Used the title up in the following

Yesterday I stopped by Barnes and Noble for a magazine gorging and wandered into the tail end of a Maureen Dowd booksigning. Girlfriend was rocking a silk chartreuse (exactly the color of Nicole Kidman's famous Dior Oscar dress) suit, over a purple spaghetti strapped tank top (she took the jacket off while signing books), a solid two inch pair of heels, and nude fishnets. They make nude fishnets? That's so... subtle. She was wearing lots of make-up, and basically, looked all sex-kittened out.
I can't figure if what surprised me about her outfit was that she had one- I've been to lots of readings and I couldn't tell you what a one of the authors wore. A solid color skirt? Pants? A shirt? With buttons? Black?-or that it was so carefully considered and intentionally sexy. Maureen Dowd is clearly committed to making sure no one ever thinks she's dowdy (more than just a bad pun: for all we know that was how she got teased in junior high school), and that says something about her, though I'm not sure what. She likes cloths? She wants to look attractive? Or, maybe she courts the drama a little, and is happy to hear she's been mentioned on Gawker.

I am boreder than you

There's a piece of black tape that looks like one of those fake plastic spiders next to my rolly chair at the office. Or at least, I think it's a piece of black tape. Last week in the staircase up to my apartment I squashed the biggest roach I've seen yet. I think he must have been sick because he was a slow mover, and I only clipped him, but he went down, without any extra wriggling. He sat in the corner of the stairs for the next couple days. I was hoping/dreading it would stay long enough to start decomposing, and I could track the phases, but then it got cleaned away.
Why are you allowed to read magazines at work, but not books?
I've started consuming vast quantities of food for lunch. Not even because I get so hungry, but because around 11:30 it just seems like it's time to start eating. Today: A pack of carrots, apple, coffee yogurt, cinnamon raisin bread. That doesn't seem like so much. And The N sent free chocolate in a press box, called "Moose Dropping," that I can't stay away from. I really hate it when people joke about chocolate and poop. Other people eating poop, kind of funny, me eating poop, not funny at all. Yesterday I had carrots, apple, left over rice and stir fry, and a Twix that sent my head into paroxysms. Again, doesn't seem so much. Maybe it’s because I spread it out over a couple of hours. Or maybe it's because at this point I eat, like, spinach for dinner. A whole head, but just spinach. None of that meat, green, and a starch group are a meal thing.
My next door neighbor is named Rhiannon. Her name is on the buzzer and I'd already talked to someone about whether she was named after the song. I didn't ask her yesterday because, really, she must get it All The Time, but I still want to know. Especially what kind of parents name their kid after a Fleetwood Mac song. I really like Fleetwood Mac, I went through a serious Rumors stage, but I don't know about Fleetwood Mac fans. Though, mebbe they just liked the sound of it.
I'm reading Scoop right now, and it confirms the fact that hysterical and funny are the most widely misused words in book reviews. If a book has been called hysterical, hilarious, laugh out loud funny (see Confederacy of Dunces, Lucky Jim, Lorrie Moore short stories) what that really means is your brain might recognize that X incident has some elements of farce or theoretical humor, or Y language contains a pun, but you will not actually laugh. Not to completely discount this other literary kind of humor (Pride and Prejudice is a "comedy of manners" I love, but not because it makes me laugh- though it does make me giggle lots, but that's for girlish reasons), I just wish they wouldn't use words like hysterical, entirely misleading, to describe it. The funniest books I've ever read, that made me laugh out loud the whole way through, were Bridget Jones' Diaries 1 and 2. I choose to believe this just means those books are really, really funny.

And because he stepped to JT

Usher is an enormous, enormous douche face. Driving home from Richmond and hearing "Confessions: Part II" on the radio I was overwhelmed with complete and total disgust, a sentiment that began simmering months ago, when I first heard that song.
Let's recap the story of "Confessions: Part II," which is ostensibly true. Usher's "chick on the side" calls him up and tells him "she's got one on the way." This revelation, so potentially damaging to his relationship with the "woman he loves," makes him "damn near cry." He is forced to confess not his infidelity exactly, but the pregnancy, which implies his infidelity, to his true girl, in the form of this song, which contains the following, pivotal, line "I hope you can accept the fact that I'm man enough to tell you this."
Hypothetical situation: Your boyfriend calls you up and asks to come over because he has something to tell you. He arrives, but before beginning, he takes off his shirt and pours a glass of water over his stomach muscles and looks at himself in the mirror for about 15 minutes.
"Baby, did you have something you wanted to tell me?"
He remembers you're in the room, sits down, takes your hand, looks you in the eyes and says, "I got this other girl pregnant."
Now, is the thing you most want to hear at this moment a) I'm sorry b) please forgive me or c) I hope you can accept that I'm man enough to tell you this. I guess that depends on whether or not you think the most relevant aspect of this situation is a) the infidelity b) the pregnancy or c) your boyfriend's manliness.
I’m gonna go with not C. Obviously, Usher disagrees.

And they'll smoke a J with Jay

Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes are going to guest star in the last three episodes of this season's Degrassi. Smith obviously needs the credibility boost more than Degrassi does.

Nervous laughter

I saw The Office Special yesterday at the Museum of Television and Radio. Before it started, they put the lights down and aired this promo for the museum with Candace Bergin. The promo must have been about 15 years old, because she looked about 15 years younger than she did in Ms. Congeniality. I hate it when they don't change promos. After a dozen times, the cell-phone talker getting hurled at the screen isn't funny anymore (though I still like Inconsiderate Cell Phone Man. That gavel bit cracks me up).
But about Murphy Brown. Where the hell is Murphy Brown? It's not that I've been pining away for her all this time, it just seems like that show should be re-running somewhere, TVLand, Nick at Nite, something. It could take over Everybody, but me and everyone I know, Loves Raymond's spot at 11:30. Though, when I was watching I started wondering how that woman ever fronted a TV show. She's so icy and twisted: I don't want to get to know her better. She pretty much scares the shit out of me.
And then they showed the special. I'd never seen any episodes of The Office because 1) I didn't have a TV last year, 2) cable in the Bronx is different than cable in Manhattan and by different I mean fucking horrendous, so I couldn't even watch it at my parents' and 3) I'm not cutting edge. It's a weird thing to sit in an audience where everyone is expecting something, to laugh their asses off, and they proceed to do that even when what's happening on screen isn't funny, and you seem to be the only person who can tell because you're the only person who didn't go in expecting to laugh their ass off. This isn't to say the Special wasn't great, because it was, but for every funny part there were two parts that were so excruciating that if they made you laugh, then you must laugh about dead babies (not counting dead baby jokes, obvs). There was just a disconnect between what people were seeing, which obviously wasn’t funny, and what they had expected to see that led to some of the craziest outbursts of laughter I’ve ever heard.

I just blew my nose.

My snot's been yellow lately. Maybe that's gross to some, but it's fun to me. Lookie! My body got attacked by microscopic bacteria, it killed them, and left their little yellow casings to be disposed of by nose.
Less fun is it that it is now really, really thick. Viscous. It's all just sitting in my nostrils with an ublech consistency. When I blow my nose, it just sludges out, and I have to do three passes with a tissue to make sure I don't have snot streamers slipping out. Ok, so that's gross to me too. I wonder if there's some correlation between snot consistency and dehydration...
This picture freaks me out.

Not gainfully employed

So while I was doing this, every couple of minutes I would take stock and wish, wish I had something better to do, or I could stop myself even without something better to do. But then, after I, uh, "crunched" the numbers I realized I should be expending my energies trying to get on an MTV reality show. $50,000 for 6 weeks of hanging out in a tropical locale!? Sign my ass up.
I theorized, a while ago, that if you approached the casting process of the Real World scientifically, like made a huge chart of characteristics and personalities and life experiences and cross referenced that with past cast members, you could construct the perfect candidate. Next project?

Money earned in RR/RW challenges 3,5,6,7,8 (none of which last more than 3 weeks and not counting individual challenge prizes):

RW/RR Challenge 3 (2000): 6 RRers split $60,000 and get cars. 6 RWers split $40,000.
Veronica wins: $10,000 and a car and gets in huge bitch fight with Amaya

Challenge 5: Battle of the Seasons: 6 RWers win $300,000 and Sean and Elka get cars
Veronica wins: Nothing.

Challenge 6: Battle of the Sexes 1: Colin, Jamie, and Mike split $150,000
Veronica wins: Nothing and gets in huge bitch fight with Emily

Challenge 7: The Gauntlet: 8 RRers split $230,000 and all get cars
Veronica wins: $25,555, a car and gets in bitch fight with Sarah

Challenge 8: The Inferno: 9 RRers win $260,000
Veronica wins: $32,500 and gets in a Huge bitch fight with Katie.

Money handed out in these 5 seasons: $1,040,000
Veronica wins: 2 cars and $67,555 for 12 weeks "work"

Next week: Veronica's total winnings

Finally found the time to do some important research.
Veronica of Road Rules Semester at Sea has now been on 6 of the 9 RR/RW challenges (10 if you count Road Rules All-Stars). She has been on two more specials than any other cast member. Her involvement began in season 3, back in '98, and then picked up again in season 5, the Battle of the Seasons, for all the following series (Battle of the Sexes, The Gauntlet, The Inferno, and the soon to air Battle of the Sexes 2). Mark from RR: Season 1 is Veronica's closest competition, appearing in 5 series, though only as a host in seasons 1 and 3. Mike and Coral from Real World 10: Back to New York have played in more seasons than anyone but Veronica, with a total of 4. Even players who seem ubiquitous, like Eric Nies and Theo, have only appeared in 4 and 3 specials respectively.

Muck-a-muck

I was trying to figure out where the term "Indian Summer" comes from (they have no idea) and came across this. I especially like "In Like Flynn", or thinking that "A Night in Paris" could be similarly ubiquitous and unknown in 50 years.

No Buzz

Least promoted reunion special ever?

This election will make one half of the nation spiritual Red Sox fans

When Michelle Kwan was competing in the last winter Olympics I spent the duration of both her short and long routines running around the living room in circles humming to myself, so I wouldn't hear or see anything. I wanted her to win. Not so much because I love figure skating, or even, love Michelle Kwan, but because I have enormous, deep reservoirs of compassion for overdogs who can not get the job done.
I watched the presidential debate last Thursday. It was easy; things couldn't really get any worse for Kerry. Anything other than exactly what happened and the whole election would have been locked up for Bush. Kerry had nothing to lose (or rather, he'd already lost everything in the months before).
But he didn't lose, and now Kerry's turned into Michelle Kwan. I'm going to be jittery watching tonight's entire debate, if you can call what I'll be doing watching. He's not quite the "overdog," but he could fuck everything up. There's even more pressure than before.
When I consider what it will feel like if Bush wins, the closest approximation I can imagine is the same feeling as when an athlete or team you're rooting for loses. I don't really care about sports all that much, but come finals time I can get caught up in the Knicks or Olympic figure skaters. And when they lose, you just get that horrible feeling in your stomach, because you're emotions have morphed from hopeful, a hope you've been holding on to past any rational point, to a very final disappointment. It's over now and this is how it ended, forever and ever, no matter what should have or could have happened. And then you tell yourself, "This doesn't matter. It's a game. Go to sleep. It will matter less in the morning."
With the election you can't tell yourself those same platitudes. It does matter and it won't matter less in the morning.