A chronicle of my attempts to live a classy life as a single girl in the Nation's Capital

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Fire with Fire

I was 15. We had satellite with all the movie channels. I had a different opinion of what the word "romance" meant.

This movie was on, and I was sucked in. I was left swooning and breathless.


The passion! The hormones! The total lack of foresight!

I mean, for crying out loud, look at that cover!  Anyway, it showed up on Netflix instant view recently and 15-year-old me said "OMG!! Watch it! It's so steamy and hot and romantic!!!"

Not so...

As I watched it a decade later, I felt nothing other than general disbelief.  Here's the basic plot:

Cute blonde girl likes to pretend she's Ophelia and photograph herself (yeah, that's healthy)
Boy in a prison work camp for.... something (plot development is that good)
They see each other and instantly fall in love.

Because that's how it works.

So girl (who is talented and has a future) is at a private, all girls catholic school and thinks it would be good "charity" to invite the prison camp boys over for a dance.  For some unknown reason, the nuns agree.  The girls break out the Aqua Net and shoulder pads and this happens:






Holy S@!t! It's love! When he leaves, she starts crying, what is going on?! Fast forward to 1:50 to see the couple.
And also-what is in Virginia Madsen's hair??

So after this, girl and boy secretly meet up and have sex in a crypt.

Right next to the coffin.

And it's soooo romantic.

Then, the prison guard catches them. So what do they do? (after getting dressed and blowing out the 500 candles they brought)

Go on the run. Throw their lives away and spend the rest of the movie hiding out in some old cabin in the woods. Where Mrs. burns the bacon (where did they get bacon?? where will food come from? Clothes? I'm too practical for this.) In the end they are discovered and then fake their own deaths to avoid capture.

After knowing each other for 45 minutes.

Am I getting cynical in my old age? I left the movie annoyed and yelling at the characters, not hot and bothered like before.

However, this still gets me:

Another reason to love South Park

Even though I am exhausted after school (and have actually gone to bed at 8:30 this past week) I will be staying up Wednesday to watch South Park.  Why?
The finale is featuring Food Network!!  As a lover of both the network itself and its nemesis, FoodNetworkHumor.com, I cannot wait for this show. 

Here is the promo, featuring a cartoon Alton Brown:


Friday, November 12, 2010

Dear Kate Spade....

I'm in love. 

I've always been aware of Kate Spade (we are, technically, sorority sisters after all) but never really paid attention to or looked at her designs.

After seeing a friends new purse with a really cute 60s style bow, I was inspired to check out her website.  And maybe that wasn't a good thing because I am not obsessed.  Also, I have had another questionable fashion moment--I can be quite attracted to quirky things and forget that I do not live an artsy NYC life.  Here are a few of her things I love, starting with the questionable one.  Am I crazy to like this purse?

It's a typewriter!  I just think it's so neat!  And there are other matching accessories....
Ahh!  A piece of "paper" to go inside the typewriter!  It's actually a leather pouch. It just cracks me up.  Am I crazy?
This one actually made me gasp--I just LOVE it.  This one I don't feel crazy for liking.  These 3 items were the only ones I saw in this "collection."
In addition to her more whimsical pieces, Kate Spade also has classic, feminine pieces.  I love all of them. 
I also love the sense of humor a lot of her pieces have.  These mittens say "place snowball here."  She also had a yellow pair that said "taxi" and a white pair that says "hi 5"
And her clothes!  I want every single thing she has--it's all so me!  If only I had money...

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Christmas Time in the City

I'm not usually a Christmas person--it's usually not until the week before (or sometimes even later) that I start to feel the Christmas spirit.  But for some reason, this year, I am feeling very spirited.  Since I had the day off of work today, I decided to put up my tree--way earlier than ever before.

It's not exactly a Charlie Brown tree--but it is small and a little crooked. I love my tree though; the ornaments all coordinate with the decor of my apartment.  If I may say so, it is a very classy tree. 

I also got to bring out my Nutcracker Suite music box that I look forward to every year. It's not your average music box--it has four rotating scenes and 8 different music pieces from the ballet. 

Here are some pictures of my tree and music box--excuse the poor photography, the tree lights and motion in the music box made pictures a little difficult. 

The first scene--including the rat king in the background.




This is what it looks like when off--it takes up most of the space on my side table!

Silver bird ornament with white feathers

The whole tree.  It always leans to the right a bit... I try not to let it bother me too much

I found these bulbs at a craft store--the pink color was perfect!  They're not pictured but I also have hand-blown blue glass ornaments.  They match all the blue accents in my place.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Love and Other Drugs

Here is another movie that I really want to see--it also has a very similar title to another movie I love, Love and Other Disasters.

I love almost every part of this trailer but it has me wondering--is this one of those movies where all the good/funny moments are stuck in the trailer and the rest of the movie is a letdown?

I also think the trailer has a perfect mixture of heart and humor, but I worry that they could take the "she's sick" thing too far.  In this case it would go from a touching, real, humorous love story to a more grown up Walk to Remember.  No thanks.

Thoughts?

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Why I Stopped Facebooking

Can Facebook even be used as a verb like that?  Whatever, I am an English teacher.   I am allowed to make stuff up like that--just go with it.

About 6 months ago I took the plunge and canceled my facebook account.  Completely deleted it.  As far as Mark Zuckerberg is concerned I do not exist.
Nope.
I was one of the original people to sign up--back when it was only available to a few colleges and Farmville didn't exist. But over the years, I began using it less and less and when I did use it, it was unhealthy.  When I tell people I am no longer on the site they are shocked and say things like "don't you miss it?" (no) or "how do you stay in contact?"  Contact with who exactly?  My real friends know how to contact me and I don't need to be friends with Liam from 2nd grade so we can reminisce about elementary school and how I used to have a crush on him (and then get disappointed because he is no longer that attractive.) 

So I bring you the reasons/benefits of the non-facebooking lifestyle:

1. Students can't "friend" me 
I don't care how "cool" they think it is--they are not and will never be my friends.  I am their teacher.  I also don't need to read about them getting "OMG so totally wasted" instead of writing that paper I assigned.  And they don't need to see my pictures from that weekend (where I was doing something besides grading those papers I assignned). 
This is how my students think I spend the weekend.  I'm okay with that.


2. Co-Workers don't bother me off hours 
True story: a coworker I had never actually talked to screwed up and didn't send me some papers in time.  Then he needed them RIGHT NOW.  Well it was Friday afternoon and I said "screw that, I'll get them to you on Monday morning."  So guess who facebook stalked me and sent several messages begging me to turn them in ASAP.  He got them Monday. 

3. I can actually not care what exes are up to
I said I didn't care... but then I'd be looking at their pages.  It was an unhealthy waste of my time and in truth I really didn't care, but I'd still be curious.  And that curiosity led to upset feelings and occasional bursts of superiority when I decided I was way prettier than all the random girls in his photos.  They all also happened to be blond--coincidence?    

4. I can remain mysterious
Someone actually said to me today that not having a facebook was intriguing.  And I would agree--because I don't see theirs either. In today's dating world, we obsessively cyber stalk potential and future dates.  I find it happens to a point where you ruin the excitement of getting to know someone and nitpick little things on their pages and decide that person isn't right before even giving  him a chance (That's his favorite movie.  Well clearly we have nothing in common.) 
It also leads to first dates like this: 
Boy: "So I really enjoy reading." 
Girl: "Yeah, I saw you had a lot of books listed on facebook..." (maybe shouldn't have admited that) 
Or this: 
Boy: "So The Great Gatsby is my favorite book." 
Girl: *yawn* (Yeah, I know already.)    

facebook: a conversation killer.   Has anyone else considered shutting down their facebook? 

Here's a video I found years ago and still think is hilarious