Ultratart: It's Got Bite

Misheard and Resolved.

I was sort of fiddling around catching up on my blog-reading and just heard the TV say, "NATIONAL TREASURE BOOK OF SECRETS DIRECTED BY JOHN TRAVOLTA," and I thought, "WHAT? How did I not KNOW THAT?"

Thank god it's just my hearing going, and not my mind.

My holidays were lovely, with splashes of family-related craziness, which is, I think, the American way. As much as I enjoy Christmas, it's always kind of a relief when all the Yadda Yadda comes to an end and we're all just cozily ensconced in winter and thinking about roasting chickens and knee socks and our new exercise regimes, as opposed to OH MY GOD SUR LA TABLE IS OUT OF CUISINARTS? WHAT IF ALL OF LOS ANGELES IS OUT OF CUISINARTS AND THEN I CAN'T GET ONE FOR MY MOTHER AND CHRISTMAS WILL BE RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUINED? [For what it's worth, I did find a Cuisinart for my mother. And she got me one! I can't wait to start processing food! I can't decide what to make first! Pesto? Soup? Enchilada sauce? Something else?] I am someone who loves her routine and I am always happy to get back to it.

I also love New Year's Day (I don't particularly care for New Year's Eve -- too much pressure). There is something so divine about having a fresh start, a whole new year spread in front of us, with no arguments or mistakes or parking tickets in it yet, just possibilities.

Laurie at Crazy Aunt Purl has a great post today in part about resolutions. I love resolutions. I don't beat myself up if I don't keep them, but I also am pretty good at keeping them, mostly because I make resolutions like, "recycle more," which is not as restrictive as something like, "EXERCISE FOUR TIMES A WEEK OR DIE." This year, I have resolved to be More Fabulous (by which I mean, I plan to more fully embrace my own eccentricities, of which I have many, many of which I am ALREADY embracing, so this could get interesting, by which I mean, I may go a bit Auntie Mame, and I almost just wrote, Auntie MAUDE, and I can assure you the last thing I want for 2008 is for people to start singing, "AND THEN THERE'S MAUDE" when I enter the room, although I do love Bea Arthur). I have also firmly resolved to be more organized in my filing. In order to keep the second without breaking the first, I shall have to file with a boa constrictor draped around my neck while yodeling or some shit, but I'll figure that out somehow.

Er, I also resolve to exercise more, by which I mean: at all. I used to be SO GOOD. I used to run like four or five days a week and I ENJOYED it and now I...don't. I don't know how it all got away from me or why I can't get it back together, but I need to get off my ass on occasion, so I can one day be a VERY eccentric old broad instead of a mildly eccentric young-ish broad. I guess that's something I just need to go out and DO instead of yapping about it.

But basically, I hope for a healthy, amusing, interesting, passionate, creative, juicy year full of delights that unfold in excitingly unexpected ways for all of us. I realized recently that I've been keeping this diary in one way or another for coming up on SIX YEARS. That is WACK, you guys. Thank you for sticking with me, and Happy Happy New Year. Did you resolve anything?

We ARE All Cramming

When I was a student at UCLA, I noticed that during Finals Week, all my classes were suddenly full of cute boys, who apparently never went to class other than to take their exams. It occurred to me in the bookstore today that the weekend before Christmas is sort of like Finals Week for grown-ups, in that the mall is unusually peopled with hot dudes wandering around looking out of place, picking up books and examining them as though they are foreign objects. So what I'm basically saying is, singletons, make sure to wash your hair before heading out the next few days. Disoriented and attractive people are suddenly everywhere!  SWOOP!

I also had two good celebrity sightings at said bookstore today, in that I found myself smack in line with Diane Keaton and her exuberant children -- I must add that they were hyper in a cute, regular-kid OHMYGODCHRISTMASISCOMINGIAMSOEXCITED!!111!! way, not in an obnoxious way  -- and that she was charmingly low key and relaxed as well as very cute in a hat. I sort of have a crush on her and want to be her when I grow up. She also seemed extremely amused when the paparazzi started snapping pics of her buying her books through the window of the bookstore.

The paps did not notice the OTHER person in line next to me, Jon Tenney -- of The Closer, and formerly of a marriage to Teri Hatcher. He is good-looking in person, even though he was sort of dressed like he'd woken up in a pile of his own dirty laundry.  Hey, it's a busy time of year.

And on that note, I wish you all a very merry, safe and miraculous Christmas, if that's your bag, and a luxurious, warm and cozy couple of days off regardless of bags. 

Dear Gossip Girl

I love you. Please never leave me. When we are apart, I am bereft. I am overly invested in you, perhaps, but you're so charming and engrossing and also, your outfits are good. You might be the casualty of the writer's strike I will miss the most.

XOXO

Jessica

On the Other Hand....

If not for the lack of new programming on tonight, I would not have settled down in front of The Biggest Loser, through which I bawled like a baby, because I am a total sap who loves the emotional power of a transformation.

Come ON

This writer's strike has got to end. I am watching October freaking Road.

ONE TREE HILL!

Oh my god, you guys. I know you know I love stupid One Tree Hill and how stupid and soapy it is, and how terrible CMM is on it, and how terrible his hair looks and that's what I was so so excited to see the following on I See Monsters:

AWESOME. It's like they've decided to make CMM look well-coifed by making Nathan look like a TRANSIENT. I LOVE IT, unironically. I also love the idea that, thanks to the writers strike, OTH is somehow going to end up being a top ten show or something. And THEN I read on Serial Drama that Debbie Morgan and Darrell Williams are coming back to All My Children as Angie and Jesse! Well....Jesse is dead. So presumably he's not -- what am I talking about? He's probably not really dead, even though we all saw him die and it was SO TRAGIC, my mother and I both cried and cried. This was back when I was totally into AMC. And THEN I read that Rebecca Budig is coming back to the show as Greenlee, and this essentially means I have to start watching AMC again. Are they still using that bullshit handheld camera work? I hate that. I just wish the writers strike would mean that soaps had to go to an improv format. Can you imagine?

Slam It To The Left

Heather and Catherine have quite nicely expressed how AWESOME it was to see the Spice Girls in concert over the weekend (I didn't go with them; I saw the girls in Vegas[!] with Carrie and Lauren. Our seats were not nearly as good as theirs were, BUT we could gamble before and afterward, so it all evened out). I just find the Spice Girls to be endlessly delightful and the show was seriously campy and deliciously FABULOUS. Just when I thought it couldn't get any gayer, IT DID. There was a moment where the girls were walking their male back-up dancers on RHINESTONE LEASHES. Ginger sang "It's Raining Men" in short shorts while said back-up men carried her around. It was AWESOME. See:

I KNOW. The back-up dancers were AMAZING, by the way. I felt as though I had been served AND my yard had been stomped upon. All in all, it was nice to see a show that celebrated all things girly and sparkly in a way that wasn't Pussycat Dolls-ified or Paris Hilton-y. Sure, it's all silliness, and there's no Nuclear Physicist Spice, but nor would the ladies of Spice ever sing about the relative hotness of a guy's girlfriend, or go out without underwear and "accidentally" show the paparazzi their bikini wax. Sometimes you just need an injection of a little mid-90s style Girl Power, you know?

I also need Sporty's bangs. Heather and I wrote about them for Glamour like a hundred years ago and I am still IN LOVE WITH THEM. And with this:

It's In My Five

I don't know why, but I am powerless in the face of T-Mobile commercials. You may remember that I was totally in love with the dude in the "Secret Lover" T-Mobile ads, the one whose girlfriend was also the secret lover of his friend. In later ads, the friend SEEMS to be spending way too much time talking to the dude's mom. All I know is that the dude needs to have a long, serious talk with this friend. Also, it seems that I love returning characters in commercials. Remember when Giles wasn't Giles, but was actually The Male Lead on a VERY ELABORATE series of Nescafe (Taster's Choice, here in the US) ads?  Hang on, this might jog your memory:

I was OBSESSED with those ads at the time. I wish I knew what happened to those two. I read somewhere that the series of ads continued in England, but we never got anything more in America...what was I talking about? Yes, T-Mobile. Anyway, they have one commercial right now that makes me laugh EVERY TIME. In it, A New Dude is attempting to leave a voicemail message for a girl who it seems he has just started dating, but hers one of those voicemails that allow you to re-record your message and he does it like nine times and I don't know what is wrong with me, but I laugh every time I see that ad. Perhaps because I can not resist the lure of the Press Nine To Rerecord Your Message button myself.

And yet I still have AT&T.

What Are They Insinuating?

When I was in elementary school, for whatever reason, all the girls I knew and I always ended our lunches by looking at the back of our cafeteria-issued plastic sporks. The number on the back was supposed to correspond to the age at which we'd get married. (This routine was, I imagine, related to the ritual of reciting the alphabet while twisting off your apple stems so as to learn -- by when the stem came off -- the initial of your true love. I suspect boys didn't do this.) Out of some weird instinct, I just looked at the back of plastic spoon that came with my Thai food, and all it says is, "WOW."

Pay, Pal.

So, I love eBay. I am always buying stuff on eBay -- unusual gifts, new beauty products at a bargain, the occasional frock from a designer whose sizes I am very familiar with. And I also sell things now and then, and out of over 100 transactions, have had like NO ISSUES. Until now. I am selling a beautiful, never worn Jovovich Hawk dress at a very reasonable price, but it's definitely not cheap. I said I would only sell to buyers in Canada and the US, but the winning bidder is in France. So, I decided that I'd give her a pass and send her the dress anyway. Shipping internationally is a bit of a pain, but whatever. BUT. She has not paid. It's been two weeks-ish. I am someone who pays for my eBay purchases IMMEDIATELY -- because I am an incredibly wonderful and upstanding citizen and also because I would forget otherwise -- so this is strange for me. A few days ago, I sent her another invoice and asked her to let me know when I could expect payment. She said "today!"  Nothing came in. Here is my question: how long do I wait before sending her the, "listen, lady, pay up or ELSE" email? I wonder if there's a different in behavior between French eBayers, for instance, and Americans and this is normal. Maybe she isn't being annoying -- she's just off trying on berets and eating baguettes, say, while smoking and tying an Hermes scarf on her poodle, and will get to it eventually. I don't want to cause an international eBay incident, but nor do I want to be dealing with re-selling this mother right at the holidays. The sooner I sell it, the sooner some girl gets to wear it to her holiday party. What do I do?

Maybe I should fly over there and chat her up. At least I'd get some delicious stinky French cheese out of it.