so i think a squirrel might be stuck in our living room air conditioner. because i often hear squirrel noises outside our window, but this guy sounds like he's in serious pain, and i don't know what else to do besides bang on it a few times, hoping to let him free. even lily looks freaked out.

i just opened my fire escape window to see if i could see anything, and it took me 5 minutes because the stoppers we had installed after our apartment was robbed were stuck, so i guess you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. note to self: take those suckers out every once in awhile to make sure we're not screwed in the event of a fire.

these scratching sounds are seriously freaking me out, so in the spirit of christmas and conspicuous consumption, here's a happy list:

things i want (because they are cool and/or useful)

• this ozetta wool cowl-neck scarf

• a toggle knit wool chain

• michael kors perfume, because i ran out

• a really big soup pot

• a vacuum cleaner that works

• a grill pan

happy holidays! (buy me a soup pot.)

well, the family benefit is over, and i thought after saturday it would be a good chance to do all the things normal people do when not planning huge life-consuming events: cleaning off my desk, clearing out my e-box, going to the gym (yeah, that's a new one). unfortunately, my body decided to break down, and i've spent the past 4 days being either a) irritatingly congested or b) so doped up on the remnants of last night's nyquil that walking up the stairs to the subway makes me feel like i have asthma.

my apologies to everyone around me for being so cranky, by the way.

so anyway, i blew off my personal training session tonight and am now covered in a blanket, drinking tea and watching suzanne somers sell jewelry on the home shopping network. apparently she was a "groundbreaking pioneer" in the world of celebrities selling CZ jewelry on TV. she started in '94. time flies.

seriously, though, aren't the salespeople on HSN amazing? they can talk about a necklace or a blender for 20 minutes straight! if i ever go into sales, i am totally going to turn to HSN for lessons and inspiration.

anyway. onto the bullets.

things that blew my mind this week

• the BBC's alcohol experiment - a widget where you insert how many drinks you had the night before and it tells you the caloric equivalent in food. to avoid depression, i will not be using this again.

• these pictures of the flood in venice. i especially like the guys who are like, "fuck it. we are knee deep in water, but we are going to have a scotch."

• prop 8 - the musical. the video itself is hysterical, but what's more interesting are the comments on the new york times blog entry. i didn't know any right wingers even read the times, but some of the first comments are from opponents of gay marriage complaining about the "moral bankruptcy of those who support gay rights," who "cannot engage in an actual, fair discussion about the issue." an interesting arrow to sling considering one of his conservative cohort's contributions to the discussion was: "GROW UP. YOU LOST. MOVE ON. Stop whinning (sic). I did not vote for Obama. My side lost. I'm moving on."

rightly so, an "actual, fair discussion" of the gay marriage issue is out of the question considering the fact that basic human rights are at stake. i wonder if reader matthew would have invited martin luther king, jr., to dinner in order to rationally explain why his entire race should be subjugated to the back of the bus.

after a reader asked matthew what, exactly, he had against gay marriage, he replied:

You ask me to demonstrate how gay marriage threatens society. I ask you to demonstrate how it contributes. Heterosexual marriage contributes to society by providing a stable environment in which children can be born and raised to be responsible citizens (which is in the government’s best interest). Homosexual couples, by definition, can not have children on their own and have no potential to provide this benefit to society. This is the logical reason they do not qualify for marriage.

For the record, I have gay friends whom I love. Unlike many vocal opponents of prop 8, I do not believe that loving someone equals approving of their behavior.

first of all, if we judged the merit of heterosexual marriage on its ability to provide stable environments and raise responsible citizens, the practice would have been revoked centuries ago. second of all, in modern society's loose definition of "having children" (adoption, surrogacy, in vitro, that man that gave birth), gay couples have almost the same ability to have children as any straight couple. i say, give gay couples the chance to help rectify the situations of the thousands of children in foster care who were fucked up by their straight parents. third of all, there is nothing i hate more than the "i'm not racist, i have a black friend" excuse. doesn't this guy watch reality TV? nothing gets your ass beat faster than that. and then there's his sanctimonious "i love you, i just don't love what you do" shtick. if i were his gay "friend," i would ditch this guy in a second because of his condescending, holier-than-thou attitude. oh yeah, that and the fact that HE GETS TO DECIDE HOW I LIVE MY LIFE.

side note, i just searched TDF for cheap theater tickets and noticed there is an eagles tribute band playing at b.b. king's next week named spread eagle.

things that perplexed me today

only one bullet today (so i'm not even using a bullet):

this story, about a 37-year-old NYC teacher who was fired for having sex with a student. granted, he wasn't her student, just a student, but what confuses me isn't the mary kay letourneau-ness of it all. it's how she:


landed this:


not only did they have sex, but they live together in queens and have a kid together. i know, wtf, right? the daily news recounts their entire beautiful story (the best parts in bold):

Walter, now 19, met Salamino in 2002, when he was 12. He saw her again, records show, at an August 2006 party. That flirty encounter led to dates at the movies, hundreds of phone calls, nights at her Howard Beach apartment and sex.

Schools investigators began looking into the affair in November 2006, records show, after receiving a tip that Salamino had been seen kissing and hugging a much younger male.

More calls followed, including one from an unidentified person who confronted Walter in disgust over the affair, says a school investigator's report obtained under the state's Freedom of Information Law.

"'I'm tapping that a-- and there's nothing you can do about it,'" the teen responded, says the report from Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon.

as you may have guessed, the readers of nydailynews.com didn't let us down in the comments area. there were haters:

veni26 Nov 25, 2008 4:43:52 PM
She looks like his hefty grandmother, not even his mother or older sister. What kind of cuchie voodoo was she conjuring up on this clueless kid. Not surprised he has a mommy complex--look at his own mother's response to the situation. She was probably inappropriately getting some action in herself.

and supporters:

Ladiiscorpio Nov 25, 2008 5:43:30 PM
i know him and her.i chilled with her b4 she's a nice person so ya shouldnt b judging them,and saying all this foul shi*.that's there buisness and they love eachother,and she wasnt his teacher and he wasnt in school.To all ya people who got something bad 2 say keep it 2 ya damn self and mind ya business.Gina dont listen 2 any of these people they just hating on ya.The baby is so cute, ya will b great parents.(=

and the just plain awesome:

vburrell Nov 25, 2008 7:06:07 PM
To supernaut924: DAMN!!!!!!!!!! You said it! She DOES have a face like a foot!!!!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!

on another note, i realized today that my relationship with my boss is much like the relationship between sue ellen crandall and her boss in don't tell mom the babysitter's dead: "i'm right on top of that, rose!" while passing on the QED report to the temp.

trips i am taking in the next 6 months

• california (home) for christmas. it makes me really sad that working full-time and, hence, having 2 weeks of vacation per year allows me to go home only once a year. especially when horrible fires are raging basically in my backyard. check out the video below. it's of musicians driving from orange county to riverside to play a classical music gig. the apartments on fire at the very end are where my mom and my brother lived for 3 months before they could move into our house (when we moved from IL back to CA). they're all totally burned down now. luckily no one i know well was affected too badly, but my mom has packed up all of our photo albums in plastic bins for easy throwing-in-the-car capabilities and has started scanning them all so they're saved digitally. she also removed boxes of our baby clothes from the storage unit where we store all of our unnecessary extra shit - which weren't burned down but are exactly where the fires were - and moved them to the house so she can grab them if need be. anyway, i'm going home for xmas and all hendrix have agreed we're not giving any gifts this year, woohoo!

• washington DC for inauguration. hopefully this trip will include some combination of: tess brandon, david scrivener, katelyn lahr, stephanie o'cain, amanda davidowitz and/or emily miller.

• COSTA RICA! i'm seriously so stoked. and it's right after my birthday, so hello, the perfect present. even better, it's a 7-day trip where i only have to take 4 days off (thank you, president's day). in so far: stephanie, jenna, me. possibly: anna, carlina, raliza and aja. can you say, best trip ever? because i can.

trips i would like to take in the semi-near future

• edinburgh/london. right on the cusp of my 3rd year with the new 42, so i will have 3 weeks of vacation. would like to see/stay with caitlin and go to some shows at the fringe. and then of course: LONDON. my long-lost love. i miss it always.

• australia. i've been looking into BUNAC's services there and it's definitely changed since i last checked this program out. you can now go anytime between the ages of 18 and 30 get a visa to stay there for up to 12 months to work 2 different jobs. so excellent. am now working on cultivating my tenuous australian relationships: a friend of a friend i met once at a party when she was taking NYU classes last summer, and a girl i met at a theater networking thing last week who works at the australian consulate in the city, and who i basically accosted being like, OMG YOU'RE FROM AUSTRALIA??? un-smooth, but we were both 5 wine glasses deep, so who cares. we are coordinating a happy hour to talk about all things australasian and theater in the near future.
  

reasons why this season of america's next top model sucked

• analeigh didn't win.
• they did barely any runway walking.
• they seem to have mixed up the final runway dresses with beauty pageant dresses from texas.
• whitney's awful "my life as a cover girl" spots, where errant bra straps and pit stains lurked around every turn.
  
• the awkward post-win photo shoot.

mckey is from lake forest, though, which i guess is kind of cool...

awesome new york times reviews new victory shows have gotten this season

• seattle children's theater's green sheep
• knucklehead zoo's rewind
• redmoon's hunchback
• cirque mechanics' birdhouse factory

i love this theater. and apparently larry van gelder loves us.

reality shows i am totally into right now and videos demonstrating why

1) paris hilton's my new bff.



2) blush - the search for the next great makeup artist.

i'm restarting this blog on the DL, with a new format. i don't have the time or the energy (well, i might have the time, but definitely not the energy) to live up to the expectation of well thought out, long-form blog posts, so i'm trying a new tactic: bullet points. 1 topic, 5 (or less) bullet points, which i think are one of the greatest things ever.

don't update your blogrolls yet, (un)faithful readers. give me a week and i'll probably quit again.

my weekend in connecticut
(i really wanted to underline that, why isn't that an easily accessible option?)

• friday = cheesecake factory, including a "free piece of cheesecake for every $30 spent" coupon courtesy of mary's friend. we earned 3. it was as delicious as i remembered. less delicious was the explosive feeling coming from my stomach after thai lettuce wraps, spicy cashew chicken and apple crisp (in my defense, 2 out of 3 of those things were shared). i used to patronize cheesecake factory at least once a month in high school - why did i not realize how embarrassingly gluttonous that place was before now? mental note: cheesecake factory is a once-a-decade indulgence.

• saturday = marshall's + the mall. the marshall's had a whole room dedicated to home goods. amazing. the mall was already playing christmas music remixes and there were tons of little girls running around with limited too bags and braces. it made me feel old/nostalgic for going to hawthorne mall every saturday with colleen and buying stupid shit from rampage with my wads of babysitting money. the barista guy at the food court starbucks was really hot - probably 18. did you know there are whole forever 21 spin-off stores dedicated solely to accessories???

• gas stations in CT do not sell beer, and liquor stores in CT close at approx. 9:30pm. CT sucks.

• suburban barnes & nobles are 100x better than city barnes & nobles. they're so big and clean and have great discount sections with lots of coffee table books.

• thanks to mary "snuggles" yaranon for putting us up on the least-prone-to-deflation air beds i've ever experienced. thanks to BF randy for being a pleasant person and making a mean jumbalaya. thanks to parvs for being funny and starting to call me cici again. thanks to schman for talking to me on a couch for 3 hours and feigning an interest in college football. thanks to CT for providing me with a much needed dose of houses, deer, and chain restaurants. thanks to NYC for not being suburbia.

i'm out.

i'm a maniac, maniac on the floor

one of the best things about my roommate being out of town for the weekend (sorry, steph) is that i can hang around the apartment and be as sloth-like and unproductive as i want. even more than i usually am, even.

actually, now that i think about it, i did get a lot done today. i called citibank and contested a charge on my debit card, sold a bookcase on craigslist, reorganized our kitchen cabinets, changed the sheets on my bed, and picked up all my clothes off the floor.

but that productive streak ended circa 6pm when i sat down in front of the tv and discovered a few amazing things:

a) dirty dancing was playing on starz. i get made fun of by a guy at work for basically having seen no movies whatsoever, notably dirty dancing, the goonies, star wars, and back to the future 1, 2, and 3. so, in an effort to begin my cinematic education, i promptly "DVR-ed that shit." i simply cannot wait to ogle this hot piece of ass:


b) the N channel, which i thought only played degrassi re-runs, in fact now has an A-list line-up, including kenan and kel, fresh prince, dawson's creek, and, praise the lord, saved by the bell. i, like i assume most kids of my generation with cable did, ran home every day after school to watch this show on TBS while i ate my favorite snack of goldfish and a diet dr. pepper, and i guarantee i have seen each episode AT LEAST eight times. needless to say, i couldn't press record fast enough. in fact, i was so excited i set it to record all episodes, first-runs AND re-runs. i can only hope this doesn't bite me in the ass like it did with what not to wear. but while stacy and clinton's quips get kind of old after watching four episodes in a row, i don't think i will ever tire of bike shorts under denim skirts, stacy carosi, and of course, albert clifford slater's jheri curls.


p.s. for those of you who don't know, you can still catch some of the A.C. flavor by watching america's best dance crew, HANDS DOWN the awesomest show on the air right now not only for all the sick dance moves (no, seriously), but also for host mario lopez's wigger-tastic commentary. seriously. just watch it.

c) hands down the best discovery of all, though, is that TV land is having an "ohmigod, that's so '80s" movie weekend, running sixteen candles, the breakfast club, say anything, and flashdance back to back. the only one i didn't DVR was say anything, and that's only because i have that on DVD and have had most of it committed to heart since the 9th grade. i'm watching flashdance, yet another movie i haven't seen, as we speak, and i have to say, not once yet has it disappointed. this is obviously the trailblazing granddaddy of all modern dance movies -- center stage, save the last dance, and of course step up 2 the streets. the underdog with the seemingly unattainable dream of dancing like she's never danced before, the staid institution that favors training over heart, the supportive and kindly old grandmother figure with an unidentifiably foreign accent, and the tempestuous relationship with the ONLY person that REALLY believes in her. i mean, can you even remember a time when these plot lines weren't totally cliche? aka 1983? i know i can't, because i wasn't even born!

i should have known as soon as the credits started rolling and the first synthesized bars of "what a feeling" filtered out of the screen this was going to be a good night...

rain, rain go away

as anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes with me can tell you, i HATE rain and snow. actually, to be accurate, i hate pretty much all kinds of inclement weather, including, but not limited to: rain, snow, mist, wind, excess heat, and especially -- oh, my god, ESPECIALLY -- humidity.

i suspect this has to do with the delicate internal heating and cooling mechanisms present within my body, which cause me to profusely sweat the second the temperature raises 1/5 of a degree, for which i blame my father and his poor genetics.

anyway, back to rain and snow. there is no occasion in my mind where rain or snow is pleasant, unless i have the ability to stay in my apartment until it's completely gone, wrapped up in a blanket, reading magazines, and drinking hot chocolate. but as we all know, it's always on a crappy weather day when you have to trek to work or to dinner in a neighborhood that requires taking three different trains with a friend you haven't seen in two years who you've already cancelled plans with four times, so in reality: i don't care how pretty the snow is when it first falls, i'm too old for snowball fights.

thanks to the mixed blessing that is global warming, this winter has been pretty mild and full of my favorite weather: cold but not too cold, no excessive precipitation, slightly windy on occasion. the kind of weather where the only things you need to keep warm are jeans, knee socks (my fave!), a coat, and maybe a really cute knit hat.

unfortunately, the looming inevitable happened yesterday in new york city: rain and snow, AT THE SAME TIME. not only did this trigger my anxiety because it created the perfect conditions for my worst fear to come to pass (that being busting ass on an ice-y sidewalk and/or subway steps), but it also brought out in full force one of my other fears: bad rain boots.

without further ado, a taste of the horrors i witnessed yesterday:

behold, the kitten heel rain boot, which i assumed was an urban myth, having only seen them in colorful neglected heaps in filene's basement. but no, i saw a pair ON A PERSON yesterday, along with other various incarnations of heeled and wedged rain boots, which all, as far as i could tell, caused their owners to shuffle uncomfortably down the sidewalks with a familiar look on their faces: please don't let me fall, please don't let me fall.

i am all for making concessions for fashion, but in my opinion, if there is ANY shoe you should buy for function, it is a rain boot. take this pair for example:

the hunter rain boot: my perfect inclement weather boot. they come all the way up to the knee, come in lots of fun colors (check them out at zappos), and you can tell they have a WICKED tread, to prevent unfortunate incidents like what happened to my roommate two days ago.


plus, you can buy matching (or contrasting, whichever your aesthetic preference) wellie socks!

how cool is that? not that i would buy them because they're $40 and i rock my own knee socks from sock dreams, but i support the concept nevertheless.

p.s. that color combination could totally be rocked at work because it matches our logo:

woot!

i've got mail

every day at work i receive a gift in my microsoft outlook: a daily recap of the biggest stories in the arts and theater world compiled by one thomas cott, who used to be our marketing consultant. this little electronic jewel is entitled "you've cott mail." (get it?)

anyway, today there are a few news stories i wish to bring to light, so i'm putting together my own you've cott mail. i wish my last name was gotti or something... you've gotti mail... hah.

numero uno

according to the new york observer, the juice's former agent, mike gilbert, plans to publish a book entitled how i helped o.j. get away with murder. i wonder what it's about?

the best part of this book deal? a portion of the proceeds will benefit the make-a-wish foundation.

numero dos

four impressionist paintings were stolen from a zurich museum this sunday by "three thieves in ski masks," one of which held museum workers at gunpoint while the other two took the paintings off the wall.

the paintings -- by cezanne, degas, monet, and van gogh -- are worth over $163 million.

first of all, the logistics of this "heist" confuse me. how did one guy with a gun hold all the museum workers at gunpoint? by "museum workers" do they mean "the 93-year-old night janitor"? didn't this museum have any kind of security system in place around these pieces? i mean, these are cezannes, not crappy children's artwork. (p.s. click that link. you won't regret it.) does switzerland even BELIEVE in security?

second of all, the new york sun wins the "don't even read the story; the headline basically IS the story" award of the day with their article "stolen art will be hard to sell." i'm not sure these thieves thought their plan through all the way before they stole paintings from four of pretty much the most famous painters in history. i hope they enjoy "boy in the red waistcoat" on the wall of their apartment, because no one's going to be ballsy enough to buy it.

numero tres

according to the new york observer, NYU has finally supported the greenwich village society for historical preservation's desire to grant its I.M. pei-designed silver towers apartment complex (left) landmark status.

this is good for a couple of reasons. as a proud NYU alumna, i am all in favor of anything that gets local whiners off our back. yes, i understand that many of our neighbors consider us a nuisance. i also understand that pretty much every college, from the largest cities to the smallest towns, has its detractors, whether it's for encroaching on historical land or for the frat boys that puke on their lawn every saturday night. i'm sure even notre dame has its haters, and god knows it's the ONLY reason to visit south bend.

anyway, cooperating with local community organizations is definitely a good thing. but for silver towers? are you kidding me? I.M. pei-I.M. schmei. i know he did the louvre and all, but these buildings look like they're made of cement legos. in an even odder decision, the preservation society is petitioning for the entire "super-block" to be protected under the landmark designation, which includes a morton williams supermarket and NYU's coles sports center (click for a visual), quite possibly one of the least inspired buildings ever constructed.

if you ask me, someone over at the GVSHP needs to get it together...

numero cuatro

in other news, the westminster dog show uncannily resembles best in show...

numero cinco

...and microsoft hasn't come any closer to its quest for world domination. mostly, i think, because google has cemented its place in history by creating the best e-mail service EVER, and because there will never come a day when "yahoo-ing yourself" will become a phrase in the cultural lexicon.