Really? Really.

You know, as much as I like to watch Real Time with Bill Maher, it's getting to the point where I cannot stand that old bastard. I realize he's a dirty old man who thinks he is still hot shit and dates models to redeem his ever-receding hair line. But the jokes about Hillary are getting old. I mean, really? Are we still making Monica Lewinski jokes? That's the best you can do? Ridiculing Hillary Clinton about Bill's past has nothing to do with her running for presidency. It's such a cheap shot. It's sexist, immature and unintelligent. You're making jokes any frat boy could make. But the audience eats it up. Everyone loves a blow job joke! Blek. It's just disgusting to see rampant sexism still widely accepted. I love when Bill Maher declares, "I'm not being sexist but..." and then goes on this rant about how Hillary (and all women) use deceptive tactics when arguing. Yes, we're all evil, deceitful bitches. And men are insecure assholes. These gross generalizations and tired stereotypes get us nowhere. I'm gonna go listen to Melissa Etheridge now and not shave my legs.

The most beautiful song. Ever.

"It's Over" by Roy Orbison. I love the Roy. He's perfect for when you're depressed, it's raining, and you're cleaning your room while sipping a hot toddy. And you gots to play the vinyl Roy. Mp3 Roy will not cut it. It's like a warbly molasses cookie with a plaintive cry to your ears.

I heart John Hughes.

I love recluses. Especially ones that are wildly successful, then take off without any explanation and now successfully hide from everyone, even Kevin Smith. I myself would probably hide from Kevin Smith. This is my goal in life. Be successful enough to make some money, then flee and live quietly and simply--far away from everyone. Although I definitely do not want to be in the Chicago suburbs. Maybe Prince Edward Island. I wish I could convince John Hughes to be my friend. We could drink Shirley Temples together and trade tortoiseshell glasses. Click below for LA Times story:

Mistah Hughes!

Ode to the Cadbury cream egg.

My friend, you are too lovely for words. I appreciate that you make your presence a rare event, and only appear once every year. When Easter rolls around, I rejoice in the pastel colors, fake grass, peeps, and you. Your lovely milk chocolate shell holds so many creamy surprises. Who knew fake candy egg yolk could be so delicious? Eating you is a near-religious experience. On Easter Sunday, I bite into your shell and happily exclaim, "He is risen!"

Lifetime channel, where have you been my whole life?

I knew Lifetime movies were a punchline. Melodrama, schmaltz, more cheese than a custard stand in Milwaukee...but I didn't know they were also outstanding entertainment. Right now I'm watching Homeless to Harvard: the Liz Murray story. Then I'm going to watch To Be Fat Like Me. LOVE the obesity crisis. THEN it's Swimming Upstream for when I need some Ben Savage one-on-one time. My whole DVR is soon to be filled with only Lifetime movies. Forget the AFI's top 100 films list. I think I just found my new favorite channel--one that's the perfect accompaniment for cheap red wine, Lean Cuisine microwave dinners, and me all by my lonesome.

p.s. When I think of Lifetime, I think of Kelly Martin. And a lovable pooch holding a frisbee/dinner plate? in a very endearing, scampy way.

Unhappy endings.

"It was always the view of my parents," Emily said, "that hot weather encouraged loose morals among young people. Fewer layers of clothing, a thousand more places to meet. Out of doors, out of control. Your grandmother especially was uneasy when it was summer. She would dream up a thousand reasons to keep my sisters and me in the house."
--Atonement, by Ian McEwan

It's difficult for a book to make me sob out loud, but this one did. If you're an Anglophiliac who loves repression and tragically beautiful love stories, this one's for you. I like books that don't take the easy way out. They end horribly, and simply. And the film does not disappoint. Even ole' flat face Keira Knightley didn't ruin it for me. And James McAvoy...hot tamale! He is one sexy Scot.
Currently reading: You Suck by Christopher Moore (pretty funny) and No Reservations by Anthony Bourdain (Tony being his smarmy self--with crappy digital pictures!)

Free to be OCD.

I've come to the uncomfortable realization that I am high-maintenance. I have issues. I am weird about...stuff. Sometimes I wonder how I have any friends at all. Here are some of my problems:

1. My small bladder. This physical problem, whether real or imagined, causes me a huge amount of stress each day. If I'm riding the bus in the morning, I can't drink any coffee, because it goes through my system in about thirty minutes. I have this fear of being on public transportation and having to go pee RIGHT NOW. It's happened to me in London while riding the tube. I broke out in a cold sweat/rash because I had to go pee and my stop was like thirty minutes away and there are no goddamn public restrooms in Europe. My biggest saviors were McDonald's and Starbucks because they are American institutions and therefore have bathrooms. Also, I worry about taking road trips with friends. I am the annoying person who has to stop every 1.5 hour. And I'm extremely self-conscious about asking to stop. I see the person inwardly hating me as I timidly ask, "Can you please stop? I have to..." Friend: "I KNOW I KNOW. YOU HAVE TO GODDAMN PEE AGAIN." If I'm hanging out with someone for the day, and it's in a date-like fashion, I don't like having to go pee in front of them more than once. Like, at the restaurant is okay. But if you go get coffee or dessert afterwards and you have to go again...the humiliation! And if there's a long line at the bathroom, I won't stand in it because I don't want them to think I'm taking fifteen minutes to pee. It's a really exhausting situation. I'm worried about future world travel because of my bladder problem. I have considered carrying around a colostomy bag just in case. Plus I drink a lot of water to purify my system. This does not help the situation.

2. Eating in front of people. The only people I can eat in front of are family and close friends. Lunch with someone I just met is terrible. I can't enjoy my meal. I can't make eye contact while I'm chewing or while they're chewing. And people always ask me questions as soon as I put a grisly piece of steak in my mouth. I never order a sandwich with strangers. I am conscious of how big my mouth has to open in order to fit the stacked meat reuben delight inside.

3. Watching movies. I really prefer to watch movies alone. I don't like people having a running commentary, I don't like gasps of astonishment, I don't like chuckles that say, "I understand that this is funny." I fear for my future relationship-wise, because I like to watch a movie every night, but I think my spouse will be offended if I ask them to go in the other room while I have my weekly Ralph Fiennes marathon.

4. Getting ready. It takes me a long time to get ready. I try to enjoy the process. This could mean an hour-long bath, a deep-conditioning hair treatment, a glass of wine, and some hot rollers. People that get annoyed that I take so long annoy me. Life is about moving slow and enjoying putting on your mascara. If you don't understand it takes me two hours to leave my house, then we will have serious problems.

This list will be continually added onto as friends and family helpfully point out my other neuroses.

The Mariah.

While watching the newest SNL, I came upon the realization that Mariah Carey and I would be really great friends. I would brush her honey-brown locks as often as she wanted, she would croon softly to me while making breakfast, and she'd always make sure I applied a lot of sunscreen when we went to Capri because I burn easily.

SXSW music in a nutshell.

Seeing live music sucks when you're strung out, exhausted, and your feet hurt like the dickens because you've been wearing cowboy boots for the past 72 hours. I saw Jens Lekman once. He is my first true love. He played by himself, which is lovely, but when he has a full band, yowza! I went to the Dim Mak showcase by accident. But it was aiight. They invited me to their DJ party at the Elks Lodge the next night. There was no one there, but it was an amazing dance party. I highly enjoyed DJ Mom Jeans (aka Danny Masterson) opening with Muscles. And Steve Aoki got the party pumping with the requisite Daft Punk songs. Very LA scenester. You can only do so much of that. I'm upset I never saw Kevin Barnes DJ, because I'm pretty sure he would be a fantastic starter husband, even though he is already married. MGMT, while playing great music, was extremely boring and had no personality. I think my favorite show was seeing Sia at Stubb's. They dimmed the stage, passed out day-glo bands, and she bounced on wearing a blacklight mask. I almost cried it was so effing badass! Then N.E.R.D. came on. They had a lot of energy, but I did not. I did enjoy waving my hands in the air like I just don't care, but then I realized I was so tired my hair hurt and the moment passed. I also saw a ton of shitty bands, but they were so shitty I'm not going to mention them. This was an extremely boring synopsis. I apologize.

SXSW films in a nutshell.

Did you know heavy drinking and lack of sleep ruins your memory? I'm here to tell you it does. It was my third-year volunteering on the Interactive Panels (hawt!) and I had a relatively good time. However, we usually share the green room with Film Panels, but this year we didn't. I missed a ton of celeb action, and this saddens me. But moving on...I'll give a brief rundown of what films/shows I kinda sorta remember seeing.

Goliath. A local Austin film. Cute, short, made me tear up when he buried his cat. And anything that paints a pedophile in a sympathetic light wins points from me.
The Promotion. Cute, funny. I laughed out loud at the Down's Syndrome masturbation scene with John C. Reilly. Seann William Scott wouldn't be my first choice as the lead, but he did okay. Well-written.
Assassination of a High School President. Mischa Barton has an amazing power. That power is the ability to ruin any movie she's in! She ruined the O in Ohio (not that it was that great anyway) and she ruined this movie. It was like Garden State meets Breakfast Club. It went back and forth between being teen-noir (like Brick) and high school comedy (like Mean Girls). This annoyed me. But the director, Brett Simon, was smoking hot.
Lou Reed's Berlin. I loved The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, also directed by Julian Schnabel. This was okay. Lou Reed rocked it out. Kind of boring at times. I ate a granny smith apple in the middle of it, and took a slight nap. But "Men of Good Fortune" was bombass.
Choke. I'm in love with Sam Rockwell. He's a moderately sexy beast. This film was highly enjoyable. I felt the sex scenes could have gone a bit further, but I'm jaded.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I feel weird that I saw Jason Segel's penis multiple times in the movie, and then he was there live at the premiere! Awkward! He wrote the script, and I give him mad props for some amazing jokes. But Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis annoy the shit out of me. And I'm tired of the guys having all the fun in these Judd Apatow movies and the women being non-funny, whiny bitches. That's not how I roll.

Yowza, yowza, yowza!

Here's a good drinking game. Take a shot (I would suggest gin and juice or champagne in those low, wide glasses) every time the emcee in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? screams, "Yowza, yowza, yowza!" Jane Fonda has never been so fabulous on so little sleep. Her curly bobbed hair, kohl-rimmed eyes, and 1930s drop-waisted dresses are just fabulous. The novel by Horace McCoy is also great. But god, it's exhausting to watch. The way they treated the dancers in those contests is sickeningly inhumane. But Jane Fonda is so fierce! I want her to be my life mentor.

I want to live in Woody Allen's New York.

I don't like New York all that much. Perhaps this is surprising considering I am young and looking for jobs in the creative field, but it's quite true and I'm not changing my mind. New York is a constant hubbub of over-stimulation and loud noises and concrete and rat racing. You live life too hard. For me, life isn't about work and money. It's about enjoying a great glass of wine, watching a movie on your couch, admiring large trees, and going on walks near bodies of water. But every time I watch a Woody Allen film, I am charmed. His city is so neutral and brownish and eighties and everyone wears terrible clothes and has frizzy hair and cozy apartments cluttered with philosophy books. I just watched Hannah and Her Sisters and Mia Farrow's hair is so terrible in it. And she wears shirts to her knees over tweed skirts with saggy boots. It's horrendous, and I love it. Somehow, I have a feeling that kind of New York is gone. Did it ever exist? I don't know, I was about five and living in Texas at the time. But if I could go back to Woody's 1980's New York and have scintillating conversations with neurotic people, I would .

Strung out like a Lohan.

I saw half of Hall & Oates last night. Specifically the Hall part. It was a hard rockin' show. There was this guy who kept pulling out tambourines and cymbals and triangles and rocking the shit out of these gourds. He had his shirt unbuttoned to his belly and I could see the sweat glistening on his waxed chest. And Darryl said the F word! I was like, Darryl, let's calm down here. He might have been a wee bit intoxicated. But I believe Austin City Limits was filming, and I also believe I made some intense eye contact with the camera as I seductively danced slowly to "Cabdriver." You might even say I made love to the camera. This SXSW is wearing me down though. My sparkling personality is gone. I'm basically a hollow shell of the person I used to be. But I'm getting some major celeb action, and that is like crack rock to me.

The next SHOWGIRLS?

A movie about the late, great Anna Nicole. Starring the greatest actress?/singer?/dancing-with-the-star of our generation: Willa Ford. This can't not be good bad. But will it succeed Elizabeth Berkley's Showgirls? My vote is no. There better be a lot of nudity though. And stripping. Lindsay Lohan's I Know Who Killed Me was so disappointing.

Jack Nicholson is a tough old bird.

"I think this is one of the peculiarities of the election. I think everyone likes both. I'm a person who understands what experience, which is often a euphemism for connections, can mean in the big old world. She's been there. I was raised by women. I know how tough they are when the tough gets going." --Jack

His new campaign ad for Hillary isn't perfect, but it's certainly better than the cringe-inducing "3 AM" ad. I wish he and Anjelica Houston would get back together and he would stop partying with sorority girls, but what can you do?

p.s. I'm not gonna lie, I'd probably make out with him if I had the chance.

and now for one of my favorite country music videos.

This is a good test to see if someone and I will get along. I make them watch the video and gauge their reaction. If they cry genuine tears (not of laughter) then I worry it won't work out--because I would repeatedly offend them if our friendship continued. There's no right or wrong way to perceive this video. If you don't think it's exploitative/hilariously dramatic, then that's okay! Garth Brooks has given the world many videos, and I consider it my honor to view them all. Repeatedly. Alone.

what a dish.

Sam Neill. Who knew? I mean, really. He looked good in his paleontologist/Indiana Jones hat in Jurassic Park, but I was too young to appreciate his finely-lined face. But then I watched My Brilliant Career, also starring Judy Davis. And hot tamales! He is one handsome Kiwi. I have been missing out. I am going to find his vineyard in New Zealand and drink lots of shiraz and then patiently wait for his proposal of marriage. I'm not leaving until this happens.

p.s. Does randomly receiving this movie via Netflix mean that I am going to (very soon) have a career in Australia? Yes. Yes it does.