On the television yesterday morning was an ad for Cheaper By the Dozen boldly claiming, "The Number One Comedy of the Year!" It was January 9th. Perhaps it could calm down a little.

Then, on the kitchen counter, stee had left open a Hollywood Reporter, where fans of Tarzan had taken out a half-page ad, demanding the show return to the air. It called themselves "A global network of fans."

Stee had drawn on the ad in pen a girl, shaking her fists, screaming, "Take off your shirt, Monkey Boy!"

I went to Michaels yesterday (noticed as I walked in that there's no apostrophe in that name. I wouldn't have guessed that.), and bought yarn for a scarf I'm making for stee. A small Russian woman stood in line behind me.

"What are you knitting?" she asked.

"Oh. A scarf."

"I do blankets," she said, her arms filled with about twelve skeins of the same color yarn.

"Does that take a long time?" I asked her.

"I knit very fast," she said with a cheeky smile. "But about a month, it will take."

"Wow."

"Can I see what you are knitting?" I happened to have the pattern on me, which I had printed out. I showed her the page.

"That is so nice," she said. "Where did you find the pattern?"

"Let's see. This one says Better Homes and Gardens dot com."

She stared at me and cocked her head.

"It's from The Internet," I explained. She didn't move a muscle.

"Would you like to have this pattern?" I asked her.

"Really?"

"Sure. I can get another one."

"Oh, thank you. You're such a nice girl. Thank you."

It's at this point you can't go, "I just hit open apple 'p' on my computer and I've got another one." You have to take the praise, and the slight guilt that comes with it, like when everybody is so impressed with the dinner you made that took all of five minutes to prepare.

"Good luck with your blanket," I said to her.

"Wait. I must see the yarn you're using." She touched everything and then let me go. "Good yarn," she said, nodding.

Stee's scarf has been blessed!

Hey, does this happen to anybody else? I'm just walking along, minding my own business, and then for about an hour, the Trading Spaces theme song will be stuck in my head. Y'all, I've seen that show about eight times, all in one week, a year ago, just to know what the hype was all about. It was worth it for the Eddie Izzard show, but man. It just plays and plays in my head, and I imagine the rooms in my house going through a huge transformation as I'm walking through them.

I'm going insane.

Speaking of crazy, tonight at midnight I'll be performing here:



You won't know what hit you. I'll be playing the role of The Silver Lake Blogger. I'm not kidding.

Caren Lissner reads my blog, and might read my book.

Which means she read that I didn't like her cover.

I would love to say I continually find myself in the role of "accidental asshole," but after years of getting email from actors/producers/directors who read our recaps at TWoP, you'd think I'd stop putting my foot in my damn mouth. On the Internet.

I really did like Carrie Pilby, and wondered why it also got the "chick lit" label. It's no more Chick Lit than The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I'm not just saying that because she's reading this, maybe, right now.

And also, to the Johnny Depp fansite people who may have stumbled on this site, I wasn't saying there's anything wrong with your fansite, it's just not something I normally do. See, I write for like, bizarro fansite sites, where we pretend we're way too cool to be fans, even though we are, because see, not that those of you who read/write for/run those sites are too cool for school or snobby or anything, because truly, you see...

I AM AN ASSHOLE.

I'm not the only one who was filled with Gilbert rage at the Johnny Depp Q&A. (It's fun to find a thread started for a link to my site, though.)

edited to add:
I would like to say I had no idea I was looking at a Johnny Depp fansite until stee practically shouted, "Oh, my God. You're on a Johnny Depp fansite?"

I thought I was looking at some kind of SAG site. Really! I swear! Where are you going?

[link fixed. sorry.]

New Entry: Phone Home.

We saw [worst R.E.M. album of all time] last night. If [woman playing exact same part she played when it was Irish and with her ex-husband] wins over [holy crap, I can't believe she was in [the pasta-origin employment]!], there is no justice in this world.

I love Christmas breaks. But I took one from da blog. And that was wrong. Very, very wrong.

I’m back, having hated another movie I really wasn’t allowed to hate. This time I wasn’t allowed to hate it not for political reasons -- as was true with [film as boring as the lifetime's worth of Coldplay songs that impregnated its star] -- but because it goes so against the reviews consensus to hate this movie that people will think I’m hating it just to be contrary. I swear I’m not. I really didn’t like [film I thought was bad]. Anyway.

Movie I Wasn’t Allowed to Hate, Part the Second

The biggest problem with the movie [film I thought was bad] wasn’t that it was too long. Or that the acting was bad. Or, like [name of every movie I’ve rented this week], that it didn’t make any sense in some fundamental way. Or even that it starred [name of anyone in Gigli].

The problem with [film I thought was bad] is that it was in love with how not bad it overwhelmingly believed itself to be. And, to be sure, it did some things well. The acting, for example, was good, what with Mr. [Incorrectly-Spelled Inky Writing Instrument] and [blonde starlet with amazing fucking publicist, I guess] doing their Method thing, and [guy who you’d never mistake for someone else] finally speaking English and not pretending he was from “Foreignia” or some other vaguely non-America-like place where they speak with marble-mouthed accents.

But in its sheer, raw [emotional state], the movie failed on all counts. I don’t mind depressing movies, but it so lacked any sense of redemption that it rendered the viewing experience something entirely outside of [famous philosopher who helped codify viewers’ expectations of art]-ian spectacle. No redemption. No development. Just [actor whose first name rhymes conveniently with “yawn”] wheezing, smoking, growing, shrinking, shirking, cheating, driving, and almost knocking himself over from patting himself on the back, all while his wife say idly by, playing the character of “woman who is this guy’s wife.” Nice.

And the [whatever the opposite of linear is] time frame of the film was excessive, pointless, and [synonym of “excessive and pointless”], serving no legitimate dramatic purpose other than making me want to cry for the editor, who is now locked away in an asylum somewhere. It didn’t develop in sequence. It didn’t develop out of sequence. It was an arrogant, overwrought, time-bending mess, a Lawrence Kasdan movie by way of a Quentin [word that sounds a bit like it should be a spider] screenplay gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Don’t see [legal drinking age] [unit of measure]. It’s way overrated.

Feel better, Pamie. I knew you thought someone else had already made the last Gigli joke the universe would allow for. Wrong you were.

New Entry: Who's Your Fry-Daddy?

I'm feeling better today, even though I'm still coughing and sniffling. I have that pent-up energy that comes from being immobile for three days. I want to clean everything, update all websites, finish writing this pilot, go the craft store, go shopping, pay some bills, make a few phone calls and then make a pie.

Do you think it's just female nature to become particularly maternal during times of war? All this knitting and cooking and baby-making going on these days. Is it the unemployment, and how broke we are, so we're acting a bit more like the "days of yore"? Or is it some kind of subconscious "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Once More" part of our brains that makes us want to knit a scarf?

Just got this email:

To: Juror #3, Van Nuys Superior Court, Dept E, Los Angeles,
CA, excused on November 13.

This is Juror #4 and I would really like to say Hi and continue our conversation. You can reply to this email or call 818-831-1492.

DO YOU KNOW JUROR #3?

She is WF, 30's, 5'5", slender build, short light brown hair.
She served on jury duty November 12 13, Van Nuys Superior Court in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, CA.

Contact me or please pass this message along to her.

Thanks, and Happy Holidays!

I don't know why, maybe it's the cold, but this is cracking me up. "Hmm. I really liked that girl who was excused from the jury. Perhaps I will email total strangers in hopes of finding her. That won't appear creepy or anything. It'll be so romantic! Like a movie. Order in the Heart. Yeah, that's it."

Meg Cabot is reading Why Girls Are Weird.

[Thanks, Anna, for letting me know in one of the comments threads.]

Damn, I hate the annoyance of a cold more than anything. I'm not sick enough to actually be a baby about it, but sick enough that it's strenuous to do anything that involves thinking or movement. The most I've been able to successfully accomplish is using my right hand to point and click repeatedly. But not motivated enough to answer email. I got out my laptop, thought about writing a few pages, and then found myself immediately downstairs procrastinating again. I got out a book and grabbed a blanket, ready to read until I fell asleep, but instead decided to lean sideways on this chair (why am I sideways? So that I can be as non-committal to the fact that I'm obviously procrastinating getting better, I guess. I have no idea how I ended up in this position, which kind of hurts my side, but that's how I am right now and I've written sentences about it without rectifying the situation, so whatever). Why can't I just go upstairs and write a few pages? I'll feel better when I'm done. Why won't I just go up and do that? I have no idea.

I have to get my guilt level up higher, I guess. Right now I'm feeling too sorry for myself, with my aching chest and irritated throat. I am too busy making loud hacking noises and pathetic stuffy-nosed moans to sit still and read. I'm in this halfway living place where I'm pretty much...

Taylor.

This is what it feels like to be a cat. I'm wandering from room to room, occasionally rubbing up against stee, begging for attention, and then I eat a little, drink a little water, mope around and whine. And then I fall asleep in weird places and sit in uncomfortable-looking positions. I'm one hairball away from felinitude.

Wonderful.

It seems I ring in every new year with a cold. I think it comes from the downtime after weeks of travel. I'm very snotty right now, which is even more of a bummer since Dan is in town, and he's been forced to watch very bad movies by my side, as very bad movies are the only thing that can cure a cold.

Hey, Why Girls Are Weird is one of the most blogged-about books of 2003! Take that, Neil Gaiman!

We spent New Year's up in Big Bear. Since I don't snowboard or ski (old-school pamie.com folks might remember my one terrible adventure into the Aspen slopes), I spent two days stoking fires, making soup and playing cards. I played Frontier Woman as I fed horses, brought in firewood and watched my face chap up like hide.

It's been very cold over here in California. So cold that people visiting let us know that it's colder here than in Boston or New York or wherever. It's so cold that at night the cats pile up on top of my sleeping body so that I'm trapped under mounds of fur. It might sound cozy at first, but it's a bit scary to realize that six blankets and three cats can actually trap you in your own bed.

Speaking of, I'm going back to bed. I don't have an internet connection in my bedroom, so being sick will probably make me more productive.