Friends

In other news, I'm taking a vacation. A REAL one, which means(gulp!) no blogging or Facebook or Twitter until August. I know! But it is LONG overdue. We haven't been out of town for over a year and there is family to see, and plane rides to take. I wish I was going to a place like Sara Zarr's blog, complete with cucumber slices on my eyes and spa treatments, but you can't have everything. Hopefully by the time I return I'll have LOTS of stories to tell, none of them involving broken bones or hospitals. We have had just about enough of that, and there is still, thankfully some summer left. I'm ready to take it.

I hope you all have a GREAT rest of July. See you next month!

I would love to say that I spent my weekend doing worthwhile and scholarly things. Mostly, though, I searched for people from my past on Facebook. My babysitter calls this "stalking people on Facebook," but I prefer to look at it, like the 90210 thing, as nostalgia. I found two very old friends I'd completely lost touch with....as well as a handful of people I don't want to be in touch with AT ALL but was still mildly curious about. Anyway. It's a total time waster. Next weekend, I'm cleaning out my closet and tackling my junk drawer. No, really!

I also spent some of the weekend catching up with Kathy Griffin and My Life On The D-List, which was just nominated for another Emmy this past Friday. Basic truth: Kathy Griffin fascinates me. People either love or hate her (and when they hate her, they REALLY hate her) but I think she's hilarious. I love her self-deprecation, and how much she loves her dogs, and her strange relationship with Steve Wozniack (which I think is now over, but still, fun to watch while it was still going). She always seems to be in situations where people have no idea who she is, but if I met her, I'd be TOTALLY star struck. I'm not yet stalking her on Facebook. But it's still early.

Finally, on a last TV note, I'm in serious Scrubs withdrawal. So much so that I spent some of my non-Facebook time this weekend trying to find out when Season Seven is going to be released on DVD. Only up to six is available. Any Scrubs devotees out there: is this coming season the seventh, or was last season but they just haven't released it? Any info would be much appreciated. Maybe I should ask my Facebook friends, too?

Okay, no. I'm going to clean out my closet. Seriously. Just as soon as I update my status....

Have a great day everyone!

1. The Emmy nominations were announced today, and I have to say I'm a little unsettled that so many of the shows nominated I've never seen. Which I think is kind of insane, considering how much TV I watch. Maybe it says something about quality, not quantity? I don't watch The Closer or Burn Notice or Saving Grace, or really any of the basic cable shows that got noticed this year. But I DO love Tina Fey, who got tons of noms for herself and 30 Rock, although I hate to see her up against Mary Louise Parker in Weeds. They're both so good! Just like Rainn Wilson having to be up against Jeremy Piven. Decisions, decisions. I guess it's good I'm not an Emmy voter. I would be agonizing even more than normal.

2. I CAN now say that I've seen Mad Men, as I watched the first episode last night. I'm a little nervous, because it didn't totally blow my doors off, and I worry that it was hyped SO much that there's no way it can ever live up. Then again, I know better than to judge by just one episode, so I will certainly be diving back in, probably tonight. I have to say that I really like the look of the show. The clothes make you want to buy strappy shoes and pencil skirts and tease up your hair. Although I have to say the anti-tobacco folks must hate this show. EVERYBODY smokes. I want to cough just watching it. Still, I'm in. At least for the first whole disc.

3. It's watermelon time of year again, and I am reminded how much I really love this sweet, pink fruity snack. Last summer, while hugely pregnant, I was ADDICTED to watermelon. I ate it every night after dinner, and looked forward to it all day. Equally fun was going to buy the little seedless ones I loved at the grocery store, where I always got a little kick when they were rung up as "Personal Melon." I always thought that would be a GREAT name for a band. Maybe I should form one just to use it? Oh, right. No musical talent. Oh, well.

4. Today, I took one step closer towards the life of suburbia: we bought a station wagon. Not one of the wood-paneled, huge boat-like things of my childhood (although Courtney thought that was a great idea) but a nice, small used one that gets good gas mileage. It's very sporty and nice. But I still had that weird pang. Station wagon? Us? Really? Aren't we still, like, sixteen? Apparently not. Still, it seems like only yesterday we were just hanging out, listening to Personal Melon records....

5. It was five years ago today that How to Deal, the movie made from my first two books, was released. It was a crazy time for me, but I had just so much fun. So of course I'm feeling nostalgic, so I went looking on the web and sure enough, on the IMDB page, you can watch the original preview. Which I saw for the first time, I remember, on TRL one afternoon when it world premiered. Totally surreal. Anyway, just to celebrate, or at least note it, here's the link. I'm such a loser. I'm going to watch it again.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

XoXo, Writer Girl

Plus Project Runway, which I believe starts a new season tonight? It's hard to say because I've seen, like, NOTHING about it in magazines or on the air. Maybe because of the whole jumping to Lifetime thing, which I think might have made the folks at Bravo a bit peeved? It will be fun once it's on there, though, because so many of my friends who don't have Bravo (which is, most of them) will be able to watch it finally. I cannot wait to see new converts to the church that is Tim Gunn. Make it work, indeed! It's more fun than running a Scrubs marathon.

In other news, my daughter is giving me serious problems with her carseat. It's not the carseat, actually, as much as the covering OVER it. It's got this fuzzy kind of lining underneath, and she's discovered that she REALLY likes reaching under it, pulling it out, and sticking it in her mouth. No matter how many toys I give her---teether, stuffed monkey, Ugli Doll---she still abandons all for the fuzz. I sit there, at the wheel, and watch her in the her little mirror as she excavates it out, then eats it. Which leads to me pulling over, grabbing it from her hand, then trying the whole teether-monkey-uglidoll thing all over again. We put tape under the padding, but she's pulling that off now. Help! Do they even make replacement covers? Maybe made out of, like, steel or something? If anyone knows, fill me in. I'm a little desperate. For now, I'm putting on more tape. And more tape. And more tape.....

Have a good day, everyone!

It IS different. Like, the bar is on the whole other side, where the quieter dining room used to be. And the office is now a bathroom, and the wait station/kitchen is closed in, so you can't hear every word said (or, usually when I was there, shouted). Plus they took up the carpet, painted it this pretty yellow, and put lots of prints of cacti on the walls. All good. And the food was REALLY close to the same. I got my standard Flying Chicken burrito (chicken, rice, salsa, sour cream) and queso, chips and salsa as a starter. The baby loved the rice, and all in all, it was a good time. But the entire time I was there, I just couldn't stop thinking about the OLD space. "We're sitting right where the margarita machine was!" I said to Sasha, who did not care one bit. Everywhere I looked, I saw not the new, but what had been there before. Not the pretty, new leather booths, but the old ones, squeaky and held together with duct tape. (Nope. Not kidding.) Not the gorgeous, minimalist decor, but all the old clutter: Durham Bulls pendants, Craig Gurganus surfboard fish, and the little sculptures my old boss Phil called his "Mayan art" which were really these somewhat obscene figurines of people in various positions, um, together. He always insisted on keeping them right by the bar, where we were always moving them behind glasses and the lava lamps, they were so embarrassing. I missed the lava lamps, too, now that I think of it.

But this is just me. I am so stuck in the past, the queen of nostalgia. Anyone else walking in there would just enjoy the great food, and the blues music (which is a nod to the old place, as well) and the fact that it is bright and clean and open again, which is all that really matters. After dinner, I took Sasha out of her high chair and walked her around. "This is where I used to roll silverware," I told her, as we passed where the old hostess station was. "And this was section three, the hardest section of all, especially on a Friday night." Again, she was not that interested. I guess your history is only fascinating to yourself. But for some reason, I wanted to tell her all this anyway. Maybe so I don't forget, which it seems like you could easily do when something is spackled over, and repainted, and made new again. I lived a LOT of my life at the Flying Burrito. I cried in the walk-in cooler (more times than I'd like to remember) I danced on the bar, I slung a million Flying Chickens, filled a million chip baskets. It was the job that allowed me to become a writer, and for that, more than anything, I will be forever grateful.

Plus, that queso was GOOD. Yum!

Have a good day, everyone!

Как благодаря одному дяденьке можно узнать о другом? А ЖЖ вам на что? 8)
Но вот что меня мучает… если это не похоже на Тамару Лемпицку, ущипните или даже укусите меня :)
( Дикий эротизм, танцующий. Фантастическая палитра!  )

И я вспомнила, что недавно думала и твердо знаю, что ничего так не дает понять и ощутить своего одиночества, как то, когда некому рассказать сон.

1. But, you say, it's not Friday. It's Thursday! We have already established, however, that I am a day ahead of myself this week. So that---and the fact that I have a very busy morning tomorrow, and time to do this now---makes it okay. So here we go.

2. This week, in the world of DVDs, both Heathers and Xanadu have been recently re-released in new editions. Now, these movies could not be more different, of course. Heathers is a dark comedy that gave us Christian Slater. Xanadu is a rollerskating musical that gave us Olivia Newton John as a muse. But, still. I loved them both at one time or another. Xanadu I was especially obsessed with, back in like sixth grade. It is SUCH a bad movie it is almost good. You know the type. Definitely worth a watch---as is Heathers, with a pre-9er Shannen Doherty!---if you haven't seen either of them already.

3. Over the Fourth of July weekend, I bought a bag of Fritos just for fun. Now, it is the bane of my existence. It is a FAMILY size bag, which means there are so many of them, and I cannot stop myself from eating them. What is it about Fritos? Just knowing they are in the house sends all my willpower out the window. And during bathing suit season, no less. NOT a good thing.

4. The other day, I had Regis and Kelly on in the background as I puttered around the house. They were having a "High Heel A-Thon," where basically women in three inch heels (!) sprinted for a $25,000 prize. It was INSANE. Kelly Ripa was participating, and she did her best, but MAN some of these women were fast. Like, crazy fast. In heels! The best part, though, was the sound of it, all these ladies running in heels. The woman who won ran track at Penn State. Where I am sure they did not run in three inch heels, which makes it that much more impressive.

5. My daughter has recently discovered how to shriek. Like, at will, and REALLY loudly. Ear-splitting, hair standing up on the back of your neck loudly. She's very proud of herself, but all I can think of is when we fly to Cape Cod later this month. If there is a Mommy God, I am praying to it that she will be okay on the plane. Maybe sleeping is too much to ask. But no shrieking? Please? PLEASE?

Have a good weekend, everyone!