It is my goal in life to be as cool as this man:

Seriously. Look at that mustache! That hat! the way his collar folds down so precisely over his debonair little bow tie! Never in my life have I ever looked this cool, even in my attempts at drawing on moustaches with eyeliner on Drag Ball. In my future sartorial attempts I will attempt to fashion myself after Hercule Poirot. Maybe without the mustache.

I just got done watching Death on the Nile with my godsister, who is about to move to Austin. Sad, sad clown. She is finishing up her thesis for her master's, in international community development (or something). She's going to be working at a costume shop in Austin, which is somehow quite fitting, since she's always been putting together her own clothes and remaking things. We are going to get together for an evening of Highlander tomorrow evening. I am quite excited about that.

I've also joined a book club- Eva D at the theater mentioned it at the cast dinner for Present Laughter, and the first meeting is on Wednesday. I guess technically the first meeting was last week, but nobody read the book. This week the book is The Geography of Bliss, so I've got to go get my hands on it. In the meantime I've got the newest of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series, some wonderfully terrible vampire romance novels set in Louisiana. They're fabulous, and full of awesome vampire / human love triangles. Sookie Stackhouse is, herself, a psychic barmaid, admired by not one but TWO powerful vampires! She's got to fight the evil forces of the undead AND the vampire and human bureaucracies that conspire against her! It's seriously one of the most entertaining series of books I've gotten involved in in a long time.

Nothing new on the job front. No news from Exxon-Mobil, but it is the weekend so I might have to wait a bit. No news from Borders- but they did say that they'd be making calls this week. I've decided to apply for a Fullbright- Claire is going to help, because apparently her dad used to do a lot with the Fullbright people. I want to go back to China, hopefully Beijing.

I've also put in an application for a personal trainer at the Y. There's a request form! Not like the old days, when you'd just walk up to the desk and whoever was available would put you through your paces. Under "Reasons for wanting a personal trainer" I wrote "Weight loss- 50+ lbs." In all seriousness it's more like 75 lbs. Actually, probably 85. I want to be 150. God, I've let myself go. Still! There's no time like the present, and once I break some of my nastier habits I should be OK. Claire & I are going to start at Weight Watchers, and it'll be nice to have someone my age to do it with. Lord love her, but it's hard to deal with my mom. She has this disapproving look- this "Are you going to eat that? Really?" look that just drives me up the wall and makes me want to go consume my weight in lard. Well, maybe not lard, per se. Just the 99c tacos at Jack in the Box. SO GOOD.

The genius of Katt Williams.

He was at the Toyota Center tonight but we couldn't get tickets, so this will have to tide me over until the new stuff comes out on DVD:

Seriously, people.

When you've got four kids in tow, please make an effort to show up ON TIME for the show you've purchased tickets for. We're very glad that you are introducing little Timmy, Tanya, Tiffany, and Thomas to the theater at such a young age- but could you perhaps make an effort to get them here on time so we don't have to disturb everyone who COULD get here on time to get your ass in some seats?

Also, I know you think that little Thomas is "mature" for two, but let's face it. HE IS TWO. Child can barely walk on his own, much less sit through an hour-long piece of live theater. Three and up means three and up. And we can tell when you're lying.

And no. There are no bathroom breaks. EVER.

I love working at the theater, most of the time, but dealing with the children's theater is ridiculous- a bunch of self-absorbed yuppie parents that just can't handle their children. When I tell your kid to stop running around the lobby, don't then tell that kid to stop running. Clearly if you were concerned, you wouldn't have waited for a stranger to do your parenting for you.

I know you can be overwhelmed, and I know you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?

So, I'm a college graduate. Instead of instantly finding fame, fortune, or at least a passable job, I've been crashing with my parents and doing some serious navel-gazing. This last part hasn't been too difficult, since I've gained a full forty pounds since I started college and now have what my friend affectionately calls a "Food Fetus," a gut the likes of which Larry the Cable Guy would examine with boozy jealousy. Seriously. Freshman year I was a hottie. My physical deformities notwithstanding, I seriously haven't been this directionless in my entire life. When you're in college you know what to do- the steps are clear, the options are elucidated and you know what path a choice will take you down. Now it's the "real world" and all the shit that I've talked about doing is a possibility- but the only one who can make it happen is me, and I'm not exactly kicking my ass about getting it done.

So since I've been home I've gotten myself about eighty percent unpacked- there are still two boxes of books out in the garage, and those have to wait to move in until we resolve the bookshelf situation in my room. The situation being, there aren't any. Or rather, there isn't space on the bookshelves that are in here for my many copies of the complete works of Dorothy L. Sayers and the ouevre of Nora Roberts. My room is a strange hybrid of me when I was 14 and my mom's stuff, with my computer on my grandmother's desk and my cardboard standup of Legolas standing in front of my mom's collection of back issues of Food and Wine. I haven't done anything to this room since I was 16. I still had a Hanson poster up in my closet, for crying out loud.

I feel wierdly stagnated. I feel, in the words of the fabulous Daisy Steiner, like "there's something I've gotta be, I just don't know what it is! I'm like a rabbit, trapped in the headlights of the twenty-first century!" Well, not quite, but mostly. I want write but every time I sit down to actually do some writing it's like I have a mental block that prevents me from putting anything down on the page. I'm living with my parents, which is awkward and horrible because I feel like they're watching me, all the time, looking to see if I'm horribly depressed or sad or whatever. My mom thinks I'm a mess, and I probably look a mess to her but I'm mostly a mess because she won't stop insinuating that I'm an alcoholic.

Yeah, it's an awesome time here in my house... on the whole, it could be so much worse. It's not so bad living here- it's free, and they've stopped freaking out (mostly) if I come in late, and after I yelled at my mom she has stopped mentioning outright that I need to lose weight. (Small victories, people. Small victories.) Tomorrow I'm house managing, which will get me a little bit o' cash, and I hear back next week about the gigs at Exxon-Mobil and at Borders, both of which will also get me cash money. I'm going to apply for a fulbright, which my friend Claire has promised to help me with. It's nice to have goals. Maybe now I can get those last two boxes unpacked.

Easter & Placebo.

I spent most of today with my friend Niki's family- she of the forcing me to watch The Other Boleyn Girl- and at this moment am on my couch in my apartment, filled to the brim with sweet potato pie and biscuits, listening to Placebo's album Meds and most emphatically not writing my research proposal for my foucault seminar.

Easter in my family was always a big deal in that it wasn't made into a big deal. When we were all younger the family gatherings on this day always included an easter egg hunt, my cousins and my sister and I running around whichever backyard the festivities were held in looking for plastic eggs filled with chocolate. We haven't had an easter egg hunt in forever, pretty much since my cousins got to high school- with only two younger kids, it would be a pretty lame hunt. The hunt always followed the big Easter meal, which always followed a service at church in which the Alleluia banner got dug up and we all sang "Up From The Grave He Rose." The monday after Easter my friends would usually compete to see who got a larger chocolate bunny in their basket. It wasn't until I got to college that I found someone who actually got gifts for Easter-- Jesus is risen, have an iPod.

When I was about eight I asked my mom why we didn't get Easter baskets. All my friends got them; I had very dim memories of being in our old house when I was about three, getting a small chocolate rabbit on Easter morning. Mom replied that "They've taken Christmas- I won't let them have Easter, too."

I didn't really understand her meaning when I was eight. I was more pissed about the fact that I didn't get chocolate when EVERYONE ELSE I KNEW was put into a semi-diabetic coma from overconsumption of Peeps while I was praying and chasing my cousins around the yard. I understand it now, though, and understood it even more when I was in line at starbucks and saw a little book next to the register. I forget the title, but it was some kind of children's book and the tagline was "Finding our Easter friends!" Kind of a Where's Waldo*, but for bunnies. Or something.

They have, for all intents and purposes, taken Easter. It's been coopted as another excuse to sell candy and Hallmark cards, just like Christmas. This is nothing new, of course, and I shouldn't be surprised. It does make me sad, however. Today, eating ham around Niki's dining room table, I was reminded of those Easters with my family back home. Easter is about Jesus and family; having woken up too late for the one, I'm glad I got to experience the other, even if I'm far from home.

*Speaking of Where's Waldo, the people who brought you "There Will Be Bud" bring you this magical gem:

The Other Boleyn Girl

Last night I got a call from my friend Niki: "We're going to see The Other Boleyn Girl. Get your shit." Having not only no choice in the matter but nothing else to do with my Friday evening, I duly got my shit and drove to the Hampshire Mall to see Eric "HotBody" Bana make out with Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson.

Um, I mean, see an exciting historical drama about Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. I think the movie's title was a bit of a misnomer- which Boleyn girl, exactly, was the other one? I think we're meant to think that Mary (Scarlett) is the "other" one, since Anne was the one who actually married His Burliness Henry VIII. Accordingly, Mary begins the movie looking wistful and obliging in the background, happily marrying some guy named William (who disappears WITHOUT EXPLANATION as soon as Mary and His Hotness start doing the wey-hey-hey) and taking a backseat to Anne, who we are told early on is the Special One Who Will Undoubtedly Make Her Family's Fortune If Only She Could Control That Stubborn Unwomanly Independence. The minute poor Queen Catharine pops out a stillborn son the Boleyn's creepy uncle, the Duke of Norfolk (does David Morissey play anyone but creepy, creepy bastards anymore?) gets all excited, and decides to parade the girls in front of the frustrated Henry in an effort to secure the family fortunes.

Of course, this is all accomplished with tons of heavy-handed meat metaphors (literally- think butchers, giant hunks of steak, and gutting a chicken. Not what I wanted to see after consuming my body weight in popcorn) and the wierdly explicit machinations of Creepy Uncle and the Boleyn girl's worthless dad. What I was waiting for, though, was this:



That smoldering stare. That manly beard. Those sleeves. See, what I was really juiced about in this movie was the fabulous, crazy-pants Tudor fashions for the dudes. That my friends is a lot of fabric for one dude, King of England or no.

Oh look! There they are again! Another, more different set of princess sleeves for King Hotface!

Look at that. Look at that. That is one hot mess of sleeves on that man there. Henry is channeling his inner fierceness, and it's clear to see how we got from that to this in only four hundred years:

picture from projectrungay.blogspot.com

I tried to find the picture of Christian strutting his fierce behind around in this outfit, but couldn't.

Beyond His Fierceness Henry VIII, the movie was pretty good. Like I was saying earlier (before I got distracted by the Sleeves of Doom) it stopped being about Mary and started being about Anne really, really quickly. After inexplicably falling in love with the king after some pretty intense horizontal-mamboing, Mary gets knocked up: thanks to the truly advanced, enlightened prenatal care of the period she gets locked up for her trouble. During the waiting period Anne proceeds to be what my friend Beth (who came along for the ride) called --repeatedly--a "big whorebag" and uses her feminine wiles on Henry. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Beyond the world's largest sleeves and England's most famous golddigging ho, the movie was pretty sweet. There was a lot of riding to and fro by unaccompanied women, which was pretty awesome, a truly vomtastic near-incest scene, and Scarlett Johansson doing a pretty good job. Natalie Portman's accent slipped in and out, changing regions and even countries from scene to scene. (Why am I supposed to think that she's the world's greatest, most intelligent actress again? Oh right! Thanks, Elle!) Eric Bana was hotness personified. Poor Kristin Scott Thomas looked put-upon for two hours, and her "I told you so, you horrifying shit" slap to her husband's face was EPIC. All this movie really needed was a scene in which minstrels seranade someone, and it would have been cheese-tacular. I can't wait until it comes out on DVD. I am going to screencap the shit out of this thing.