Awkwardly Social

So, and I hesitate to tell you this because it’s really lame, Allie and I went and saw the Notebook last night. I now have a new boyfriend, don’t try and claim him as yours, Ryan Gosling is all mine. Um, yeah, I cried a lot in that movie. It was pretty embarrassing. Even more embarrassing was Allie and I talking about how we thought we were listening to the optical track the first 5 minutes of the film. Film school really ruins you.

The twenty teen aged girls in front of us all had their cell phones on, and answered them during the movie. And then talked to their friends about how they were embarrassed about getting phone calls during the movie. Here’s a thought ladies, think about how when ol’ Allie and I were teens, we had to wait to get home to talk to our friends or wonder if anyone called. No, we didn’t have caller ID and *69, and some of us didn’t have answering machines. At least answering machines that worked. Yeah. Imagine that Miss Pink Skirt and Matching hat. I didn’t even have a mall to hang out at, just a convenience store and my senior year, Denny’s. So, next time Miss Oh My God, shut the fuck up during my very romantic and heart breaking movie. I want to sniffle in peace.

I saw Farenheit 9/11 last night. There isn’t really anything to say that hasn’t already been said abou this film. I am a huge fan of Michael Moore, and I think he is an incredible filmmaker. The use of footage, the voice over, the skill with which he draws conclusions, seriously… this man is amazing. During the scenes where he tries to talk to Congressmen about enlisting their children in the Armed Services, I was thinking, “How the fuck does this man have the balls?” He just does. He has no sense of worry about what elected officials might think. It is to be admired and commended.

On an entirely different note, this director, Efram Potelle, lives in my neighborhood. The first time I saw him, I thought, hey, that guy looks familiar he must go to USC. I almost went, “Hey! Are you in 508?” No. He was on tv, with my boyfriend Chris Moore. That’s why I recognized him. Today, I was rushing out of the house to get to work and nearly ran into him. Why can’t someone like Michael Moore or Alfonso Cuaron live on my block? Why?

After watching the movie (poor Elliot had to sit next to the smelly guy…I feel her pain) we were talking about who should see this movie. The audience we watched it with was your classic case of ‘preaching to the choir’. I would love my dad to watch it. My dad and I get into heated and sometimes profanity strung political ‘conversations’ . I kind of know already what my dad is going to say. I read the links from Gen X Misanthrope’s post and I had heard some of these arguments already. Michael Moore has a way about him that some find very offensive. He presents a position, uses facts that support his position, makes connections (some people find the connections weak, others find them obvious, still others aren’t sure what the fuck he’s talking about) and he does it within the framework of documentary filmmaking. People find this deceptive. I find it commendable. If the right disagrees they should respond with a film of their own. It is truly the best way to reach a large group of people. I would say to the right, “Find someone good, this is going to be a tough one to top. ” Michael Moore has an incredible grasp on hitting all the beats. From making people chuckle at our President’s vacation time, to making people cry when we watch a heart broken mother deal with an unsympathetic woman on the street, to making people look away from the carnage of both the Iraqi people and our own soldiers. In any case, a film that can open such a heated debate is a film worth watching. If Michael Moore profits, more power to him. I’m pretty sure he’s not rubbing his palms together thinking, I get to buy a Hummer and maybe even a yacht and the fuel to power both. Making movies is business. Sometimes you make art, sometimes you make profit, rarely do you make both.

Job tasks for today (include but are not limited to): label tapes with P-Touch. Answer phones. Decipher boss’s handwriting and give boss phone number he forgot to bring with him. Discover that boss has a photographic memory kind of like mine. (He remembers exactly where something is on the page, just not exactly what it says…weird.) Look at computer. Try to find something remotely listenable on iTunes. Resort to listening to the first three chapters of Harry Potter book 4, over and over. My life is a joy.

So I was among the many Americans during the 80 something Olympics (or was it 90-something, whatever) who kind of hated Bryant Gumbel. He was all serious and pretentious and the spots on the athletes were kind of maudlin (he is a great athlete because his sister has cancer, his father is dead and his mother beat him). But watching “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” today made me kind of miss him announcing and sports punditing (I know, that’s not a word, blah, blah, blah). There is something familiar and soothing about his voice, probably because it reminds me of the days in Minneapolis in our 7 Corners apartment watching the Today Show and eating cinnamon and sugar toast. And Real Sports is a really great show. Every time I watch it I cry. Today they were talking about the Iraqi soccer team and how the team and coaches were tortured when they made mistakes or didn’t win, and now they’ve qualified for the Olympics and I was just a fountain of tears. So anyway, I guess I’m pretty excited about the Olympics, my favorite summer sports are always women’s gymnastics, track and field (how do they jump so high?) and diving, in that order. I love watching men’s swimming, but that’s mostly because the men all look so damn good in their speedos, shaking their legs and swinging their arms in strange rituals of warming up. Have a lazy Sunday!

For anyone (vegetarian) who intends to eat a frozen pepperoni pizza by picking off the pepperoni on top and feeding it to the pit bulls sitting at your feet, yeah… They chop up millions of pepperonis into tiny little pieces and put them into the sauce. I took a bite, “Hmm, this pizza sauce is really chunky. And salty. And, oh my god! It’s meaty.” Spitting out pizza onto the floor and watching your half chewed pizza be eaten by dogs is the new Zone diet. It won’t cure you of your addiction to carbs and cheese, but you won’t want to eat pizza ever again. The dogs happily ate the whole thing. Damn you Mamma Celeste!

I was cruising around the internet this morning and came across some websites that had a Republican bent. My blood began to boil. God how I hate the self-righteous. “I am so much better than you because I am a Republican, and Republicans are smarter and richer and prettier.” Yeah. Fuck you. You are ruining my perfect day with your talk of bombs and dead babies (they aren’t babies…).

I love you MTV. Quality programming. Endless re-runs. Hot VJs. Jacuzzi parties. Screaming teens. Usher. Oh the list goes on.

Is Pepperoni Pizza really that popular? I’m at the tiny, tiny grocery store (that totally reminds me of the grocery store in my home town, the one before Bashas’, what was the name of it, Tavia? Mom? Dad? You know, it smelled like rotting meat, and then after it closed down all the high schoolers would hang out in the parking lot…) and I’m looking for a frozen pizza. OK. A frozen cheese pizza. I’m looking and I’m looking (they have two freezer cases…) and I see three brands of pizza. Three brands of pizza and only one kind of pizza among them. Pepperoni. I have nothing against pepperoni. Nothing at all, except I can’t eat it. I don’t like pizza I can’t eat. I understand Frazier Park is a really small town. I understand the population of this really small town probably tends towards the meat eating persuasion (judging from their meat section…gross) but seriously only pepperoni? Don’t meat eaters like Supreme, and other kinds of meat pizza? I guess in Frazier Park they don’t. So. No pizza for me. Actually I bought a pepperoni pizza and I’m going to give the pepperonis to the dogs. Shhh, don’t tell the vegetarian police. I’ll be eating pizza touched by meat. Hmmm. That sounds vaguely dirty.

Yeah. I’m at the beach. We’re sitting on the porch watching the dophins swim around. The pelicans are dive bombing fish. And script work is being done. It’s, as my old friend Marth would say, “A good thing.”

The kids next door are smoking weed, and probably thinking, “What squares.”

I do not miss LA on days like this.

So I get to go to the beach today. The bu.

Sometimes your friends have nicer houses than you in better locations, and when those friends invite you to go there, you should go.