Do I wake or sleep?

Mark McGwire Admits to Juicing

In other news, Liberace is gay.

...vomiting (the scene is Super-Size Me when he yaks on the second day right out the van window, all the while cataloguing his symptoms ("I got the McGurgles in my stomach now...") KILLS me). In real life vomiting really grosses me out, I sympathy-gag. But at a distance, there's something hilarious about it.

...stampeding (there's something hilarious about a situation so awful that everyone comes together as one entity, focused on ESCAPE--I'm thinking about the scene in the novel The Great Santini when Karen accidentally lobs the medicine ball onto her dad's foot and instantly all four Meecham kids, who normally fight a lot, are out the door).

...really egregious breaches of behavior.

This has all three. I cannot stop giggling.

[Although I have to object to the title of the original site that Gothamist cites. I'm really tired of douche being used as an insult. It's implicitly misogynistic. It's like when you want to insult a man by calling him a vagina--the insult is in the comparison to the female side, like hysteria (from the Greek root word for womb, hustera). Douches are disgusting because ohhh, they touched someone's girly bits, gross! They're like tampons! Anything that touches girly bits will make your wee wee shrivel up and fall off. Just call these things obnoxious, or assholery. Everyone's got an asshole.]

And this site is also hilarious: Nic Cage as Everyone. I especially like Nic Cage as Pennywise:

Can I just say how much I love the internet sometimes? Not only can you research things near-instantly, you can also act on the results just as fast. There's a fantastic LJ community called whatwasthatbook? You're trying to remember a book you've read, you post what details you recall, and usually someone can give you the title. AWESOME. Yesterday I posted about a book I read about 15 years ago, this really creepy book about a boy child movie star who'd been murdered in the '30s, and somehow lived in this mirror. There was an Alice Through the Looking Glass theme in it, as I recalled. I vividly remember when the main character first "entered" the world of the mirror. (I've always thought mirrors were fascinating--it's weird how even when your arm or whatever is out of frame, the mirror still reflects it. Weird!) Some kind soul posted the title and author: Mirror by a British writer named Graham Masterton. BAM! I went onto Amazon and ordered it, stat.

A few months ago I was trying to remember another book I read back in middle school--all I remembered was that it took place in a girls boarding school and two girls were roommates and best friends. Then a new student came in and said something like "I'll break that up" and I remembered a strong hint of lesbianism. (I read this book in the 8th grade.) I posted the details--unfortunately no one could help me but I did several different searches on Google Books and finally came up with it--The Last of Eden by Stephanie Tolan. Also bought that one, off of eBay. The edition I received had another illustration on the back, showing a couple of girls on the campus of the school. I don't know if it was the times or if they were specifically trying to suggest lesbianism, but EVERYONE was rocking the femullet! It's odd, because no one on the front cover had one. At any rate, I reread it--I guess I was perhaps a little too innocent when I first read it, because the book doesn't just have a "hint" of lesbianism, it is specifically ABOUT that, although I think they only use the actual word once or twice. Anyway, a very interesting YA novel, kind of an obverse version of A Separate Peace (which, sadly is becoming somewhat obsolete, due to its--according to this writer--obliviousness to its own homosexuality. It's been a long time since I've read A Separate Peace but I'm not sure I agree that it's necessarily gay--I mean, can't boys be friends at boarding school?). I guess the early '80s was the time for The Dark Side of Girls Boarding Schools (see: The Facts of Life, especially the first season).

Also inspired by whatwasthatbook, through Google Books (and this one took me a long time to track down, I did multiple searches with different keyword combinations and looked through many pages of results), I found a book I'd read in the '90s, a very strange sort of political fantasy called A Mirror for Princes by Tom de Haan. This was about the son of a king--he was the third or fourth son, so way down the line and figured he had nothing to worry about. Through a series of accidents, poisonings etc., guess what, he DOES end up being king, and he somehow gets involved with his sister, while his Machiavellian wife starts throwing around her weight. Very, very interesting book--not escapist fantasy at all but extremely bleak. Think "The Queen and the Soldier" by Suzanne Vega. I also discovered that "mirrors for princes" are a literary genre.

*I love how gossipy all the wolves are. I guess when you have a literal pack mentality, you're that much more interested in everyone else's lives. "So I heard that Sam hooked up with Leah the other night at the party." "Ew, no way! Sloppy seconds, anyone?" "Shut up, you guys!"

*So, if there's only one way to kill vampires (tear them to pieces and set the remains on fire)--why do they need to eat? What if they never fed, would they die from starvation?

*How, when the werewolves killed Laurent, did they start a fire to burn the pieces with no opposable thumbs? I suppose they phased back but I really like the idea of a bunch of enormous wolves standing around a bunch of vampire body parts, awkwardly trying to light a match.

* Edward is a complete dick to Bella when he's breaking up with her. I honestly don't know if I could get past some of the things he said, no matter how altruistic his ultimate intentions were. "You're no good for me"? "I'm tired of acting human"? DICK. And then taking all of her pictures of him? The hell, is he Joan Crawford? And then later on when he's explaining he ended things to keep her safe--okay, maybe I could accept that explanation--oh yeah, except your disappearance contributed DIRECTLY to her near-murder by Laurent and also placed her in great danger from Victoria. Who is an awesome villainess with her "fire on the water" hair. ANYWAY. After saying he did it all for her, he said all these terrible things for her, then he says how hurt he was that she believed him so easily. Edward, you're 17 and still a virgin so I gather you have limited experience with women. Let me explain something. When your BF is standing in front of you coldly saying "you're not good for me and I'm getting the hell out of Dodge"--IOW, when your worst nightmare is coming true--you don't think rationally, you don't think "hmmm, this doesn't sound like him. Let me apply the Socratic method to determine his true agenda." It's not as though breakups come with an exit interview. You're far too hurt. You react. It is pretty tacky to say calculatedly cruel things to get your GF to break up with you, and then turn around and essentially blame her for believing it.

*I think Edward gets off on over-protecting Bella because he can sublimate his own homicidal urges toward her.

*Ashley and I were talking about Jacob's growth as a character--she does NOT like how he went from happy, nice guy to aggressive, not-as-nice guy after the werewolf gene kicked in. I said that I saw the werewolf transformation as a metaphor for adolescence (specifically, male adolescence)--he grows much taller, packs on the muscle, becomes short-tempered. Ashley gave me this "put down the crack pipe" look and said "you are giving her [the author] WAY too much credit."

*Jacob's personality transformation notwithstanding, I adore Jacob in Eclipse. He is cocky *and* unafraid to declare himself, and I love how he gives Edward shit. The one thing he does that I dislike is when he forces the kiss on her which is pretty obnoxious. (And good on Bella for clocking him.) But he makes up for it when he's holding her in the sleeping bag to keep her warm--I love it when he says to Edward "now you can go keep an eye on things while I take care of your girlfriend for you." I just love that kind of sassiness in a guy. (That is, I love it when it's real and not feigned--feigned over-confidence is annoying as hell, and very easy to spot.) And when he says in front of Edward "Your lips are still blue--want me to warm them up as well?" Oh yeah! It takes [body parts] to pull that off in front of the boyfriend. [Body parts] and sassiness!

*And I have to say, Bella's chemistry with Jacob is much more interesting than that with Edward. Hit that, Bella. Hit that with a stick.

*What English vicar in the 17-century named his son Carlisle? As if. He would be named Thomas or Edward.

*I'm really curious about the whole vampire metabolism--do they never go to the bathroom? What about their hair growing? It just seems weird that they apparently have no metabolism whatsoever--so why do they need to eat?

*Forks High School has an incredibly lax attendance policy. People skip class right and left with no consequences whatsoever.

*No way in hell would Bella get accepted to Dartmouth without a personal interview. I got into Mount Holyoke and Bryn Mawr, both very selective schools even in the demographic drought of the '80s, and a personal interview (either at the school or with an alumnae representative) was required for both.

*Why the HELL didn't Alice see Laurent about to kill Bella? Or Jaspers' near-attack on her?

*The fight at the end of Eclipse is awesome. I seriously cannot wait to see that filmed. Riley's disembodied hand inching its way across the ground? Edward ripping off Victoria's head? AWESOME. And good for Edward for dropping the noble, civilized shit and actually FIGHTING for the girl you love. I love it when Jacob and Edward square off. The Leader of the Pack standoff between them in the school parking lot is kick. Ass. Jealousy in a man can be tiresome when done to death--sorry my game is better than yours, ex-BF, too bad, so sad!--but a little (emphasis on little) healthy display of possessiveness is a good thing.

( Deeeeeper Thoughts )

I've found some absolutely hilar recaps/commentary from one LJer, cleolinda and have been spending the last few weeks at work giggling over them. What I love about her tone is it's equal parts snark and shameful fascination with the series. Some excerpts:

From "New Moon in 15 minutes":

So Jacob teaches Bella the safe and responsible way to start and stop the motorcycle, so that she can then completely ignore him and go roaring down the road while Imaginary Edward (Bellaaaaaaaaaa) and his handwringing (Bellaaaaa, I told you to wear a hellllllllmeeeeeeeet) pop up to distract her (Don't you need a license for one of these thiiiiiiiingsssss) like obstacles (If I were real I would so tell on youuuuuuuu) in a bad video game.

and

Casa de Swan... After Dark

JACOB: Bella! Can I climb into your room, even though I'm mostly naked and it's late at night?

BELLA: Wait--I don't--you're asking first?

JACOB: What? Of course! What kind of creep would just show up in a girl's bedroom?

My favorite commentary is the one for Midnight Sun which, for those who haven't read the books, is Twilight from Edward's POV. It is awesomesauce. When Bella first slo-mo floats into class and he gets a whiff of her, he spends the whole class planning to snap the necks of all the other students so he can kill her. He's like totting up the collateral damage. It's seriously cool and a welcome dash of testosterone. Like the other books, it is over-written--God, can Edward emo--but lots of fun.

From cleolinda's Midnight Sun commentary:

Your impotent fantasies of smearing Death-Van Tyler across the pavement distract him from his VAMPIRE GLITTER VENGEANCE RAGE, RAAAAAAGE!

This kills me. I have been randomly texting to Courtney VAMPIRE GLITTER VENGEANCE RAGE, RAAAAAAGE!

Also:

Bella's like, well, if the sun doesn't crisp you out then why weren't you in school, WHY WEREN'T YOU IN SCHOOL, HUH? I CAN'T STALK MYSELF, YOU KNOW, YOU GOTTA KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE PRIZE HERE.

*Sigh.* Good times.

The holidays in NYC bring out my inner claustrophobic misanthrope. I get so anxious with SO many people around, moving slowly, I just want to start shoving random strangers. I just keep telling myself "they're bringing money into our economy, this is ultimately a good thing for the city."

I went down to Trader Joe's this afternoon--there was a LINE to get in, and it wasn't short. Also a long line to get into the wine shop. Weird--it wasn't that bad two days before Thanksgiving when you'd think it would be insane.

The sequel to The Nanny Diaries (the novel, not the lame movie) is coming out!

Cannot wait to read it! Supposedly it picks up 12 years later--Grayer has found the nannycam tape she left at the end of the first book and has come by to see her. And she's now married to the Harvard Hottie. Also Grayer has a younger brother but I don't think it's the child Mrs. X was carrying at the end--the brother is 7, and the unnamed fetus would've been 12. But get this, the sibling's name is Stilton. Love it!

Also, my birdlegs is this Saturday--does anyone want to join me for drinks at Vintage or some other awesome place? Ooooh, maybe Delta Grill or Bourbon Street!

...a commenter wrote

For all of Twilight's ridiculocity, nothing quite compares to their take on the vampire's "weaknesses" (or lack there of). Namely the fact that, instead of simply burning up in sunlight, these vampires sparkle like a stripper covered in glittered body lotion. For those of you not taking notes, this means that the Twilight vampires are not only excessively fast/strong/charasmatic but are also no longer inhibited by the only thing that should be keeping these bloodsuckers in check. So then why bother hiding at all? "Oh, people will know were different if they see us sparkle..." You f**king EAT people! That's a pretty good reason to not give a f**k what they think! That'd be like humans giving up their top spot on the food chain because we were afraid the cows might judge our sense of fashion.

It made me laugh.

I'm spending Thanksgiving with Lori and Kevin down in Tom's River--can't wait for a nice long day of fattening food and good friends. I baked two pies for the occasion:



Pumpkin



Pecan

I bake everything from scratch, including pureeing the pumpkin and making my own crust. Last night I wrote this on FB and my friend Beth Diamond wrote that she was afraid to make a pie crust. Then my friend Debbie Heartley asked for the recipe, so I posted it. Three simple ingredients--flour, salt and oil. And it makes all the difference--nothing like making it ALL from scratch!

My Mom always calls cooking a creative art and I certainly think so--one reason I love pies is because you can mix it up so, throw in all sorts of things. I get especially crazy with my pecan pies, sometimes adding bourbon, rum, chocolate, different spices, all sorts of things. Pecans are such a rich nut, they can hold their own against almost anything. Mom has a fantastic recipe for a Christmas cake that's basically a kind of fruit cake without the candied fruit--it's just a very rich cake. The recipe calls for 6 eggs! I beg her to make it every year--it's an old recipe that was handed down to her from I think her grandmother. Southern, naturally--nobody does desserts like the South!

Have a wonderful, cozy, comforting Thanksgiving, everyone! Hug your family and tell them you love them!

There's a fascinating article in New York magazine this week--I read on Monday and I've been thinking about it ever since. It's about that horrific crash on the Taconic Parkway that happened this summer, the one where 8 people, including 4 kids, were killed. What happened was a woman, Diane Schuler, with her daughter, son and three nieces in the car, went the wrong way down the Taconic Parkway--she went up an exit ramp and pulled into the inside breakdown lane and drove that way for about two miles until she slammed into an SUV going the other (correct) way. Everyone in her vehicle, except her son, was killed, and all three passengers in the SUV were also killed.

I found that sentence early in the article, "passing drivers said she stared straight ahead, her expression serene and oblivious, her hands at ten and two on the steering wheel" haunting. In fact it took me so, that I started doing research to see how the author had learned that--I can't find that detail, I may have to email him directly. I'd only barely heard of the story before I read the article (with no TV, I miss a lot of news, sadly) and my first exposure to it was with the article. I had a lot of very mixed feelings after reading it and after my research I'm even more engaged. The timeline in the article is eerie. She and her husband and other family members had gone camping and she left with all those kids around 9:30 am and stopped at a McDonald's for coffee and OJ, and I guess the kids ate there (this is not only from the article but from what else I've read). Around 12 noon, her sister-in-law Jackie (mother of three of the girls in the car) calls Diane's cell and they have a normal conversation, no apparent slurring or impairment. However just an hour later one of the nieces calls her dad, Jackie's husband Warren--there's something wrong with her aunt and they can hear kids crying in the background. The dad speaks to Diane who's disoriented and slurring. He tells her to stay put, he's coming to get her but she ends the call. And he calls back--again and again and again, as he's driving to try to find her, but does not call 911. She starts driving again and at some point during all this, witnesses apparently saw her at the side of the road, looking as though she were vomiting.

Those poor, terrified children. Oh man. That just makes my heart hurt. Those little girls--the oldest, 9 years old Emma, trying to handle this situation she knew was bad, trying to keep her sisters and cousins safe, doing all the right things by calling dad and telling him the signs where they were, and none of it helped. Because when they did an autopsy on Diane, she had an enormous amount of alcohol in her, 10 shots' worth, plus evidence that she'd been smoking pot within the hour. More than that, she had raw alcohol, indigested alcohol, in her stomach--so she'd kept on drinking even after she must've known she was hammered. What the hell? What could possibly explain that? How does she go from coherent and together at 12 to a complete mess an hour later? What the hell happened? Did she get some kind of bad news, did she think of something or did the alcohol act differently on her that day for some reason? I just don't get what would impel her to drink such an enormous amount when she had 5 kids in the car, especially when she'd never even come close to slipping like this before (had never shown up drunk to a PTA meeting or work or whatever).

( Denial )

( 'This becomes a man you can't hate enough.' Really? )

"They should come forward, come clean," says Mike, and says that would be enough. “And we would feel better. We would."

I just don't know if I agree with that. I think right now nothing will make them feel better. I just don't think they're there yet. Maybe they never will be.

One thing that does sit wrong with me--I'm always uncomfortable when the spouse of the primary victim seems more invested in vengeance than the actual injured party. I think Jeanne Bastardi should be supporting her husband, not whipping him into greater heights of anger. He can obviously speak for himself. I can't imagine she's much solace to him, because she's just reinforcing his anger and hatred.

( Her world is getting smaller... )

I hope the Bastardis, Danny and his son, and Warren and his wife find some peace. I really pray for that.