Icely, Icely, thank you!

The idea of going through another icy snow storm similar to the one we experienced on Valentine's Day left me in a foul mood. Especially given that I had plans on Sunday -- a LOTR movie day with Jim and Stephanie, complete with delicious food (minus my flop of a Buckle Berry Ferry Tart) all given cheesy names to match the movie, and an Oscar viewing party at Debbie and Brian's -- neither of which were in close driving range. I'm so sick of winter, I thought. Winter sucks. It needs to be spring now.

Indeed, driving home from Jim and Stephanie's place, I was annoyed. The snow had been falling for almost two hours and I had been putting off driving home for as long as I possibly could. We had only made it through two of the movies, and even though I had known that I couldn't stay for the whole extended version trilogy, I had wanted to hang through at least part of Return of the King. And now to top it off, I wasn't going to be able to go to the Oscar party and instead just have to settle for enjoying the Oscars with Dill and some wine.

Even going to bed, I was in a huff. I'll have to get up early and muscle my car out, I thought. I'll have to chop all the ice off my car while sliding around on a sheet of ice and then drive all through the stupid slushy streets.

But when I went out this morning, a gift greeted me. The temperature was moderate enough that the streets were a shimmering wet, but cold enough that my breath would still come out in angelic little puffs. The bare tree branches were still lightly frosted with icy snow like they had been coated with a dusting of powdered sugar. The morning was quiet and perfect on my street, like the scene had been made just for me.

The real beauty, however, was my car. Albus was covered in a shell of ice. Spider webs of frozen water and transparent dribbles coated over its silver frame. It was a beautiful diamond abstract ice sculpture, just for me. I wanted to take a picture. I stood marveling for a moment, running my fingertips on the slick wet surface. It was with regret that I finally had to break it to insert my key into the lock. When I pulled the door open, the ice gave way with a giant sucking sound, like I was opening a forgotten secret passageway. I sat for a moment in the car, hidden from the world, feeling like I was 6 years old again, and hiding out in my card table and blanket fort. I turned on my car to warm, and reached for the ice scraper.

I thought I would be sad to wreck such a pretty ice coating, but it was strangely satisfying. Giant cracks were made in the ice and shards landed with startling plops next to me. Great crunching sounds were made as I drove my pick into the shell of ice and caused flecks of ice shavings to float around me as I worked, creating a mini snow globe effect around me. By the time I made it to the rear window, I was giggling as heaps of ice crunched around me in slushy bits.

When I got back into my car, Patti Griffin was singing:

Heavenly day, all the trouble's gone away
Oh, for a while anyway, for a while anyway
Heavenly day, heavenly day, heavenly day

Chronicles of the Vertically Challenged

It's been a rough couple of days for me. Yesterday I fell three times. The first was early in the morning, on my way to my car. My Chuck Taylor-clad food stepped down on some ice and shot out from under me, leaving me to just barely catch myself on a mound of dirty hardened snow and causing my neighbor to exclaim from across the street, "Whhhhoooa! You all right?!" Second, at school, I managed to trip up the stairs, if that's possible, and clonk my funny bone right in the sweet spot. And then, on the way back to my car after class, remembering how I slipped on the ice in the morning, I decided that instead of walking on the snow and ice on the "sidewalk" area, I should instead throw a leg over the chain barrier that was across the roadway that led to my car. My foot caught and I went down down down, skinning my knee, jamming my thumb, and severely bruising my thumbnail.

But tomorrow is another day, right? Not so much.

Today we had a class of 8th graders visiting the office from the inner city school my company has adopted. I was taking my group back to my desk to show them some wowee production stuff, when, in the hallway I turned around and walked backwards looking at my group in that tour guide-y “And we’re walking, we’re walking” sort of way.

“You guys,” I told them, “Don’t tell anyone, but you got in the best group. My group is always the best because we get to do the fun stuff. We’re the cool group.”

And then I turned around and walked face first into a wall.

Allow me to introduce myself: Wile. E. Coyote. Supergenius.

Open Letter to the ABC/Lost Brain Trust

Dear ABC/Lost Brain Trust,

Stop fucking around with your viewers and get over your damn self already. Last night's episode was horrible. Like, REALLY horrible.

1. To whomever made the promos -- "The 3 Biggest Questions Will Be Answered"? Really? I'm guessing the questions answered were: Do the writers think the viewers are dumb? Has season 3 resoundingly sucked so far? Are the people in charge too busy patting themselves on the back for the first two seasons to put any effort into the current season? The answers to all of the above seems to be "Yes."
   
   
2. To the casting director who hired Bai Ling to play the retarded role of the tattooist who can "see who people really are": You should be fired. She's a sucky actress and watching her and Matthew Fox twisting tongues set off my upchuck reflex.
   
   
3. No one cares about Jack's tattoos. Except maybe Matthew Fox.
   
   
4. FOR GOD'S SAKE I AM SO SICK OF THE SAWYER/KATE/JACK TRIANGLE. I never cared to begin with and it is so painful and old to watch now, I swear to God, Hamlet was more decisive. Just have Kate choose one or the other and lets get on with our respective lives.
   
   
5. Also, shut up, Jack. I used to enjoy him as a character because he seemed to have a lot of complex stuff going on: Daddy issues, abandonment issues, genius surgeon, etc. However, between the end of season two and now you've managed to make him so one note and cartoonish that I hate him. As someone else on some fan forum noted today, Jack's entire character can be summed up by the following: I'm a DOCTOR. Fuck you.
   
   
6. Seeing Cindy and the kids could have been quite dramatic and cool had the promos not given it away. Again, way to go, promo people.
   
   
7. Your viewers are not stupid. We already knew The Others didn't live on the same island as the Hydra Station. We already knew Ben was in charge, no matter what. Stop being all anvilicious about the crap that was explained to us 4 episodes ago.
   
   
8. So they haven't made an appearance yet, but I know for a fact that the annoying twins Nikki and Palo have a flashback episode coming up. This had better be damn good to win me over. I understand having to introduce new characters and all, but the way you did it was so ham-handed and stupid. Not to mention, you made them completely obnoxious and unlikable. I do not have high hopes for that episode at all -- prove me wrong, please.
   
   
9. Same goes for the Locke episode I know is coming up.

For the love of Astro Bars, get it together. You were so smart and suspenseful the first two seasons. I have faith that you can back there again, but man. You are taking a bath in Season 3, guys. Get your heads in the game. I promise I'll stick with you until at least the end of the season. You have until May to prove yourselves worthy of Season 4 with me.

Sheesh,

8K

Come and see all the talent!

Once again proving that all the talent genes were sucked up by other people in my family, I have some announcements:

My amazing talented punk of a brother currently has some of his paintings on display at Twenty Two Gallery Cafe as part of their Neighborhood Group Show. The paintings will be on display until March 8. Any proceeds from the sales will go to fund Inis Nua Theatre Company.

Twenty Two Gallery Cafe
236 South 22nd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Open 7:30am-5:30pm everyday

My amazing talented awesome cousin is playing several local gigs in the month of March. Most notably, Sean's trio of traditional Irish musicians has been invited to play three segments at Longwood Garden's Flower Show on Saturday, March 10th. They also have also been invited to play at the St. Patrick's Day Celebrations at Kildare's Pub in KOP from 1-4 on Saturday, March 17th. You're all coming. Because I said so. I mean, it's a SATURDAY. SAINT PATRICK'S DAY. Do you know how rare and wonderful those are? Come and celebrate with me!

Prep Work

I currently have in my possession the following:

• An assortment of chick-flicky movies, including this one which involves Hugh Laurie DANCING THE SAMBA throughout. Need I tell you that this is going to be the best movie EVER?
  
  
• Half a dozen trashy magazines including, Cosmo, US Weekly, People, Lucky, And some prom dress mag that Renee I will no doubt spend an hour going through and critizing the ass-ugly gowns.
  
  
• 3 bottles of discontinued nail polish that I bought on sale
  
  
• Face masks
  
  
• Chocolate

Still to procure: Box of wine and any other booze we want, Chinese Food. Renee is bringing darling Rhett with her, so that is taken care of. Are you a single woman with nothing exciting to do this evening? Well, come on down. It's going to be a good night.

Baby it's cold outside: How to waste a day

Wake up at 7:00 a.m. to the snow/ice combination beating against your window. Haul yourself out of bed, go to the window and peer out of the blinds. Reflect that you can't even see road, slush, or tire tracks outside on the street. Sigh heavily. Mentally curse your office for not closing unless there's a state of emergency. Mentally curse/praise yourself for living within 10 minutes of the office since this gives you no excuse/short distance to travel in bad weather. Shower. Get dressed in slightly Valentiney cute outfit with modified warming layers. Look outside the window and sigh. Curse not being able to work from home since IT guy still has your laptop and all you have is a crappy PC laptop with no useful programs on it. Listen to TV news about weather report/traffic conditions. Bundle up in coat, scarf, gloves, and Danger Mouse hat. Pass EMT roommate coming in from last night's shift telling you "It's damn nasty out there." Briefly bitch to him the retarded nature of an office that doesn't close in weather like this. Go outside. Slide down the walk, face being pelted with stinging ice the whole time. Watch a comically tiny red car come shooting down the road and nearly curb it self by the funeral home. Right. Go back inside. Call boss. Tell her voice mail, "It's really horrid outside. I'm going to be a bit late seeing as I still have to dig my car out and all. The streets don't even seem to be plowed. I'll be in closer to 9, 9:15. I'm taking my sweet time getting there." Take off coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. Make a bracing cup of piping hot chocolate. Drink hot chocolate. Put coat, scarf, hat, and gloves on again. Go outside. Dig car out. Manage to vrooooom car out from pile of snow ice mixture and onto the "street" portion of the road. Glide like Super Mario on the Iced Land levels. Attempt a turn and fishtail like a champ. Continue glide. Realize that you are reaching a Stop sign in a moment. Optimistically try to apply the brakes. End up "stopping" somewhere in the middle of the damn intersection. Reflect that you're very glad that so little people are on the roads since every other office on the planet is smart enough to close. Ponder The Hill. Realise that you don't want to do the The Hill. Realize that this may make you a pussy. Fuck it. Coast around the block. Repark car. Call your boss. Tell her voice mail "Change of plans. I'm taking a personal day. Because I just slid my car around the block and: No. Not doing The Hill. If there's a publication emergency, give me a call. If it clears up later I might come in." Go inside house and make another cup of hot chocolate. Feel slightly guilty, especially knowing your boss has to come all the way from Pottstown. Roommate congratulates you for taking the day off. "Because you never call out." This is true. Feel slightly better. Eat pancakes. Dial into the office email system to make sure every thing is under control, publication-wise. Roommate scolds you for work obsessiveness. Shrug it off. EMT roommate reminds you that street is emergency snow route and that you need to move your car. Dig out your car again. Park it around the corner. Come inside and vow that is the last time you'll go out. Sit under blanket with Dill curled next to you and a marathon of Project Runway on TV. Work on writing piece. Receive phone call from boss. Slight publication emergency: Boss needs to find reprints you sent out on Monday. Thank God that your desktop is neat and organized and you can tell your boss over the phone exactly where to find everything. Hang up phone and feel guilty, again. Dial into office email. Eat soup. Watch BBC America On Demand. Ponder moving to UK because men there are hot, have accents, and seem to know how to get it on better then American men. Make this as part of your year TO DO list: Go to UK, meet dashing young bloke, and get it on. Doze. Realize that roads have finally been salted and seem drivable. Mention to roommate that you're thinking of going into the office now that things seem more manageable. She give you a LOOK that clearly says, "Give it up you insane person, why would you want to go into this office this late in the day?" Decide to just screw it and stay home all day being lazy. Blog about Valentine's Day. Email old friends. Play with cat. Work on writing piece. Spend evening polishing writing piece and watching Newsradio on DVD. Go to bed content (oh, OK and slightly guilty too, sue me. I hate calling out).

Happy Winter Storm, everyone.

What time is it? VALENTIMES!

Regardless of whether I have someone to spend the day with, all romantical and lovey or not, I love Valentine's day. Yes, I know it's a holiday that's been degraded and exploited by Hallmark and jewelry stores. But I still love the idea of having that one day where you throw all caution to the wind and express what's truly in your heart -- be it to someone you're in love with, someone you've been admiring from afar, or even just your dear friends. I received a Valentine from QK yesterday that said, "You are the sweetest friend. I love you. I simply needed you to know it." And that, people, is what it is all about. The past two single years of my life I've made it a point to tell the people I'm surrounded by that I love them. I usually bring a dozen roses to work and pass them out to my coworkers. I hand make Valentines for my friends. I bunker down with my girlies in the DEATH SHELTER. Last year I gave Kelly and Mike a goody bag filled with chocolates, sweetheart candies and ring pops. Because when it comes down to it, whether or not I have Mr. Right or even Mr. Right Now in my life, considering all the wonderful people I've been blessed to be surrounded by, I am very very lucky in love.

This year, however, I've been a bit distracted. I'm not going to lie -- part of that is because I am feeling a bit lonely. But more than that, I've just been busy -- I have a 15 page writing piece due tomorrow that is in desperate need of attention, I've been working on the monstrosity for over a week. And I'm more than a little stressed about work/money issues. Last night at about 9:30 I had an I-coulda-hada-V8 moment when I remembered that today is Valentine's day. Like, I knew it was this week and all, but it really snuck up on me. I forgot to buy roses. I didn't have a chance to make Valentines. And now that we're stranded in an Arctic storm, it hardly seems to matter. But I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Happy Valentine's day. I hope you are all fortunate to have loving caring people in your lives the same as I do.

Sexy Back

Things you should know:

• I have been cooking since 11:30am
  
• I have been drinking champagne since 6:30pm
  
• I am wearing a corset
  
• And a short skirt
  
• And boots
  
• I am damn hot
  
• I have been eating aphrodisiac food all night
  
• It has been working
  
• Sadly, there are no single men to take advantage of the fact that I am horny and tipsy

WHERE ARE YOU, SINGLE MEN? I AM PRACTICALLY A HOMING SIGNAL FOR YOU.

Um, Hi. Yes, I may be slightly tipsy. STOP JUDGING ME. I love you all...

You can never learn less, you can only learn more

Today I discovered a web zine that, simply put, is probably one of the most inspiring things I've looked at in a long time. Ladies and gentlemen: LAB.

First up, I love that cover. Second, what I enjoy about this zine (still in its "beta" form -- Christ, can you imagine what a non-beta issue will look like?) is that its very accessible in away that my other designery-inspiration zine fave, CANDY*, is not. Like, CANDY* is awesome and all, and amazing to look at, and I love it, but it also has a tendency to come across slightly snooty and cerebral. Like, we are all so creative and smart and making ART here, people. Which, yeah, fine. But LAB is much more along the lines of, yes we're artists and designers, creative and smart, but we're also having fun and you should too. And there seems to be this very conscious effort for LAB to be about learning in addition to inspiring. I've just read through two interviews and both of the interviewers make the point of asking questions along the lines of how did you do this/what to you use/what's your advice questioning instead of the tongue bath that CANDY* interviewers give to the designers they feature. I know it sounds like I'm bashing CANDY* a lot here, but I'm not. I love CANDY*, it's really fantastic. It's just on a different level than LAB, and I'm sort of enjoying the simplicity and level of LAB right now. So yes, check it out.

First loves and other sorrows

Taurus
Happy Valentine Daze, Taurus! During this lover's holiday, I encourage you to devote yourself full-time to acting like a person who's in love. Even if you're not currently in the throes of passion for a special someone, pretend you are. Everywhere you go, exude that charismatic blend of shell-shocked contentment and blissful turmoil that comes over you when you're infatuated. Let everyone you meet soak up the delicious wisdom you exude. Dispense free blessings and extra slack like a rich saint high on natural endorphins. (I assure you that this assignment is in perfect accord with the astrological omens.)

Astrological omens of what, exactly? Give it up -- what's in store? I've become quite the little psychic junkie lately. I'm about two steps away from throwing my Tarot cards at my own reflection in the bathroom mirror and then sliding down the wall sobbing, a la Lifetime television movies. It's proving that the present is just too boring to deal with right now (or blog about) and I'm ready for shit to happen already.

I was thinking about all this in relation to some interesting news I've received: My first love and high school sweetheart is expecting his first child. Which, you know, awesome! But also: weird.

He and I were quite dumb when we were together, in that retardedly naive way 17-year-olds are. We were convinced we were made for each other, sure that we would be together forever, and were quite needy of each other. Again, we were sort of dumb. But we believed it. We talked about living together, about being married, and having children. When we broke up, right after graduation, it devastated me. I got over it, of course, the way you get over your first love —— by stomping around the house in a funk listening to nonstop soggy romance tunes and bursting into tears whenever I saw mundane household items such as the sugar bowl because it reminded me of the one time we made cookies together. It was all very dramatic and high school. But obviously it was the right thing because it spun me off to college a single woman and eventually into a new relationship. A relationship that was better for me. A relationship that let me grow and change and not have it be about Forever but instead be more about Right Now.

And look at us now: polar opposites. He's married and expecting his first child and working as an organist and music director and I'm single and living here with roommates and a cat working in publishing. We are completely different people, both from who we were then and from each other. All's well that ends well.

Last night, however, I started to feel the bitterness creep in a bit. Everyone is mojo-ing along quite nicely and I'm feeling stalled once again. And as much as I know this hiatus is apart of the bigger picture and teaching me a lesson of, like, self appreciation and patience or something, it gets frustrating. I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to do next. Or if I'm supposed to do anything at all, even. All I do know is that I am tired of this chapter and ready for the next.

Voxxy Lady

So, remember last semester how I was doing that Photo fiction thing? Only I sort of sucked at it because two entries in I realized that trying to make up 4-5 fictional pieces a week was going to kill me so I abandoned it and used this blog for the class instead? Ok, maybe you don't exactly remember that part, but that's totally what happened. And I have every intention of going back and working on that photo fiction stuff again. When I have more time. And, uh, talent. Because it's a cool idea and I think it could make an interesting series if I ever get my ass in gear.

Anyhoodle, this semester I'm taking a Creative Nonfiction writing workshop. Which is very good for me because it will allow me to get over my damn self and start getting work Out There and whatnot. And I have no choice but to produce writing, or else I'll fail. So! On that note, I'm going to be posting stuff over at my Vox Blog available for critique and comments. Which, don't feel obligated, but if you want to, cool.

The first piece I've posted is an exercise we did to focus in on either character, setting or dialogue. Fair warning: Already I have an inkling that much of the writing I produce for this class may be Doc/cancer related as I try to get all of that nonsense out of my system.

Faces

I know you all are just dying to know about this. I'm sure you all spend sleepless nights staring at the ceiling, pounding your fists on your mattresses, thrashing about in desperate wonder.

TYPEFACES I HATE
Comic Sans (goes without saying)
Bodoni Poster Compressed
Rockwell
Chalkboard (for same reasons as Comic Sans)
Geneva (I have an irrational hate for this font, for reasons unknown)
Mistral
Lucida Handwriting
Brush Script MT
Sand (GOD, is this a terrible font. Dear Gerrie, A&E editor of the Loquitur circa 2001: Stop.)

TYPEFACES I LIKE RIGHT NOW
Baskerville
Bookman Old Style
Calisto MT
Cocaine Sans
Dali
Dear Joe
Georgia
Jonathan
Imprint MT Shadow
Kai
Kingthings Typwriter
Ogreima
Retro Rock Poster

TYPEFACES THAT I DON'T MIND BUT ARE IN DANGER OF PISSING ME OFF AS THEY ARE BEING OVER USED
Papyrus

Phew, I feel better getting all that off of my chest. And I'm sure you feel better knowing this and you're now able to go about your day. Carry on!

Fingers crossed!

As much as I am looking forward to VALENTINE'S DAY DEATH SHELTER '07 with Renee, featuring a box of wine, Clark Gable, ice cream, and perhaps too many pervy glances at this picture (shut up), I can't help but be hopeful of this:

Taurus
Even if you can't travel, Valentine's Day should be divinely romantic. With the moon in lovely-for-you Capricorn, and your ruling planet Venus ready to plant a big fat kiss on Mars, you'll be dripping with magnetism and charm. If you don't get a Valentine's Day card by email or snail mail, it won't be because someone didn't want to send one. Rather, it will probably be because one certain person was too shy to send a card. Next month you may find out the identity of that person, so keep your eyes open. For now, just know you are loved and admired - a lovely state to be in!

Sue Miller, I've doubted you before. For that I would like to apologize. I am now closing my eyes and wishing that you are right. Because as Miss J and Miss T can testify, after many giggly school-girl whispered conversations in their cubes, It Is Time.