I Want Pretty

Even if Ocean's Twelve turned out to be a completely stupid movie, which I doubt, because the first one rocked me like a hurricane and unlike pal Ben Affleck, Matt Damon is basically not EVER in stupid movies; BUT--even if it were just totally awful, it has the most attractive cast EVER-- one that I would gladly pay $8 for in order to enjoy staring priveleges in the privacy and darkness of a cushioned, stadium-like seat with drink holders.

No, seriously--most attractive cast ever. Consider:
Matt Damon
George Clooney
Brad Pitt
Julia Roberts
Andy Garcia
Catherine Zeta-Jones
and so on*.

My God. It's about time, you know? Not that Hollywood has any shortage of beautiful people, but I've said it before and I'll say it again: I can see ugly people any time I want. That's normal life. If I'm paying, I want beautiful people. I am funding their next starbucks latte with skim milk. I am contributing towards the face lift and Hank (pronounced Honk), the personal trainer. I WANT PRETTY! And I will have the pretty. Oh yes. It will be mine.

So hats off to Ocean's Twelve. Sweet Lord, you're all good looking. And God bless you for it.

*Don Cheadle and Elliot Gould are forced to be lumped with "and so on," because they're just not attractive enough to get *pretty* billing. Sorry fellas.

P.S. National Treasure was a pretty cool movie, if poor man's The Da Vinci Code, but the one minute of screen time "love story" has got to be cut. I enjoy Nicholas Cage, but he's maybe not pretty enough to pull off the cheesy-ass packaged nobility/made-for-tv-esque romantic lines as plausible.

Schnozberry? Whoever heard of a schnozberry?

I will henceforth refer to my nose as my olfactometer.

Despite the Cost of Living, It's Still Quite Popular

A lot of people don't think I'm funny. Clearly, they are not wise to my motto*. You will see this illustrated in my contact lens snafu below.

So I had kind of a poopy day on Monday, which I have been feeling the effects of since.

When I went to turn on my shower, which was already in a bad way, there was not only not the usual, crappy dribble of hot water, there was no hot water at all. I took a 1 minute freezing cold shower, and it was freezing outside. And I am too cheap to turn on the heat for the 20 minutes of the day I need it ( a down comforter is a key investment), unless it's like, totally cold (which for a committed Houstonian like me, means about 50--shut up). So anywho, I was freezing. Bad news bears. Though I called my landlord for immediate fixing purposes, I still had to shower downstairs at my neighbor's apartment Tuesday morning and endure post-bellum era reconstruction of my house yesterday. (As an aside, there is still insane attic dust on much of the stuff in my closet and if you think I'm not bitter, you are desperately, grievously mistaken.)

But back to Monday, Monday, can't trust that day and the contact lens bit you are no doubt at the edge of your seat waiting for.

My contact ripped and caused serious scratch-ation on my eye. Which one ripped? Would it be the left one, the cheaper one for which I have three back-ups for, or the pricier right one, which, for whatever reason determined by God, I continually rip so that I have an uneven number of contacts and for which I apparently in all my genius threw the box out so that I no longer know the prescription of it? If you guessed the left one, you obviously do not know how to appreciate irony, and therefore have no business reading my page. Be gone.

So anywho, I'm in kind of a panic to get my contacts prescription as I am not super fond of wearing my glasses constantly, especially in insane rainy Houston weather, which I otherwise delight in. But if I have the prescription, I think, I can just order some more. WRONG.

I called the optometrist that I saw 2.5 years ago and from whom I ordered a year's supply of contacts (which just now ran out--and only on one eye, because I am a slack ass and appreciate the advancements in technology which have prolonged the life of my contacts by daily removing what is known scientifically as "eye goo."). So I inquired about getting my prescription and here is the conversation that ensued.

"Hey, can I get my prescription?"
"I'm sorry; that prescription is expired."
"It is? Well, I can still see just fine, so can I get it?"
"No."
"Do you still have it."
"Of course; it's on your chart."
"But I can't have it?"
"No, it's expired."
"But it's not, like...morphine. My eyes are going all haywire or anything."
(does not think I am funny) "No competent doctor will fill that prescription. You'll have to come in for an exam."
"So you're saying all I have to find is an incompetent person to fill it?"
(not laughing at all) "Even if your prescription hasn't changed, you'll have to come in to verify it."
"I guess I can't swear to it over the phone for free?"
"Would you like to make an appointment, ma'am?"
"I guess. First available, please."
"Mornings or afternoons**?"
"Umm, First. Available." (Hello, McFly.)
--gives an appointment two days later--
"What if this were an emergency? That's the soonest you can see me?"
"Is this an emergency?"
"I don't know. Is that the first available appointment?"
--in no way, is this woman charmed by me---
"Okay, so we have you down for Thursday at 10:15."
"Can you remind me where your office is again?"
--thinks I am being funny-- "We're still in the same place."
"Yo. Homes. That was two and a half years ago. How in the hizz-ell am I supposed to remember?" (It took me damn near a half hour searching through online yellow pages to even remember the name of the place.)
--gets huffy and gives me directions--

To my credit, I didn't actually call her "Homes," or say hizz-ell. I just assured her I was serious and needed directions. But she still got huffy. Someone give this woman a chill pill. Then again, everyone hates "the funny guy" sometimes. I didn't think I was overly obnoxious, I just wanted something for nothing. Surely that's not that uncommon. Then again, rarely am I aware I've gone too far until it is painfully clear and everyone is glaring at and hatin' on me because I, I, am the funny girl.

"The life of a rodeo clown is a painful and solitary existence. I know, for I am a rodeo clown."

* My motto: I'm sorry if you don't think this is funny; you obviously suck.
** They always ask mornings or afternoons, like everyone in the whole world is like a day care provider or something. I don't know; maybe this is a valid question, but I'm always thinking: oh, when would it be *convenient* for you to insist upon interrupting my life so that I can freaking see my hand in front of my face? Never, you assclown. But I'll make an exception. Now give me the damn appointment before I head butt you. And you have to get separate insurance for eye care. Is that ultra-retarded or what? Stupid eye stuff.

The Apple and The Appletree

Anyone who has ever met me and my mom realizes that we are kind of ridiculously alike and that we are related beyond a shadow of a doubt. But here is new evidence.

On Saturday, my mom and I attended the 65th birthday of one of her good friends from high school.

First, I was told that at their 25th high school reunion in 1982, there was an award given to the parent of the youngest baby. I was 1 1/2 at the time and still nursing, so my mom tried to discredit this guy with a son a few months younger than me because the guy had a 25 year old wife. "It doesn't count," she protested. "Men can father babies well into their 80s. I'm a woman. I should win." And her protests to the committee fell on deaf ears. But I am not deaf, Muno. I hear you. We should have won. Bizards.

Second, her friend who was having the birthday had made an iPhoto slideshow of all his photographs from high school, featuring some hilarious pictures of my mom doing very me-like things, like pretending to smoke a cigarette just for scandal purposes and looking like a pretzel in one otherwise normal group photos. The best part though was when her friend offered to burn her a copy of the slideshow on CD. She said "Oh my gosh! I'd love it! I'll give you a thousand dollars for it!" Now anyone who knows anything about me knows I would have offered a full MILLION dollars, but it's probably just because I am the My Mom of the next generation.

Ring the Hell Out of Your Pants: A Little Levity

Here are two things I think you'll enjoy. The first requires no explanation. However, if you don't find it funny, I'd like to apply my new motto: I'm sorry; you obviously suck. E. and I laughed hysterically about it.



The second thing is this email. Last December, I posted a message on Craigslist asking for recommendations for a handyman to fix my doorbell or a name of a good pest control place to help me get rid of the ubiquitous Houston roaches. This is the response I got and it was so bizarre and hilarious that I saved it all this time. Now I am deleting it, but first, I'm sharing it with you.

Subject: rouches all over!!
----
how much you pay? will charge you per a rouch kill----I can go killing those rouches all day long and make an art out of it. just let me go at it. I can kill rouches with a needle one by one, will kill them all. I can kill them by pissing on them --- my piss is very acid---will kill them all at once----you would have to move out of your place for a while. just let know----I can go at it ----silly. Oh, somthng else, I can fix your bell so it can ring the hell out of your pants and get you started on a new life.

The Unbearable Lightness of Dreaming

Lots of people, I'm sure, are blogging about impending doom and fear for our country. But democracy has spoken and though I, myself, have felt incredibly rattled and frustrated these past two days mourning what might have been, wondering when my country became not my country anymore, I had a dream last night that has helped me some. Unlike most dreams, it was coherent, and not really that odd, save the fact that I, alone, had been campaigning with John Kerry in a rental car for months. It was simple and has stuck with me this day so I might share it with you. So now, a break from the cynical, angry MaryT you sometimes read, and might have been expecting on this second day post-election.

It was dark at night and I was standing at the fairgrounds. Some fairgrounds in the middle of rural America. It was muddy and rainy and cold. That night, my eyes red from crying, my cheeks red from the blustery cold, John Kerry and I cleaned out a Ford Explorer rented by the campaign, which apparently he and I had driven coast to coast in. In a few moments time, my parents would pick me up, tired and weary from a long campaign, and John Kerry would return this rental car, the wheels of a dream for the previous weeks and months. After throwing out the obligatory Wendy's cups and drive-thru receipts, I looked in the console and found all the pins and awards which had decorated my high school letter jacket. My fruit salad, my mom called it. Varsity swimming. National Honor Society. Student Council. English, French, Math, and Science awards. Yearbook. Eucharistic Ministry. You get the idea. All these pins had almost been left in this car--these things that had meant so much to me for so many years--symbols of who I was and what was important to me; my goals and achievements almost met the trash bin at Hertz rent-a-car.

And I started crying. I cried for all my pins I'd nearly lost. They were symbols of hard work and high hopes on an election lost, the injustice and frustration I felt. I cried for being tired, for the war, for the end of an era of hope and the continuity of an era of fear and aggression. It was cathartic, but also a desperate plea for help. I wanted another chance. I wanted to go back in time. I wanted it to be different.

And John Kerry said to me: It's not over. Had you left your pins in that console tonight, it wouldn't change who you are, who you've been, and what you have meant to others. Your dreams and goals are alive in you. You can put those pins on your jacket and wear them, but even if those pins aren't there--you still wear them the way you wear patriotism. It's who you are inside that will make a change in our world, that people will see-- and that has not changed because the election is over. You are still an American and a patriot with the ability to affect change, just as you were yesterday. Don't cry anymore. You cannot change what has been. You can only change what will be. Strengthen your resolve to make next time different.

My parents showed up then. They got out of their car and shook hands with him and took me home. And John Kerry drove off in the rental car, looking a little sad himself, like a traveling salesman whose territory he's been ousted from by a region divided and re-districted by Tom Delay (for example), into the dark night.

And I think I feel a little better now. I hope you do, too.

Silly Mary! Halloween is for Tramps!

I don't know why I find it shocking every year when women of varying ages and thicknesses parade around in the trampiest of get-ups in the guise of a Halloween costume.

A not entirely improbable conversation between me and woman in trampy get-up. Please note that I am the one who comes off smarmy as all hell.
"So what is your costume supposed to be?"
"I'm a cat."
"Oh, of course! A cat! I guess being a dog-owner, I'm not used to seeing the large breasts and hint of nipple that cats are traditionally all about. And the one cat I had was kind of street, so I guess that explains why she didn't wear a thong over fishnets, like you. Of course, I could always see her butthole, so maybe she was like those kids who wear their pants baggy and low."

I had a discussion of trampy costumes with several of my girlfriends yesterday and the conclusion we all came to is: if your Halloween costume is that of a hooker, you're totally cool to look trampy. If you're dressed as Wonder Woman, red boots and a USA-themed leotard are just part of the ensemble. And you go, with your Linda Carter-like self!

But the following things are not good reasons to suddenly become the whore you wished you had the guts to be in high school:
Pirate(ss)
Waitress
Devil/Angel
Wombat*
nursery rhyme characters ( Little Ho Peep, I'm talking to you in all your thick-legged glory. I didn't need to see that.)

Am I bitter about these costumes? Not really. No, honestly--not really. I just don't really get it. I mean, there are so many non-trampy, but awesome costumes you could be (or the aforementioned acceptably trampy costumes). My halloween costume, for example, ROCKED. I was a dead prom queen and the only flesh I flashed was the open wound on my neck, made from liquified rubber and gel that was painted on in liquid, hot magma phase. Mmm, flesh wounds. I don't post pictures of me on my site, typically, because dude: none of your business, but I am debating about posting a costume picture because my hair and get-up were just too horrible and fabulous to describe in 1000 words or less. I owe it all to S. and Slavation Army. And a creepy imagination. And a true (heart) of the 80s.

*Any type of animal/insect/creature: "Oh, I'm a sexy bee." I have never seen a sexy bee (with the exception of Carlos Beltran). I have been stung before and it was not sexy at all. It hurt like hell. And they are fuzzy, not waxed from here to Tegucigulpa. Plus, they have like 8 eyes or something. Where are your multiple transluscent eyeballs?! (C: Viva Wombat!)