Friday, March 28, 2008

Fresh Girl of Orange County



So I've been thinking a lot about fresh, unprocessed foods and the reality of my being wholly unable to cook more than chicken, rice and veggies without an elaborate recipe and how my dinner usually consists of take out or said Foreman grilled chicken, rice from a box and green beans out of a can.

No more, my friends!

Starting April 1 (but not as a joke) I'm going to try a month of unprocessed food. Meaning no fast food, no box rice (even that delicious Zatarain's Red Beans & Rice), no prepared pasta (I'm totally going to try and make some of my own) - basically I'm going to shop solely in the outside edges of the store - fresh fruit and veggies, dairy, cheese and meat.

The only cheat I'm giving myself is condiments and bread, because it's simply not realistic for me to make my own BBQ sauce or bread. That's just not happening. Oh, and beer. I'd give it up for the month, but there's going to be a big party about 5 days into it that I'm not going to sit out on.

Since I'm generally a pretty big procrastinator it'll be interesting to see if I can manage to make it the entire month, but gosh dangit I'm going to try (and though I'm pretty positive my roommate will mock me for starting this, she'll mock me even more if I quit.)

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Want It




I want this sweater something fierce. Wonder Woman was my GIRL when I was a kid.

Unfortunately, it's a one off made by a clever and talented girl and to own it myself I'd have to make it. Based on my previous stint with scarf knitting (evidence of which amounts to only about 1/8 of an actual scarf) this will never happen. Sad face.

If you're more dedicated than I am, you can find the how to here.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Boy Crush





Uh, can someone please tell me when Joseph Gordon-Levitt went from boyishly cute guy from 3rd Rock from the Sun and 10 Things I Hate About You to HOT? Because I'm totally digging him in these pics, even if he is shorter than me.

More pictures here: ONTD

Girl Crush

Girl Crush is defined by Urban Dictionary as:

feelings of admiration and adoration which a girl has for another girl, without wanting to shag said girl. a nonsexual attraction, usually based on veneration at some level.


Girl Crush is defined by me as:

Man, I would love to be friends with her.


I've had various girl crushes on celebrities - Natalie Portman, Mandy Moore - but this weekend I totally developed a girl crush on a real live person I actually kind of know.

I was at my parent's friend's house for Easter brunch, hanging out at the counter in the kitchen eating some delicious eggs benedict, sipping mimosas, stealing way too much of the cheese from the platter directly in front of me, and chatting with some friends when the girl who was soon to become my girl crush sat down wearing the cutest belted navy shirt dress ever.

We were chatting in the group when it came out that she does acting/directing/producing of mostly indie comedy stuff. We started talking about random TV shows we love (Arrested Development), the success of YouTube and its role in the increasing democratization of entertainment media and its parallel for music in MySpace, how the expanding ability to produce quality entertainment on a small budget has allowed comedy to be more organic, less forced, and therefore funnier (okay, by now it was pretty much just me and her talking), how flippin' adorable Jeremy Piven's niece was in The Landlord, and how cool my musical montage idea is (no, for real, she loved it).

By the end of the conversation I felt like I had known her for years - when something funny was said by a third party we glanced at each other to share the humor - and maybe it was because she claimed to really dig my idea and I'm self-centered enough to think a person is awesome because they think I'm awesome, it's more likely that she was just all around a very cool person. Unfortunately, despite how much I would love to be friends with her, I am absolutely awful at broaching the subject of exchanging info to hang out in the future. I blame it on the California mentality of saying "let's hang out soon!" with no intention of ever following up.

I think I'm going to talk my mom into getting her email from our family friend for me...

Friday, March 21, 2008

Happy Easter Weekend!

Pictures

I was looking through some old pictures on my hard drive and I came across this:



This was my room in college. Seriously, how ridiculously sweet was this room? I had a fireplace, a balcony, a TON of natural light, a couch, a coffeetable... The only downsides were my teensy closet and the fact that the kitchen was on the other side of the wall behind my bed.

Other than that it rocked hardcore and I kinda want it back.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Personal Preferences



I know I have some interesting (some would say strange) habits and preferences. For example: I don't like peaches because the fuzz weirds me out, I think baked fruit is gross (fruit is NOT supposed to be warm), and I've had an aversion to red foods since I was a kid and thought all red foods were spicy (I have since come around to eating strawberries, watermelon and cooked tomatoes; raw tomatoes, cherries and pimentos are still on my shit list, though).

My biggest aversion, and the one I think is most justified, is my inability to walk on wet concrete in sandals. I know this is ridiculously specific, but considering how often I wear sandals it's an issue that comes up pretty frequently. I'm also often caught off guard by the weather - it doesn't rain often enough in Southern California to warrant being proactive on this front. Here's why it's completely justified and you people should STOP MAKING FUN OF ME.

List of all major injuries I've had:

- broken left wrist
- broken left ankle
- sprained left ankle (3x)
- fractured left kneecap
- torn meniscus on right knee

Aside from the fact that I obviously really dislike the left side of my body, EVERY SINGLE ONE of those injuries other than the meniscus was due to slipping on wet ground while wearing sandals. The highlights:

Wrist: 1st grade - broken while playing tag just after it stopped raining. Slipped on the ground and skidded into a curb. (Cute side note: despite intense pain I didn't cry until I saw my mom; to this day my mom's the only one I break down in front of)

Ankle: 2004 - slid on wet stairs at the San Diego Zoo while doing research for an anthropology class. I had just finished telling my friend not to jump down the stairs because she'll fall and break her ankle. Two seconds later I (the one holding the hand rail and walking slowly because I was wearing sandals that day) slipped and broke my ankle. Oh, the irony.

Kneecap: 2006 - Slipped on wet tile in UCLA's Ackerman Student Union and came down directly on my kneecap, which swelled to the size of a baseball. Once the lovely people in the Ashe Student Health Center found out this happened on campus (which could be held liable if I was a sue-happy type of person) I received the most prompt and attentive care they were capable of (considering the typical pace is about a week wait to be seen for the flu, which would be over by the time the appointment came around, it was quite speedy).

This issue is so gripping that once in college, when caught on campus in the rain whilst wearing sandals and after realizing I couldn't wait it out, I bought a pair of bright pink Converse (that I couldn't afford) so I'd be able to walk home. The next day I brought those shoes back to campus and stuck them in the locker I had rented in the gym so I would never be stuck on campus in sandals again. Of course, I never needed them, but they were always there as a safety.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Currently Perusing



Did you know that "perusing" means "reading carefully with intent to remember?"

It's okay if you didn't - I think there's a healthy chunk of English speaking people who use it incorrectly, who use it to mean "halfheartedly flipping through" when it actually means the exact opposite.

So, I've been perusing (correct definition) the above book - I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. Please ignore the giant "Oprah's Book Club" stamped on the front, because it's definitely not why I picked the 920+ page book up.

I first became familiar with Wally Lamb waaaaay back in junior high, when I convinced my mom to buy me She's Come Undone at Costco. I can still remember the moment - I was flipping through the book section and came upon a paperback She's Come Undone, started reading the first few pages and was hooked. But there was a problem - the copious amount of swear words uttered by the embattled young heroine, Delores Price, would never pass the Mom Censor (tm). It took me several minutes to find a single page without a swear word or other inappropriate reference that would have alerted my mother that it wasn't a book she should buy her 13 year old daughter. I succeeded, though, and walked out of Costco with my contraband clutched to my chest for fear my mother might take a second look at a page I hadn't carefully picked.

I took it home and read it cover to cover (without going around the back) in two summer days. I had tried for one, but had been physically unable to keep my eyes open past 3 a.m. Barely 50 pages into the book it became glaringly obvious that it was not a book I should have been reading at that age and I delighted in the maturity of it. I didn't hear a peer reference reading the book until my senior year of high school, certainly a more appropriate age. Even at that moment, I was excited that I had read the book 5 years earlier.

Ok, off She's Come Undone - the gist is that the book made me love Wally Lamb's writing, his ability to create these intricate, often unlikeable characters whom you couldn't help but root for. That's why I picked up the gigantic I Know This Much Is True.

So far it hasn't disappointed. It's a story of twin brothers, Dominick and Thomas Birdsey, one of whom suffers from schizophrenia. It covers the boys childhood under the abusive hands of an overbearing step-father and a meek, weak, and also abused mother. It's told through the voice of the sane brother, Dominick, who has spent his entire life standing as his brother's protector, sometimes giving up the role, sometimes being crushed under its weight, and always bitter over the toll and effect its had on his own life.

I think I've really identified with Dominick and his relationship with his brother. I have a mentally handicapped brother who, while very high functioning - certainly MUCH higher than Thomas Birdsey and not in any way crazy, is still someone I've spent and will spend my entire life protecting. Someone who, once my parents pass away, will be my responsibility to take care of and look after.

When I was younger, and decidedly more selfish, I was bitter about it. Bitter that I spent my childhood defending my brother against the bullies on our street instead of making friends; bitter that I didn't have the ideal older brother who was protective and had cute friends; bitter that I had to assume the "oldest child" caretaker role.

At the point I am in the book, Dominick Birdsey has given up and left his brother to the care of a psychiatric ward. I hope by the end he comes around to where I'm at now because, similar to his brother Thomas, my brother is one of the kindest, most caring and genuine people I've ever met and despite the difficulties we may have and the number of times we butt heads, he's my brother and I love him unconditionally and will always be there to take care of him, because I know he wouldn't hesitate to do the same if the roles were reversed. If Dominick doesn't come around, I'll have to dislike a character I've really grown to enjoy and he'll end up a mediocre man in difficult circumstances. Perhaps that's the character Lamb intended to create, but based on the redemption of Dolores Price by the end of her story, I have a feeling that's not the direction Dominick is heading. I look forward to discovering his resolution.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

I'm An Idea (Wo)Man

I get all my best ideas when I'm lying in bed trying to sleep. There are no exceptions to this rule. I am rarely very clever in daylight hours or while standing or sitting. It just doesn't happen. There's something about laying down in a dark room at the end of a long day that brings them forth.

Of course, as I've previously covered, I also suffer from insomnia. It doesn't help that my best ideas often come when I'm struggling to get to sleep. In my attempts to just. get. some.zzzzzzzz, I'll often refuse to turn on a light and write down what I was thinking, which, of course, results in many, many lost great ideas.

But here's one I didn't lose - it's going to be so awesome:

A romantic movie short made entirely of musical montages in four acts:

1. Meet and Fall In Love
2. Break Up
3. Lonely Walk Through The Park
4. Happily Ever After

I know, I know, but I never said it wasn't going to be cheesy or cliche - it's a movie made entirely of musical montages for fuck's sake.

Each montage is going to be set to a different song off of this album:

Band of Horses - Cease to Begin

It's the perfect album for this project, it's wrought with the entire spectrum of emotion. Dare I say it could be the entire soundtrack to a full length movie ... yes, I do dare.

I really only have two of the sequences mapped out in my head: The Breakup and Lonely Walk Through the Park. Both are pretty intricate single camera moves. The Breakup involves a second story apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side and the camera moves a full 360 rotation around the building, breaking the outside wall. Seriously, this lame ass description does this no justice. It looks AWESOME in my head. As usual, the trick is getting it out of there. After describing it to a camera guy friend, he said it would involve a sound stage painted with tons of green screen, computer mapped out camera movement so the outside of the building could be painted in, and quite a bit of CGI, which altogether will run me about $75k.

Lonely Walk Through the Park is also a complicated single camera move, but he figures it could be done for a cool $10k if we waited for weather instead of making our own (oh yes, there are season changes! Living on the west coast where there are none has made me obsessed).

Sooo ... it's looking like the whole she-bang is going to cost at least a crisp $100k. Who wants to be my backer?