It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledged, That A Woman In Possession of This Video, Must Be Supremely Pleased.

Ever wished you had a gracious reading room steeped in rich tones and sunshine?
...That you had a free moment to sink into a plush chair with a beautiful man next to you?
...To gaze deeply into his warm, chocolatey, soulful eyes, then sip from a cup of coffee redolent of late nights and bright mornings...while he read to you in a rich voice??
...While he read Pride and Prejudice to you with great feeling?
...While he read Mr. Darcy's proposal from Pride and Prejudice to you in a crisp British accent with seduction in his delicious eyes????

Now this dream comes true.



Oh yes. Please and thank you. Refill, warm-up, etc., yes please, just keep it coming. Mmmm good.

Chicken of the Sea

Three dear college friends were at my apartment last night, two of them in town from opposite ends of the country. It was time for a beautiful evening of exchanging news and discussing big dreams, stocked up on wine and settled on the couch.

We watched Newlyweds. We watched the ENTIRE first season of Newlyweds.

And this was not stumbling across a late-night marathon. This was Hannah mentioning she had never seen it despite being distantly related to Nick Lachey,* in response to which I whipped out my Newlyweds: The Complete Series from the place where I hide it because I am ashamed of my love for it.**



We watched the whole damn thing. We watched Jessica gag and nearly weep when cruel Nick made her throw out a vase of dead flowers. We watched her throw a temper tantrum when he suggested that she should pick up her own dirty clothes from the floor and wash them. We watched him throw her over his shoulder, smack her ass and carry her up the stairs. We watched (with lolling tongues) biceps bulge and ripple as Nick and his brother moved furniture into the house. We watched Nick and Jessica make out under a waterfall and writhe on a bed on the beach during her music video shoot (and we watched her pervo dad watching this and offering advice). We sat through moments that were musically intolerable as they yowled their way through duets, recording sessions and special guest appearances.

No, it's really not.

This was good TV, folks. Jessica is the Che Guevara of the reality TV revolution. Thanks to her courageous pursuit of attention whoredom, her tireless overexposure and public vapidity, countless scrawny, spoiled, brainless, shallow creatures have the freedom to fake 70% of their body and be revered as cultural icons. We were awestruck by her worthlessness and general inability to function as a human being. In comparison, poor Nick looks like a Mensa scholar. The show's editing of course focuses on the moments that highlight her inanity, and poor, beautiful Nick seems to live in a constant state of disgust and frustration.*** And carnal delight.




We were also delighted.**** What could be more fun than realizing how superior you are to someone who is rich and famous? As a collection of relatively penniless twenty-somethings, still staggering our way towards what we want out of life, how thrilling to see that we are actually much more accomplished than someone who is successful, allegedly living her ultimate dream. How comforting to see that there are more important things than wealth and popularity - for example, being able to dress yourself.


*Stay tuned to this blog for an upcoming announcement of our betrothal. Now that Nick is single again, I'm sure that he will realize how faithfully I have lusted for and pitied him. He will quickly get leg implants so as not to be too short for me and will reform his personality so as not to be a tail-chasing d-bag and will rush to my side.

**It has survived at least two or three DVD collection purges. I will probably be buried with it. I may even get one of those gravestones that plays video so that all mourners and grave passers-by may enjoy this excellent terrible television.

***I would be so much better for him. I have brain cells. I even use them. And I wouldn't complain about not having a maid, I would gladly watch sports with him, I would make lemonade and dust furniture while he and his brother loaded the moving truck. I wouldn't let my boob pop out at his grandmother's nursing home wedding. We would live happily, untelevisedly ever after.

****Only slightly less carnally - the man is EASY on the eyes.

A Pipe for Fortune's Finger?

Books like to be written about sad and stricken characters. Seldom does a character enjoy a peaceful happy life - you meet characters reflecting on a past spiral of disaster or moving towards one in the future, if they aren’t in the thick of something harsh and midnighty.

In books, sometimes characters can play god, redirecting their lives away from the ones to which they were born. But sometimes the new course is no happier than the original – richer, perhaps, more famous, more successful, but infused with the same ratio of heartache, self-loathing, betrayal. Sometimes even worse for sending themselves to meet the nightmare at center stage, rather than remaining quietly in broke, simple, unheroic sorrow.

And sometimes the characters are deceived (self-deceived?) into thinking they’ve escaped from their birthright, when the change of destiny is actually predetermined, with their delusion that they’ve taken the wheel just another part of the plot.

Does this hold true in life, I wonder? Are certain souls born under warring stars to a life of small valleys, deep abysses and homerically awful wrecks? Or is it possible to have just one great, isolated disaster in a smooth and joy-speckled destiny?

Of course books like to be written about plagued heroes and successful villains because that’s so much more interesting than happiness, which is usually flat, shallow, unnoticeable. And tragedies in books have the luxury of coming right, sometimes, stumbling into shiny solutions much more frequently and easily than our real life’s rocks.

But would we be as riveted by the cursed souls of fiction if it bore no relation to real, “true” life? The books that are most loved and most skilled are the ones in which we see ourselves when we read. We praise them when we can say, “yes, that’s the way it is. Your words painted my mirror.”

But is this something self-constructed from our narcissistic insistence on ourselves at the heartbeat of the world? From our thirst for hope? Do life and art even look at each other through a window with the glass between unstained, unsmudged, undistorted?

I really hope that some lives can jump their foreordained album grooves to a gentler track – whether such an alteration is self-directed or woven into the harmony from the start. I hope that my tribulations to date are not just the foreplay for some coming magnificent cataclysm. I hope that it’s already been as bad as it will ever be – is this optimism, does it spring from some part of me that can see brighter days waiting in the distance? Or from something within myself capable of fabricating a wiser, stonger, better future? Or is it a foundless hope from the part of me that lies to myself in order to survive?

If I had the choice, I think I’d settle for a uneventful future with contented gleams. Surely I would trade a casting as a mighty dancer dodging the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with moves that make the world marvel, moving through a thousand-page story of persistant grand tragedy for a quiet tiny role in the corner of one chapter, left alone for a happy, unimportant life.

I think I would make this choice. I hope I would seize boredom over misery. I hope I would abandon the chase of greatness for undistinguished bliss. (But can there be bliss without ambition? Can you be contented with middling pleasant oblivion if your soul has been shaped for glorious failure? Is there a way of being transcendently, ineffably "happy" during grand and wailing horror because some important and most true part of you is gratified by sinking into your star-cast place in the darkness? Oy. I need fewer words and fewer questions. I need to trade my bizarrely abstract and inquisitive mind for knitting needles and watercolors. Then I would be happier…or would I?? Oh lordy!)

Fortunately (what a word), I may not have the choice. Nor might you. But what would you choose?

What do you think? Am I crazy? Should I douse my striated brain with absinthe and just hush up?

I Will Pawn Your Castle If You Rook My Queen

I do not like chess.

My father was really into chess for a while, and tried to make his allegedly malleable offspring share his passion. We were dragged to dusty little chess shops, sat through docudramas about famous chess players (chessists? chessians? chessinators?) and books about chess grew into stairsteps in the corners of the house. We even had one of those funny flippy clocks for speed chess and we got in trouble for smacking it too hard after our turns (I'll be honest. That was the funnest part of the game for me, probably foreshadowing how much I enjoy hitting the snooze alarm every morning).


Years after my father's chess phase, I was involved with a guy* who liked chess, or liked the idea of himself being a person who played chess, and he would try to make me play it with him. I resisted (hello, Freud!) and tried to make him play Scrabble with me instead. I am much better at Scrabble. Words are more exciting than black and white dances on a checkerboard.

I find chess boring and mentally exhausting. I can enjoy a casual game or two in front of a fire, but I do not take it seriously. I do not read books about chess. I do not think about chess when I am not playing it. I barely think about chess if I am playing it - I do not mull over each move for dozens of minutes, furrowing my face and scowling at interruptions as if the cure for cancer depends on the strength of my next move. I certainly do not think seven or eight moves into the future, let alone my opponent's next handful of moves.** I get very bored waiting for my turn if my opponent is dwelling extensively on his game plan.

Chess is a game that further sharpens the sharpest minds, and I realize that my confessed hatred does not reflect favorably on my personal collection of little grey cells. I am ok with that. I am not one of those pretentious souls that eagerly seizes upon chess' reputation as an opportunity for intellectual elitism. I am glad to be a weak-minded proletariat if it means I can spend my front-porch afternoons*** reading books, playing Scrabble or staring at the neighbors rather than hunched over a bit of Alice-in-Wonderland.

But in the last 24 hours, chess keeps popping itself in front of me. I watched an old episode of CSI:NY in which the denouement lay in the victim's online chess game. Then I returned to the book I am reading**** and a critical plot development involved the main character's months of chess lessons towards the goal of earning information by defeating the chess master. Then I wanted to read some T.S. Eliot with my oatmeal, and guess which poem my book opened to.



I could write artsy ponderings about chess as a metaphor for my current tenuous existence and exciting but complicated and uncertain plans for the near future. I could write dark emo rants about being trapped in the "checkmate" of my past hurts. I could seize upon this as a sign from the universe and throw myself into learning every Sicilian Defense and Double Queen Pawn Opening I can get my hands on, assuming that I am meant to be the next Bobby Fischer and will take down Steve Jobs' entire empire with my unassailable chess skills in a Titanic match that is livecast via iPhones and Ashton Kutcher's Twitter.



Or I could just shrug and say. "Hunh. That's weird." And carry on living my life.

Suggestions?



*I am using the less widely adopted definition of this term: "A spineless, selfish fool responsible for 12 months of heartbreak during which I lost 25 pounds and a lifelong friend, but gained an appreciation for Arcade Fire and caramelized onions."

**This is a characteristic aversion to foresight which can be observed in many areas of my life.

***Usual location of aforementioned reluctant games with aforementioned "guy"/a.s.s.f.r.f.t.m.o.h.d.w.i.l.t.f.p.a.a.l.f.b.g.a.a.f.a..f.a.c.o.

****Which I highly recommend. So far, I have loved Stephen Fry as British actor, as blogger and as Tweeter; now I love him as writer. Think The Count of Monte Cristo with P.G. Wodehouse's wit.

Not Easy, Not Breezy, Not Beautiful

This was an ad on the side of my Facebook:

The copywriters obviously messed up, because quite a few options seem to be missing:

• Pay overdue bills
• Pay overdue rent
  
• Pay overdue and maxed out credit card
• Buy clothes that fit
• Buy bed that fits
• Fix vision by replacing glasses
  
• Fix body by going to the doctor for the first time since college
  
• Fix heart & mind by going to shrink for the first time ever
• Move toward new city, new school, new life
  

Or maybe I'm the only messed-up, broke and hurting person on Facebook, and everyone else's greatest needs involve sunshine, champagne and Sephora.

Don't Let Me In Your Car

It's probably my fault that The Big Three are going under: My presence in or around something automotive catalyzes ridiculously catastrophic failure.

This weekend was supposed to be my summer pseudovacation. I was supposed to frolic around the state with all my best friends from college - Nick and Heidi were getting married on the beach, Jenn was flying in from North Carolina, I was driving her and Scott across the state to the wedding, spending Saturday night with Trinity and meeting Laurel for Sunday breakfast.

Lake Michigan, here I come...??

That's what you think, said God. HA HA HA, said God. No way Jose, said God.

I was on my way to the airport Thursday, congratulating myself on being on time and not lost. Suddenly a strange smokey odor filled the car, accompanied by a mysterious and foreboding whirring. I briefly considered relying on my usual car-repair strategy, which is to pretend nothing's wrong and continue driving. Responsible adulthood reared its ugly head and I resorted to my secondary car-repair strategy, which is to pull over, look cluelessly under the hood and call my 19-year-old mechanic-whiz brother in a breathless panic.

I pulled over. I opened the hood. I saw smoke rising from the passenger side of the engine compartment. I saw neon green fluid rushing away from under the car like Jello Jigglers trying to escape from a fire.

Long story short, the car was toast for the moment. Brothers 2 and 3 came to give me a car for the trip to the airport. Brother 4 was on-deck to whip my car back into shape. Disaster apparently averted.

Did this get to happen?

NOT!

On the way back from the airport, a half mile from my apartment, Brother 2's car broke down. I am not making this up. I broke 2 cars in an hour. With me behind the wheel, TWO CARS of different years, makes and models decided to take a little vacation from their main purpose in life. Stranded in the middle of Subway's driveway, I cursed the thorough and fiendish timing of the Sharonius Automotive Hex Maximus as a burly tattooed citizen pushed Brother 2's car to a parking spot.

Long story again short, Brother 3 arrived in amused disbelief, waved his hand over the ignition and voodooed the car into taking us the rest of the way. Brother 4 spent Friday with his head in my engine compartment, announced that he would have to spend the week searching junkyards for parts. My car was not going to West Michigan on Saturday.

Enter Scott, enter Scott's dad's car, proceed straight to rescue. We made it to the wedding, to Trin's, to breakfast. Scott's dad's car did not break down although I spent 8+ hours in it. And Scott's driving did not kill us although he is now a NYC kid and hasn't driven in 6 months.* The wedding was absolutely beautiful; Michigan actually cooperated, turning down the chance to ruin the beach wedding and instead sending the most perfect weather in recorded history.

Congratulations, Heidi and Nick!

Brother 2's car returned to regularly scheduled programing so that I could take Jenn back to the airport last night** and myself to work this morning.

Everything is back to normal. Except my poor little car is in Brother 4's driveway in a million little pieces.

My life in public transportation can't come quickly enough.

*There were several near misses involving iPod distraction and adventurous left turns. But Scott saved the day, so I will not publicly embarrass him by putting them on this blog.
**Including my getting lost on the way back and driving around Dearborn for 45 minutes trying to find my way back to the highway.

If Cleanliness is Next to Godliness, I Am Next To Billy Graham

I love hostessing. I love planning events, I love overcooking, I love making punch, I love dorky decorations.

I even like cleaning. But in this is the aspect of hostessing, I procrastinate. I procrastinate at an Olympic level. Skills finely honed through four years of college papers have been recently endorsed by my boss' propensity to hand me 6 pages of meeting materials (which I must type, format, collate, etc.) as the clients walk through the door. If procrastination works for him, a 60-something successful businessman and world traveler, it's good enough for me.



Tonight one of my best friends is coming from North Carolina to spend the weekend and be my girldate to a mutual friend's wedding. Last night I looked around my apartment and realized I had in no way prepared for her arrival.

Ok, that's sort of a lie. Last week I looked around my apartment, realized it resembled the home of a woman who is probably auditioning for a role on Maury Povich's next baby daddy special, and decided that I needed to devote some time the next few days to cleaning. Then I washed some towels and made a grocery list.

Fast forward to last night. It's about 8:30. No cleaning has been done. I enjoy cleaning. But I enjoy sitting on the couch reading even more. On an intellectual level, I am conscious that a regular routine of basic daily housework thwarts the need for bimonthly FEMA-directed cleaning operations. But I plan to reserve that type of gentle art for I marry a rich chauvinist who will support me in the opulent style to which I am not currently but will quickly become accustomed. In exchange for which I will spend my days cleaning the top of the fridge and vacuuming the drapes.



Last night, I Febrezed the drapes and the couch cushions. Then I cleaned the bathroom mirrors and the toilet, made a half-hearted attempt to scrub the tub (you won't get AIDS from it, but you might see some mildew) and Swiffered the bathroom and kitchen floors. I also gathered all the cups from my desk and coffee table and ran a load of dishes in the dishwasher. And I picked up all my clothes that were strewn across the house in a Hansel-and-Gretel-like trail to the drawer where my jammy pants live. All this was accompanied by loud, tuneless singing along to my iPod and frequent breaks to text my friends and boast about my domesticity.

Fast forward to 3:30 am. I awakened from a weird dream in which I was serenading Conan O'Brien with Elton John's Your Song and staggered blindly into the kitchen for some water. I was vaguely alarmed and unsettled, sensing that something was wrong in the house. As my head cleared, I identified the source of my perturbation: I wasn't tripping over anything on the floor. No corpse-like mounds lurked in the shadows of the couch. No footless shoes gathering dust under the kitchen table.

Creepy.