all the rage

On facebook you're supposed to post a note of 25 things about yourself and send it to 25 friends. I'm going to steal Amy's name for hers for mine : 25 blahs abut blah.

Anyway, no facebook at work so I'm posting it here first - I can copy it tonight if I still care.

1. I already have a secret blog where I've chronicled most of the feelings I've had, particularly angry, bad, or sad, for the last two years... I was self-indulgent already. So this note probably qualifies as self-indulgent-redundant - but, hey, I like the challenge- 25 things seems like a lot, and I'm going to try to keep it new.

2. Doing this reminds me of a childhood event that I'll never live down - to myself. To myself, I'll never live it down. In fourth grade, there was this thing that on Tuesdays all the girls would wear a (heinous) denim dress from the Gap over a bright yellow turtleneck (this was actually quite gorgeous - just kidding - it was also, obviously, hideous) also from the Gap. I didn't come up with this. But I made my mother take me to the Gap in Princeton on a Monday night like it was a total necessity that I do this just because the girls were ALL DOING IT and I didn't want to be left out. The next day all the girls in our class wore it but two: those two were like, 'Yea, we think this is stupid," and I immediately felt that I had done the Wrong thing - but there I was in a denim dress and yellow turtleneck. Yea, I'm still ashamed I was such a joiner. I tend to think that if I hadn't moved to New Jersey in second grade, awful things like being the kind of person that insists I need this dumb outfit from the Gap so everyone will like me wouldn't have happened. (This event just can never be fit into my personal myth where I am nothing like this!) But if I hadn't moved from New York, today I'd probably be some awful New York Type. Maybe in fourth grade I would have been snorting coke and shoplifting from Bergdorfs to fit in. That would be unequivocally cooler, but I also wouldn't know all y'all probably... I'd just know the Calvin Kleins... or something? What am I talking about? So... anyway, that said, no more apologizing for joining in and telling 23 more things.

3) I think the first half of "Fame" is the best movie ever made and the second half is the worst. I am totally amazed by this phenomenon. Irene Cara's breasts are basically your line of demarcation.... which side (best movie, worst movie) the exposure of her tits falls on is movable. What a phenomenon.

4) Put any amount of tabouleh in front of me and I will eat it all.

5) Some people love musical theater and some don't. If they don't, then they will not understand how it is that you can watch this movie, "Gypsy." I'm here to tell you it's pretty fun to suggest they watch it anyway, and look at their faces during "Have an Eggroll Mr. Goldstone." That'll really crack you up... if you love musicals (while understanding that most people don't.)

6) I miss my brothers and sisters. I'm way older than all of them, but I wish I could just hang out with them all the time. Some of them are mature, others immature - me, I just wish I could hang out with them all the time.

7) Teaching sixth grade social studies in that new school in Crown Heights was hard on me. Or, well, -- I won't mis-use the word "exhausted" again.

8) And four years later, or whatever this is, my job is actually excrutiatingly UN-demanding. It would be nice to find engaging work that isn't so much like being nailed to cross. ;)

9) I like it when people are brilliant and hilarious. Brilliant or hilarious alright too.

10) Oh here's one: I have a really hard time not liking any woman that I think is a knock-out. I basically like all celebrity women. I like talking about celebrities alright. It's decent fun. But I seem to like all celebrity women aside from Jennifer Love Hewitt. So, rarely a very dynamic conversation from my end. ("I like her." "Yeah. I like her.")

11) Then there's the actresses of great talent. These people I love. Edie Falco.

12) Pretty preoccupied with the battle of the sexes. It's in most of my writing.

13) My most bad-ass ability has been for getting into events/places where I don't belong/ haven't been invited. You can be this bad-ass too, but I don't want to tell you all of the secrets. Honestly, well here: the largest part of the secret is that you JUST GO IN. Another part of the secret is that people working such events really don't give a rats ass. Remember that. Even bouncers. They don't really care. Let this inform l'approche. No more information for you. This is my most bad ass thing!

14) I have conversations (in my head) with the advertising on the subway - sometimes kind of personal angry ones. For a while (while it was hanging in the subway -- a period of some months, about three years ago) I was probably spending 20 minutes a day annoyed at/ internally yelling at this advertisement for Interboro Community College; it went: "If I Can. You Can." Are you kidding? Later they changed it -- to a dash. A dash. "If I can - you can." That's still not right.

15) I'm also hung up on the proper use of "less" and "fewer". Even passing someone on the streeet saying, "Let's go somewhere with less people," I do not stand a chance of not thinking, "You mean fewer."

16) I'm a little concerned that this list is turning into the chronicles of an obnoxious woman. :)

17) Oh here's an easy one: The biggest obsession of my life is and has been The Sopranos. I'll never have my fill.

18) Not exactly on purpose there's a theme to my living room, and that theme is branches. I also have some underwear that goes with that theme and this is something I'm happy about.

19) On Neil LaBute: Fat Pig was pretty good - I read it yesteday. I usually don't like his plays because usually when he has an asshole character, that character is just an asshole. I am totally fascinated by assholes. I think it's a very rare asshole who is just an asshole. That is all. For now. On this topic.

20) Aaron said he felt like he could go on and on forever writing these. I am flagging. Maybe that's because Aaron has done things like collect the sleep from his eye in a jar. hahahaha

21) I show affection with teasing and some degree of meanness. I'll defend this to the end.

22) I'm officiating a wedding this Memorial Day weekend. What do you think of that?

23) I'm grossed out by quite a few things but perhaps most of all by drinking blood. Not like a vampire -- sucking it like a vampire is FINE AND SEXY - ever since True Blood I know for sure Vampires are damn sexy. I'm talking about just regualar drinking blood. That is so gross. Oh gross.

24) There was once a moth the size of a pigeon in my overhead light in my old studio. That was so scary my heart rate was all sped up until the morning. I was hysterical. I killed it by spraying it with Raid into a closet which I then did not open for a couple weeks. It can't have been good to inhale that much Raid. So far I'm alive to tell the tale.

25) Oh, sort of back to 13: I've worked in service and I can't stand to see people treat servers of any kind, people performing any kind of service, with condescension. Anyone who acts like that is a big horses' ass. Maybe what I mean is: I love talking to everybody. I love New York. Tip your cabbies.

XO
A


P.S. FOR BLOG READERS
BLOG THINGS
FRONT PAGE OF METRO DAILY NEWS TODAY
story 1: Queens is the best loved borough by its own residents!
story 2: A girl is suing the Hawaian Tropic Tropic Zone restaurant (where the servers wear bikinis) for saying she was too ghetto to work there. I hope she wins - I hope she wins on these obvious grounds: NO ONE is too ghetto for the Hawain Tropic Zone.