I was recently reading about a debate going on over whether or not it’s appropriate for moms to drink at playdates. According to the story, cocktail playdates are the latest trends I don’t think so. People coming up with excuses to get together and booze is as old as hooch itself. I say people, even though the articles and surrounding discussion are speaking strictly about women, more specifically, mommies. Dads are not mentioned, because I guess if dads are involved it’s not a playdate. Those are called backyard barbeques and no one is going to say it’s inappropriate to drink there.

But aren’t play dates, and trust me I’m really asking because I have no idea, just an excuse for mothers (God I wish I could just say parents, but apparently, from what I’ve read, it’s a “mommies” thing) to get together? I thought it was about the adults finding a way to socialize in a world where they spend so much time alone with their kids. Otherwise it would just be one kid going over to another kid’s house to play. Play dates didn’t exist when I was little. At least, I don’t think the word did. But it doesn’t matter because my mom would never pretend that her getting together with a friend was for the benefit of their kids so we could play. That is so ridiculous. See? That is where you get yourself into trouble. Because if you say it’s for the kids, then some people are going to get all up in arms when you bust out the libations. Just say you’re getting together with friends and your kids are there, and you’re drinking.

I don’t think anyone is talking about mothers (I say “parents”) who get together and get so drunk they pass out while their children are playing chicken over an open flame. I don’t believe anyone is advocating that. But what’s up with this whole moms as martyrs thing? Once you have a kid you have to give up anything that brings you personal enjoyment for the sake of your children? puh-lease. That is definitely an expectation that applies to women and not men. My mom worked her ASS off at the office and at home. And thank God she had a cocktail, because otherwise she may have just strangled me and cried instead of hanging out with me and being totally awesome.

Sticks need to be removed from asses on this one I think. Maybe the whole solution, I guess I’m saying, is just call it something else if that’s what is so offensive to people here. I really do think it’s just that if you call it “playdate” you’re expected not to drink. So just call it, “drinks.” Then, no one can complain because it’s all right out there in the name. Oh, right, people will still complain because people are whiney bitches. Well, those people could use a drink.

“It keeps me warm.”

Saw Red Dawn this weekend. Um, how can I call what I’ve been doing the last 27 years living, not having seen the best movie ever made? The Russians and Cubans take over Colorado in WW III, only to be foiled by a gang of scrappy teens, led by Patrick Swayze, who call themselves the Wolverines. I’m pretty much speechless, so I’m not sure if this post really has anywhere to go from here. But a couple of my favorite plot points…

I loved when the Sways and his little brother Charlie Sheen go visit their dad at the concentration camp. Yeah, they just go to have a little chat with him. It’s not like I’m calling the rest of the movie historically accurate or anything, but since when can you waltz up to a concentration camp and just start shootin’ the shit with the prisoners on the other side of the fence? Since Red Dawn, that’s since when. And it was all kinds of awesome as their dad starts yelling, “AVENGE ME! AVENGE ME!” as they are leaving. You don’t get that kind of entertainment anymore.

I also loved how near the end of the movie the Wolverines were riding horses. Did I miss something? Where did the horses come from? You know what, I don’t even care, maybe they were wild horses from the mountains of Colorodo (um, I think those are called the Rockies). I just wish they were riding them the whole movie.

In totally unrelated news, the Screen Actors Guild Awards were on last night. I had to tape them since I went out to dinner, but from what little I’ve seen of them so far they seem kind of boring. My only major comment at this point (and I’m sure there’s more to come) is that Patrick Dempsey’s hair seems to be taking on a life all its own. It’s one wave short of telling Patrick to kill. I fully expect to see it on the Presidential ballot in ‘08, and will probably be governing California within the year. In the words of Alec Baldwin, in ten years we’re all either going to be working for Patrick Dempsey’s hair or dead by its hand.

In case you didn’t notice it, this post really does have an overarching thread weaving (hair pun, yes) it all together. Patricks from the 80s. What, I didn’t say the thread had a point.

Conquering evil, balancing the budget without raises taxes, saving social security, No Child Left Behind (we get it, we’re not leaving them), medical liability reform (aka. stop suing doctors), secure that border, reduce dependency on foreign oil by diversifying our energy sources, aaaand terrorists. Didn’t take him long to get there. Why is he always on about the evil? Can’t he just call them terrorists? I know what they do is horrible, but it’s not as though they aren’t motivated by some political means, even if it does conflict with our own beliefs. Somehow evil seems to be taking it a bit far. But whatever, clappy, clap, clappy.

Speaking of evil, Condi Rice can give some god awful dirty looks. I’d say, evil, almost.

The best part of the evening was when the news informed me that Nancy Pelosi was wearing a “lovely shade of sea green.” Puke!! Why does it matter what color she is wearing? Oh right, because she’s a chick. Silly me. Although, she did forget her pearls tonight. But it’s cool, Hills wore hers. Phew. Wouldn’t want them to be unlady-like. Bush, as always, you and your cobalt tie, pretty much are saying nothing.

Also, I hope someone else noticed this. Dick Cheney did not blink once, while Pelos was like a freaking flashing yellow light. Open, close, open, close. I think she has a nervous tick. Cheney’s beady eyes are just blankly staring into space. He’s totally bored! He’s probably thinking, “Why did I let them talk me into this horrible gigantoid 70s looking tie? Oh well, no one will notice because I’m sure they’re all talking about Nance’s little sea green number over there.” Ack.

Okay now Bush is saying that the most important thing in America right now is victory in Iraq, because it will end terrorism. Um, how? Wait, Dikembe Mutombo, Baby Einstein, guy who jumped on subway tracks…how is this the state of our Union? Ugh, I’m too tired for anymore of this, I’m going home. But I’m filled with hope and opportunity as I do so…I guess.

As Meg and I headed out to Jersey this weekend to brave Ikea, I really started to question whether I will ever genuinely want a kid. I mean it’s likely that sometime in my 30s I’m going to get bored and panic and have a kid because, I don’t know, I’m supposed to, but am I really going to want it?

Seeing the display of youngins at the Swedish furniture mecca made me realize the only age I’d even really want a kid is when they are grown up, and then just so I can have somebody else to hang out with. As teenagers they are the purest and most potent form of evil known to humankind. As babies they poop and you have to wipe it up. Why would I want that? No really, why? As toddlers they look pretty cute I’ll admit, but they start crying ALL THE TIME. And you can’t be mean to them. Lame. As little kids they start getting kind of creepy and weird and stupid. Take for example this 8-year-old looking girl in front of us at the checkout at Ikea. She was with her father, who appeared to be purchasing some kind of bed linens. When he set them down on the conveyor belt she pretty much climbed on with them so she could throw her arm in between his stuff and the stuff of the person in front of him. Kind of giving the lady in front of them this dirty look like, “Bitch, these my dad’s.” The only other conveyor belt antics I’ve seen that could be considered more animated than these were the ones of the crazy old lady in front of me in line at the grocery store once who started picking up my groceries and throwing them as hard as she could back into the grocery store, screaming, “She’s trying to trick me into paying for her stuff!!!!”

And just as I lost my train of thought there with that little tangent, so did this little girl at Ikea with her conveyor belt watchdoggieness. She quickly became distracted by the little box where you are supposed to return your Ikea pencils after using them to mark down all the useless pieces of plastic you want to buy. Maybe she was confused by the concept of returning the pencils to the store when you are done with them, because she just quietly grabbed one while her dad wasn’t looking and slipped it into her pocket. But I think she was just a creepy little klepto who has no morals because she’s a dumb kid. I literally wanted to pull her hair and be like, “Put it back, you are annoying.” Why would I have that impulse? I have the maternal instincts of Andrea Yates. Please don’t leave me alone with your kids within ten feet of running water. You’ve been warned.

And as I looked around, becoming increasingly more claustrophobic and trapped in that long line, all I could see were screaming, crying, snot-laden children. And I just thought to myself… Never. Never ever.  

Ikea isn’t really the place to be making broad social stereotypes perhaps, as everyone there is about ready to lose their shit. Ikea doesn’t even shed a positive light on a Swedish meatball. But maybe that makes it the perfect place to make such assumptions, because at this point people have pretty much abandoned all social graces - they’ve stopped holding it in for politeness sake - and we’re getting a glimpse at their bare souls. I know mine certainly was when I tripped some kid for getting in my way in the vase section. It’s cool though, the shattered glass broke his fall.    

I actually heard one mother on the verge of a meltdown say, as she grabbed her screaming kid firmly by the shoulders, “I can’t THINK when you do that!!!” And I just thought, why would I ever do that to myself?

However, this is Ikea, hell on earth, so mostly I was just jealous that it was socially acceptable for them to scream and cry, and not for myself, seeing as that was all I wanted to do as I waited paitiently for them to bring out my uber ektord chair or whatever the hell it was called. It was definitely uber huge, my bruised elbow can attest to that. Apparently both the chair and my arm do not both fit in the backseat of my car. And I’ll leave you there, totally off topic and with a general feeling of, “pluh.” You’re welcome.

I have a bit of a problem with Jeremy Piven’s recent transformation (both onscreen and OFF!) from lovable galoot to macho sex stud. Before Entourage, which, as a disclaimer, I don’t watch, I really can’t remember the Piv playing roles in which he was anything close to a smooth operator, and even more so I never saw him on the pages of the glossies, clubbing and being all ladies man and sex god and what not. I’m grossing myself out just writing about it. It’s Jeremy Piven! The same Jeremy Piven who played the loser best friend in The Family Man, the goofy side-kick obituary writer in Serendipity, and the jackass, butt of all jokes Dean Pritchard in Old School.

Um, what happened? Do we have a true case of life imitating art here? Let me just first say that I have nothing against this guy advancing his career and what not and getting better roles that will put him into the leading man spotlight. My problem lies with this scenario somehow making him more studly and sexy bachelor-typey in real life. I mean, does anyone else remember when his forehead was slightly bigger than it is now? I feel like he got some hair, shaved and put on an expensive suit with a purple shirt for a TV role and somehow transformed that image to his personal life. I’m not buying it man!

And doesn’t he play a talent agent on that show Entourage? Since when are those the machismo types? Granted I’m basing my assumptions on Stephen Merchant’s portrayal of a dim-witted agent who gets his kicks by typing “boobs” on a calculator in Extras. Still, I don’t think playing a talent agent on TV, no matter how smooth or macho, qualifies you to be those things in real life. Yes, I may be unfairly ripping into Jeremy Piven, but the guy was on freaking Ellen for like three years. Come on, don’t make me watch him make out with models in Us Weekly. For the love of Piven, just don’t. And I hate to bring up one final, glaring point. He’s not actually sexy. I mean, not even a little bit. Cute, maybe. Endearing, perhaps. Sexy, never.

Ugh, now I feel bad. Say something nice, say something nice… next to John Cusack in Serendipity he was the not annoying one.

UPDATE: I just saw he’s hosting SNL this weekend. That’s kind of a weird coincidence. But it only proves my point even more. His hair has highlights. mkay?

Tis the season of thanking God, rocking ascots and the absolute self-aggrandizing circus filled with diamonds and teary-eyed speeches. That’s right my friends, it’s awards show season. I live for this shit. The Golden Globes are on tonight, kicking off a two-month-long Meryl Streep fest. And I’ll try to be there, rotting my brain, for every one.

I take a lot of grief for my addiction to these piles of chiffon and crap. One of my sister’s friends once called me pathetic for saying I enjoyed them. Now that I think about it though, that guy was just a dick.

But what’s wrong with wanting to see all the pretty people and how stupid they are? I like rooting for my favorites and then cringing when they get up there and say something really embarrassing. What’s not to like, really? One might argue that if you’ve seen Renee Zellweger squinch up her eyes and screech on about how awesome she is once, you’ve seen it a million times. Ah, perhaps, but do Salma Hayek’s knockers ever get old? It’s pretty much just a real live trashy magazine, and I love those. Like they say on the show, rarely are there so many MEGASTARS in one room at the same time. Megastars people. MEGA. STARS. Like, Leo will be there.

And with these shows, most people don’t tune in just for the commercials. So there.

I have an extremely love/hate relationship with scary movies. Like, when it’s a good one, I just can’t stay away, and then spend the next month not sleeping and clutching the covers to my chin because I can’t learn my lesson. And for me, it doesn’t take much of a fright to keep me looking over my shoulder while I brush my teeth for weeks to come. I mean, Signs kept me up for most of August, 2002, and that movie was rated PG-13. M. Night Shaymamamlaymaylan (sp?) owes me, um, tens of dollars for all the caffeine it took to keep me awake at work that month.

Not to mention I have pretty bad nightmares. Actually, they’re really bad. We’re talking mind of a serial killer type stuff here. At times I’m scared to go back to sleep because I don’t want to find out what else is in my head. I should make some horror movies out of my dreams, maybe then at least I could make that caffeine money back.

Point is, I should know better by now not to watch scary movies. I wouldn’t call myself a ’scared’ person. I’m totally fine being by myself, I don’t freak out on the subway late at night or walking home in the dark. Yet somehow scary movies just stay with me. Well, revise that, scary movies that I like stay with me. I mean, they really stay with me. The day after a scary movie I often consider taking a bath rather than a shower because I don’t want to have to worry about what’s on the other side of the curtain. Yes, I’m 27, not 8, in case this post was mis-leading as to my age.

But still, I have yet to learn. The last one that really got me was The Hills Have Eyes (the remake). Oddly enough, while I was watching the movie I wasn’t scared at all. I actually remember laughing and mocking the film. But once that effer was over, I kept sensing that damn lizard guy over my shoulder. Even now I just turned around at my desk because I’m freaking myself out thinking about it.

That does not hold a candle to last night’s doozy though. At 11 p.m. we decide it’s a good time to turn on The Descent. I have no one to blame. I’m the one who put it on our Netflix queue, thinking, this time I can handle it. Um, I apparently cannot handle it. I loved the movie, but it scared the crap out of me. Must be something with me and aliens or deformed humanoid types. Give me the creeps. I’m glad I sat through it, even though I didn’t sleep last night and probably won’t in the coming days. I think it was worth the price I’m paying now. Oh wait, no, that’s just me hallucinating from lack of sleep. NO MORE SCARY MOVIES!

I even MADE Justin put on Full House when it was over, which he watches every night now and drives me crazy, just to get the vision of someone being killed by having fingers jammed into their eye sockets out of my head. As I was trying to sleep I just kept telling myself, have mercy, jesse katsopolis, have mercy, jesse katsopolis. And it’s true, for all its faults Full House really can keep the monsters at bay. Maybe not the fashion police (oh, zing!), but the monsters. Like Justin put it when I asked him why he actually enjoyed watching that show, “Because nothing bad ever happens.” Well put. Maybe I should start spending more time watching bad 80s/90s sitcoms and less time curled up in the fetal position crying, “I can’t watch!” as another one bites the dust.

I met my friend Priya for lunch the other day and she was telling me that she had downloaded some pictures from her camera and found a few old ones of us from a long time ago. She must have been hoarding them for a hot minute (please let me be cool and say stuff like that!) because the most recent picture of us on there was over two years old.

Of course I made her send them to me, and I totally regret the decision. I’m of the mind at this point that I (and perhaps everyone, not sure on that, but I’ll only speak for myself) should NEVER go back and look at myself from different periods of my life. It’s a lose lose, and here’s why. If I looked better then than I do now, I’m totally bummed for letting myself go or not keeping up whatever appearance was working for me. If I look better now than I did then, I’m pissed at myself for looking like such a jackass and not pulling it together.

Of course every picture is different and I’m sure a good picture from one period may always outlook a bad picture from another, and vice versa, but allow me to generalize if I may. I don’t need to see myself getting older like that, and hyperventilate when I’m struck so harshly with the reality that my life is flying by and I’m looking at a picture of myself in a time I will never get back and why did I go out with my forehead so shiny!!! Breeeeathe, breeeathe!

So this picture she sends me of myself from two years ago kind of blows my mind. In some ways I look much better. I had the tan of a carcinoma queen. I was well on my way to looking like a handbag, but it was hot. Now, I can’t remember the last time I had a tan line. I mean, my bright peach shirt in this picture pretty much blends in with my skin. Also, I was skinny. I won’t even get into the chunk factor of getting older, because I’m really good at totally ignoring it. But this picture was an unwelcome reminder.

However, this picture really was a mixed bag. My forehead looks like a freaking runway, a nice shiny slick one after a rain shower because I apparently didn’t feel the need for any powder. How about, never a good idea, even if you are tan and it’s the summer and you are feeling all free and au naturale. never. a. good. idea. Are you gagging yet at the detail in which I’m describing my greasy face? No, then let us proceed, shall we?

I have eye bags (I remember it was right around the time I was working crazy hours at the republican convention in New York) and while my hair looks healthy and shiny, why must it be plastered to my head like that? If I wasn’t sold on the bangs idea yet, this just sealed it for me. Making an appointment tomorrow.

I don’t know, I don’t think I even have a point with this one, just that it’s hard to see yourself in a time that has passed, in a picture that you’ve never laid eyes on before, so you’re really getting a fresh look at who you were then. And how you’ll never be able to look at yourself like that in the present, because that’s when you’re living it, and only by looking back can I truly remember where I was then, who I was then, what I was feeling, and why I made the makeup choices I did. Sometimes I want desperately to go back there and be the tan, skinny girl I was then. But then I think, I never want to go back, I’m here for a reason, and I’ll be somewhere totally different in another few years. I like that I’m always changing and growing up. I just hope I can always look back and think, yeah, I was okay then.

And just so you can indulge in my pain, I’ll post that picture of me then, and some of now. Maybe you can get a little better picture of what I mean.

Me. Summer. 2004.

me now. 2007.

I know, I know! I’m not supposed to write about work. And trust me, 98 percent of the ridiculous, blog-worthy stories that happen to me are here. So believe me when I say that I am resisiting. … However, I have to just mention one thing. Tee hee, famous last words, right?

Tonight as I was sitting at my desk one of my co-workers comes in, plops down at one of the other desks in the room, and turns on the TV (every desk has its own TV). Now, there is a giant black filing cabinet between us, so once he’s sitting I can’t see him. But oh how I can hear him.

As I can’t see what he’s watching, I have to assume it was some kind of “Cops”-type drama. It was basically the sound of sirens and a narrator’s voice the entire HOUR he had it on. But very faintly over the sounds of the show, I can start to hear him giggle every couple minutes, and then start to just barely audibly make comments, as though he is talking to the TV show, or the characters, I’m not sure. Little things like, “Are you stupid?” or “Don’t do that now.”

As annoying and creepy as that would normally be to me, I was totally entertained because he sounded EXACTLY like Herbert from Family Guy, lisp and all. Herbert is the old guy with a walker who has a crush on Chris, and whose dog Jessie drags himself on his two front legs. I’m really starting to think this guy I work with does his voice, because his little talking to himself session was spot. on. And since Herbert’s voice amuses me to no end, all high-pitched, lispy and old, like it were, I was offered some light entertainment as I worked at my desk tonight.

Still, if he ever comes in here and does that again, he’s going to find himself under a tipped file cabinet.

I live above a bridal shop. Wow, it never seemed that weird until I just said it. It’s called Bridal Boutique and they have all these crazy poof dresses in there and TONS of creepy manequins in the windows. I’m not sure if their business is slow, but they tend to have a lot of sales. And let me tell you, they have hands down the scariest advertising I’ve ever seen.

Whenever they have a sale it’s always on the weekend. So here’s what they do. They load up a couple of the manequins in wedding dresses into the back of a big pickup truck. They afix them so that they are standing upright. Then they hang a sign on the side of the truck telling about the sale and all the juicy details that apparently all the customers this freak show will attract will want to know. Then they drive that thing around the neighborhood. It’s freaking weird. But I haven’t gotten to the scary part yet.

We live on the second floor. Are you coming with me on this?

So every few Saturdays I get to wake up and roll over to look out my window and see a giant mannequin bride staring at me through my window. And she’s watching me, living in sin, and she’s judging me. By the time I’m screaming, “Don’t Judge me slut!” back at her, Justin is up, pulling me back to bed to hold me, telling me, “it’s okay, crazy. it’s okay.” Ah, sometimes I look forward to scary bridal boutique sale saturdays.