Reflections on Glitter

It's been driving me nuts—the smell of one of my face creams consistently reminds me of something, but I couldn't think of what. I've been using the cream for probably two months now, and I just this second realized what it reminded me of: It smells like the roll-on body glitter I had when I was about four years old. I had two kinds, gold and sort of generic iridescent, and I loved them to death. It seemed the height of elegance to cover oneself in glitter, especially when that involved extending the glitter theme to one's hair as well via silver glitter hairspray. Of course, the silver hairspray and the iridescent roll-on went together; one didn't use the silver with the gold. Heavens, no! I was a very particular kid.

So when did I reach the point where body glitter changed from being the ne plus ultra in fashion to something that seems rather tacky, best suited for college freshmen in tube tops and kids at raves? Perhaps I have grown boring....

Leia, Leeloo, and Me

Aaand it's over. Unless you're on the west coast, in which case you have just under an hour till it's officially November 1st. So party hard in memory of those of us who are about to sleep. We salute you.

These year's most popular costumes (that I saw, at least) seemed to be the slutty bumblebee, slutty ladybug, hockey players, and the Joker. (Him? Still?) Pirates seem to still be de rigeur. Especially slutty pirates, of course. Unsurprisingly, I saw at least one slutty version of pretty much everything tonight...including slutty Belle from the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast. Huh.

I saw a number of themed-costume groups at the pub, including Doc Brown, Marty, and George McFly (Doc Brown invited me to the party), six Madonnas at different stages of her career (including the Like a Virgin and Material Girl videos, A League of Their Own, and the Gaultier cone bra ensemble), and a whole slew of Star Wars people. I think my girl card is on the verge of being revoked—I actually recognized Count Dooku. Also in attendance were Obi Wan (Alec Guinness Obi Wan, not Ewan MacGregor Obi Wan), Darth Vader, an excellent Anakin, and slave Leia. And slave Leia was amazing. Pretty girl, great costume, and the body necessary to rock it.

On the completely opposite end of the scale (pun semi-intended), was the girl dressed as Leeloo from The Fifth Element. Her costume was dreadful (looked like it was made of colored tape and she wore it over incongruous gold spandex pants), she was too heavy to get away with the ensemble, and she committed the cardinal sin of cutting the entire line for the ladies' room (and taking her sweet time once inside). And this was a long freaking line—I waited 40 minutes. I think the only reason nobody said anything to her was that she looked exceedingly drunk and had the approximate physique of a rhino. Still, if all the angry ladies in line had banded together, we totally could have taken her. I would gladly have landed some literal blows for the cause.

On that note, hope your Halloween was happy, full of slave Leias and minus rude Leeloos and long bathroom lines. Have taken off my ruby slippers* and am heading to bed.

*I wasn't Dorothy again (I did that in third grade)—I was the Wicked Witch of the Lower East Side.

'Twas Not So Brillig

I was totally baffled by the headline from yesterday's NY Daily News (no, I don't read that rag, but there was a copy sitting on the kitchen table in my office). It said: Joba Wacky. Now, I eventually guessed that Joba was the name or nickname of some sports figure who was arrested for DUI. (He's evidently a Yankee named Joba Chamberlain.) And I guess he was acting wacky...? Seemed like a stretch. So I passed this apparently nonsensical headline every time I walked through the kitchen. Finally, it struck me—it's a play on Jabberwocky.

Now, maybe I was being a little dense to not have realized that before. But if I didn't realize that until the, say, tenth time I read the headline, is this a pun that the average Daily News reader will ever get? I'm not trying to sound pompous, but (in true lit-mag dork fashion), I had the whole damn poem memorized at one point. Seems like a rather stupid move for a paper known for its punny, painfully obvious headlines.

In case you're interested, here's a link to one of the few pics of yesterday's front page that I could find online.

Sleep Helmets for All!

Okay, I don't sleep run, but in other respects this dog reminds me of myself when I'm asleep. Poor, poor doggie.

A Dream of Epic Proportions

If you're one of those people who can't abide hearing about other people's dreams, I suggest you skip this post. Move along, nothing to see here.

Last night I dreamt a doozy. It started out unassumingly enough: I was spending Christmas with a fantasy version of my friend Caroline and her family. Caroline and a few of her girlfriends and I were sitting around a tree up in her bedroom, which seems like the sort of thing I'd usually love, except that some of the friends were really irritating. So I got all sorts of snippy and flatly insulted one (and, I believe, the Christmas holiday in general, which is something I, the queen of Christmas, would never do). So they were furious with me and I exiled myself downstairs with Caroline's parents.

This is where it gets creepy. While hanging out with Caroline's parents, a suitcase was delivered for me. It was my old suitcase that had been retrieved from a bus accident I'd been in previously. The bus had gone off a cliff and plunged into the sea. It was full of people, most of whom died. I was one of a few survivors. So I immediately began sorting the contents of the suitcase into piles ("ditch" and "clean/keep"). I somehow knew that not only was it gross to not clean things that had been underwater with corpses for months, but it was also dangerous. It became apparent that the more time you spent around contaminated items, the more likely you were to become obsessed with the wreck and the dead. Someone who looked like Keira Knightley was also one of the survivors, but her boyfriend died on the bus. She became so obsessed that she swam back to the bus to be with her boyfriend and drowned. (Yes, they retrieved our bags, but left the bus full of dead bodies underwater.) So all subsequent appearances in my dream were of ghost Keira.

Undoubtedly the person who became most deranged was Telman, a guy who looked like Kenneth from 30 Rock. First, my company fired him, which he discovered they were planning on doing by accident at a staff meeting—someone left a paper on the table about his firing and Telman noticed it. So he was bitter at the company and then, after spending more time around contaminated items from the bus, became utterly obsessed. The combination was not good. He started trying to infect other people with the obsession (somehow that was possible) and became quite the menace around town. Meanwhile, the company gave me some sort of sorry-you-were-in-a-major-accident stipend of $4,000. Evidently they felt guilty, because, by keeping the two daughters of the bus company owner on staff, they didn't have to get the buses inspected or something. (Yeah, I'm not entirely certain about the logistics here.) Essentially, it boiled down to the fact that my employer was at fault for the bus wreck. I was appalled and felt betrayed. They were trying to buy my silence about their negligence for $4,000. Unfortunately, I don't remember what I did about that. Maybe that part dropped out of my dream.

By this point, Telman had infected tons of people, each of whom could infect more people. The obsessed were like zombies, roaming the streets, looking for more people to contaminate. I'm not sure whether they were alive or ghosts like Keira Knightley. More ghosts—those of the people who died on the bus—had since joined him, too. Noah Bennet from Heroes had been trying to recondition Telman, but I was shocked when I discovered by what means. He attached a pronged metal device (it looked like a very stylized scorpion) to Telman's spine right below the neck and would leave it there, doing its thing (whatever that was), sometimes for two hours at a whack. I don't know exactly what it was supposed to do, but it hurt like hell. I tried it for only a few seconds, and it was agonizing. I made the others who were trying to capture Telman try it, too. Big, burly men were spasming in pain. We were all left with a lot more sympathy for him. Things changed after that. Somehow I reached an accord with Telman and his ghosts: they stopped bothering us and we stopped chasing them, trying to recondition them. Eventually they became quite friendly to those of us who could see them (not everyone could). In fact, my boyfriend (not Afshin, some other random guy who looked a little like a former coworker) ate some crumbs that allowed him to see the ghosts. It seemed very sweet at the time that he wanted to be one of the few who could see and talk to the ghosts.

So it somehow worked out in the end, what with the friendly ghosts and all. There was also some digression about sandwiches and a personable old deli counter guy, but I don't remember where that fit in the arc. I was getting a couple of my friends and myself sandwiches at a rest stop during a bus trip. (In a bus, I should note, shaped like a giant loaf of wheat bread.) Considering my past experience with buses and, well, death, you'd think I'd skip the bus trip. Guess not.

Oh, and I finally apologized to Caroline and her friends for my prior bitchiness. They totally forgave me.

One Night, Two Near-Tumbles

I had a very bad night, mishap-wise, last week. I'd gotten a large peppermint-mocha latte from Starbucks to combat the cold and was walking back to my apartment from the financial district. I was wearing my Dansko clogs, which are extremely comfortable but pose a slight difficulty for me (and, I should add, many others who aren't quite as clumsy as I): Because the sole of the shoe is one solid, inflexible piece, if you step on uneven ground, the shoe tends to roll over rather than bend to accommodate irregularities in the ground. So you basically wind up tripping a lot if you're not careful. Well, I guess I wasn't careful. I tripped in a pothole and wound up doing the please-let-me-catch-my-balance-without-falling-or-spilling-my-coffee dance. For what seemed like an eternity. It was epic. Not this epic, but close. However, I managed to stay upright and—amazingly—only spill some coffee on my coat sleeve.

Later the same night, I nearly rolled out of bed while asleep. Again, in a narrow save, I klonked my elbow on my dresser, which woke me up enough to right myself before I went ass-over-teakettle. The thunk was enough to wake up Afshin, who suggested that, instead of just a sleep helmet, I should really get sleep armor.

So maybe it wasn't such an unlucky night...two near-accidents are better than two actual accidents after all.

Today's Lunch Is...

What do you think when you read the line "Any of our sandwiches can be served over organic greens" on a menu? I envisioned the sandwich plonked on top of some greens, much like getting a side salad but smaller and without any of the goodies like tomatoes. With this image in mind, I ordered a grilled mozzarella and fontina sandwich with tomato-olive preserves on country bread, served with the organic greens. Got back to the office, removed my lunch from the bag, and saw what looked like Chernobyl on a bed of spinach. It was my sandwich contents—the cheese and tomato-olive preserves—spread on top of the greens. Minus the bread. The things that would have kept the innards from getting out. The levees that should have protected the greens from the cheese-and-tomato-olive flood. And, because tomato-olive preserves are essentially marinara sauce, I basically ate a pizza salad for lunch. Don't misunderstand—it was delicious. Just not quite what I expected. And rather visually unappealing.

Partial Recall

A snippet of last night's dream came back to me in a flash: Lindsay Lohan was dating Phyllis from The Office. ("Phyllis is like our Mrs. Butterworth. Kind of a less urban Aunt Jemima.") And I was shopping for shoes. Well, I never said my dreams were entirely unrealistic.

At-Home Waxing: A Cautionary Tale

The last time I tried at-home waxing with muslin strips I was in high school. My mom helped me wax my legs in the kitchen, and we proceeded to get goopy, sticky wax all over the counters, floor, her, and me. Not worth it. Years later I tried the Poetic Waxing kit by Bliss—it's genius. It's also $45. So, in a stab at frugality, I decided to give a less expensive waxing kit a shot. I went to Ricky's, where I figured there'd be a good selection of decent-quality waxing products. And oh how there was. Great selection. I was a bit overwhelmed, so I went for something pretty basic: a jar of GiGi Creme Wax Microwave Formula and a package of 100 muslin strips. Total cost: about $20.

When I got home and took off the lid, I was nonplussed. The wax ("wax"?) was the color of Pepto-Bismol, the consistency of Marshmallow Fluff, and scented like plastic. I poked a finger into it. It stuck. I tried wiping off the bubblegummy goo with a paper towel. The paper towel stuck to my finger. I broke out some post-waxing oil (left over from my last Bliss kit) to remove both the goo and the paper towel. Not a promising start.

I nuked the wax for the recommended time...not warm enough. Following the directions, I kept it going in 15-second increments. Still not warm enough. Explicitly violating the directions, I heated it for a full minute. Seemed warm enough. Definitely not hot, but warm. I applied it to my underarm, pressed on a muslin strip, and waited for the wax to harden. It didn't. I got tired of waiting and pulled off the strip. Some of the wax came off with it. No hair.

I kept trying. Ultimately I wound up removing a minor amount of hair and a comparable amount of skin. Furthermore, I did the little test strip on my wrist to check the temperature and then got the goo that refused to come off my wrist stuck to the back of my hair. (The hair on my head, e.g., the hair I didn't want to remove.)

The final outcome? I capped the jar of bubblegum-pink goop and dropped it in the trash. I now need to buy a Bliss Poetic Waxing kit...for use after my armpits are no longer so sore.

The Dream Queen

As you may have gathered, I'm notorious for my dreams, which tend to be lengthy, involved sagas that I recall in great detail. A week ago, for instance, I dreamt that you could send a dog through the U.S. postal service. Not in a box, but in a little pink snuggly suit with a handle on the back. Two nights ago Johnny Depp, Clive Owen, and Queen Elizabeth I (as portrayed by Cate Blanchett) were in my dream. Last night's dream, however, was a total whopper.

First, there was the Juno section, in which the father of Juno's baby wasn't Paulie, but Logan Echolls from Veronica Mars. Odd.

Then there was the segment where Disney was selling a one-of-a-kind Little Mermaid-themed children's bedroom, complete with audioanimatronics outside the huge windows. You'd think that the audioanimatronic scene outside the window would be something from the "Under the Sea" number or the like, right? Nope. It was a giant Ursula the sea witch, who loomed, glared, then died in agony like in the movie when Prince Eric stabbed her with a jagged ship's prow. Riiight. Just the scene every kid wants to see repeated outside his or her bedroom window every two minutes. So that was pretty weird, too.

The portion of my dream that really took the bizarro cake, however, was this one. There was a priest or cardinal called the Gooch; he had white hair and wore all white, including a long robe that was fashioned rather like a hospital gown, i.e., it allowed his bare ass to hang out in the back. He headed a church that worshiped Eve, the first woman. There were tons of enormous stone crosses with Eve standing against them instead of Jesus dangling from them. The nuns were really something else, though. These were world-famous nuns, evidently. They were young, really hot, and scantily clad in nothing resembling habits. They also gave lap dances. So other young, hot, scantily clad nuns from convents and sects all over the world would make pilgrimages to get holy lap dances. Tourists could do so, too. Only women, I think. I don't remember any men, possibly because the church was all about Eve. (Heh—All About Eve.) Yep. That was the strangest part. Lap-dancing nuns.

I don't know what my dreams say about me...and I don't think I want to know.

Mongolian Misunderstanding

We went to see Mongol, a retelling of the life of Genghis Khan, a few weeks ago and were quite impressed. It was very well done, if a bit bloody. Although, as Afshin remarked, considering the subject matter, he's not sure why he was surprised at the gore. Aside from one particular scene (which simply didn't need to be shown in closeup—we knew what was going on without the helpful zoom on some poor bastard's mangled face), I didn't mind the blood: it was largely of the decoratively-splattering, balletically-arcing variety.

It was a rather long movie, but compelling. I found myself engrossed by the misadventures of Temudjin as he grew from a somewhat imperious little boy into a—let's face it—pretty badass man. His wife Borte was pretty awesome, too, as was the actor who played Jamukha (Honglei Sun). Actually, Sun came perilously close to stealing the whole show. Fantastic performance. Anyway, toward the end of the film, there was a scene in which Temudjin is all kitted out in armor, with his flowing hair and impressive helmet, at which point I thought, "Damn! He looks a lot like Genghis Khan!" And then I remembered what the movie was about—not some random Mongolian guy named Temudjin, some Mongolian guy named Temudjin who grows up to be Genghis Khan. Riiiight.

You can check out the trailer below; I promise the film was far better than the trailer would suggest. It's evidently the first of a trilogy.

Injury Report

So Afshin bought a brand-spanking-new mandoline. (This one, in fact.) Very handy for slicing and dicing. Knowing my propensity for injuring myself, Afshin didn't want me to use it. But I needed to slice a large quantity of ginger (finely, I might add), so I requested permission to use it. (He got first slice.) All was going well, especially as I was using the helpfully included hand guard...except when I needed to reposition the ginger. And I slipped. And nearly lopped off a chunk of my thumb and thumbnail. Well, the sliver of nail is indeed gone; the skin is still marginally attached.

I'm finding things rather difficult to do without a fully functional right thumb. Oh, and I'm not allowed to use Afshin's mandoline anymore.

Panic! In the Dressing Room (I know, lame joke.)

A couple of days ago I was in a shop, trying on a few dresses. Er, many dresses. And quite a few blouses. Basically I was trying to find something that fit and looked reasonably nice. (Since I've gained so much weight, my cleavage has become lethal.) Hence I found myself standing in one of my least favorite places in the world: a communal dressing room. Even worse, this communal dressing room was actually a tiny storeroom lined with mirrors. I managed to carve out a spot, hanging my dresses on the handle of a moving dolly.

At one point toward the end of this awkward process, I poked my head out of a shirt...and found myself staring at the ceiling, transfixed—by a giant effing roach. I considered screaming and running out into the store, half-clothed as I was. I reconsidered. I didn't want to start a panic in the dressing room. I stared at the roach. It was so big I thought, briefly, that it was a joke. It looked like one of those fake rubber cockroaches. But then I saw the feelers twitch just enough to confirm my fears. It was indeed real. I finished changing, barely taking my eyes off the roach long enough to check in the mirror to determine whether the shirt looked good or not. (It didn't.) I ducked my head and ran out, just in case the roach decided to choose that moment to go all Mission: Impossible and drop on me. (It didn't.)

Upon exiting, I found one of the employees and whispered to her, "Just so you know, there's a giant roach on the ceiling of the dressing room."
"A what?"
"A giant roach."

Her eyes widened. She grabbed another employee, and the two of them ventured into the dressing room. They both shrieked. Then they got caught in the curtain in the doorway and yanked down the curtain rod. Then they hollered for the one male employee in the store and made him dispatch with the roach.

All in all, it was a generally icky day.

News (And Lots of It)

I have been noticeably absent from my blog for nearly three months. This is not due to sheer laziness, I assure you. Here's what I've been up to:

1. Getting over pneumonia. That was fun.
2. Packing and shipping thirty-odd boxes from California to New York.
3. Moving to New York.
4. Getting a really bad cold just prior to arriving in New York so that, once here, I spent the first week in bed.
5. Unpacking thirty-odd boxes.
6. Sending out a really long-overdue shirt order.
7. Applying for jobs.
8. And even occasionally seeing my friends.

Regular uninformative but amusing posting shall resume soon.

Amy Goes Car Bye-Bye

Car?
We're going in the car?
We're going for a car ride?
Oh my god!
We're going in the car!
*pantpantpantpant*

Ew, Sir. Ew.

Last night, on my evening walk home from work, I reached the corner and stopped for the light. A man was already waiting at the corner and, just as I approached, he let out the most enormous fart. Not at me, per se, but in my general direction. He acknowledged neither my presence nor the fart. I, meanwhile, had to suppress laughter.
He looked so respectable, otherwise. Of course, were I in his position, I might choose to willfully ignore what sounded perilously close to a shart, too.

Here. Have a relevant lolcat to cleanse your mind.

Waking Before Walking

It's another day in Kaitland, and I, the Great Kait, am tired. (Yes, that's my official title. So there. Mnyah.) This shouldn't be surprising, as I'm always tired. I might have hit a new low today, though: I fell asleep while waiting for the light to change. Perhaps I should clarify. I wasn't riding in a vehicle of any sort. Nope, just standing on the corner, waiting for the light to change. I closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes again, I had three seconds left to cross. I dashed. Felt mightily foolish, I tell ya what.

Wacky German Design to the Rescue!

Know how I've previously mentioned that I need a sleep helmet? Well, they actually make one! Sign me up, baby. I just need to learn how to read German first. What they won't think of next.

New Year, No Memories

I think it is time that I tell my most amusing (in retrospect) New Year's Eve story. Several years ago Afshin and I went to a New Year's Eve party at the apartment of a friend. I looked cute (a dress that I hadn't expected to fit did), one of my dearest friends was in town and present, and the Champagne flowed freely. Suffice it to say I overindulged. Feeling, as I did, pretty bloody wasted, I retreated to an unoccupied bedroom and inelegantly passed out on the bed. Eventually Afshin decided that it was time to go home and went to collect me. He succeeded in rousing me and told me it was time to go. I tried to push past him.

"I have to go tell Afshin we're leaving," I said.
"I am Afshin," he responded.
"No, I need to tell Afshin," I insisted.
He played along. "Okay, if I'm not Afshin, who am I?" he asked.
I looked at him blearily. "You're the bathtub."

Upon that delirious declaration, he opted to leave me unconscious a while longer. After recounting my predicament to our host, Afshin decided to check on me again, just in case.

"I'll be right back," he said. "I have to go make sure my girlfriend's not trying to have sex with your bathtub."

Beowulf: Epic Failure

Last Saturday night I went to see Beowulf in 3D at the IMAX in San Francisco. I had more than a sneaking suspicion that it would be awful, but I thought that it could possibly be silly fun, especially in 3D. I was wrong. Let's put it this way: I had a nosebleed afterward on BART. I went home and coughed up blood. That was preferable to watching Beowulf. It was the worst movie I've ever seen.
Never before have I seriously considered walking out of a theatre. Certainly never less than five minutes into the movie. What was so wrong with it? Well, here's the shortlist:

WARNING: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.

1. Hrothgar was a drunken, sometimes naked, lout. Oh, and Grendel's dad. And he kills himself.
2. Two words: uncanny valley. Especially the chicks. Wiglaf gets a pass, though, as he was remarkably lifelike, and the only likable character in the whole bloody movie.
3. Cockblocking. Literally. Apparently, when the poem said that Beowulf fought Grendel bare-handed, it meant bare-assed, too. You can tell when things get serious because Beowulf gets naked. Then you see the most ridiculous assortment of penis-blocking shots ever. Like in Austin Powers. But I don't think Beowulf was supposed to be a comedy. Maybe I misunderstood something.
4. Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother. Yes, the "sea hag." Also absurd: her tentacle braid, the organic stilettos growing from her heels, and the fact that Beowulf sleeps with her instead of killing her.
5. Know the dragon that ultimately kills our hero? Well, remember how Grendel was Hrothgar's son? Yeah, you see where I'm going with this. The dragon's Beowulf's kid. Now, setting aside how asinine that concept is, here's my question: When Hrothgar and Angelina Jolie mate, they produce Grendel, gooey, misshapen, inside-out man. When Beowulf and Angie mate, they produce some perfectly-muscled golden (as in actually gold) boy who can transform into a dragon. So, um, how exactly does that work? I mean, Beowulf's better-looking than Hrothgar, but ol' Hrothie's not hideous or anything.

I'm not even going to quibble about all the general ickiness (all the eyeball-stabbing, eardrum-punching, arm-hacking, body-ripping-in-half, gut-slicing, head-crunching, and bare-handed heart-grabbing gore and such). I guess my main complaint is that it was already an epic poem. Epic, people. It's not called epic because it's dull and needs a bit of sexing up; it's called epic because it's full of adventure and action and larger-than-life deeds. Hence when you decide to make a film about said epic, you don't need to toss in unnecessary subplots and extra carnage and Angelina Jolie's nude gold-dripping body. Yet this is the second horrible film version of Beowulf that I've seen. The other, Beowulf & Grendel, was a 2005 film that gave Grendel a son with the local witch. What's wrong with the original story? Nothing!

Ugh. Am full of disgust and righteous anger. I think I'll go look at lolcats.