Spoiler Alert! Brideshead Revisited

I am just spewing with joy these days because my friend Simone has moved to the city. She's my roommate from college; a good old pal and a girl's girl who will go with me to see Brideshead Revisited. We did that the other night, and whatever textual shortcomings it might have, the new Brideshead's an aesthetically flawless film. Really beautiful. It's slow as hell, though. Expanses of time where very nearly nothing happens. So the presence of a heckler (or maybe not so much a heckler as a very vocal and enthusiastic audience member) was really jarring. Hissing, guffaws, the whole thing. And prompted by dialogue like, "I wish I were (fond of wine). It's such a bond with other men. At Oxford I tried to get drunk once or twice - but I didn't enjoy it." And the actor playing Charles, who seriously never moves a facial muscle throughout the entire movie, kisses Julia in Venice and this clown 4 rows back is like "Oh shit! Oh no he didn't! He did not just go there." Yes, he did. Also, pipe down you are watching fucking Brideshead Revisited.

HUMILIATED AT WORK, Part III

Today in the hallway Yvonne, our cleaning lady, was screaming and jumping up and down at the news of the Jamaican relay victory. I can relate. Not that I'm Jamaican, but how can you not flip out about these runners? This video of Shelly Ann Fraser ("the youngest, the shortest, the least experienced") had me crying (and humiliated) at work on Monday. Maybe I need a mood stabilizer or something.

What Is This?

What goes on at Jiffy Lube? Sounds clownish and vile.

Back in Black

I'm back in New York! I took a long sojourn in the Midwest, where I got caught on an elevated train platform in a tornado and learned that my uncle steals the Gideon Bible from hotel rooms. Yep! Family time is fun time. Nothing really thrilling has happened since I've gotten back, but I thought I'd check in. Today it is raining in a terrifying way, and when I turned onto my street I saw someone who seriously looked like that person in back of the diner in Mulholland Drive. Chilling. I will not include a picture of the person from in back of the diner in Mulholland Drive because it will give you nightmares.

Vacation '08-- Back in the Big Wis

Getting Emotional Over Whitney at the Nail Salon

Today I went to ubiquitous NYC beauty chain Dashing Diva to get a pedicure. Getting a pedicure is a long, boring, expensive process that stops being optional during the summer months. It also carries this awkwardly post-colonial sense of servility-- I sit on a kind of hot pink throne while some poor lady's enthusiastically bathing and massaging a part of my body that I barely want to deal with. At DD they have these videos of hit songs and performances by today's pop divas that they play on repeat--this summer I've seen Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez sing every song they've ever recorded, twice. Today's diva was Whitney Houston. Her video consisted of nostalgic '80's MTV and scenes from The Bodyguard. About halfway through the pedicure process, they showed a clip of her singing the National Anthem at some sporting event in 1990 that was followed by a fighter jet air show. When she got to the part about "gave proof through the night/that our flag was still there" I started tearing up. Seeing her there in her white sweatsuit and cotton headband, belting her heart out made me feel intensely patriotic ("Who'd have thought those Puritans would make it?") and really sad about the wreck that Whitney's life has become. I thought about her gospel roots, her relation to Dionne Warwick. Clearly choking back tears, I said to pedicurist Rosa, "Isn't she just great?" Rosa, applying top coat, looked up, shrugged, and asked me if I was getting a manicure too. "No, that's ok. Thanks Rosa." I knew I had at least 20 minutes left under the heat lamps, and I didn't know if I was going to hold up through another version of "I Will Always Love You." Whitney, what happened?