I read some interview with Gwyneth Paltrow a while back wherein she described her macrobiotic diet and how it involved "eating a piece of cheese once a year for Christmas".
In other words, "I'm rabidly insane".
If I had to choose between cheese and, you know, Vanity Fair covers, undeserved Oscars and populist pop singers writing songs about colors for me, I might just choose cheese.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Unhappiest Switchboard On Earth
The people who work at the Disney have to:
1) introduce themselves when they answer your call;
and
2) tell you to have a "magical day" once they are ready to connect you.
Maybe this would be fun if you got calls from little girls all day, but holy shit, what an unwieldy way to deal industry calls, which usually involve exchanges of four words or less by either party.
Also: the hold music is "It's A Small World."
1) introduce themselves when they answer your call;
and
2) tell you to have a "magical day" once they are ready to connect you.
Maybe this would be fun if you got calls from little girls all day, but holy shit, what an unwieldy way to deal industry calls, which usually involve exchanges of four words or less by either party.
Also: the hold music is "It's A Small World."
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
If My Old Clothes Can Do It, So Can Tom Cruise
I cleaned out my closet a couple weeks ago with the following revelations:
1) I have enough brown shirts to start an army
2) I have enough plaid shirts to start a country. I shall call the country... Canada
3) The other sports sock was way in the back there
Jeremy and I have a running discussion, if you'll pardon the expression, about feng shui and colon health. I can't remember exactly how these two things are related, except that he had a book on feng shui and it in there was a chapter about keeping your colon healthy and it had black and white drawings of a happy digestive tract and then an angry digestive tract that was jagged like lightning or the frazzled bits of an angry cartoon character's hair.
Somehow all this got translated into the idea that getting rid of your unnecessary stuff in an enema-like fashion will make you more at peace with the world. I just gave my closet its very own Master Cleanse, and it is now happy. It is not the single pebble on an empty shelf that Jeremy strives for, but that seems like a fast track to pneumonia.
In case you were wondering about my progress to adulthood vis a vis wire vs wood hangers: wire. And I've been using the same cardboard box for a laundry basket for three and a half years. But you know, cardboard, fibre, roughage, good for the colon!
1) I have enough brown shirts to start an army
2) I have enough plaid shirts to start a country. I shall call the country... Canada
3) The other sports sock was way in the back there
Jeremy and I have a running discussion, if you'll pardon the expression, about feng shui and colon health. I can't remember exactly how these two things are related, except that he had a book on feng shui and it in there was a chapter about keeping your colon healthy and it had black and white drawings of a happy digestive tract and then an angry digestive tract that was jagged like lightning or the frazzled bits of an angry cartoon character's hair.
Somehow all this got translated into the idea that getting rid of your unnecessary stuff in an enema-like fashion will make you more at peace with the world. I just gave my closet its very own Master Cleanse, and it is now happy. It is not the single pebble on an empty shelf that Jeremy strives for, but that seems like a fast track to pneumonia.
In case you were wondering about my progress to adulthood vis a vis wire vs wood hangers: wire. And I've been using the same cardboard box for a laundry basket for three and a half years. But you know, cardboard, fibre, roughage, good for the colon!
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Tally
A not nice thing to happen is showing up to LAX extra early on December 22nd only to realize that the flight will be delayed three hours. A nice thing to happen is getting on the plane to find that for the first time in all your many shuttles between LA and Vancouver in the last three and a half years you get to watch a movie because they've installed little monitors in the seats. A nice thing because I had just about done as much as I could do with my magazine and music-listening routine for the day. A nice thing again is watching ELF and seeing that someone you went to high school with who had cancer as a teenager is now doing pretty well in their acting career and is pretty darn cute to boot. A nice thing is only watching the first thirty minutes of THE NANNY DIARIES.
A not nice thing is landing at 12:30am and there being a lot of lollygagging vis a vis unlocking the door to the gate so we can get the fuck away from anything related to air travel and home to whatever beds await us. A nice thing is the international arrivals area of the Vancouver airport.
A nice thing is family. Another nice thing is turkey. A nice thing is running into your grade six teacher at a play and him remembering your name.
A nice thing is an evening flight. A nice thing is a pleasant customs experience. A nice thing is running into someone you know and actually like at the gate. A not nice thing is Air Canada having another befuddled delayed departure. A not nice thing is irritating the person sitting on the other side of you and your friend with your conversation. A not nice, but also actually nice thing is not really caring. A nice thing is firing your cellphone up again when you land when everyone else is doing it too. A nice thing is your roommate picking you up from the airport. A nice thing is celebrity spotting at the luggage carousel.
A very nice thing is getting back home to LA.
A not nice thing is landing at 12:30am and there being a lot of lollygagging vis a vis unlocking the door to the gate so we can get the fuck away from anything related to air travel and home to whatever beds await us. A nice thing is the international arrivals area of the Vancouver airport.
A nice thing is family. Another nice thing is turkey. A nice thing is running into your grade six teacher at a play and him remembering your name.
A nice thing is an evening flight. A nice thing is a pleasant customs experience. A nice thing is running into someone you know and actually like at the gate. A not nice thing is Air Canada having another befuddled delayed departure. A not nice thing is irritating the person sitting on the other side of you and your friend with your conversation. A not nice, but also actually nice thing is not really caring. A nice thing is firing your cellphone up again when you land when everyone else is doing it too. A nice thing is your roommate picking you up from the airport. A nice thing is celebrity spotting at the luggage carousel.
A very nice thing is getting back home to LA.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
January
Last night I went to see LARS AND THE REAL GIRL at the Regency Fairfax. When I passed it on the way home from work, the lights in the marquee were out but the strange and friendly man who sells tickets was outside the open doors smoking a cigarette so I figured it was still open and the lights were out because they had shorted out from all the rain. There were lights inside anyway.
I should add for you non-Southland readers that it has been raining here, raining to beat the band, raining enough to flood the streets and make you think about rounding up pairs of animals.
At home I suited up. I used to take a certain amount of pride walking around in the rain in LA, because I am a Vancouverite by birth and have a Vancouverite coat and a pair of Vancouverite (by way of Australia) boots. I spent half a decade at UBC, for god's sake. A little rain is nothing to wince at or drive like an idiot in. So I walked to the theatre, which is about six short blocks away, and the valet guys under awnings and podium umbrellas on my path looked at me like I was crazy. It rains harder and wetter here than it ever does in Vancouver. I did get water inside my boot at one point when I waded through a creekbed coming out of an alley, but for the most part I was dry.
Once the lights went down in the theatre and I snuck out my little flask of bourbon (if you are going to see a movie by yourself on a Friday night, you may as well get into the part), I began to hear it, though I thought at first it was part of the soundtrack. Dripping, plonking, and sometimes a bubble-bursting splash. The theatre was leaking in 5.1 surround.
It worked with the movie though, which is set as winter is trying to make its way into spring. A character says, as it begins to snow, "I though winter was over." And another character responds, "That was just the thaw, winter isn't over until Easter." These kind of sentences and the people who know enough to speak them make me miss people from the north.
It's a movie about patience, and it's a simple movie, and for that I liked it very much. Sometimes overly metaphoric films that deal with people's psychoses annoy me, but this one didn't. When the lights came up I could see the buckets all over the theatre, mostly along beside the walls but some amongst the seats, with taped off areas warning you not to sit there. It's a long drop from ceiling to floor there.
It was even wetter for the walk home and when I got there, my jeans were soaked from mid-thigh down. Next week I'll have more energy and be ready for sunshine again, but for now, a lot of rain and a good excuse to stay inside is all I could ask for.
I should add for you non-Southland readers that it has been raining here, raining to beat the band, raining enough to flood the streets and make you think about rounding up pairs of animals.
At home I suited up. I used to take a certain amount of pride walking around in the rain in LA, because I am a Vancouverite by birth and have a Vancouverite coat and a pair of Vancouverite (by way of Australia) boots. I spent half a decade at UBC, for god's sake. A little rain is nothing to wince at or drive like an idiot in. So I walked to the theatre, which is about six short blocks away, and the valet guys under awnings and podium umbrellas on my path looked at me like I was crazy. It rains harder and wetter here than it ever does in Vancouver. I did get water inside my boot at one point when I waded through a creekbed coming out of an alley, but for the most part I was dry.
Once the lights went down in the theatre and I snuck out my little flask of bourbon (if you are going to see a movie by yourself on a Friday night, you may as well get into the part), I began to hear it, though I thought at first it was part of the soundtrack. Dripping, plonking, and sometimes a bubble-bursting splash. The theatre was leaking in 5.1 surround.
It worked with the movie though, which is set as winter is trying to make its way into spring. A character says, as it begins to snow, "I though winter was over." And another character responds, "That was just the thaw, winter isn't over until Easter." These kind of sentences and the people who know enough to speak them make me miss people from the north.
It's a movie about patience, and it's a simple movie, and for that I liked it very much. Sometimes overly metaphoric films that deal with people's psychoses annoy me, but this one didn't. When the lights came up I could see the buckets all over the theatre, mostly along beside the walls but some amongst the seats, with taped off areas warning you not to sit there. It's a long drop from ceiling to floor there.
It was even wetter for the walk home and when I got there, my jeans were soaked from mid-thigh down. Next week I'll have more energy and be ready for sunshine again, but for now, a lot of rain and a good excuse to stay inside is all I could ask for.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Ladies and Gentlemen
Please allow the cats to demonstrate how cold it was in the house earlier in December:
The 10pm Goodnight
This morning I got halfway to work before realizing I had forgotten to brush my teeth. I chewed a lot of gum today. At the desks around me, the coughing and sneezing and hacking borders on criminal. Traffic's been light, I guess most of the inhabitants of the city are lying around digesting booze and turkey for another few days. My house is a mess. I've been taking a lot of liquids and eating fruit, hoping the diaphanous vapor of my brain will solidify into moving parts once more.
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