Leaving on a jet plane…

Hopefully this time will not involve cancellations/delays/angry people/nights spent sleeping on airport chairs, etc.

Super Shuttle

Super Shuttle wants to pick me up at 3:40 AM for a 6:00 AM flight.  That’s … not a time.  It’s like right in the half hour range between waking up REALLY early and going to bed REALLY late.  I don’t even know what day to consider 3:40 AM to be a part of.

A Couple of Restaurant Recommendations from the Weekend

First of all, Huckleberry Cafe in Santa Monica (11th and Wilshire) has, I think, the best breakfast in Santa Monica.  While it gets crowded, the staff is efficient and the homemade pastries are so beautiful.  The sweet bread pudding (made with different fruits) is absolutely delicious – sweet and rich – and it comes in a giant bowl perfect for sharing.  Also, the breakfast items include creative combinations and are made with farmer’s market produce.  I had the quinoa with butternut squash, spinach, pine nuts, and sunchokes topped with sunny-side up eggs.  (Also, this is the site of my recent Arnold Schwarzenegger sighting … more on that later.)

I also have to give a shout out to Tony’s Italian Steakhouse on the Sunset Strip (at Sunset and Alta Loma).  I didn’t eat there, but they have a fabulous  happy hour (which I believe ends at 8 PM every night) featuring $5 martinis.  Let me tell you, this was the best martini I have ever had.  I ordered the French Market Lemonade, and it was the perfect combination of sweet & tart.  Others raved about the chocolate martini and the Key Lime Pie martini.  They also offer $5 appetizers.  The ambiance is extremely classy and pretty and the wait staff is really nice and accommodating.  This is a fairly new addition to the Strip, and I will definitely be back.

Movie Trailer Snap Judgments: Did You Hear About the Morgans?

I see a lot of movie trailers that look perfectly awful but every once in awhile, a movie trailer comes along that causes physical repulsion.  That’s how I felt when I saw the trailer for Did You Hear About the Morgans?

This looks bad for many of the same reasons that New in Town looked bad: dumb fish-out-of-water comedy involving city-slickers relocated to a non-urban environment where hilarity ensues when they are confronted with less sophisticated yokels.  In this case, our city-slickers are estranged couple Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker and they are transferred to Wyoming or something under the witness relocation program.  SPOILER ALERT:  In Wyoming, they discover new things about one another and find love again.  (I have no idea if that’s what happens.  It just seems like it.  Or alternately, they discover new things about one another, and find mutual respect, while still deciding to go their separate ways.)

First of all, I think it’s really difficult to write a romantic comedy about an estranged or breaking up couple.  Romantic comedies should provide some sense of charming escapism and watching people fight bitterly is just like being at an awkward dinner party.  It’s not fun. Remember how excruciating The Break Up was?

But I honestly think the biggest hurdle here is the casting.  I actually like Hugh Grant.  I love him as Daniel Cleaver.  I love him as the Prime Minister in Love, Actually. I liked Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral.  There was a time when just watching Hugh Grant doing his bumbling, awkward, charming “oh I am so very English!” thing would have been enough to carry a movie.  But he’s been doing it for 15 years.  He’s pushing 50.  I like him, but I can’t watch a movie that hangs on his schtick in 2009.

I also actually like Sarah Jessica Parker.  Sort of.  I thought she was adorable in LA Story and Honeymoon in Vegas.  I even liked Carrie Bradshaw early on, and I think she actually seems like a sweet person in real life.  But, just as with Hugh Grant, I’ve pretty much reached critical mass with her screen persona.  Even when she tries to do something different, it still comes across like a version of Carrie Bradshaw.  (Like that terrible movie she made where she went to her boyfriend’s house for the holidays and Diane Keaton was the mom and Rachel McAdams is the sister everyone is just so needlessly mean to her?  But SJP’s character kind of sucks too?  So, no one is really likable at all?  Yeah, I recall that we were supposed to see this role as a huge departure, but she just appeared to be playing an uptight version of Carrie.)

I feel like this movie – with SJP and Hugh playing to their strengths – might have actually worked ten years ago.  But now, it just seems extremely lazy and tired.

Why Am I Not a Pop Star

Well, reason #1 is my terrible singing voice.  But we all know voices can be doctored.

However, nothing can be done about the fact that I look like a dork when I sing:

Unfortunate Revelations

It’s never a good realization for one to discover that one’s Economics paper is due a week before one thought.

Being Mysterious

I’m a pretty connected person.  I check my email constantly; I Tweet; I’m always on Facebook.  I can usually be found on AIM. I am the type of person that prefers to email or text or IM rather than talk on the phone.  I’m an Internet girl.

I am also, as my friends know, an awkward person who tends to overshare.  This is not to say that I completely wear my heart on my sleeve. I do not.  There are many things I am very private about.  However, I am also that person who will respond to a person making chit-chat at the gas station with my entire life story, and I’m usually fairly open about my activities or what’s on my mind.

So part of me has always wanted to be a bit more mysterious.  I want people to look at me and wonder about me, to think “Who’s THAT girl?  She’s SUCH an enigma!”  But this will just never be the case.  How do I know?  In my attempt to be a more aloof person, I announced to a group of people, “So I think I’m going to stop responding to emails right away so people think that I am more mysterious!” Clearly announcing one’s desire to be more mysterious really does not up one’s mystery factor.

 

I wish…

…that I could get back all of the time in my life I have spent driving around looking for parking spots.

Style

At the gym today, I read five magazines.  (This really demonstrates how much readable content is in Us Weekly and OK! given that I was on the elliptical for 40 minutes and managed to watch Days of Our Lives, as well.)  Anyway, I was shocked by Audrina Patridge’s presence in these magazines – multiple times per issue!  One even featured a look inside her home, like, does anyone care about Audrina’s interior decorating?  Or Audrina at all?  She’s like the dullest person on The Hills and that’s saying a lot.  She must have one hell of a publicist.

My time spent perusing this fine literature got me thinking about personal style.  My personal style has shifted over the years, but as of now, I like to think of it as “Quirky Preppy.”  I like wearing feminine things like skirts and dresses with classic lines and knee-high boots or flats.  I like coats and bobbed haircuts.  But I also enjoy loud prints and very bright things that I think are slightly offbeat.  My style icons are Blair Waldorf, Audrey Hepburn, and the Gilmore Girls.

How would you define your style?

(I started talking about this in class today … it always amazes me what intellectual discourse I can bring to any situation.)

What I Did Instead of Homework

I planned to work on schoolwork all day. ALL SCHOOLWORK AND NOTHING ELSE.

Here is what I did instead.

• Walked to Starbuck’s and ate a piece of delicious pumpkin bread.
• Worked out.
• Decided that  could not do schoolwork until I did laundry because I had not done laundry in, like, 3 weeks and I really want to wear my black pants that have been covered in glitter since Halloween when I was trying to apply body glitter to my body and instead mostly sprayed it all over my entire bedroom and all of the contents therein.
• Decided that I could not do laundry until I ate lunch.
• Went to Mrs. Winston’s and bought a salad.  Molly Shannon was there, eating lunch with her whole family.
• Did laundry.  Found new laundromat that is close by and not populated by crazies.
• Thought about going to the library across the street from the laundromat after laundry was done to finish homework.
• Thought about doing some homework while waiting for laundry to dry.
• Decided to read a novel instead.
• Decided that I wanted to cook something for dinner and that I could not start schoolwork until ingredients were bought.
• Bought ingredients for vegetable lasagna at local market where a random employee was all, “Hey! You were here yesterday too!” and I responded in my usual over-sharing type of way by describing how I do not like to do my grocery shopping in bulk because sometimes I just have an urge to cook something.  He nodded awkwardly, clearly regretting starting a conversation with me at all.
• Went home.
• Decided that I could not do homework until I cleaned the apartment and put laundry away.
• Watched 3 episodes of Mad Men.
• Made vegetable lasagna.
• Ate some.  It was pretty good, but unfortunately, I ran out of tomato sauce and used a marinara sauce/tomato soup mixture.  So, that was a little weird, but not awful.
• Decided to watch So You Think You Can Dance and that I would clean the apartment and put laundry away during the commercials.
• Sort of did this.  (Note: This is not an efficient way of doing things.)
• Decided to start drinking. (Note: There is still laundry on my bed.)