "Fonzip". Yes, small things like this actually make me very excited. Hooray for meaningless accomplishments!
We'll leave mom's current baby-craze until tomorrow, I'm still processing the horror of the most recent outbreak... so today you get a TV review. Hooray for Chuck! Really... I forget how much I enjoy this show, which is really the only thing I like to watch on Mondays (sorry, Heroes. I'm just not that into you). Anyone who's seen who I tend to date knows I am a sucker for the geeks, and what's better than a show with a cute geek totally out of his element?
Chuck has a lot of aspects that really help me enjoy it- Zachary Levi (le sigh), insider sci-fi/techie jokes (last night's Zune knock was delightful!!), the new addition of Tony Hale (Buster!!) and a genuine sense of light-hearted humor. This is a show where the nerd ALWAYS wins, without resorting to a canned Cinderella story. Chuck pretty much stays a nerd.
Chuck is also an homage of sorts to a peculiar trait of my generation: twenty-somethings that elect NOT to live up to their full potential, choosing instead to avoid the difficult choices in life. Rather than risk the potential for true failure, we seem to grasp onto the idea that if we only chose to apply ourselves, we could do whatever we want. By making the choice to drop out and live well below our percieved expectations, we keep everyone's expectations low... including our own.
Chuck is a TV example of this: kicked out of Stanford 12 credits shy of graduation, Chuck is working at the Buy More, a big-box Best Buy type store, living with his older sister and her fiance, whom he has dubbed Captain Awesome. Both are doctors. Chuck's aimless, though not unhappy. In Season 1, Chuck gets the entire CIA and FBI secret file database loaded into his head, forcing him into a secret double life of a spy.
Season 1 was charming, Chuck fumbling through terrifying situations and surviving through luck and the skills of his CIA and FBI protectors. I prefer Season 2. Chuck is beginning to adjust to the spy life-style, and is beginning to accept that he does have potential. Chuck has leadership, bravery and success thrust upon him, and manages to survive, sparking in him a desire to do more with his life than work at the Buy More. Conflict ensues when he can't, as he needs to maintain his cover. Wow...I totally got deep today! About a TV show! Hire me, Entertainment Weekly!
Anyway, where else can someone save the world by getting to the Kill Screen of Atari's Asteroid?
Wowza. Someone turned the dial all the way up to crazy last night. So... this story has hella long backstory, but it's worth it.
