Living in Narnia

In Memoriam: Lamb Choppe

2010-06-08T19:27:00.005-04:00

Sir Bedlamb Choppe of Short Hills ("Lamb Choppe")

September 11, 1996-June 8, 2010
Bijou, A Very Good Boy
Baby Lamb

L is for the lost socks that will never be returned
A is for "Autsur" which you learned at Exxon
M is for the many birthday and Valentine's cards you sent me
B is for your bandana, which you always wore so well, and the back door of the kitchen

C is for the orange chair that you loved to sleep on and challah, your favorite food
H is for hugs you gave and the kisses you offeredc
O is for "Outside!" the place you loved to walk
P is for the peanut butter you ate
P is for all the paws you gave
E is for everyone whom this quiet, beautiful boy loved and who loved him right back

Rest in peace, my furry boy. I dreaded this day since the minute I met you. You were the best dog anybody could ask for, and I hope you are somewhere with sun, couches, challah, the Game Show Network and no squirrels. I love you very much and I will miss you for the rest of my life.

Tonight's Bachelorette Premiere in Text Messages

2010-05-24T22:09:00.007-04:00

Why Must This Show Drag On

The Bachelorette premiered tonight to little fanfare and advertising, mostly because it's the 37th season of this crap, they're in the same house festooned with the same roses and no one gives a rats ass about "America's Sweetheart" Ali. I completely forgot to DVR this shit and it actually interfered with Intervention so forgot to set up the liveblog, missed the first 25 minutes of the show which undoubtedly included a bikini, driving and looking off into distance with Golden Gate bridge in the background montage and was left with only my bitter text messages with friends to rely upon.

So, without further ado, here is tonight's Bachelorette episode as summarized in text messages between 9:25pm and 10:54pm.

CL: You love the bachelorette
Me: Oh, is it on tonight? Fuck
CL: Also are you submitting me for the bachelor again
CL: Who is this??
Me: They only pick from the pool - u have to be in bachelorette
Me: Do you think she's hot - she's kind of fat
CL: Yeah hot but def could lose ten.
Me: Omg - she was hotter last season, she just looks like a low end stripper
CL: Wow good call! I was just thinking that she is more of a hot but don't need to look into your eys, thx, chick
Me: Why wouldn't get a trainer and ditch the blue eyeshadow if you're going to be on tv? People make crazy decisions
CL: I think that look is in right now - skinny is way out
CL: Wow, 15 pounds
CL: Those arms are a disaster
Me: I'm telling you, she's fat and the fake diamonds aren't helping

[Men begin to emerge from limo]

CL: These guys have cheap ass suits
Me: Her arms are christmas hams
CL: Why r u not blogging this
CL: That dude was gay
CL: Are they going to do bathing suit shit
Me: I forgot it was on
CL: Bc that will be a gut
CL: She's girl next door if you live on the Vegas strip
Me: The lawyer was wearing a class ring
CL: What is her job - wtf
CL: Roberto zero chance
Me: Minority count = 1, that's pretty diverse for this show
CL: They gotta mix this up- throw in a rich dude
Me: They could select someone randomly from CA and she'd be hotter than Ali
CL: So true
CL: You throw one rich dude in there and would win every time
CL: I'm not going to watch anymore
Me: All of these guys are better looking than her
CL: Not Craig
CL: Or midget steve
CL: Def a couple dudes on the down low
Me: This shit is going on ATL - craig and jay the lawyers
CL: Her strap is falling off every second
Me: She's wearing spanx
CL: The dudes in the later limos are all gay
Me: Haha where do they find these guys
Me: This is fucking embarrassing
CL: Dude, I would clean up in these competitions against these dimwits and closet cases. I'd be like - these guys will take you out -I'll take you to paris.

[Ali and bachelors are mingling]

Me: The issues is that the bachelorette doesn't work as well at the bachelor, bc half the dudes are gay or aren't attracted to her or know that they could just go down the street and find ten hotter people
CL: Agreed
CL: Those arms...those arms
Me: I would be terrified that someone would spike my drink
Me: Her teeth are jacked
CL: She is dumb as a tree
CL: Landscaper hahahha
Me: You should paste this on your blog
CL: If someone scrapbooked for me I would call the police
Me: Omfg, a ukelele - I need a gun
Me: I love frank the dude with the glasses but I think he might be a buyer at Barney's
CL: Shooter bc I shoot in girls faces??
CL: Are you fucking kidding me?
Me: This guy just destroyed his life
Me: Omg I love dental sales craig - so evil and brooding
CL: I am going to play a video game now
Me: ROBERTO'S GETTING THE FIRST IMPRESSION ROSE, ALERT ALERT
CL: Nice
Me: Any particular reason they pulled a Barbara Walters and covered the camera lens in a black stocking

[Rose ceremony]

Me: She looks like a hooker
Me: She's wearing Jessica Simpson extensions
Megan: Not that high class, but trying to be
Megan: Gor-jess
Me:Like if you don't have elizabeth taylor diamonds, don't buy a chain at Claire's
Me: She gave a rose to the jewish dude, represent
Me: They were obviously too cheap to hire a wardrobe stylist this season - recession
Megan: Stop spoiling - I just got to ukelele
Me: One of the lawyers appears to have Ben Franklin hair

EXEUNT

Jihad Jane

2010-03-22T21:57:00.007-04:00

Waiting for Tarzan

Normally the news bores me to tears, except in the past few weeks there's been an amazing story about some white woman name Colleen LaRose from the Midwest having the usual midlife crises where she converted to Islam, married a random man in some country, joined a chat group and planned a suicide mission. Not sure why she couldn't just wear Kymaro body shapers or take strip aerobics and call it a day like every other middle age woman, but whatever. The best part about this story is that her chat screenname was Jihad Jane, which is literally the most genius screenname I've ever heard of. It's very difficult to come with funny screennames because you're limited in characters and also people have taken all the good ones like Bunions15 or BretMichaelsBand, and to come up with and actually GET a screenname that hilariously and cleverly references G.I. Jane is pure gold. I'm just surprised that no one on the violent Jihad chat site claimed that shit before but I guess these people don't really have a sense of humor. I once worked for a company where I had to clone web pages and the best screennames I could come up with there were "CalvinClone" and "MyLittleClony" which were pretty good but Jihad Jane is far better relatively speaking and someone on the news should at least acknowledge that.

15 Years Younger

2010-03-18T21:39:00.004-04:00

Elixir of Youth?

Last week one of my co-workers who sits across from my returned from a business trip to London. Normally the way it works is that every day she wears nice makeup, I get jealous and then casually ask her over office IM what she's wearing and then proceed immediately to Bloomingdales and slavishly buy everything she's wearing. She then asks me what the newest youth inducing miracle cream I'm using is, pretends not to care, immediately orders it online, gets it delivered to the office and then sheepishly is like, "I had no idea that you used this."It's actually fine because the end result is that neither of us can look better than the other. However, when she came back from London I was annoyed because I had been using these 2 damn Renova samples and nobody was noticing that I had literally turned back the clock and found the fountain of youth, I thought I would address the issue head on a few days ago as I was typing away at my desk:

Me: "Notice anything different?"
Co-worker: "No."
Me: "UM, How about the fact that I've been using the Retin-A samples that my dermatologist gave me for three weeks now religiously."
Co-worker: "Ok"
Me: "I literally look 15 years younger. I actually look 15."
Co-worker: "I mean, you do have a certain glow about you."
Me: "That's because I'm pregnant."

Liveblogging The Bachelor - Episode 3, TONIGHT at 8pm EST

2010-01-18T17:21:00.002-05:00

&amp;lt;a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&amp;amp;task=viewaltcast&amp;amp;altcast_code=f84c54961a" &amp;gt;The Bachelor - Episode 3&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

I've baaaAAACK from a nightmarish "vacation" week in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, where the temperature never got over a steamy 71 degrees, I sat on the beach with a sweatshirt, my room smelled like a damp armpit and I danced with a wheelchair bound person at Senor Frogs. It was, in a word, NOT IDEAL. Luckily I caught the last 15 minutes of last week's Bachelor which was by some miracle streamed to Mexico, and I ascertained that pilot Jake rightfully eliminated the two ugliest women and expressed ludicrously fake "outrage" at Rozyln's "inappropriate conduct" with a Bachelor producer. In any event - get your couches in upright locked positions and join tonight's liveblog of episode 3, at 8pm ET.

LiveBlogging The Bachelor - "On the Wings of Love" TONIGHT at 8PM ET

2010-01-04T15:00:00.004-05:00

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;task=viewaltcast&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;altcast_code=33f856a171" &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;The Bachelor - "On the Wings of Love" - TONIGHT, 8PM ET&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Well, I can't believe ABC went through with it and America is standing by and letting this happen, but tonight at 8pm Pilot Jake, the corniest cheesebag in 15 seasons starts his run on the most amazing show on television, The Bachelor. I absolutely 100% called the "On the Wings of Love" subtitle of the show as Risa can fully attest, and I have several predictions for tonight's episode, which include but are not limited to the following:

1. Opening montage will feature Jake doing push-ups and jogging shirtless on the beach, throwing a frisbee to a Labrador or some other all-American dog, driving own the California pacific highway in a car rented by the producers, wearing a pilot costume from Halloween Adventure while boarding a plane and saluting to slutty flight attendants as he boards a fake plane, saying into a helicopter microphone "we have lift off" and looking longingly over a hotel balcony to give the impression that he is "searching" for love.
2. Bachelorette contestants will include Katie M, and Katie C., at least two people in medical sales, a teacher, a flight attendant, a "marketing executive" a park ranger and an alumni fundraiser.
3. Jake will confirm to Chris Harrison that the women piling out of the limo will be "more beautiful than he even imagined" despite the fact that 75% of them will be wearing Bump Its and Zum Zum dresses.
4. One of the women will say "I love your eyes" in Polish when she meets him because he's Polish and he will pretend to be impressed by this and say "I'll see you inside at the cocktail party."
5. Two women will humiliate themselves and embarrass viewers by singing for him and at least one will play a wind instrument.

I'll be liveblogging the show every Monday, so join me tonight, won't you, as we discover whose heart will take flight TONIGHT?

Next Stop: Louvre

2009-12-07T22:25:00.007-05:00

Aliza sent me the link to this magnificent portrait commissioned by Michael Jackson that was recently delivered to his estate. In it, MJ, dressed as Charles V and Sgt. Pepper, rides a Fashion Star Fillie into a flower patch located in the Sistine Chapel while Rubens-inspired putti with the red drapery stolen from the You Are Not Alone video crown him as Jesus Christ. This is perhaps the greatest work of art of our time.

Let Live and Let Die

2009-11-30T19:01:00.010-05:00

Not in my backyard

Um, Perry and I were literally just taking our evening constitutional and we were standing outside of a funeral home that is directly across the street from my apartment which really lifts my spirits in the morning, when these two guys were TAKING A DEAD BODY OUT OF THE BACK OF A CAR. As I'm standing there staring and pretty much shitting my pants, this obese guy with a lazy eye opened the trunk of a HONDA MINIVAN and slid out a dead body covered in a dark gray wool blanket, and then the board that the dead person was on magically turned into a gurney and they just wheeled this person across the sidewalk about 5 feet from me and into the funeral home, as if transporting dead bodies on the streets of NYC within inches of living people was perfectly normal and acceptable behavior for 6:45pm on a Monday.

I was just standing there gaping and then three other people were walking by me and saw what was happening and I said "UMMM" very loudly to try and get them to agree with me that this was absolutely preposterous and naturally they ignored me and kept on walking because dead people come out of the back of hondas and are on the sidewalk ALL THE TIME. Why not just start transporting dead people on the subway during rush hour. I don't know what to say except that while I recognize that I live near a funeral home and I should have suspected these sort of things, apparently every person who has died and used this funeral home in the past two years had the decency to get wheeled in while I was either at work or sleeping or was otherwise disguised in some way so that I didn't know with 100% certainty that in fact there were dead people near my apartment.

Another Thing I'm Thankful For

2009-11-27T13:33:00.003-05:00

This never gets old

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T11:13:00.003-05:00

Rare vintage photo of old nose, which has been replaced with a better one, THANKFULLY

Happy Thanksgiving to all you three readers out there today. In the spirit of the holiday, I have made a list of all the things I am thankful for, in order of thankfulness, from most to least. Here it is:

1. Regrowth of my eyebrows since ACCIDENTALLY over tweezing
2. Perry
3. Michael Jackson
4. Friends/Family
5. Not having HPV
6. My job
7. Ebay
8. Being a wonderful listener and friend
9. Celebrities
10. My nose job
11. My landlord renting my apartment to me again at a lower rent
12. Bret Michaels
13. Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew
14. More insider reports on Scientology
15. Compliments
16. Noticeable lessening of my prune chin due to cumulative effects of Botox over time
17. Vacations
18. My parents finally stopping trying to suggest that I should go back to working in a law firm
19. Looking better than most of the people I went to high school with
20. The American Express smiley face commercial
21. Dog shows

What are you thankful for? Tomorrow I will post a comprehensive list of things that are still left to complain about.

The View from Narnia

2009-11-24T09:38:00.004-05:00

"Now I drop the top down just to shout to hoes"*

*Note AT&T quiz on top right (click to enlarge)

The View from Narnia

2009-11-20T15:35:00.000-05:00

Lumineer computer rendering of how I would look with veneers,
4 extra teeth and a piano in my mouth

In Memoriam: Myles (1998-2008)

2009-11-20T10:04:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, LIN commenter Rachsky's Pomeranian, Myles, suffered a ruptured gallbladder and tragically died. Myles was ten years old and Rachsky rescued him three and a half years ago. I only met him once, but he seemed to me a happy and mischievous boy who adored his owner. Just three weeks ago he snagged honorable mention for his giraffe costume in the Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade and took home the coveted bone-shaped cookie cutter prize. Since all dogs go to heaven, something tells me that Myles is in the big Louis Vuitton bag in the sky, eating a steak doused in peanut butter. Rest in peace, Myles. Please keep KC and Pretty Boy company. We'll miss you.

"I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?"

--Sir Walter Scott

Unacceptable: Biggest Loser Romances

2009-11-18T12:55:00.006-05:00

Logistically impossible

Yesterday, I went to the Us Magazine site as usual to ensure that no celebrity news had happened overnight, and I was assaulted with the horrifying news that Rebecca and Christian Daniel from the Biggest Loser are now “dating.” I'm happy that they've "found love" or whatever and they seem like decent people but could anything be more disgusting. Two regular sized people touching each other is already disgusting, but add in obesity, loose skin flapping everywhere and nothing could be worse. If they are touching each other, it should happen in private in the dead of night with parkas on and there shouldn’t be an entire article TALKING about how much they talk with each other and “connect.” I do not want to hear that and frankly neither does America.

The View from Narnia

2009-11-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

"Understated"

Swine Flu Vaccine: No Thanks

2009-11-16T23:03:00.008-05:00

So today, the HR manager at my job walks into the room where I sit and informs us all that there is one extra swine flu vaccine left if anyone wanted it, because a few months ago she had booked some vaccines and I guess someone who thought they wanted it chickened out last minute. When she first sent out the email I spent a full day panicking about whether I should sign up because every segment on 60 Minutes and Dateline is like "Veterans from Iraq with Swine Flu" and they're making it seem like literally everyone has swine flu. Well, I have news for you because nobody I know has swine flu and if they did they certainly would never admit to it because who gets these sort of things unless they're a medieval peasant.

Anyway, I ultimately came to the conclusion that I was certainly not going to voluntarily ALLOW someone to inject this disease into me on purpose, so when everyone was asking me today why I didn't just grab up the "free" vaccine and I had to explain to them that now that I am no longer an international bunion model, I am forced make my living based on my intelligence and I can't afford to go around getting autistic from these vaccinations. My boss then attempted to claim that adults can't get autism from vaccines, which is ridiculous because if the whole idea is that these vaccines CAUSE autism in babies, why would you miraculously stop catching it when you're an adult? In any event, I conceded that even if I WAS to become autistic it wouldn't be a huge deal because autism is now curable with a wheat-free diet and certain Scientology prayers.

Perry Doodlehead, Healer

2009-11-16T00:56:00.009-05:00

In my ongoing quest to figure out what the hell you’re supposed to do during the day on the weekend, I got an email last week saying that this charity organization where dogs go to hospitals and cure people by their mere presence, was having a “casting call” for wannabe therapy dogs. I kind of didn’t want to go to this thing at first because their website said that if you get accepted into the program you have to sign a pledge where you agree to bathe your dog within 24 hours of a facility visit, which appeared to be code for bedbugs. In any event, I decided that we should go because they framed it as a “casting call” and since Perry has already been on Oprah AND in The New York Times AND is literally an Ambassador for his breed the next stage in celebritydom is getting involved with a charity.

In any event, we roll up to this doggy daycare place and apparently every dog owner in downtown NYC thinks their dog has what it takes to be therapeutic. I had to fill out this four page form where they asked leading questions like “Does your dog bark excessively?” and “List some of your dog’s dislikes” which immediately put me in the the awkward position of having to conceal Perry's rabid hatred for dwarves and pug faced dogs.

Finally, the trainer calls Perry and three other dogs into the training room for our “skills” test and right away this bitter old woman with a Papillon makes some underminer comment to the trainer saying like “I don’t think you’ll be out of here by 3 today, there’s a lot of people waiting outside,” and then trainer says that she doesn’t care and that actually this audition is a test for the temperament of both dogs AND owners - ZING. So she had us do all these tests, like give your dog commands and see if he listens and doesn’t bite. The worst test was that the dogs were supposed to walk by a pile of sumptuous treats and somehow IGNORE them, walk away, sit, stay and then go down. So three of the dogs go and more or less ignore the treats and do the commands. On our turn, we walk toward the treats, I tell Perry to “leave it,” and naturally he lunges after them and I have to physically drag him away. Perry then somehow mistakes my “down” command as “give me your paw” and launches into his famous paw- other paw-high five routine which I had specifically instructed him to save for our grand finale.

So after all the testing is done, she gives us the results and there were three possible outcomes: rejected, need basic obedience and then therapy classes, or just proceed straight to therapy class. She tells the bitter woman with the Papillon that her attitude sucks, she tells Bogey who was clearly the Valedictorian that he can proceed straight to therapy and she tells this other puppy that he needs to basic training to get his shit together.

Then she comes up to me and I’m pretty much shitting my pants which is pretty ridiculous considering this entire thing was literally an audition for the “privilege” of PAYING for 5 weeks of therapy classes to then VOLUNTEER my time. But by some miracle, she tells me that Perry can actually proceed DIRECTLY to therapy classes and I was like “um, are you kidding me?” and she told me that she passed him even though he seemed “confused” by the whole testing situation, but once he “understood what was being asked of him” he would get on board.

She also informed me that before therapy classes started in January, Perry would need to practice his shit so he could “graduate on time” with his future classmates. She was basically calling him special needs in front of the other dogs which I found extremely insulting because the same shit happened to me once in elementary school, where they confused my name with this girl Marna and they took me to a reading “annex” despite my protests that there had been a terrible mistake and that Marna was the REAL idiot and I was the one with ADVANCED reading skills. I had to spend an entire day reading aloud humiliating sentences like “The cat is in the box” until I came home and told my mom what happened and pitched my Marna theory, which she agreed with and then called the school to kick some ass.

P.S. No, every post is not about Perry, the last few ones just HAPPEN to be about him so just calm down.

Perry at Meet the Breeds Expo - TOMORROW

2009-10-16T12:16:00.003-04:00

Ambassador Perry W. Doodlehead

In our neverending quest to be the #1 Bedlington Terrier and Owner combination on planet earth, Perry and I will be starring in the Meet the Breeds expo at the Javits Center, tomorrow, October 17^th. Meet the Breeds is essentially a giant petting zoo for dog snobs, where people can pay $10 and meet rare breeds and the owners who brag about them. There will be about 160 breeds of dogs and like 90 breeds of cats at the show, and the crowd should be the usual dog show crowd of gay couples and unmarried women in the fifties wearing kitten sweaters and gold lockets in the shape of their favorite breed, the latter of which I hope to be one day.

Naturally, Perry and I were SPECIFICALLY EMAILED in a listserv to participate in this event by the Bedlington Terrier Club of America, which is only the MOST PRESTIGIOUS Bedlington Terrier organization in the U.S. I got the email at work and screamed and told my boss I was quitting because at this point it is clear that Perry and I are on the very cusp of fame and several lucrative endorsement deals. It’s just so gratifying because I have always known that Perry and I were destined for greatness and being the AMBASSADOR for an ENTIRE BREED at a petting zoo is almost too much to handle. It is the greatest honor of my life.

If you can bear to be in the presence of such greatness, I invite you to attend the Meet the Breeds expo tomorrow and Sunday, Oct. 17^th and 18, at the Javits Center. Perry and I will be in the booth from 12-2pm, signing autographs and posing for pictures (price upon request). See you there!

Table for 15 Abortions

2009-10-14T22:07:00.006-04:00

Frank the Tank sent me a link to this article, which describes the plight of Irene Vilar, some Jane Seymour look-alike who wrote a book called "Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict." The book describes how from ages 16-33, Irene "could not stop" herself from conceiving and having 15 ABORTIONS with her now ex-husband, because while we have invented abortions, modern science has yet to produce any sort of penis covering or magical pill that would in any way prevent pregnancy.

While it is gross and distasteful to have that many abortions, the major issue here is that Irene admitted to having sex with her husband 15 times, which is absolutely disgusting. My parents had sex three times (ALLEGEDLY), once for me, Aliza and Jenna and I assure you that was more than plenty. There is certainly no need to have sex 15 times with anyone under any circumstances and it in fact may be illegal depending on the state.

What this article further fails to mention is that Irene is apparently trying to copy the Duggars, that Fundamentalist couple with their own TLC show who have had sex 18 times, with the main difference being that the Duggars forgot to have abortions and just kept having kids. Michelle Duggar attempts to come across as so devout and "modest" by wearing pioneer hair and ugly long skirts, but the jig was up the minute the audience realized that 18 kids = 18 sexytimes, which was only three more sexes than Irene. With all the bad press about Jon and Kate Gosselin, it is at least comforting to know that they only had sex twice and the 8 was a result of fertility treatments.

The Next Bachelor - Terrible News

2009-10-02T11:59:00.002-04:00

Not you again

Us magazine is reporting that pilot Jake from last season’s Bachelorette may be me the new Bachelor. Um, you may recall that pilot Jake was a complete cheesebag and sociopath who constantly talked about being accused of being too perfect and then like flew back in his pilot costume to Texas to confront Wes because Jillian was an “angel” and he needed Wes to admit that he only had one annoying song and a girlfriend. He was literally unbearable to watch because he was outrageously corny in every conceivable way and I may actually die if I have to watch an entire season of this nerd patrol mugging and grinning and saying absurd generic things like “what a terrific gal.” And since Jake’s a pilot or at least dresses like one, you KNOW every date will be a mandatory helicopter date or plane date, and they will constantly be flying to mountain top picnics or bungee jumping when they could easily just walk ten feet and get there. I don’t know if I can deal with this type of corniness for an extended time period. I might not be able to watch the show. Just kidding.

Rogaine for Women

2009-09-22T15:04:00.008-04:00

The past few weeks have been, in a word, NOT IDEAL. My lease came up for renewal, I had tooth issues and best of all, my hair started falling out. Like I would start blow drying my hair and my brush would fill up with lost hairs and then by the time I got to my desk I looked like Big Foot because hundreds of yellow hairs coated my black sweater. Hair falling out is bad, but it’s actually worse for me because it’s not like I have 10,000 hairs to spare and also if this was culminating in my having to have short hair or going bald, that would be a serious problem because my face looks fat with short hair. Predictably this resulted in me losing my shit several times at my desk and my boss, who is a legitimately nice person, tried to cheer me up by buying cupcakes, which was thoughtful but ineffective unless I could wear the yellow frosting on my head.

I scheduled an appointment with my GP, who drew blood and said she had no idea what it could be, and recommended Shen Min, a “Chinese herb” that “really helps.” She then told me that I “might want to use” Rogaine because it helps with stopping hair loss. I informed her that unfortunately, dignity prevented me from spraying special water on my head in an attempt to miraculously regrow hair and that at this point why not just get one of those upside down tomato gardens and stick my head under the UV light and see if that helps.

On the way back from the doctor’s appointment, I stopped in “InVite” an upscale vitamin store where they sell the exact same crap as Vitamin Shoppe except for $4 more due to the increased effectiveness. Naturally, the “vitamin associate” on duty was wearing a completely absurd toupee that looked like it was out of the Sabotage video, and as I awkwardly explained to him that I needed some Shen Min because my hair was falling out, he insultingly AGREED that my hair was looking limp, and further recommended garlic and folic acid. Because when a man in clown toupee gives me hair advice, I listen.

In any event, after a few days of taking Shen Min pills and not seeing instantaneous results, I decided to bite the bullet and buy Rogaine. I specifically decided to buy the Rogaine at a Walgreens as opposed to a Duane Reade, because the Duane Reade keeps embarrassing products like Rogaine and condoms at the pharmacy counter, and who needs the double humiliation of requesting an embarrassing product and then being judged by someone with an advanced degree. At Walgreens, the Rogaine next to the dandruff shampoos behind one of those plexiglass windows with a buzzer, which I pressed and thereby triggered a loudspeaker announcement that said “Sales associate to the hair aisle.” A girl walked up to me and asked me what I wanted, and I said “Rogaine for Women” as loudly and as proudly as possible in shrewd attempt to make it seem like I was buying it for someone else because if you’re buying it for yourself you’re supposed to not make eye contact and be embarrassed about the fact that you’re 29 and putting magical water on you head.

The end result is that I have “telogen effluvium,” which sounds like an 18^th century consumption disease but is actually just hair loss due to acute stress. Megan found it on the Mayo clinic and then I printed it and showed to my dermatologist who agreed with it and then charged me $50 for agreeing with it. It’s going away and my hair will soon be back to my usual lustrous mane.

Marching Orders for Peach Cobbler & Apple Pie

2009-09-08T15:40:00.003-04:00

Sent via email from Megan. Note last few ingredients.

things we need to get from my house:

food processor
rolling pin
apple peelers
lemon zester
measuring cups, measuring spoons
baking soda
baking powder
cornstarch
crisco
flour
sugar
salt
cinnamon, allspice

things you should buy:

butter - package of 4 sticks, unsalted (i would just use my own, but it's in the freezer and we don't really have time to defrost)
1 small package unbleached all purpose flour (the smallest package is about 5"x4" - that will be plenty)
2 lemons
1 small container plain yogurt, full fat if possible, NOT skim (smallest container will do - we only need about 2/3 cup)
1 small package plain white sugar (i have some but don't want us to run out half way through - we only need a couple cups though, so again, smallest package will do)
package of eggs (we only need ONE, so if you can find a half-dozen instead of a dozen, buy that)
plastic wrap, tin foil (disregard if you already have)
disposable pie tin
disposable baking dish for cobbler (8"x8" square or 9"x9" square - small rectangle is also fine, but we won't fill up a full brownie pan sized rectangle, so that's why i'm saying "small")

things already at marin's:

margarita mix
tequila
apples
peaches

Now Officially Obsolete

2009-08-25T17:46:00.006-04:00

Today as I was trudging toward the subway with sopping wet hair that still contained the smell of my tar dandruff shampoo, I was confronted with the above Pantene commercial walking right in front of me. I honestly can't deal with this type of shit first thing in the morning because then I have to spend the rest of the day wondering why god invented me if luxxxurious manes of despicably beautiful hair like this exist. This woman's hair made me want sue BioSilk, Babyliss Flat Iron, Keratase Volumactif and Bed Head Thickening serum for their piece of shit products that make my hair look like anemic clumps of wheat, shave my head and just call it a day.

The View from Narnia

2009-08-21T11:11:00.001-04:00

Get your credit card ready

*Courtesy of Megan

My Ear, PART VI

2009-08-18T20:41:00.004-04:00

You again

We interrupt my tooth complaints to bring you some outrageous news on the My Ear saga. The ear story ended with me getting on the phone with "Paul" from "Lenox Hill Billing Associates" who had informed me that the going cost of looking up my nose and in my ear, prescribing me medication that didn't work, performing absolutely no lab tests, sending me a to a hearing aids place without even ASKING me if I thought I was going deaf where I was forced to spend $355, was $750. I kindly told "Paul" that $750 was actually illegal under the rent control laws, and he then informed me that he would forward my claim on to collections if I didn't pay within 14 days. I made several other compelling arguments, such as crying, informing him that they actually told me it was going to be $140 on the phone, and confirming that no gold had been deposited by Dr. Lim in my nose that would account for $750 worth of medical services. Paul eventually lowered the charge to $300, which I grudgingly paid in exchange for the right to complain about health insurance till I die and to just to have this whole ordeal over with. Or so I thought.

People always ask me why I check my mail every few weeks instead of every day and it's because the entire purpose of the mail is to send people bad news slowly and to do it in the most passive aggressive manner possible. Every time I get my mail, someone's notifying me that I went over my minutes, used more electricity this month or trying to guilt me into sending $5 to someone with lymphoma. In any event, I checked the mail tonight and sure enought, it contained ANOTHER BILL from Manhattan Eye & Ear. Is that a fucking joke. Apparently ME&E thinks they can send me a bill in May for $750, make me think that I've paid it all then then sneak attack me FOUR MONTHS LATER for a $260 "1 Eval/Mgt Est Expanded Focu" in the hopes that I forget that I actually paid them $300 three months ago and that I get overwhelmed and tricked by the words "Eval/Mgt Est Expanded Focu" which appears to be a Chinese buffet item. They also outrageously thought they could cut the bill on August 8 and make it due on August 18, like it was some kind of emergency that I pay IMMEDIATELY when they in fact specifically waited till August to send it to me in the hopes that I would be on vacation so that I wouldn't see it and they could send it on to collections because the main part of bill collector's job satsifaction comes from ruining lives and embarrassing people.

Tomorrow morning I plan to call ME&E and inform them that I will be paying the new bill IN NARNIA and that they can take whatever fake new bills they're planning to send to me for future invented Eval/Mgt Est Expanded Focu's over Columbus Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas and throw them out the window because I already paid for this shit and I have insurance now so they need to calm down and stop treating me like an indigent.

My Tooth, Part I

2009-08-11T10:09:00.000-04:00

The Sunday night before my new job was supposed to start, I was settling into bed to read Jesus, Interrupted when I took a sip of water and nearly blasted through my ceiling from tooth pain. It felt like 30 knives plunging into my gum and eventually faded 30 minutes late into a dull throb, to the point where I was thinking of creative ways to deliver the speech to my new boss the next morning about how I realized that it was my first day on the job, but I just showed up to let him know that I was actually taking a vacation day that day so I could attend to the raging cavity on the upper left side of my mouth which god had planted there to destroy me. Luckily I fell asleep and the next morning I was delirious from "waking up for work" at something referred to as "7 AM" which I previously hadn't know about, that I went to work, forgot about my tooth and started my first day on the job. At about 10am, I could no longer go on without coffee, so I trudged to a deli called "Pinnacle" in midtown, which is the pinnacle of efficiency due in part to the cashiers' hysterical screams of "NEXT! WHO'S NEXT! STEP DOWN WHO'S NEXT!" from the second you walk in the door, and purchased a small coffee.

Upon sipping the coffee at my desk I screamed because the hotness hit my apparently rotting tooth that I had forgotten about, thereby trigging horrible cavity pain. Two of my new co-workers said, "Are you ok?" at which point I had to explain to them that it was actually completely typical for me to do things like develop my first cavity in eight years on the first day of my new job where I had no accrued vacation time and when health and dental insurance were finally within striking distance but not yet mine and that they should just act casual if they saw me during lunch hour putting a string around my tooth and tying it the office doorknob and slamming the door.

I then called my mom during my lunch hour, cried and got the number of my friend's dad who is a dentist in NJ, and I begged him to clear some time on Saturday so that I could use my first weekend while working in over a year to attend to medical emergencies. Stay tuned for My Tooth, Part II, where I visit the dentist for the first time "since the office converted to electronic records," according to the hygienist and discover that something strange and costly has happened in my mouth...

The View from Narnia

2009-08-09T16:39:00.004-04:00

Ashlee Simpson's new chin donor, REVEALED

The View From Narnia

2009-08-07T15:34:00.003-04:00

Kate Gosselin Halloween wig: amazing flash mob idea

I Called It: No One Attracted to Jillian After All

2009-08-06T19:17:00.006-04:00

But their happiness seemed so REAL

I've been M.I.A. for the past few weeks because I've been tired in the evenings from something called "working" "full-time." "Working" apparently involves getting out of bed very early, going to an office, siting in it for 8 hours and then returning home. In any event - I am returning to blogging LIN regularly, starting now.

Down to business. During The Bachelorette this season, the running theme has been that no one is attracted to Jillian with the guys saying shit like "I usually date blondes" to Jillian's face and exclaiming in confessionals that they're "surprised" in spite of themselves how much they like her. You'll recall that at the beginning of the show, the producers even had Jillian explain to the camera that just because she's unattractive doesn't mean that she's not deserving of love, which is patently false and deeply offensive. Given that they tricked a bunch of attractive men into thinking they were signing up for a show to compete for someone hot, it's not really surprising that Ed was simultaneously dating and sleeping with two other women the entire time and writing text messages about how Jillian's "not his type" to them. I mean, if he was having problems getting it up with her in the Fantasy Suite with rose petals, a thatched roof and while rubbing two gallons of Hawaiian Tropics all over each other, there is a 0% chance that he will be able to get it up in real life. Check out the only interview Jillian and Ed did to address these rumors, where they both twitch, blink a zillion times, fidget and generally act like normal people who have nothing to hide do. It's especially great around the 5 minute mark where Jillian acts indignant and outraged that anyone would care about her private life with Ed, apparently forgetting that she just appeared on a show that focused exclusively on her private life.

In any event, I STRENUOUSLY URGE you to pick up a copy of Us magazine with Ed and Jillian on the cover. It gives a four page timeline of his cheating, before, during and after the show, includes some of his absolutely hilarious texts and emails to these women ("this is the summer of vagina") and these two "humiliated" women further humiliate themselves by talking about their absurdly desperate and slutty behavior. I read aloud the story to Megan while getting a manicure and people around me were like listening in but pretending not to.

Live Blogging The Bachelorette Finale - TONIGHT, 8PM EST

2009-07-27T00:02:00.003-04:00

&amp;lt;a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&amp;amp;task=viewaltcast&amp;amp;altcast_code=3a351bc60d" &amp;gt;The Bachelorette - FINALE&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;
You didn't think I'd leave you hanging for the FINALE of this season's lackluster Bachelorette, did you? Join me and other bitter people tonight at 8pm EST as we rip Jillian, bug eyed Ed and false eyelashes Kiptyn to shreds in what will be undoutbedly the most shocking/romantic/helicopter heavy finale ever. My bet is that she WAS going to choose Kiptyn and then when he's standing at the final elimination he lets her know that he never actually liked her and by that point and she has already eliminated Ed, so she ends up alone. Don't say I didn't call it. Also, if Reid comes back on and Jillian attempts to interfere with my relationship with him there will be a major problem. In unrelated news, Aliza went to Chicago last weekend and said she looked for Ed but was unable to locate him. Not sure what that means in terms of the show.

R.I.P. Emey from the Bike Shop

2009-07-20T22:46:00.006-04:00

There are some rumors out there - that I "got a job" (it's temporary until/if they make me permanent) that I need a "root canal" (will address in separate post entitled, "My Tooth"), that I'm no longer watching The Bachelorette (vicious lie). I'm eggzausted from working 73 jobs, but I just had to share some sad news.

This morning, Perry and I were taking our 7:34 am constitutional when I saw a framed black and white picture of Emey Hoffman, the shop's owner, in the window of the bike shop on 6th street. It is a well known fact that framed pictures only appear in windows when people die or move away and then die.

I stopped walking on 6th street during business hours about a year ago because one of the bike mechanics Gabe who was kind of cute in a Titanic engine room coal shoveler sort of way found my blog and kind of asked me out via email and rather than email him back or acknowledge him in any way I thought the most adult and reasonable method for dealing with the situation was to avoid walking on 6th street altogether and to walk down Avenue A near 6th street in a wool hat and hooded sweatshirt carrying Perry so that he wouldn't blow my cover by looking like a sheep. It was hard to stop walking by the store - I had walked Perry past it for over a year and had gotten to know the guys in the bike shop, including Emey, the elder stateman of the joint who directed the younger mechanics. Emey sat in a beach nylon chair outside the shop during the spring, summer and fall and inside the shop during the winter, but he wore shorts year round. His hands were always black with grease and he would drink beers starting at 4pm and always offer me one, "ice cold." Occasionally he would save bones from his lunch to give to Perry, but mostly Perry would jump up on his lap just to sit and depending on his mood, Emey would talk about his four Dachsunds (Newton and Samantha were two of them), his ballistics invention which he claimed some company stole and said it was going to make him millions, his 35 year war with his landlord who was constantly trying to get him evicted from his $375 rent controlled apartment, his "capo" protection, his separate room in his apartment for "relations" with his wife and his staunch defense of John McCain despite my arguments that his face was legitimately falling off. I was complaining him once that since I got Perry, I've never had a meal undistubed because he's constantly harrassing me for my food, and Emey said, "You get a dog and you never get a meal in peace again. That's the deal." It told him at the time I wanted to rip up my high school yearbook and make that my yearbook quote.

The last time I saw Emey I was last December, when I walking up toward St. Marks with Perry. He was walking down toward 6th street and I didn't know what to do because I if I had ever ran into any of the bike shop people, I had planned on pretending that I moved away and that's why I hadn't been by the shop but now I was caught read handed. He said hello, and I said hello back, and then I returned home and felt like a shithead and thought about telling Megan about this situation but I felt like I would have to explain why it made more sense to rearrange my walking patterns than deal with the situation of someone asking me out and I didnt' feel like being told that I needed to go back into therapy or that I needed to get over myself.

In any event, internet research tonight revealed that the black and white frame was right: Emey died January 7th of this year, unexpectedly of a heart attack. I wish I would have known earlier and could have paid my respects and now I feel like a complete buffoon for staying away so long and for such ridiculous reasons. Rest in peace, Emey. I feel better knowing that Pretty Boy, the other block mascot, is there to keep you company.

The Bachelorette -- Still Embarrassing

2009-07-14T09:22:00.006-04:00

Hi, it's Megan again. Due to a DVR conflict (there are really too many things on Monday nights!), Marin missed the first 45 minutes of The Bachelorette, and so I will provide my comments (as well as Marin's, received via text, from the portion of the show she did see).

---

9:17pm (at which point I pressed play on my DVR)

ropes courses do not build real relationship "trust"

um, helmet = not flattering

can she please stop bargaining with kiptyn for kisses

so embarrassing

also, i hate when she winks

AND WEARS JUMPERS

i can't deal with the fantasy suite - rose petals and whatnot

not looking good in the confessional shots - but not looking as bad as lest episode with the center parted hair (busted)

oh christ - helicopter - that shit is getting really old

i would be like, "no thanks, i'll meet you where you're going"

she's so NEEDY - i NEED him to tell me how he's feeling, i NEED to hear that he's ready for marriage. hello, you've been dating for 2 weeks

"are you ready to propose at the end of this" = not romantic

bubble bath - too ridiculous

um, ed's tank top is NOT OK

are they lying on a trampoline? wtf

his tiny green bathing suit is also not ok - why is he dressed like a european gay man

why does his chest hair creep up onto his neck

NEITHER OF ED'S PARENTS ARE REMOTELY ASIAN - marin and tiffany are so busted

enough with the rose petals

what is that henley-slash-negligee?!?

it's a poor man's boyfriend T

R U WATCHING THIS SHIT

um they are rubbing oil all over each other - this is R rated

AS A CAMERA MAN AND BOOM MIC are one foot from them

OMG - why don't they just come right out and say that ED CAN'T GET AN ERECTION

it's so fucking surreal - how could anyone get it up

oh god these stupid fucking video messages

OMG - reid just referenced what happened in the fantasy ssuite as the "best night of his life"

um reid just called himself her honey bear, please shoot me

what the hell is ed wearing ot the rose ceremony - pale blue blazer? weirdo

she's having another bad hair day at this rose ceremony

why don't they just come out and say ed had an erection problem? it doesn't violate FCC rules

i don't know if that's what happened - it kinda just seemed like neither of them were int he mood. am i retarded?

no, it was clear that jill was just covering for him - when she pulls him aside and he basically says in code "i can get an erection, don't worry"

i don't know

what would YOUR level of concern be

my main concern would be that i had sex with 3 different guys in 3 days

i mean - i guess if there were 10 camera people in my face, i was covered in rose petals and my parents were 15 feet away, i can't blame him

that's what i'm saying.

poor reid. how do you do sexies with someone and then dump them the next day - so weird

luckily for reid, jillian looks like shit during that goodbye

marin rosenthal - risa said she'd fight me for him, but i think we're more compatible because of trust issues and committment issues, etc.

no, you are 100% incompatible because of his germ issues - he would walk into your apartment, collapse on the floor and actually die

i'm just going to facebook him and ask him who he wants more - me or risa

10:32pm (end)

---

And there you have it folks! Open threads for the comments -- is Ed gay (not that there's anything wrong with that, but it would explain why he couldn't get it up with Jillian)? Are jumpers OK (they look fine on people with cute bodies like Jillian and Risa, but really? Shorts/pants connected to a top? Must be annoying when you need to pee).

P.S.: Addressing a concern raised in the comments to my previous post -- let me reassure you that she still has ZERO health insurance (at least until she completes her "probation" period at her new marketing/sales type job). Accordingly, she can still make jokes about no health insurance (and hence the fund for her impending root canal by a "superstar" endodentist).

Guest Post by Megan

2009-07-13T13:52:00.005-04:00

Marin in her new business casual attire

Hi LIN readers, this is your Minister of Finance speaking. You may have noticed that Marin has sort of been MIA lately. Annoying, right? Yeah, well... drumroll, please... she GOT A JOB! Very nice, high five! So, after a more-than-year-long hiatus, she's now re-joined the legion of 9-to-5ers, pounding the pavement (or in this case the sardine can 4-5-6 uptown everyday). But she's also still doing her freelance work, which explains why she's also working 5PM to 9AM every day... bummer.

So, we ask for your patience during this difficult time. Hopefully normal posting will resume once she catches up with the 97 articles she needs to write and peels off those subway-sweat-soaked Old Navy business casual clothes.

In the meantime, if you feel like contributing to her emergency root canal fund (yes, the hits keep on comin'!), hit me up on Facebook!

xoxo

Megan

Face That Launched a Thousand Ships

2009-07-01T19:14:00.001-04:00

Bunn E. Shoes

A Few Thoughts on Last Night's Bachelorette

2009-06-30T21:05:00.007-04:00

Last night I was out because sometimes that happens and during the entire evening I got frantic texts from Risa and Frank the Tank about the insanity that was going down on last night's episode of the Bachelorette involving Pilot Jake and 1/8th Asian Ed (who Tiffany agrees with me is 1/8th Asian "or more" and Tiffany is 100% Asian). So I come home and my DVR has failed to record The Bachelorette and instead has two Interventions that weren't even new episodes, so I had to wait until today to watch it on ABC.com. I just got through those grueling 2 hours and here are my preliminary thoughts:

1. Reid could not be any less attracted to Jillian and Wes has Botox on his forehead.

2. Breakdance Mike hopping up and down when he saw his twin brother and his mom was completely unacceptable, but I kind of felt bad for him during his exit interview when he said he was in love with her because I think he underestimates his own attraciveness level and mistakenly thinks that Jillian is like a goodlooking catch.

3. Jake was wearing a PILOT'S COSTUME for no apparent reason because he did not fly a plane out to Austin, he himself admitted that he "caught the first flight out." Jake also suffers from unspeakable corniness, which is most evident in his tucked in and bloused out shirts. I'm not sure why he was like crying and having a heart attack over revealing the completely unshocking news to Jillian that Wes had a girlfriend, considering Jillian just eliminated him and they're not friends in real life. Also, the crying over the railing scene was classic Jason Mesnick, nice try.

4. Jillian needs to stop asking everyone "I am your type?" because the question is pathetic and really needy. If you have to ask that question then you already know the answer.

5. Can someone explain why they COMPLETELY ignored the issue of Ed's job. So like, he returned to Chicago and his boss was like, "it's too late, you're fired" so he returned to the show and claimed that it was because he was thinking about Jillian. Why would Jillian or anybody want to date Ed if he doesn't have a job. I'm unemployed but I would certainly never date someone who was. Like what are they going to do after the show's over, move in to Ed's parents' basement and eat DiGiorno pizzas in his den? You have to be practical about these situations, although I supposed the Tacori engagement ring by Tacori would be free, courtesy of Tacori, so he wouldn't have to worry about that expense.

6. Kiptyn's parents were pretentious but they seem rich which is a plus. Kiptyn also seemed more attracted to his goodlooking sister than to Jillian, for obvious reasons.

7. Jesse's brother looked like Encino Man and his vest/tie combination at the end was straight out of a Color Me Badd video.

8. I fell out of my chair when Jillian arrived for the rose ceremony to HARP music dressed in a yellow "grecian" gown, like she was some mystical princess or her beauty was otherworldly. Seriously, get out of here. She is a troll and I would actually argue that she gets worse and worse looking with every episode.

Blueprint Cleanse - Day One of My Captivity

2009-06-29T15:45:00.004-04:00

A few weeks back at 2am, I ordered the Blueprint Cleanse, which is one of those juice cleanses where you pay $195 for bottles of magical elixir that allow you to drop weight while also achieving the highest levels of spiritual enlightenment. I ordered three days of the cleanse, because I figured doing one day was for losers and doing five days was for absolute maniacs, and I ordered "Level 2 - Renovation Cleanse" which is the middle level for people who on the one hand don't have martinis and fries for breakfast but on the other hand don't repulsive eat SoyJoy bars and birdseed for every meal. The drinks were delivered in neon coolers and I was instructed to immediately transfer these holy juices into my fridge so that the "antioxidants" or whatever made these juices miraculous would not be destroyed by heat and their healing properties would be preserved for all time.

In any event, I started the cleanse on Monday when I rolled out bed at 11am and was told by a friend that I was already "late" in starting my juices. I drank some warm tap water, as instructed by the Blueprint instructions, in order to "awaken" my system and then dove into Juice One, which was a spinach-colored green and included kale, celery, spinach, green apple and a bunch of other disugsting ingredients. The juiced smelled like new magazines and tasted like spinach mixed with sewage, but with a sickly sweet aftertaste. I nearly threw up and had to chug the drink and chase every sip with water and immediately brush my teeth afterwards. Juice Two tasted like mint Mentos dissolved in lemonade and I put off drinking Juice Three for a few hours because it was the same as Juice One. Juice Four, which was tasted like a weakened margarita minus the alcohol, Juice Five was rancid Juice One, and Juice Six was a "cashew milkshake" that appeared to be made of Aveeno oatmeal bath for use on chicken pox.

The Blueprint site, as well as two friends who had done the cleanse, told me that at no time would I be hungry, and in fact the website says that I could even go to the gym because I would feel "engergized" and "clearheaded." Let me assure you that I was absolutely starving and my hands were shaking by 2pm, and if I had gone to the gym I would have had to be medevac'd out of there. By 4pm I was enraged and delirious and jealous of Perry eating his food. After I had finished my Aveeno bath milkshake at 9pm and I realized I had nothing left to drink for the day I became murderous and as an anti-crime measure, I ate two tortillas located on the refrigerator shelf directly below the juices and a bag of gummy bears at 12:34am, 24 hours into my cleanse. I obviously did not bother drinking that crap for the two remaining days.

Some, such as Megan, might argue that I took $195 and essentially flushed it down the toilet, but I say that the learning experience I got was worth much more than any money could ever buy. I've never been able to make it past 12pm on Yom Kippur, and I have absolutely no idea why I thought I'd be able to go THREE DAYS drinking sewage, but this confirmed to me that it is far preferable to punish myself at the gym for 15 hours and be able to eat anything I want, than in any way limit or deny myself Thai, Mexican or gummy bears at any time or in any amount as I see fit.

P.S. If for some insane reason you want to try Blueprint yourself, they're having 25% off till July 2nd, probably because people don't feel like ruining their July 4th weekends by being angry and starving. Use code 4JULY25 when you check out.

Michael Jackson (1958-2009): Man in the Mirror

2009-06-25T22:03:00.002-04:00

After crying at my desk and watching Stranger in Moscow over and over on YouTube for the past three hours, I've yet to come up with an appropriate eulogy for Michael. I admired everything about him - his music, his clothing, his plastic surgery, Bubbles and his patronage of chimp sanctuaries, naming his kids Blanket and Prince Michael, his documentaries, his videos. I remember when I was in law school studying for the bar and the molestation trial was going and I got a text message from CourtTV because I had signed up to be alerted when the verdict was going to come home, and I rushed home and wept tears for joy when they freed Michael. I have so much more to say about this incredible legend once I stop being hysterical, but for now, you can read my reactions to MJ's tragic, tragic death here and here. Rest in Peace, Michael. You are not alone.

"Stranger in Moscow" by Michael Jackson

I was wandering in the rain
Mask of life, feelin' insane
Swift and sudden fall from grace
Sunny days seem far away
Kremlin's shadow belittlin' me
Stalin's tomb won't let me be
On and on and on it came
Wish the rain would just let me

How does it feel (How does it feel)
How does it feel
How does it feel
When you're alone
And you're cold inside

Here abandoned in my fame
Armageddon of the brain
KGB was doggin' me
Take my name and just let me be
Then a begger boy called my name
Happy days will drown the pain
On and on and on it came
And again, and again, and again...
Take my name and just let me be

How does it feel (How does it feel)
How does it feel
How does it feel
How does it feel
How does it feel (How does it feel now)
How does it feel
How does it feel
When you're alone
And you're cold inside

How does it feel (How does it feel)
How does it feel
How does it feel
How does it feel
How does it feel (How does it feel now)
How does it feel
How does it feel
When you're alone
And you're cold inside

Like stranger in Moscow
Like stranger in Moscow

ANOTHER High Alert: Jeff Van Vonderen is BAAaaaacck!

2009-06-23T19:56:00.005-04:00

I'm going to say what I have to say and then I'm done

Megan has alerted me (again) THAT JEFF VAN VONDEREN IS BACK on Intervention! My DVR is totally booked solid for the Monday night 8-10pm time slot and so I have make the heartrending Sophie's Choice between The Bachelorette, Intervention and Jon Plus Eight on Alternate Weekends, and Intervention has not been making the cut lately because they're really into addicts who have been molested this season and besides all the episodes end with these people accepting treatment at Recovery By The Sea and dying their hair for the 3 month followup. But apparently it's true, Jeff Van Vonderen is back from rehab and for his triumphal return he's going to invite Jason to join the fight against Jason's heroin addiction. Welcome back Jeff, we loved and missed you like crazy.

P.S. While you've been away, Candy and Ken have been stealing your lines and are taking credit for them.

High Alert: Reid from The Bachelorette is Jewish

2009-06-23T18:32:00.004-04:00

Haha, GOTCHA

Maybe I had the part of last night's show on mute where Jillian is making some reference to Christmas Eve and presents to Reid who was like "Christmas is the day where I wake up and other kids get presents," but Megan has just informed me that Reid is Jewish. I have confirmed this information via internet searches, which reveals that Reid is Reid Rosenthal of Philadelphia and he runs some vaguely sketchy real estate business. I always suspected he was Jewish because his name is aggressively trying to NOT be Jewish and he seems like he went to Colby or Bates or some school where no Jews go and where you rappel to class on skis, but when he told Jillian that he didn't date girls that looked like her (i.e., trolls), he usually dated blondes, it pretty much sealed the deal because he was obviously trying to escape from the wonky nose, brown hair/brown eyes look that he was surrounded by growing up, and he probably didn't think that when he got on a dating show, he would be stuck dating a wonky nose brown hair/brown eyed woman is non-Jewish to boot.

In any event, Reid, if you are reading this, you will be pleased to know that I am a Jew but have (somewhat) corrected my wonky nose and have also dyed my hair blonde in a good faith effort to subvert my identity, and at this time I would like to invite you to call me immediately so that we can go on a date where we could feel free to discuss our neuroses and complain about fondue contamination in goddamn peace without being judged by annoying and hideous Canadians who reference Christmas in conversations in a deliberate attempt to make people feel like outsiders.

Perry & Pretty Boy in NY Times

2009-06-20T11:58:00.003-04:00

As seen on Oprah and the NY Times; available for parties and corporate events

Today's issue of the NY Times has an article about Pretty Boy, the "Mayor of Seventh Street" who lived in the pet shop and hung out at Salon Seven all day. Pretty Boy's memorial service was supposed to be this Thursday, but it got rescheduled because it was raining, which Pretty Boy hated. On Thursday the NY Times people were in the middle of interviewing Mark from Salon Seven, when Perry and I walked into the place so Perry could get this cookie and we'd be on our way. All of a sudden, the photographer starts snapping pictures of me and Perry and I start screaming "No pictures!" because I had just woken up and looked greasy and homeless and if I was going to make my premiere to the world in the NY Times under an article about a cat and not in the Weddings section, I need to look "absolutely stunningly gorgeous" to quote Bret Michaels. Luckily the photographer took pity on me and cut me out of the shot, and you can see a pic of Mark and "Periwinkle" in today's NY Times slideshow.

However, as punishment, they attempted to embarrass and belittle myself and Perry by bastardizing his name and calling him Periwinkle when his name is in fact Perry Winkle Blue, a tactic that is eerily similar to the one used by the AKC when they gave Perry an official Latin registration name of Angus Dei (steak of god) when I specifically paid for the name Agnus Dei (lamb of god). I have contacted the NY Times and demanded a retraction and an apology and am now anxiously waiting to hear back.

I've Become Obsolete

2009-06-18T16:29:00.005-04:00

Louboutin ampitheatre OF DESPAIR

Megan recently called my attention to the above picture posted on The Purse Forum (TPF). For those of you just joining us, TPF is a place where women can go online and salivate over pictures of shoes and bags and brag about their own purchases. The above picture shows 26 pairs of Christian Louboutin shoes, all owned by someone named "Lawgirl78" located in New York, NY. Note three pairs of burgundy shoes (peep toe, sling back and regular pump), five pairs of nude shoes, six pairs of black shoes and two animal pattern shoes, along with two "shoeties" and one pair of black boots.

After punching myself in the face and bashing myself over the head with a wine bottle, I studied this picture for about twenty minutes struggling to find fault with any of the shoes, looking for signs that they were knock offs or purchased on ebay, or scuffed or ANYTHING that would make me feel better about my own shoe collection, and when I could not, I then considered lighting my closet on fire. What the hell is the point in me having three measley pairs of beat up Louboutins from ebay when "Lawgirl78" who APPEARS TO BE A LAWYER is apparently stealing my life and walking around town with 26 goddamn pairs of pristine Louboutins that should rightfully be in my closet? I have spent the greater part of my adult life watching ebay auctions, saving scheming and setting my Hammersnipe to amass a collection of Miu Mius, Marc Jacobs and the occasional Louboutins, but apparently I have been wasting my time because her collection makes it look like I've been collecting Rocket Dogs or Jessica by Jessica Simpson shoes. It enrages me when other people try to make me obsolete and someone will have to pay for this. The only thing we can hope for at this most desperate time is that Lawgirl78 has a hideous face and a monstrous body. Amen.

Comprehensive Beauty Analysis of The Real Housewives of NJ

2009-06-17T20:20:00.007-04:00

(from left to right: Jacqueline, Teresa, Danielle, Dina, Caroline)
Jacqueline needs to get out of here with that garish DVF wrap dress with a camisole underneath

Official analysis taken from a Gchat with Megan, June 16, 2009 8:14pm
megan: what i can't wait to watch, though

is real housewives of NJ finale

i'm dying

in anticipation

don't tell me anything

you whore

me: they're such pieces of trash

that's all i'll say

megan: haha

well

that's not news

by any means

why do you think Dina is an ugly monster?

I think she's the prettiest of all of them

me: I think she looks like she's got a chlorine allergy

I think she looks menacing

like she doesn't have kind eyes

her eyes are sunken

she has horse teeth

5:13 PM and her implants are circus size

megan: I think she's pretty

who do you think is attractive

Caroline?

TERESA?

jesus

DANIELLE?!?!

me: Teresa has no forehead, that's clear

megan: Danielle is legitmately a freak

me: Danielle's facelift is outrageous

megan: she is botoxed and restalyned within an inch of her fucking life'

her daughters

look exactly like each other

yet NOTHING LIKE HER

5:14 PM telltale sign

me: Caroline looks like a man

megan: Jacqueline

is a fucking mess

me: I don't think Jacqueline is bad looking

megan: She looks like a rodent

me: I admire her nosejob

megan: oh god

get out of here

me: her implants need to be sized down three sizes

everyone went way too big

maybe it's a cultural thing

i mean, i GUESSDina is the best looking one

megan: thank you

me: but that's not saying anything

megan: that's all I'm saying really

i am not saying i want to look just like her

me: no, you said she was pretty

megan: but she is definitely the most attractive

i do think she's pretty

but i guess

i'm speaking comparatively

the rest of the women

are SO FUCKING BUSTED
my eyes hurt to look at them

me: and i think she looks like her french chateau taste

cheap

5:16 PM megan: and they think they're so awesome looking

teresa's body is good though

small boobs and all

i saw the BEGINNING of the finale

where she's prancing around that ridiculous house

me: what are you talking about?! teresa has a flat stomach

megan: in short shorts

her body's nice

me: but she has really thick legs
get out of here

megan: i like the way she's built

but her taste in sinks and banisters
she should be shot
SHOT

me: all of their taste stink

it's so faux upscale

like NJ french manors

5:17 PM they've never BEEN to France

megan: hideous

HIDEOUS

can you please

stop

using LIN

only as a promotional tool

and go back

to actually blogging on there

me: well actually i was going to post

THIS conversation

megan: oh

feel free

me: will do

True/Slant: Fame & Riches Now at Hand

2009-06-16T17:00:00.000-04:00

The nice folks over at True/Slant have given me a "contributor"page on their site. If you haven't checked out True/Slant, it's like a news site that's set up so that you follow individual contributors, kind of like Twitter, and the contributors only talk about their area of "expertise." Being that I have a degree from law school, my area of expertise is ridiculing others, and my page - "Stars on Ice" - will make fun of today's most ridiculous celebrities. I'll be covering things like terrible plastic surgery, celebrity weight gain/loss, Kate Gosselin's haircut and sham marriages. No celebrity will be spared as I mercilessly tear each a new one so that we can all feel a little bit better about ourselves. Check out the page, and follow me, won't you, so that I don't look like a complete loser who writes articles that no one reads. Great, thanks.

LiveBlogging The Bachelorette TONIGHT, 8PM EST

2009-06-15T16:05:00.002-04:00

&amp;lt;a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&amp;amp;task=viewaltcast&amp;amp;altcast_code=71d899898a" &amp;gt;The Bachelorette - Episode 5&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;
Join me tonight as Jillian continues to make bad faces and bad choices.

Reason #347 Why I Love the East Village

2009-06-12T16:49:00.006-04:00

So I was just walking Perry down my block when this guy was bent over right in front of us picking up something off the sidewalk where Perry usually pees. So I drag Perry around the man and see that he is picking up pieces from balls of weed (dimebags? as you can see I do drugs often) that had fallen out of a clear plastic bag in hand which contained more weed in broad daylight with not a car in the world. He finishes picking them up and then says "Hello sexy" then puts his bag full of drugs up to Perry's nose to sniff and says "I think he'd like some" to which I replied, "He's straight edge," and pull Perry away from that shit because he has an addictive personality and marijuana is a gateway drug. The exceedingly high dealer then says "Oh shit, haha!" and asks me if I've just gone to the gym so I tell him yes and then he asks if I'm going to work, and I say, no I'm walking my dog. I then walk ahead of him and this woman has two Shih Tzus with neon pink hairdye on their heads, and so I say to their owner "Nice color." The drug dealer than catches up to me and starts hugging this woman's boyfriend who hands over a wad of cash in exchange for the bag that fell on the sidewalk, and then dealer starts walking away and yells back at me, "If you need something too, I'm on this block every day," to which I respond "Terrific" and then walk 30 feet to my extremely secure apartment.

Fresh New 'Do

2009-06-10T17:47:00.001-04:00

$130, plus tip, making his haircut $40 more than mine

The View from Narnia

2009-06-09T19:35:00.003-04:00

Subtle product placement in the bedding section of Bed, Bath & Beyond Awful

*Photo courtesy of Jen

LiveBlogging The Bachelorette TONIGHT, 8PM EST

2009-06-08T14:11:00.001-04:00

&amp;lt;a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&amp;amp;task=viewaltcast&amp;amp;altcast_code=86bec17da0" &amp;gt;The Bachelorette - Episode 4&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

Be there or risk looking like Jillian.

Blueprint Cleanse

2009-06-07T19:13:00.009-04:00

Blueprint cleanse bottles, located very near margarita mix

It's no secret that I have been feeling like a fat ass lately, but last week I decided to do something about it. Rather than increase my 6.9 treadmill speed or limit my Mexican food intake, the latter of which is completely out of the question, I opted for the Blueprint cleanse as a quick fix that would solve all of my problems. The Blueprint is one of these "designer" cleanses where you pay $195 for the privilege of having juices made of fresh troglodytes, gargoyles and pond scum delivered to your house, and then you drink these drinks, brag to all your friends about doing a cool cleanse and feel starving and homicidal without food for your choice of 1, 3 or 5 days. Several people I know swear by this cleanse (not sure what that means), and the Blueprint website claims that many celebrities also use the cleanse, but declines to name them, which means that either no celebrities are doing it or like Madonna and Mariah are doing it but Blueprint couldn't afford to pay for their names.

Last week after downing a bag of Haribo gummy bears at 2am, clutching my stomach and asking Perry why the hell he let me eat them all, I ordered three days of the level 2 "Foundation" cleanse rid myself of "toxins" and return to looking like the absolute rock start that I normally am. The instructions they emailed me said to "prepare" by incorporating vegetables and fruits into all my meals 48 hours before my cleanse, which I took the liberty of reducing to 24 hours, but otherwise diligently adhered to by eating a cheese quesadilla topped chunky salsa and drinking a margarita with a fresh lime in it.

About ten minutes ago, the delivery guy arrived at my apartment with my cooler bags full of these magical elixirs and as I was grabbing the stuff from him, he sees that the ice cream container in which I was momentarily indulging prior to his arrival is open on my counter and he says "Can't eat ice cream on this!" at which point I point him to the fact that it's actually carob chip which is a vegetable and is strictly encouraged in order to cleanse. He laughs and leaves, and I unload the bags into my fridge, as you can see above.

So that everybody doesn't waste money on this garbage, I will be providing a daily update on my experience with the cleanse here, which will be measured by fatness of ass as determined by fit of pants, ability of cleanse to cure mental and emotional problems and ability of cleanse to secure me a job. Stay tuned.

O, My Luve's Like a Red Red Rose

2009-06-05T01:41:00.002-04:00

O, my luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
O, my luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
-Robert Burns

Chiropracty: The Pursuit of Charlatanry

2009-06-04T00:11:00.003-04:00

Representing the latest advances in medicine

The other day, I was reviewing other peoples' Facebook profiles and snickering because that's how I roll, when I came across a profile of an acquaintance of mine with her new baby. I grudgingly admitted that the picture of her and her baby was VAGUELY cute so I frantically searched her profile for ways I could tear her down in order to make myself feel better about the situation, at which point I discovered that her husband was a CHIROPRACTOR. HAHAHAHAHAHAH. I nearly choked to death I was laughing so hard, because then I saw that he was a chiropractor with a practice in Long Island, and I nearly lost my shit. If there's one occupation that's even lower on the totem pole than being a"freelance writer" it is being a chiropractor in Long Island.

I can't even deal with chiropracty andI literally cannot believe people buy into it. It's like no matter what problem you present with, their solution is to crack your back. Ear infection? Back crack. Cold? Neck crack. Nobody who goes to Harvard or any accredited school ever becomes a chiropractor, because it's reserved for the lowest common denomitor who fail out of Le Cordon Bleu and want to be their own boss. In fact, I think if you have a degree from a real school you are automatically rejected because you're morely to ask "probing" questions in class like "how does cracking a back in any way impact someone's else health."

If someone set me up on a date, and I was like "I'm a freelance writer - I know, EMBARRASSING" and he was like, "I'm a doctor" and I was like "Oh goody, what KIND of doctor" and he said "chiropractor" I would very calmly grab a wine bottle and bash it over his head, because you can't string people along like that and lead them to believe you have a real profession and then suckerpunch them by telling them you're a chiropractor or a D.O. (which once happened to me, and I had to spend the entire evening explaining that D.O.s are complete jokes and no one chooses to be them unless you do horribly on your MCAT which is in itself deeply humiliating).

LiveBlogging The Bachelorette TONIGHT, 8PM EST

2009-06-01T15:17:00.002-04:00

&amp;lt;a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&amp;amp;task=viewaltcast&amp;amp;altcast_code=5c616062da" &amp;gt;The Bachelorette - Episode 3&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

Tonight I'll be liveblogging The Bachelorette beginning at 8pm. Join me in criticizing Jillian's nose, her side talking, her inexplicable needs to wear boots, the helicopter/airplane dates and in general the complete lunacy of this show. I plan to liveblog the show each week, so mark your calendars because we have a standing date. As Bill O'Reilly says, "Fuck it, we'll do it live!"

The View from Narnia

2009-05-30T12:05:00.003-04:00

There are no words
Made of "Inteligent Material" according to the website

I saw this commercial last night during Keeping Up with the Kardashians (obviously) and nearly lost my shit. Before then I didn't think it was possible for me to have Kim Kardashian's picnic table ass, but inspired by the commercial, I immediately grabbed a pair of shorts and stuffed them in the butt of my pants and then walked around pretending things were normal and asked L.G. if he could guess what my secret was. He said, "You secret is that you stuffed shorts in your pants," which I obviously denied and just said that I had been going to the gym more, but then I asked him if he found me inexplicably sexier, and he admitted that it increased my sexiness by a significant factor but then asked if I could stop stealing clothing from drawers and putting it on my ass because he just did laundry and didn't want to have to do another load.

ATM Account Balances

2009-05-29T15:58:00.006-04:00

Maybe it's just me, but recently I've noticed that when I withdraw money from my TD Bank (nee Commerce Bank) account from ATMs at the bodegas near my apartment, the machines display my total account balance on the screen for what seems like an inordinately long time. Like I'll go to the machine, make sure no one's spying on my PIN, check "withdrawal," press the button for $80 and then as my piles of money are spitting out of the machine, the screen will change to my total account balance and will stay on the screen for 30 seconds before it kindly thanks me for the transaction, so that I'm forcibly confronted with the terrible news of my balance even when I purposely do NOT select "View Account Balance." I'm not sure who at the ATM company thought it would be a good idea to humiliate and enrage ATM users by forcing them to see their balances upon each withdrawal when it's pretty clear that people who do not affirmatively select "View Account Balance" would prefer to not ruin their days by having their balances thrust in front of them for 30 seconds which is an outrageous amount of time to be confronted with bad news. The only sense I can make of this entire situation is that the people who own the ATM machines are disgustingly wealthy and want to revel in their balances and brag to bystanders who might accidentally see the screen, while at the same time making everybody with low balances feel bad, which is a strategy I can respect and strongly agree with.

License Renewal

2009-05-26T16:44:00.004-04:00

Not me, but you get the picture

On May 31, my license expires. For 90 days, my parents have been hassling me to renew my license before it expires, but since NJ license renewals can only be done in person, and since I am exceedingly busy blogging I haven't been able to find the time to drop everything, take a train to NJ, get picked up by my mom, drive home, take the car to the DMV, wait in a line for 45 minutes clutching my "6 points of identification" which amounts to a passport and like ten bank statements since I lost my social security card, get a new license and then repeat the driving/train in reverse. I was trying to figure out when I would make this all day trip given my hectic schedule in when it occurred to me that everyone is just blindly telling me to get my license renewed but no is telling me what the consequences of NOT renewing are, besides not being able to drive. Interestingly, the DMV site says that if you're license is more than three years expired, you have to take all the tests over, but otherwise says "it is important" to renew your license prior to its expiration, which is code which I was able to decipher with my extreme lawyer skills for saying there actually IS no punishment for not renewing on time. I called the DMV today to confirm that my deductions were correct, but I unfortunately it was 4:23pm and according to the recording, the DMV is only open during "normal business hours" of 8am to 4:15pm, which makes perfect sense.

As I was describing this to Megan and cutting and pasting the DMV link and asking her to analyze the language and see if she arrived at the same conclusion I did, she asked me why I didn't just go the DMV Express in Manhattan and get a new NY license, which I could do by going to this place with my passport, NJ license and my social security card, and they would confiscate my NJ license and issue me a temporary paper NY one and then send me a real license in the mail. I calmly explained to her that I was sentimentally attached to my NJ license, lost my social security card a while ago because I like to live dangerously and didn't want to have to not go to bars for two weeks or worse, go to bars and show the bouncers a folder of documents and explain that despite my deceptively youthful appearance, I really AM older than 21 and that I just have a temporary license. But beyond all this, a NY license would require me to sit for a new license picture, which I am not prepared to do at this point because my chin Botox has not fully dissipated and I need at least 2 weeks advance notice in order to ramp it up at the gym, so that my record of taking outrageously amazing license pictures remains unblemished.

The Bachelorette Season Overview

2009-05-25T15:20:00.007-04:00

"America fell in love with Jillian"
No we didn't

Some people have asked me where the hell I was last week when The Bachelorette premiered featuring Celine Dion imitator Jillian Harris. Well, I forgot to DVR it because nobody told me that it was premiering and there is no other way I could be expected to know that it was on because I watch DVR'd shows exclusively. Luckily, the episode was available online, so I was able to watch the full two hours of it prior to tonight's second episode, which I will most certainly be watching.

A few general thoughts on this season. Jillian seems to be the default pick for Bachelorette. Molly, had snake oil salesman Jason Mesnick not betrayed America, dumped Melissa and picked her, would definitely NOT have been the Bachelorette pick. She was extremely shady and had literally no redeeming qualities. Melissa has no personality and is a doormat, so they couldn't have picked her either, and instead gave her DWTS, so she could just shut up and dance. Thus, they were forced to go with Jillian, based of her "amazing" personality and "hilarious" sense of humor and false claims that "America fell in love" with her, which we did not. As you can see, the bar is set pretty low for personalities on this show if asking some ridiculous and embarrassing hot dog question qualifies you as having an amazing personality. In any event, it was clear to me when Jillian appeared on After The After The Final Rose that she was going to be the Bachelorette, because the ABC team of wardrobe stylists, tanning professionals, nutritionists, personal trainers and hair and makeup professionals had already gotten to work on darking her hair, putting her in Milly shift dresses and contour shading her obscene Smurf nose.

The styling team did a pretty good job on her, as was evident in her gratuituous and 100% absurd Ultimate Body Sculpt with Gilad montage lifting colored weights outside in a bikini for the opening montage. I will admit her body looked slamming, but the problem was never with her body, it was with her terrible nose and monstrous face. Thankfully, Jillian is aware of the problem and even says "I'm not the prettiest bachelorette," which is kind of embarrassing to admit on television and reminds of a humiliating montage from Average Joe in which the ugliest girl on the show cries in a confessional about how she's 26 and never kissed anyone because guys won't see past her hideous face and get to know her "amazing" personality.

In any event, moving on to the guys. They all look the same and the only one with a sense of humor was the Jewish lawyer from NYC who got booted in the first episode because Jillian apparently does not understand sarcasm. As each of them approached Jillian outside the house with names like "Tanner" and "Tanner P." and "Kiptyon" I was beginning to think that this season would be a doozy because they all seemed lame and robotic, until Megan pointed out that the train of Jillian's white dress was getting muddy from the fountain that was behind her and that by the time the last douche came out of the limo, her dress was absolutely filthy and sopping wet, which was actually too much for me to handle. I spent the remainder of the episode trying to figure out if she was wearing a thong or no underwear at all, and ultimately determined it was one of those flat, neoprene type thongs because I could see her individual butt cheeks.

I was disturbed to learn that Chris did not call this "the most romantic season ever" or "the most shocking season ever" because each Bachelor/Bachelorette show must be a new superlative in order to be viable. Since last season was the Most Flying Oriented Dates Ever season, this season I predict an emphasis on terrestrial vehicles such as vintage cars, race cars, horse drawn carriages and sleigh rides in what will surely be the Most Cumbersome Methods of Ground Transportation Ever season. Otherwise, I am pleased to report that in the montage of scenes from the upcoming season, I saw an adequate amount of sweeping aerial shots on mountains, clinking of champagne glasses, running to each other/Jillian gets lifted up hugs and crying off of balconies to qualify as a legitimate Bachelorette season. I look forward to tonight's episode and further mockery.

My Ear, Part V: This Time It's War

2009-05-20T23:29:00.005-04:00

More like a subsidiary of Lenox HELL

My ear has been buzzing on an off for about a month now, and this evening I was checking my mail as I typically dO whenever the spirit moves me, and I am currently in receipt of a bill for $755 for an April 22nd appointment at Manhattan Eye & Ear. The bill claims that I owe $422 for "1 Nasal Endoscopy Diag/Uni/B" and $322 for "1 Eval/Mgt NP Expanded Focus."

This comes as somewhat of a surprise, given that prior to my appointment, I called Manhattan Eye & Ear, asked them how much an appointment would be, and was told $150, and then when I got there for my appointment, my card was immediately charged $140 before I even saw a doctor. I was unaware that just for the privilege of being a "new patient" I apparently had $322 tacked onto my bill FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON. If the $322 is for being new, what the fuck is the $140 for? The privilege of walking through the goddamn door of the hospital? You may then recall that I saw Dr. Lim for a total of 8 minutes, which turns out to be $94.37 a minute. She performed exactly ZERO diagnostic tests on me, and merely LOOKED UP MY NOSE AND IN MY EARS with various tools, which apparently is worth $433.

Even more outrageous, my appointment was on April 22, but the bill was cut on May 14th, and arrived in my mailbox around May 16, but it's due to be paid or WILL GO INTO COLLECTIONS on May 24th. Um, is the hospital joking me? How about I call them tomorrow morning and say that due to the fact that they waited EXACTLY ONE MONTH to send me a bill, I am crossing out my name on the bill and replacing it with THEIR name and then sending it to MY collections agency because I have a strict policy whereby if people wait around and then sneak up and charge me one month after the fact, all the charges bounce off of me and return to them. Do they seriously expect people WITHOUT INSURANCE to just have heaping piles of cash laying around that they can access within 10 days to pay off ludicrously overpriced and possibly illegal medical charges for 8 minutes of shitty ass care for a problem that has not even been solved?

Manhattan Eye & Ear, if you are reading this, you are OFFICIALLY LIVING IN NARNIA if you think I won't spend the rest of my ING Savings FIGHTING this usury rather than pay your $755 complete bullshit bill. I wanted a bare bones ramshackle doctor's appointment for $140, was told I could have one, and then received completely ghetto care but was charged as if Dr. Lim washed my ear with Dom Perignon and prescribed me bottle service at TenJune. I am about to open up a world of pain on the phone with Lenox Hill Patient Financing tommorrow, the likes of which have never been seen.

Rusty Makes Her Comedy Debut

2009-05-20T17:30:00.005-04:00

This past Sunday, my parents rolled into town to take me out for Day Three of my birthday festivities. As we were seated at dinner at Otto, the following conversation takes place:

Rusty: Do you want to know how cool your mom is?
Marin: No.
Aliza: Not really.
Rusty: Well, ANYWAY. So I had done some extensive research on all these Ipods and Nanos and computer thingamagigs for Molly's Bat Mitzvah, because I wanted to get her one of the things that played music.
Marin: Uh huh.
Rusty: I knew I wanted to get her either an iPod or a Nano, so I went to the Apple Store in the Short Hills Mall, and I asked one of these "cool dude" young kids who worked there, thinking he would be impressed that I knew what I was talking about. So I said, 'excuse me, where are your iPod Shuttles?'
Marin & Aliza: Ha haha ha.
Rusty: So this kid laughs and tells me it's iPod Shuffles not Shuttles and I'm thinking, "oh great, now I look a real idiot" because I had tried to impress him but it was Shuffles, not Shuttles. Shuffle doesn't really make any sense.
Marin: Yes it does.
Rusty: Shuttle makes more sense.

END SCENE.

In Memoriam: Pretty Boy (1987-2009)

2009-05-19T17:03:00.005-04:00

Today, the East Village lost one of its mascots. Pretty Boy, a white cat who lived at Mikey's Pet Shop, passed away at age 22. Pretty Boy loved hair salons, so every day, he left Mikey's to walk down the sidewalk and visit Salon Seven, about 100 feet away. Before Salon Seven was in existence, Pretty Boy went to the next closest hair salon to the pet store on the block. At Salon Seven, he spent a few hours napping, drinking water and eating turkey and hanging out with the owner, Mark. He would come and go as he pleased, and every Monday when the salon was closed, he made the trip back and forth from the pet store in the hopes that it would open up. Cold temperatures and rain couldn't keep that cat away from Salon Seven and Mark.

Pretty Boy had had some health problems recently, and this past weekend he stopped eating his food. Mikey told me that Pretty Boy wanted to hold on until Tuesday, when Mark returned to the salon, and so he did. He died in Mark's arms at 2pm today. In classic fashion, I completely lost my shit when Mikey told me all this, but had to pull it together for a 3pm interview today. I'm going to miss him terribly. Rest in peace, Pretty Boy. The East Village lost a good friend.

Birthday Haiku

2009-05-15T11:23:00.001-04:00

Untitled #3

Brief flash of crystal
It's getting ridiculous
Give me diamond studs.

Happy 29th Birthday, Self

2009-05-15T10:00:00.000-04:00

365 days until I turn 30 and then it's REALLY over. But in the mean time, I'll fiddle while Rome burns. Happy birthday, Marin. I've managed to remain unemployed for 350 days and that is nothing to sneer at.

May the next year bring me, as always, obscene wealth, everlasting fame and true love's kiss, and may this birthday also bring me a present in the form of at least 2 carat diamond studs. Last year I believe I asked for 1 carat but since the studs were not purchased for me at that time, I have had to increase my asking size due to inflation and interest rates.

Behold, the Holy Grail of Dresses

2009-05-14T16:44:00.006-04:00

Perry, dumbstruck

The Trail of Tears began on November 4, 2007, when my friend Jen wore a Laila Azhar dress to her birthday party that drove me insane with jealousy. The dress was perfect in every conceivable way. It was black, strapless, cinched at the waist, and in a normal cotton sheen material and not some hideous cheap silk material like a Zum Zum prom dress or other embarrassing things that woefully misguided women wear to "cocktail" affairs. She got it at Barneys and said she paid like $480 for it, which, although I was employed at the time, seemed like a king's ransom for some reason, so I did what I usually do, which was add it to my online shopping bag every day on the Barneys website but never buy it so that at least other people can't have it. And then one day I tried to add it to my shopping bag again, but someone had apparently bought the last one in my size while I was sleeping.

For a year and a half, I have Googled Laila Azhar about 400 times but it seems that the dress has disappaered. I've run countless eBay searches and considered buying it in a size 8 which was once posted on eBay, but the seller never messaged me back when I asked if he or she thought it could be tailored. I even considered ordering it for "yen" on some shady Japanese website the one time it came up on like page 3 of the Google hits. When I had to buy a dress for a wedding in March, I bought a hammered silk high class escort dress that looked like an anus, because if I couldn't have the Laila Azhar, there was no point in even trying. I often talked about the dress with friends, who advised me to "get a grip" and "move on." But like Scott Peterson on death row who heroically has never given up the search for Lacy's real killer, I never gave up the dream of obtaining this dress.

Last week, feeling flush with cash from a $115 freelance check that arrived in the mail, I randomly went to Bluefly.com, which I never go to because who goes there anymore. They had a new tab called "emerging designers" and I scrolled down to see Laila Azhar was listed among them. I clicked on it and like a phoeniz risen from the ashes, MY BLACK DRESS WAS THERE AND IN MY SIZE. My year and a half of hoping and waiting had paid off and as I ordered it at 2am online, I sat at my computer crying and wondering if there really was a god because first there was Oprah, then my wallet came back to me (FOR THE SECOND TIME) and now there was this dress. I've said it once and and I'll say it again: if you love something, set it free, if it comes back to you it was meant to be. If it doesn't it was never yours to begin with.

The Ides of May

2009-05-14T11:39:00.004-04:00

Click to enlarge

Tomorrow is the single most important day of the year. That's right - it's my "25th" birthday, and it is really remarkable how I get more amazing and beautiful with each passing year.
Every year mom asks me what I want and usually I say "nothing" which is obvious a monstrous lie, but this year I took the time out from my exceedingly busy schedule to compile a list of things that I deem acceptable presents that show adequate respect for such a sacred occasion. Click above to see the list.

Hilarious List of Gosselin Freebies

2009-05-13T12:24:00.005-04:00

I always suspected celebrities got free plastic surgery

I'm sure many of you are following the amazing marriage meltdown of Kate and Jon Gosselin, who are married and have 8 kids and are on the show Jon & Kate + 8. The show will soon be titled Jon & Kate + 8 - 1 because Us Weekly has loads of pictures and reports about Jon's affair with a 23 year old while Kate was away doing media tours and tending to her insane Flock of Seagulls haircut. There's also rumors that Kate is having an affair with her bodyguard, who looks like Peterman from Seinfeld. In any event, Us Weekly is reporting how fame and fortune have "changed" the pair and how they've become "obsessed" with getting free swag. Us includes a comprehensive list of all the free crap they've gotten:

Utah house rental (estimate: $5,000), ski lift tickets $72 for six days), ski school lessons ($140 per child)
- Upright piano, which they got rid of when they moved into their new $1.1 million home : $5,550-$6,350
- Violin: $100-$300
- Old house re-carperted
-Crayola Factory Tour: $90.00
-Teeth Whitening (for Jon & Kate): $1,310 (average price for 2 adults)
-Hair plugs (Jon): $5,200 (average cost)
-Sesame Street Place tickets: $509.50
-Day with Thomas the Tank Engine: $180.00
-Beach trip to North Carolina, house rental, Jeep tour
-Sight & Sound Christian theatre tickets: $236.00
-SkyBox at Phillies game
-LegoLand tickets: $550.00

Um, do you like how they just casually mention the hairplugs in the middle of this list and then specify "Jon" as opposed to Kate or one of the 5 year old sextuplets, just to clear up any confusion. I basically fell out of my chair.

KY "Intense"

2009-05-08T12:01:00.004-04:00

A reader of this blog recently brought to my attention the sheer lunacy of the KY "Intense" commercials with uptight couples talking about the product and then fast forwarding to apres sex, as they lay "stunned" and speechless in bed by the power of this lubricant. I have never tried KY Intense (GROSS), but it seems to me that KY did itself a disservice by putting Intense on the market. If Intense is the most powerful KY lubricant out there, it makes all their other products obsolete because who's going to waste their time on KY Warming Liquid or 2-1 Tingling lubricant when neither of those sensations guarantee Intensity. It also completely eliminates the need for their other new product, KY Intrigue, because nobody wants to slather Intrigue on their crotches and be forced to solve a murder mystery. Of course there's theoretically argument that you don't want to have "intense" sex every time, sometimes you want to have boring KY Personal Lubricant sex, but that argument contemplates that everyone has a limitless amount of money to buy 90 types of different lubricant for the type of sex that they want to have and also doesn't mind the embarrassment of storing a warehouse of lotions and gelees (HAHAHA) in their sock drawer. I once found two lubricants in an ex-boyfriend's bedside table and it nearly ruined our relationship because what kind of pervert has two lubricants.

This also brings up the KY Yours + Mine issue, which is a set of his and hers lubricants which people are supposed to rub on their personal crotches and then when the crotches meet the completely different chemical makeup of the two lubricants come together and an atomic bomb goes off on your Wamsutta sheets. My initial question regarding this product was if the two products are separately ineffective, but together outrageously unbelievable, why not just cut out the middle man, go to Target and get an empty spray bottle and pour them both in, but it appears that someone at KY realized that people would be stirring up their own concoctions so they came out with KY Intense.

P.S. KY Intrigue says it can be used for an "intimate shower." HAHAHA

R.I.P. Crunch Gyms

2009-05-06T12:11:00.006-04:00

More like Credit Crunch - ZING

Today, Crunch Gyms filed for bankruptcy. Well, I could have predicted this. Their motto is "No Judgments" but that's about to change because a bankruptcy court is going to render a judgment against them - ZING. The truth of the matter is the Crunch gyms are a steaming pile of shit. I was briefly and tragically a member of Crunch in 2005 when I first moved to New York, and didn't realize that Crunch was very low on the gym totem pole, ranking somewhere below Equinox, New York Health & Racquet Club, NY Sports Club, but somewhere about Dolphin Fitness, which is truly the worst and most repulsive gym in NYC. The machines at Dolphin are always dripping in other peoples' sweat, there is no A/C and the locker room has no bench to sit on and the entire place is always filthy, which is acceptable for my apartment but is not ok for a gym.

But anyway, back to Crunch. Their "claim to fame" is that they're known for their their see through walls which look out on to the street so that the people inside can run on the treadmill while simulataneously bragging to pedestrians about it. They're also have "world famous fitness classes," which change every month. These classes are all based around gimmicky names or gimmicky fitness equipment with very little actual workout going on. I once went to a "Bosu Bootcamp" class, which involved jumping up and down on that dome shaped rubber pimple apparatus while people doing real work outs stare into the glass-walled class. The workout was lead by a fat instructor which did not inspire much confidence and the workout was a joke.

I would say good riddance, but I wonder if this means that Equinox will get even more crowded, if that is even possible.

Vincent Longo Diaspora from Sephora

2009-05-06T01:44:00.006-04:00

Mama's coming

As if discontinuing Sephora eyeliner #209 was not enough, last week I walked into a Sephora in Soho to replace my Vincent Longo Gel Lipstain in Liquid Kiss which I have been wearing for 5 years now. The display was not in the usual place which did not immediately alarm me, since they're always switching things around at Sephora in order to confuse customers. I asked one of the sales associates in insane drag makeup where the Vincent Longo display was now located and she said "we no longer carry that line." I see.

Putting aside the fact that Vincent Longo along with Nars, Clinique, Lorac and Stila were the ORIGINAL brands carried by Sephora and that it is an unimaginable betrayal to just kick out the brands that made them great, was Sephora ever planning on alerting their customers about this? What did they expect, that I would just somehow consult my runes or divine from the atmosphere that Sephora was no longer carrying Vincent Longo and that I should immediately proceed to the nearest store and buy up the remaining stock of Liquid Kiss or did they expect me togo about my business regularly using Liquid Kiss and then when my supply ran out I was just supposed to go to the store only to discover that the linchpin of my makeup routine had been exiled and then replace it with some piece of shit gloss from Cargo or Kat von D and act casual? Any fool knows that if you build an entire makup routine around an enviable berry-kissed lip, you can't just replace one lip product with another and have the entire makeup look ideal. While I have been waiting for Gel Lipstain in Liquid Kiss to arrive from the shady Vincent Longo website, I was actually forced to purchase some "chocolate berry" lip plumper gloss from Clinique as a feeble substitue and a recent decline in my being hit on attests to the inadequacy of this product.

At first I thought it was just bad luck that my Stridex Foaming Face Wash was discontinued,but with the discontinuation of Sephora #209 eyeliner, the closing of the Missha stores (where another key lip gloss originates) and now the diaspora of Vincent Longo from Sephora, it has become perfectly clear that someone is trying to destroy me. I have an idea of who it is and let me just say that this person will be very, very sorry.

My Ear, Part IV

2009-05-04T15:48:00.007-04:00

Click to enlarge my unbelievable test results

So, following my course of antibiotics and prednisone, neither of which did anything except stop me from drinking for 4 days, I decided to return to Dr. Lim and tell her that my ears were still ringing. I went through the entire process again of booking a "follow up" appointment (aka, no extra charge), waiting in the waiting room with the blaring Good Morning America, and having Lim look in my ears, spritz crap in my nose, tell me that it was still clogged at which point I reminded her of that it had been clogged since my 2001 nosejob and there was no reason to think that in the week since I'd seen her last it would magically clear up and that a Ven diagram suggested that if my ears had only been ringing for a few weeks but my nosejob was eight wonderful years ago, the two circles did not overlap and the nosejob was not the cause of the ringing. She ignored me, filled out some forms and told me she was sending me for hearing tests. Mind you, she didn't ask whether I was having trouble hearing, and the appointment was at 8am so I was too tired to tell her that my hearing was fine, andshe wrote a referral form and gave me the names of 5 HEARING AID places to call for my tests, one of which was that horrible NY Eye & Ear Infirmary hellhole.

I go home, call one of the places to ask how much their hearing tests cost because I'm paying out of pocket due to my lack of insurance, and because it's a hearing aid place, the volume on their end of the phone is all the way up so they scream in my ear that it's $300 and I say, "no thanks, I'd rather go deaf but at least have some money," and then I proceed to complain to several people via Gchat about how absolutely ridiculous is that I was sent to get my hearing checked and that they're attempting to charge me $300 to ring some tones in my ear and tell me that my hearing is fine. Several people, including L.G. and my parents, insinuated that maybe there IS something wrong with my hearing and that maybe I'm just being defensive about it, which is patently false, but anyway the only way I could conclusively prove these people wrong and rub it in their faces was if I got my hearing checked. So I called back Audio Help Associates and told them to count me in for the $300.

This morning, I arrive for my 9am hearing test appointment and check in at the receptionist desk. Since this is a place for the hearing impaired, the receptionist SCREAMS at me "PLEASE HAVE A SEAT" and then SCREAMS again for me to fill out some forms which contain questions including rating things on a 0-5 scale, including "interest in improving your hearing aid device" and "comfort conversing with friends and loved ones." One of the "audiologists" (bizarre, made up profession) comes out and the receptionist whispers to him that I don't have insurance, believing me to be deaf, and the audiologist gives me the stink eye and whispers back to her "she's not my client" to which I reply "Hello, I'm Marin and I don't have insurance, here are my forms" which completely stuns both the receptionist and the audiologist because obviously they are accostomed to whispering shit about people directly in front of their faces.

As I'm waiting with two elderly men, my 28 year old "audiologist" comes out and takes me to a weird padded small chamber with bizarro 80s machinery involving dot matrix printouts. She sticks things in my ear that supposedly take "pressure measurements" and it becomes abundantly clear that the latest advances in audiology may also include blood letting, phrenology and application of virgin tears. She then puts the tone plugs in my ear and goes to a room facing me with a window and puts on a 1-800-Dentist headset and tells me through the head microphone that she will be playing tones and I should say "Yes" when I hear them. I obviously hear all the tones, even the sneaky ones and the longer silences that I know she was trying to trick me with, and after we're done with this exercise in lunacy she asks me to repeat words after she says them. So I'm sitting there in a chamber wearing earplugs, looking at this girl in a headset who is probably two people apart from me on Facebook, repeating words like "use" "toe" "cat" "stove" back to her and about to die of laughter and shame. Finally, she looks up at me and says into her headset microphone, "why are you here?" because I'm obviously kicking this hearing test's ass and I say, "I know, it is absolutely ridiculous," and I tell her that my ears have been ringing and that Dr. Lim sent me here to have my hearing checked but obviously my hearing is fine. She rolls her eyes and says "your hearing is average" and I said, "wait, do you mean like getting a C or like average as is my hearing is normal" and she said "your hearing is normal." Approximately seven minutes have elapsed into my test at this point, and she then takes me to back to the receptionist and permits them to charge me $305, in what comes out to $38 a minute. I then ask for a copy of my test results and the receptionist says "We can send it to you, our copier is broke" and I inform her that I just paid $305 for this test and I am a blogger and if she could kindly scan it and print it that would be ideal, so she scans and prints a copy.

As you can see, I received "Av" on my clinical interpretations (which I initially thought said "A+" but Aliza informed me that I was only fooling myself), in addition to "Excellent WRS." I also received two "Good"s and many "10"s and "100"s throughout this report, so at this time I would like to accuse L.G. and my parents of having worse hearing than me and also say in your face to them.

My Ear, Part III

2009-04-28T18:32:00.005-04:00

When we last met my ear, I had just performed the ear wax removal system twice on it, resulting in ringing and unbearable pain. I decided to go to the New York Eye & Ear infirmary at 2:30pm on a Tuesday because a) who the hell goes to the ear doctor at that time, and b) the place is near my apartment. So I walk to the dingy, rainbow colored building, and am standing in the lobby watching nurses walk aimlessly and while hoardes of random unemployed people are just standing around the perimeter of the lobby, holding forms and clipboards. As I'm standing there doing my best to look confused in the hopes that someone tells me what the hell is going on, a security guard comes up to me and asks me if I need help. I tell him I'd like to see a doctor about my ear, and he says, "No problem, just stand in that line," and he points to a line of about 20 people, including several screaming babies and lots of puffy coats. I ask him what the wait is like once I've finished waiting in the initial line, and the security guard smirks and says "There's the waiting room," and motions to what can only be described as a scene directly from hell.

There were about 150 people crammed in, standing and sitting all over the place, eating McDonalds, snapping gum, screaming at their children, talking loudly to each other and doing other annoying things. As far as the eye could see were South Pole puffy jackets, Timberlands and Sketchers, and then I asked the security guard if this was a joke. He then said "Doors open at 7:30am but they only see patients from 1 to 3pm." I then asked him whether these people had been waiting since 7:30 and he said yes, and I then asked him whether he'd ever seen the fresco "The Condemned In Hell" by Signorelli because this waiting room appeared to be to the inspiration for the terrifying masterpiece. The security guard looked at me like I was insane and for some reason thought I was asking where the soda machine was so he started giving me directions to it, at which point I walked out of the building.

I went home and remembered that many of the plastic surgeons that I had been researching when I was looking into my nosejob were affiliated with Manhattan Eye & Ear, so I called them and asked the guy on the phone if they allow people without insurance to go there and he said that they did if they paid cash, so I made an appointment for the next day at 8:30am since it was only $140.99. So the next day, I roll up at 8:45am because even when seeing doctors it's important to be fashionably late. The intake lady on the first floor takes my license and makes a photocopy and tells me that it's a good picture, so I then am forced to delay myself further by explaining that I always take amazing license pictures, it's actually a talent because I normally take bad pictures but I step it up for licenses and this happens to be my third amazing picture license. They send me up to the "Audiology" floor, where I am seated in a waiting room with two old ladies. The tv is on Regis and Kelly and the volume is deafeningly loud and assaulting my right ear. As I'm trying to protect myself from the volume by zipping my hoodie over my head, I catch the eye of one of the old ladies and say, "Ironic that we're in an audiology ward and the volume is up all the way!" which she responds to be staring at me blankly. Then two deaf people come into the waiting room and start signing to each other, which makes me feel better because my ear may be ringing but those people have real hearing problems.

Finally, they call me and I tell Dr. Lim that my mother the psychiatrist in conjunction with her friend Joseph the Oncologist have prescribed amoxicillan for my ear, which she laughs at. I also tell her about the wax removal fiasco and she shakes her head and then looks in my ear and informs me that I have "absolutely no wax" in there, which was a relief to hear because I didn't want to have to tell people this story and have them be disgusted by me. She then spritzes something up my nose and then asks me if I have trouble breathing because my nose is clogged. I tell her that my nose has been clogged since my nosejob in 2001, but I consider the clogging a small price to pay for a marginally better nose. She prescribes me some prednisone, vaguely tells me there some "fluid" somewhere and sends me away.

It's been over a week since then, and needless to say my ear remains clogged and ringing. I return to the office of Manhattan Eye & Ear tomorrow and Dr. Lim tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Day of Doodlehead Cont'd

2009-04-27T14:16:00.002-04:00

Olympia

Day of Doodlehead

2009-04-27T12:54:00.001-04:00

Peeing

Happy 2nd Birthday Perry!

2009-04-27T00:42:00.004-04:00

Two years ago today, somewhere in northern California, five puppies were born to proud mom Fiona and deadbeat dad Timmy, a Bedlington who had already skipped town. There were two girl puppies and three boys, but two of the boys died very early on. One blue boy was left, and since I had already put down a non-refundable $400 deposit, that meant he was mine. About 8 weeks in, he traveled by airplane to Lancaster, PA, along with his sister, Callie, to the home of another breeder, where he would await my arrival via red Mustang because that was the only car they had left at Hertz that weekend. Aliza and I picked him up, we drove to New Jersey to introduce him to his step-siblings Hailey and Lamb Choppe, and it was there that Uncle Lambo kept on sniffing his ear and diagnosed him with an ear infection. He was, from the beginning, a total money pit. But every cent I've ever paid or ever will pay for that dog is worth it. I'd even give up the contents of my ING Savings account for him, and that's pretty serious considering my obscene wealth.

According to Greg the dogwalker who also does tarot readings and dream interpretations, Perry is an old soul. He's on his sixth and final life as a dog, because after this life he will be done paying for the sins he committed while human. I feel lucky that I get to share his last dog life, and hope that whomever is in charge of reincarnation sees that he is being a very good boy. Happy second birthday, Perry. Kisses.

R.I.P. Bea Arthur (1922-2009)

2009-04-25T17:44:00.004-04:00

Shady Pines, ma

Tragic news - Bea Arthur, a.k.a Dorothy Zbornak, a.k.a Maude, has died at age 86 from cancer. I'm just too devastated to think of anything clever. Golden Girls is my favorite show, and I am a major, MAJOR fan. I have autographs of all the Girls, and the first time I went to L.A., my first order of business was getting one of those celebrity maps that had the Golden Girls' houses on it. I took pictures in front of Betty and Bea's houses, but unfortunately I lost the film so they never got developed. Several years ago, I saw Bea Arthur on Broadway, "Just Between Friends," along with every gay man in Manhattan. We're going to miss you, Pussycat. Thank you for being a friend.

Here are some classic scenes with Bea and the Girls:

1. I Got You Babe
2. Miami is Nice
3. Miami Lovers

My Ear, Part II

2009-04-24T10:09:00.000-04:00

My right ear continues to be clogged and ring for two days following the Rite Aid amoxicillan disaster. It's Tuesday and at 12pm sharp I'm sitting in Phyllis my new shrink's office attempting to blame my parents for my shortcomings and she says "You seem a little distracted," at which point I tell her that I can't focus on feeling sorry for myself today because it feels like someone put a bubble over my ear and the ringing sounds like someone forgot to turn off the tv but not the cable box - like a high pitched buzz that will not go away. I tell her that my mom prescribed amoxicillan for me and she rolls her eyes and goes into an MD-less diatribe about how doctors are out of control with the prescriptions these days that that what I ACTUALLY have is a simple ear wax problem, which she has had before. She then asks me if I pick my ears with my fingers and I say, "Occassionally when no one is looking which is embarrassing to admit but mainly I use a Q-Tip" and then she slams her hand down on her leg and tells me that I've moved a piece of ear wax into my inner ear and will need either a doctor to remove it or I could just buy one of those ear wax removal kits.

Overjoyed that I don't have to pay $8,000 for a doctor, I race out of the appointment and go to CVS where I am forced to ask a salesperson where the ear wax stuff is because I can't find it myself, thereby undergoing extreme humiliation, and I "Murine Ear Wax Removal System" and grab a cab home in order to rid myself of this terrible wax as quickly as possible. The kit says to apply between 5 to 10 drops of this gross softener into my ear, tilt my head for "several minutes" and the flush it out with a plastic blue eye-dropper pump contraption filled with warm water. I determine that 7 drops is the correct amount for me, and then lay on my left side for 5 minutes while attempting to read a book out of my right eye because the left one is crushed against a pillow.

Unfortunately the contact prescription in my right eye has never been great, so the words are all blurry and I get nauseous from reading so I have to put the book down and just lay there like an idiot for five minutes. After the time is up, I walk with a tilted head toward my kitchen sink, fill a plastic bowl with warm water and proceeds to squeeze this water into my ear which sounds really loud and feels like someone's peeing. I determine that the process has been ineffective, because the ringing is still there and the shit is still clogged, so I repeat the process which the Murine kit says I can do up to twice a day, and this time instill ten drops into my ear because I am playing with the big boys and not fooling around now. I again douse my ear in warm water, which has zero effect on the clogging and ringing, but I think maybe this wax removal takes time.

I retreat to my computer to look at expensive clothes and all of a sudden a sharp develops in my ear and jaw which feels like someone has stabbed me. My ear is noweven more clogged than before, the ringing is unbearable and I'm about to fire Phyllis and shoot someone.

Then, I remember that there's this NY Ear & Ear Infirmary, not far from my apartment. I'll just walk in there, I figure. This is an emergency, they'll have to see me immediately, I'll pay anything at this point and besides, who the hell is there at 2:30pm on a random Tuesday?

Who the hell, indeed...

Stay tuned for the "shocking" "conclusion" of "My Ear."

The New Trend

2009-04-23T12:25:00.003-04:00

Ugh, today ANOTHER one of those dad-orchestrated-ponzi-scheme-and-then-killed-entire-family-before-killing-himself stories was in the news. Can people stop doing schemes and killing their families? It's getting really annoying at this point. Like if you're going to commit a trendy crime, pick EITHER a ponzi scheme OR killing your family, but you can't have both because that's just being greedy. If you kill your family and then yourself, that's tragic, or if you defraud investors, that's kind of lame, but put them both together and it's just a total shitshow because people have lost money and now there's no one to imprison for it.

Because I sincerely hope no one gets involved with someone who will murder them later on, I have developed the below checklist that you can use to determine whether your sig oth is involved in a ponzi scheme and plans to murder you and him or herself in the future:

1. Person you're dating owns a gun.
2. Person you're dating always clears his or her cache on Google and not just because they're trying to hide their porn trail.
3. Person you're dating does Publisher's Clearing House and sincerely believes that they've just won $25 million dollars.
4. Person you're dating likes going on dates to remote cliffs or hotel rooms in other cities.
5. Person you're dating gets defensive while playing Clue when you accuse Colonel Mustard of doing it with the wrench in the conservatory.
6. Person you're dating seems normal.
7. Person you're dating likes money more than usual.

My Ear, Part I

2009-04-22T19:45:00.004-04:00

Not sure what eustachian tubes are but pretty confident I don't have them

On Saturday, my right ear started to feel clogged. I didn't think anything of it, primarily because I was drunk as a skunk for most of the day, but on Sunday when I woke up it was still clogged and ringing. Thinking that this was a karma-related event because one of my favorite pass times is surprise attacking Perry's ears with hemostats and plucking wax entangled hair out of his ear canal which he hates but I truly believe is good for him and which I also find personally satisfying, I checked my horoscope to see if I was supposed to be receiving revenge karma, but it turned out that Saturday and Sunday were supposed to be good love and career days for me and they said nothing about bad health.

I googled "ear clogged and ringing and cipro" because the only prescription antibiotic I had on hand was an old bottle of cipro, and as I may have mentioned about 10,000 times, I don't have health insurance. I called up my mom, Dr. Rusty, to get her expert opinion on the situation, but since she's a Psychiatrist she said she didn't know what the dosage was and instead referred me to their neighbor Joseph who naturally would be able to help me because he is an Oncologist. Joseph told my mom to prescribe amoxicillan, so I went to Rite Aid so that she could call in the prescription. The pharmacist asks me, "Prescription for pickup?" and I said, "Um no, my mom is a doctor and she will be calling in a prescription for me in a few minutes." The pharmacist looked at me like I was doing something wrong so I explained that I just so happened to be a lawyer and this entire situation of mothers prescribing medicine for their daughters was perfectly legal.

"Ronnie" begins filling the prescription when it occurs to me that what if this costs like $3,000, because I only have like $2400 in my TD Bank account and it would take two business days to transfer money from my VERY large ING Savings account and there is no way I'm living with this ringing ear for two more days, plus I don't use my credit cards anymore because last time I did I accidentally got $10,000 into debt, so I interrupt Ronnie and ask him to just "ballpark" the price of the amoxicillan for me as I'm sitting there shitting my pants, and he's says, "its ten ninety-nine." At this point I'm on the verge of fainting so I scream, "ONE THOUSAND NINETY NINE DOLLARS? Is that a fucking joke?" and he says, "It's ten dollars and ninety nine cents," and I'm like, "Oh, it's that cheap? Why would anybody bother having insurance! You should specify next time it's ten dollars not a thousand dollars," and Ronnie says "ok" and hands me the bag as the old people hanging around in the pharmacy area with their paid assistants glare at me like I'm some sort of idiot.

But this was all before I got the inspired idea to get an ear wax removal kit...

The Dilemma of Highlights

2009-04-21T23:30:00.004-04:00

I am seeking natural looking highlights such as these

A few months ago, my normal hair person Saori unfortunately dyed my hair too light, and then I had her dye it back too dark, and this last time I thought she got it just right. Well, pictures from my friend's wedding came back and it looks like I colored my hair with Crayola Goldenrod color. In addition, when I see people who are blonder than me such as Risa I become very jealous. My color is absurdly off, but that may because the last time Saori put highlights in, she only put the medium highlight color in and didn't use the white bleach for the extra blonde pieces that are typically artfully frame my face.

My friend Jen's salon was having a "Recession Special" on cuts and highlights. Jen's hair always looks really nice and Saori's cuts are a little uninspired, so I decided to go to Jen's place to get my hair cut. I actually got a really nice cut, but every time I walk into Saori's salon, which is nearly every day because Perry gets a cookie in there, I have to put my hair back in a pony tail or put a hoodie over my head so she can't see that I've cheated on her and gotten a haircut elsewhere. Actually I think she is on to me because she's been acting more distant but obviously I can't ask her what's wrong because I don't want to have a confrontation about this.

In any event, unfortunately I did not think this haircutting betrayal through all the way, because the time has come for me to get highlights, and if I get them from Saori, she'll see that my hair has been cut by someone else. But if I get it from Jen's salon, Saori will see that my hair is lighter the next time I walk into the salon with Perry. If this were winter, it wouldn't be a problem because I could just wear a hat and hide the highlights, but what the hell am I supposed to do now? Don't say purchase a bandana and channel Bret Michaels, because I've already thought of that, and I think wearing a bandana for no reason would only call attention to my head. Any advice?

Only in New York

2009-04-20T17:40:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was my mom's birthday, so Aliza and I hailed a cab on 1st Avenue, to take us to the restaurant because we live like sultans and can do that sort of thing. So we get in the cab carrying a bouquet of flowers and tell him that we need to go downtown (1st Ave goes uptown only). I comment to Aliza that the cab seems weird - it doesn't have the normal consul, there appears to be no credit card machine and the taxi tv doesn't work. When the light turns green, the cab driver MAKES A LEFT HAND FROM THE RIGHTMOST LANE on 1st Avenue, cutting across about 3 lanes of uptown traffic. Cars slam on brakes and nearly crash into the left side of the cab, I start screaming to the cab driver "This might be a bad idea, I don't have health insurance" and just as he has successfully cut off cars with nearly two collisions, we hear a police siren. The cab driver is now driving downa the one-way cross-town street off of 1st ave, being followed by the police. Me and Aliza are looking are like dying of laughter at this point becuase the guy just keeps on driving and doesn't pull over. Finally he does, and two cops get out of their car, walk up to the cab and knock on the door. They tell the cab driver to turn off the engine, PUT HIS HANDS ABOVE HIS HEAD, and then ask for his license and registration.

At this point me and Aliza are like, crap, mom and dad are going to be pissed if we're late, so lower my window and say to the cop, "Um, can we go now? I have to Twitter about this" and the cop ignores us, so me and Aliza hop out of the cab and walk to 2nd avenue laughing about the situation. We then hail another cab which had a small woman driver. We get in and tell her that we're going to Houston and LaGaurdia and that we were just pulled over in another cab. The cab driver says nothing and then pulls into traffic on 2nd avenue where she PROCEEDS TO REAR END THE CAB DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF HER. The cabdriver of the cab she hits open his door, turns around and giver her a nasty look, and she says "sorry" to him and then looks at me and Aliza in the rearview mirror as we're doubled over in laughter and literally losing our shit. I was Twittering this frantically and Aliza was just shaking her head and muttering. It was truly glorious.

High Alert: THE COUGAR

2009-04-16T19:17:00.005-04:00

Um, I just watched part of the new show The Cougar, and I literally had to pause my DVR mid show to run over to my computer and tell you how unbelievably amazing it is. I thought it was going to be a usual piece of crap The Bachelor spinoff, but it's so much better than that. Twenty men in their 20s are competing for 40 year old Stacey Anderson, the Cougar. Stacy is your typical cougar - you know, married AT AGE 16 and now has four children, absurdly tan with sun spots and hypnotizing crow's feet and two giant canteloupes tacked on to her aging body.

The whole idea of the show is that they are trying to take all your preconceived notions about how older women shouldn't be dating younger men and throw it the garbage, but unfortunately they keep on undermining the message of empowerment by repeatedly referring to her as a cougar. As in, "Let's meet our cougar" or "I've never dated a cougar before." The show is made even more phenomenal if that is humanly possible because Vivica A. Fox hosts it and when she speaks her chest muscles flex so her ginormous implants move back and forth in an extremely alarming way. Now that I think about it, this may be one of the greatest shows I've ever seen, despite the fact that it's on TVland which is weird and normally off limits. As you may know, I do not take recommendations lightly because people always recommend horrible shit to me and then I get angry, but I URGE YOU to watch this show. It may be the best thing you've ever done.

Looking Good, Billy Ray

2009-04-15T13:50:00.003-04:00

Feeling good, Lewis

Obese People Justly Punished by Airlines

2009-04-15T13:16:00.003-04:00

Glorious news- United Airlines has just announced that it will now charge obese passengers for second seats if thin people complain that the obese person's fat is overflowing into their seat. This policy brings United into line with Delta and Southwest, who have been forcing obese people to pay the piper for being fat for years. Apparently the way it works is, if the flight is full, the obese person will have to pay for a second seat. Not sure how this solves the problem, because if the flight is full that means that there AREN'T any open seats, so the thin person still has to suffer, and United just makes twice the profit. If the flight is not full, the obese person will be moved to two open seats and will not be charged for the second seat. The litmus test for whether a person is fat enough to qualify for this type of public humiliation is whether the armrest can be moved up and down without bumping into the person's fat, and whether the person could buckle themselves up with a seatbelt AND ONE EXTENSION BELT. HAHAHAHAH. Extension belts.

Seriously, can you imagine this situation, like being a plane with someone who is borderline obese next to you and then you call the flight attendant over to perform the obesity test on them, and then it turns out that they can fit in the seat with the extension belt so that they don't qualify as obese? Are you just supposed to spend the rest of the flight sitting next to the person you just embarrassed, looking directly forward not making eye contact. I guess the point is, if you call the flight attendant over you better be 110% sure that the person will qualify as obese because otherwise it could potentially be the most uncomfortable and awkward flight of your life.

Back in the Game

2009-04-13T12:27:00.005-04:00

I've been shrink-free since 2007, when I unceremoniously dumped my long-time shrink Dr. Laikin. I saw Laikin during college and then we broke up when I went to law school. When I returned to NYC after law school, one of my first orders of business was securing a regular early morning appointment time with him so that I could cry hysterically at 8:45 am and the roll up to work at 10 with a mascara-stained face and have to wait in my office for two hours until the puffiness subsided. After about two years of seeing Laikin, I didn't feel like I was making any "progress" in becoming a normal, well-adjusted person, so he naturally suggested that we up our sessions to twice a week. Since I considered him my guru and enjoyed dropping his name in conversations, I agreed to this, but soon realized that twice a week was about doubly ineffective as once a week, so one day I just randomly dumped him. I've been flying without a net since then, except for my fish oil.

I'd been threatening to get a new shrink for a while now, a threat which both Megan and Risa have been attempting to hold me to, and last week I actually bit the bullet and did it. Phyllis, my new shrink, is a psychoanalyst, which I actually completely disagree with because I think Freud's theories are fairly ridiculous and there is no scientific evidence that psychoanalysis actually works or helps anybody. In fact, NY is the only place in the U.S. where you can even find Freudian practitioners because it's a pretty well known fact that the only type of therapy that has been shown to even do anything is cognitive behavioral therapy. You may be wondering why I'm bothering going to a shrink who practices a ridiculous form of therapy, and the reason is because cognitive behavioral therapy is legitimate, so it's very expensive and I don't have insurance which means I have to settle for ineffective therapy. I plan to bring this up at my session tomorrow but I'm scared I might get kicked out of therapy because sometimes Freudians can get very angry and defensive when you tell them that their methods are absurd and ineffective.

Passion Play Going On Outside of My Apartment

2009-04-10T14:18:00.007-04:00

Ripped from The Passion of the Christ

It was just another day in my apartment writing and charging people for it, when a GIANT CROWD of people walked down my street, blaring music from a megaphone and JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF, carrying a cross, made his way down my street in the East Village. For a minute, I thought I had been transported back to Israel 2000 years ago, as the scene unfolded almost exactly according to Bible specifications, with Jesus clad in a white robe, acid wash jeans and Timberland boots. Only the cars on the street and the police escorts alerted me to the fact that this was but a passion play, a replica of Jesus' suffering many years ago.

I was on the phone when I heard the doleful sounds of a crowd wailing some lugubrious song, and I screamed "There's a PASSION PLAY GOING ON OUTSIDE OF MY APARTMENT!" hung up and ran out to take pictures. People in the crowd looked at me, disgusted, and I yelled out, "I'm just using it for my blog!" so they were cool with it.

Giuliana Rancic, Soon to Revert to DePandi

2009-04-07T19:19:00.003-04:00

These look new

Um, has anybody seen Giuliana DePandi Rancic recently? She isn't wearing her engagement ring/wedding ring anymore and I predict announcement of divorce imminently. This is EXACTLY the sort of stuff that happens when you brag about your engagement and honeymoon on air and then change your name to prove that you're married to an F-list celebrity. Unsurprisingly, her separation from Bill Rancic coincides with the new GIANT WATERBALLOONS she has bolted to her chest. She'll show him, that sexy vixen! You know, I let it slide when she got a chin implant a few years ago because she badly needed it and I didn't want to discourage her, but these mongoloid funbags are outrageous. Who does she think she can trick into believing that she's always had these? You can't go on the air flat chested one day and then come back from a "vacation" with 7 more pounds of breasticles attached and offer no explanation. It's like this girl I went to high school with who maintained she was in a car accident that miraculously broke her nose into a perfect ski slope. At least she had a reasonable explanation.

Margarita Debacle

2009-04-06T18:55:00.003-04:00

Behold, the receipt. Click to enlarge.

So on Friday night, I went to La Palapa for Mexican food in the East Village. Normally the food is mediocre there, there's too much print on the menu and the margaritas are sour and very sub-par. I eat there because it seems vaguely upscale for area, and it is only natural that I want to surround myself with the trappings of wealth at all times.

Anyway, so we were sitting at the table and I order a pomegranate margarita on the rocks in an attempt to counteract the tartness of the margarita, and L.G. orders a strawberry frozen margarita, because I warned him about the garbage margarita situation and the necessity of counteracting it with fruit. So we get our drinks and mine is palatable, whereas his is literally undrinkable, like someone dumped ten vats of lime juice and a dash of tequila that had been fermenting in a barrel of smoked mozzarella cheese. So we call the waiter over, send the frozen margarita back, and L.G. order the same drink I have. The waiter brings the drink and waits for him to taste it, which he does and then scrunches up his face like someone has just squirted a lemon in his eye, and tells me to taste it, so I do and it tastes like total shit.

I then explain to the waiter that it's a well known fact in this town that the margaritas at La Palapa are shitty. They're too sour to drink and taste like lead. People come for the ambiance, but if they want crazy margaritas, they go next door to Paquitos or they go to my favorite haunt, El Nuevo Amanecer where you drink one margarita and you're crawling home. The waiter laughs and agrees with me that the margaritas are better elsewhere and snaps up L.G.'s drink. He comes back about a minute later with a replacement one. "How's that, not too shitty?" he asks, and waits for L.G. to drink and react. L.G. agrees that is indeed less shitty of a drink then the waiter says it's because they always put too much lime in, so he had to watch and direct the bartender to knock it off with the lime.

We enjoy the rest of our meal, and I comment to L.G. that I hope that the waiter wasn't just humoring me and then secretly spitting in my quesedilla. We then get the hilarious check, which I urge you to click on above. I am now a customer for LIFE.

Fast & Furious

2009-04-03T11:31:00.005-04:00

Should be renamed immediately

I was watching tv the other day and saw and ad for Fast & Furious. That's weird, I thought they already made that movie. It turns out that Fast & Furious is the third movie in the series The Fast & The Furious, which makes absolutely no sense. First there was The Fast & The Furious, which is normal, and then when I heard that a sequel was coming out, I couldn't wait to see the title, because I thought it would either be More Fast & Increasingly Furious or Faster & Furiouser, but they surprised and really impressed me with 2Fast, 2Furious which I did NOT see coming. But rather than taking on the challenge of making a good third installment title out of 2Fast, 2Furious, they thought that cutting out the "The"s in the original title would make it go even faster. This is a ridiculous idea. Third one should have been named Fastest & Most Furious, or as Jen suggested, Thrice Fast, Thrice Furious. Otherwise it does not makes sense.

Actually, I just discovered upon research that Fast & Furious is technically the FOURTH movie in the series because there was apparently one called The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift. I can assure that this movie does not change the above analysis because I've never heard of it so it doesn't count.

Good Lucky, Crusty

2009-04-03T09:47:00.004-04:00

Worst of luck to Aliza aka Chester d/b/a Crusty, who is taking the Psychology GRE tomorrow. I actually meant "best of luck" but I decided to use reverse psychology in this post to see if she's been studying her flashcards.

Aliza has been studying so hard for this shit that when I texted her last week to see if she was coming over for our regular Sunday night The Amazing Race/Rock of Love/Celebrity Apprentice/Tough Love appointment, she said she couldn't because she had to study, which hurt my feelings because we always hang out on Sunday night and I felt she was choosing the GRE over me and tv. I was going to confront her with an angry email this week about the whole situation, but I remembered how once on Rock of Love, Bret was really pumped to have a relaxing date getting spa treatments, and Kristy Jo interrupted and started crying about how she needed to have a talk with him to discuss how she didn't know if she wanted to be in the mansion anymore, and the Bret said to the camera how he was really annoyed because she ruined his massage, so I knew that Aliza would probably want me to wait until after the GRE to talk about how I don't know if she's prepared to live my rock star lifestyle. And so I did.

Good luck!!

Perry's Secret Garden

2009-04-03T01:26:00.003-04:00

"I shall see you in the garden,
Where love grows free and wild.
Lift me up and lead me to the garden.
Come, sweet day!"
-The Secret Garden

The View from Narnia

2009-04-01T13:28:00.003-04:00

Julia Roberts' dress from Pretty Woman crossed with Flash Dance

Kim Kardashian on Ebay

2009-04-01T12:13:00.004-04:00

One of the things I like to do in my very limited spare time is troll Ebay in the hopes of using a $50 ebay gift certificate that I got two years ago for Hannukah. I actually thought the Oprah people had stolen it since I couldn't find it after they cleaned up and redid my apartment, but then it turns out they had just hid it from me in order to make me believe that they had stolen it. In any event, one of the things I look up is Herve Leger XS dresses, not because I want one, which I do not, but because it's a free country and I can look it up if I want to. Bandage dresses should only be worn if you are a mummy.

In any event, Kim Kardashian appears to be selling a bunch of Herve dresses in sizes XXS and XS, which is ludicrous considering that I once tried on an XXS at Bergdorf and I could not fit both legs into it even with Spanx on. Megan has the cell phone picture to prove it. This explains why Kim Kardashian constantly looks like she is about to explode out of her clothing. Everyone make a huge deal about her bodacious implantizations and a monumental butt, but the truth is that she's flat chested and flat butted and wears her clothing three sizes too small in order to force her stomach fat into her boobs and push up her knee fat into her ass.

If you click on her ebay screenname, Kimsaprincess, you'll see that she has about 500 pieces of her slutty wardrobe up for sale, and if you have time, I would strenously advise that you scroll through her auctions. It's like an encyclopedia of high class escort dresses in every color of the rainbow. Also, who has 500 pieces of clothing to spare.

Living in Narnia's 1 Year Anniversary

2009-03-31T12:46:00.006-04:00

That's right, one year ago today, I stopped containing my bitterness and annoyance and started writing about it on the internet. On this blog, to be exact. It's hard to believe it was a year ago, mainly because every year I expect something amazing to happen that puts me in a wildly different place than I was during the prior year, and every year I become increasingly panicked that I am closer to being 30 with absolutely nothing to show for it except a slammin' body and bitchin' face. I actually hate anniversaries generally speaking, because the last time I was dating someone for a year I received a SpongeBob Squarepants watch from K-Mart as an anniversary gift in lieu of the diamond stud earrings that I had selected for myself and requested via telepathy. We broke up shortly thereafter.

On a "serious" note, I just wanted to thank you for reading. I "struggle" with "depression" and getting a random "thanks for writing" email or a comment letting me know that someone is out there agreeing with me about The Bachelor really helps. As does fish oil.

Highlights of the year include being picked up by Racked, CNN and Awful Plastic Surgery. I am especially proud of the Awful Plastic Surgery mention, for obvious reasons. Anyway, I'm happy that I've been able to give a voice to the bitter, disenfranchised people that I know exist out there. The people who are not willing to accept mandals. The people who are angry when boring political programming interrupts critical shows and become infuriated when Tim Russert is treated like a fallen hero for simply having a heart attack at his desk and dying. The people who yearn for an official ranking of candy bars based on deliciousness and who believe in their hearts that Nights in Rodanthe has ruined their lives. I am proud to speak on behalf of those 327 unique people (according to Sitemeter), and I look forward to the day when I am paid for doing so.

Bachelor Spinoff With Fat People A Horrible Idea To Put It Mildly

2009-03-30T18:07:00.005-04:00

Prince Lorenzo Borghese will not be on the show

I just read the terrifying news on People that The Bachelor creator Mike Fleiss is collaborating on a Bachelor-esque show called "More to Love" which will feature a fat "Kevin James-like" bachelor and "average" women vying for him. Why would anybody watch a show about hideous monsters when there are plenty of other shows that feature goodlooking people?If I wanted to see ugly women or revolting men, I would just step outside my apartment or walk around the block a few times. The point of tv is to make fun of better looking and more in shape people in order to feel better about yourself; if people are uglier and fatter than me then how am I supposed to tear them down and what will happen to my self-confidence? I don't even want to think about that - too disturbing.

What's even MORE ridiculous is that People and Mike Fleiss do not seem to realize that this EXACT show has already been on tv. Nice try, but it was called "Average Joe" and the bachelor was Adam Mesh. Last year I actually ran into Adam Mesh at Canyon Road on the Upper East Side as I was waiting to consume margaritas at their fine establishment, and I told him "you're not average to me" which is true becuase he is actually worse than average and bears an alarming resemblance to David Gest. In any event, the girls on Average Joe were sad sacks themselves - dumpy, in need of nosejobs, etc. - and because the show had to limit the hottub scenes due to the fact that nobody wanted to see that stuff, it was not renewed for another season. All I have to say is thank god for small miracles because More or Less show will be on Fox, meaning that nobody will be watching it, except for myself purely for anthropological study purposes.

P.S. Wait for me Lorenzo

Movie Review: Milk Does a Body Terrible

2009-03-30T13:30:00.000-04:00

This weekend I had the misfortune of watching Milk on demand, because I had already watched The Duchess and if you think I'm going to waste my time watching Vicky Cristina Barcelona or Rachel Getting Married, you're living in Narnia. In retrospect I should have just watched Trading Place for the 578th time on Bravo because Milk was a piece of shit. It was boring, long, shot terribly and spliced with 70s footage, the dialogue was cringe-worthy, the opera symbolism was ridiculous and stolen directly from Amadeus and there was no point of that guy from Minnesota in a wheelchair who kept on calling and annoying Milk when he was in the middle of doing something important. I asked out loud at least 4 times if this movie was a joke and that is never a good sign. Below is a list of the characters in the movie that could have been cut out and the movie would have been better:

1. Kid in the wheelchair from Minnesota - served no purpose other than corniness
2. Josh Brolin
3. Jack the annoying lover - very annoying
4. Scott the ex-lover
5. Harvey Milk - annoying
6. Victor Garber - needless character that was included only because Victor Garber likes to appear in every movie ever made but should have just stopped at Legally Blonde
7. Cleve Jones - no point in him
8. Guy who was crying with the candle in the last scene who kind of looks like James Franco

Explaining My Situation

2009-03-30T10:12:00.000-04:00

My office

I am called on to explain "what I do" probably more often than most people, because I seemingly do nothing all day, and people like to try to embarrass me by calling me out on it, which is always ineffective because they are unaware of the contents of my ING Savings account which is very large indeed. When people have a vague sense of "what I do" - they know that I "write" for a "living" - they then try to insert some kind of condescension into their line of questioning. This usually take the form of people saying, "How are your blogs doing?" or "How's the blogging coming?" which is meant to insult me, because seriously how am I supposed to respond to that shit? "My blogs are doing great! One went to the park the other day and the other one is tending to an ear infection." "Blogging is amazing...I love sitting at my desk every day and sending insane ramblings into outerspace for no money - you should try it!!!"

As you can see, there is no good way to respond to this where it looks like I am doing anything other than being a complete vagrant and am about to be homeless with a teabag hanging from my teeth. I actually ran into somebody I used to work with at my firm the other day. He was standing outside a bar smoking and LUCKILY I was coming back from a VERY IMPORTANT business meeting and had some makeup on and had been hitting the gymnasio extra hard that week and so when he asked me what I was doing now, at least I didn't look as if I had fall into physical disrepair as well as the mental disrepair that I clearly exhibited as I went rambling on excitedly about "freelancing" and "blogs" while he probably snickered internally.

I'm on ANTM, AS THREATENED

2009-03-26T10:14:00.001-04:00

As threatened, I am on America's Next Top Model. Megan is also on ANTM. Yesterday, an episode aired where the models posed in a pose-off with Benny Ninja at Mansion in NYC. Megan somehow got me and her friend Dave invited and we were obviously seated directly behind Tyra's makeup artist (whom Megan said hello to) and were on camera because of our photogenic natures. Megan is the one with the red hair strangling herself, and I am immediately to her left, mostly blocked by some woman's head wrap, but mainly looking like an old bald man with no dentures. It was a fine day.

One of These Things is Not Like The Other

2009-03-25T16:20:00.006-04:00

So it is apparently a slow week in celebrity news, because People features Valerie Bertinelli on the cover in a bikini. With the help of Jenny Craig, chicken cutlet bikini inserts, Mariah Carey's spray-on abs and contour tanning, the finest Photoshopping in the land and the "casual" contorted Jazz split she's doing on the cover, Valerie's body looks ridonk for 49. Unfortunately, someone may be losing their job very soon at People's photo editing department because they appear to have put Maria Shriver's shrive(r)led prune face on Valerie' body. What the hell happened?

Face Powder

2009-03-25T12:27:00.004-04:00

Mine is not this color

It occurred to me this weekend as I was shalaquing (sp?) makeup on my face, that every pressed powder that I've ever bought smells like a combination of grandma underwear and tin foil. I'm currently using Lancome, which is vaguely an old lady brand, so I guess that smell is to be expected, but I've used MAC, Clinique and Cover Girl in the past, and they all have the same odor, with Cover Girl being the most tin-foily smelling of the bunch. It's disgusting and outrageous that these cosmetic companies are so large and successful and yet they're still wedded to olde tyme scents like dentist bib and wooden leg that were popular in the 1910s. Every time I apply my powder I end up holding my breath, which wouldn't be such a nuisance except for the fact that I have to reapply a zillion times a day because there's an oil rig located on my face, and whenever I hold my breath I can't go back to breathing normally right away because I'm conscious of my breath for the next few minutes. So, does anybody have a recommendation for a non-terrible smelling powder?

Twits in Narnia

2009-03-24T17:01:00.004-04:00

I've just joined twitter - username Robespierre15 - and I'll be honest, I don't understand its appeal. But the cool kids are using it these days and I'll be damned if I haven't spent my life trying to be one of them. Twitter also seems fitting because my dad refers to me and my sisters as "the Twits" after our favorite book, The Twits, by Roald Dahl, about Mr. and Mrs. Twit who constantly try to sabotage each other.

I've put a badge on the right column here, under the Facebook badge, in case any cares to "follow" - just click on the badge and you'll be up and running. I promise not to update it with absurd and annoying "tweets" such as "Robespierre had a great workout!!!" or "Robespierre is having a wonderful day!" or "Robespierre just made a delicious cup of Ramen noodles but may be allergic to the onion powder :(!!!" I'm pretty confident no one wants to read about it if I or anybody else just finished a wonderful book or is excited about going out to dinner. I will limit the number of times I tweet per day so as not to seem desperate or lame, and I will restrict the content to bad and ridiculous news and mockery only so you won't have to worry about me ruining your day by being needlessly cheery. No one likes a brown noser.

Plastic Surgery to Look Like Demi Moore?

2009-03-24T14:14:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, People.com had an article about how Demi Moore wishes that she could discourage a terminally ill fan named Lisa Connell who plans to have $60,000 of plastic surgery to look like Demi. Demi says that Lisa doesn't need to have the breast implants, lipo, brow lift, and skin overhaul that she's planning because she's already beautiful. Well, I agree with Demi, not only because Lisa is beautiful, but also because Demi Moore's own plastic surgery has supposedly cost around $300,000, so $60,000 just won't cut it. This is exactly what happened to the Octo-Mom: she wanted to look like Angelina Jolie, but she only had about $10,000 to finance it so she ended up looking like an Angelina Jolie wax figure as seen through old prescription contact lenses.

If you want to look like a celebrity, you can't put a number on the amount you're willing to pay in order to finance it. $60,000 may only get Lisa to look like Demi Moore in Ghost, but as we all know, since that time, Demi may have had jaw-realignment surgery (which I will be getting shortly), two sets of implants, ab liposculpture, lip collagen, improved veneers, and luxxxurious hair extensions washed exclusively in Kabbalah water. It's the equivalent of me saying that I want to look more like Kate Hudson (if that is even possible) but only springing for the surgeries where they chop off my boobs and make my ears stick out. Not a good scene.

Perry Strikes From A Distance

2009-03-24T10:06:00.000-04:00

Free to pee on you and me

This weekend as I was getting ready for a rehearsal dinner in DC, I went into my suitcase to get out my Higher Power Spanx. When put them on, one of the legs was kind of stiff and weird and was strangling my thigh, and the other was normal regular thigh suffocation, so either one leg became obese overnight while the other remained the same, or there was something wrong with the Spanx. Shortly thereafter, as I was blow drying my hair simultaneously counteracting my straightening efforts by sweating profusely from the blow dryer heat, I noticed that the bathroom started to reek of pee. I bent over to smell the weird leg of the Spanx and it confirmed what I had initially suspected, which was that Perry had apparently peed on my Spanx a while back and I had now infected my entire luggage with dog pee.

You may be wondering how Perry could have possibly peed on my Spanx, and you may in fact suspect that maybe I peed on myself and am now trying to blame it on Perry. Well, the answer, to which all visitors to my apartment as well as Oprah can attest, is that I throw all my clothes on ground after I wear them. Sometimes I attempt to be neat and throw them on the ground in my closet. Perry is currently going throw a teenage boy phase, where every night I say , "Bedtime!" and he jumps off the bed and goes into a closet and makes a fort out of my clothes on the floor and sleeps on them. On nights when he's been drinking (water), sometimes he takes matters into his own hands and relieves himself in my closet in the middle of the night. Since this has happened only twice in the last year there is very little need for me learn my lesson and stop throwing things on the floor.

So, my options were wearing Perry pee-smelling Spanx or not wearing Spanx at all, and as the latter was not really an option as my dress was ludicrously tight, I perservered with wearing the Spanx for the rehearsal dinner. The following night I was also forced to wear the Spanx again as my dress was even more ludicrously tight, closely resembled an anus, and was, according to Megan, also worn by "high class hookers." As I was regaling my friend Aaron with the Spanx story, he asked why I didn't just go out and buy new Spanx for the wedding on Saturday or just wash the pee ones on Saturday morning so that they would be dry in time for Saturday night. I replied that a) it did not occur to me to wash them and b) that maybe he was a millionaire but I am "technically" "unemployed" and I didn't have the chests of gold required to commandeer a cab around DC looking for some Higher Power Size A Spanx with a telescope and a three cornered hat like Christopher Columbus and so I thought the most prudent way to proceed was to just have people notify me if they started to smell dog pee.