If at middle age I catch myself walking around work with toilet paper trailing from my waistband, I can't imagine what I'll be like at 80.
My hearing started going in high school my friends will tell you laughing.
Cary will probably have to hide my car keys sooner than I think.
In the last several years any time I eat something spicy or tart, like lemon candy or cherry tomatoes or grapefruit juice – curry or salsa – my tongue's taste buds will start shifting into a pretend map of the world. Stress or being sick too. I know what it is, relatively harmless but weird; I come from a family of oral healthcare practitioners. But in my mind, it's my body's way of telling me it's the beginning of the end.
Or I need a break. Yeah let's go with that. A chance to pay more attention and take better care. (Which we all know is good for everyone involved.)
I remember my tender tongue began after Cole was born.
When Jules was a newborn, I started having tender feet right when I got out of bed.
I became emotionally tender-headed.
We push through it. These things are almost-always-most-likely nothing or normal.
My right hip now has good days and bad.
My timed mile I won't share.
I saw somewhere if you don't take a break, at some point your body will take a break for you.
It's felt that way as we've settled into our new home that constantly shifts. A repair. Fixing up an old boat. The threat of a change in life plans. A kid getting sicker. My husband getting busier than I've ever seen him, somehow still managing to do early morning dishes and late night laundry. Somehow quietly. Setting us up for work trips with pre-built meals.
While I'm just happy to be here if I'm employed and the kids aren't ill or in trouble. Delighted when the house isn't a wreck, and I'm there at the peaceful office or bustling event with our smart, kind, funny team. They make me feel like a marketing champ. Like a liberal arts degree is as powerful as numbers. Of course then I'll make a gaff and curse my name. Miss an opportunity due to family obligations and scorch my own earth.
I heard somewhere to give yourself a thousand breaks. Then give yourself a thousand more.
Between podcasts and forcing extra sleep, early mornings on the porch creasing a borrowed book and worrying about it, and runs turned to jogs, things are better. Over a long period of time. There's no rushing it. If there was I'd be 80 sooner and worse off.
We hit the water when we can, with snacks he packs – due to a father who makes time he doesn't have. The sun, sky, fresh air and cooling off is rallying for the weeks.
Jules made a new best friend when she moved here simply because a mini bell pepper in her lunch started a conversation. Now all of us like being friends with Kitty.
Cole's friends help him not leave anything behind when we pick him up.
Not every day is easy for any of us. Anywhere.
Jules likes to hear my embarrassing stories growing up and now. There are many. She has her own. She makes me retell mine when something happens to her. Takes everything in and I see her confidence rebounding on her face. It's starting to work on Cole.
Meanwhile we all can't help but gawk at and tease Cary when he gets a horrible reaction to poison sumac, trying to save us some money by working on a hard area of the yard. We all then watch YouTube videos about sumac, poison oak and poison ivy. Cole makes Lego versions that are uncanny and giggles while rubbing them on Cary.
A lot has changed since I had two kids we somehow named after minerals but spelled differently.
As Jules would say adoringly, in that "tiny town" I had many jobs – more jobs than usual for a military spouse.
I was a reporter before leaving that beloved paper (which taught me a lot) to take advantage of paid maternity leave and a marketing environment. I was laid off because that's how start-ups can go at first. So then I got a new gig out of Carson City that allowed me to work remotely mostly – and kindly continued to do so when our family was being stationed indefinitely in San Diego.
It's nice when the 9-5 is a grind – or when a kid gets sick or Cary has to go be a hero.
Yet then I see people in the flesh, and I throw myself into a rabid conversation of relatable laughing points and stories, AP style discussions or plans for lunch. I also start rambling about all the shows and movies I've watched or stuff read when work is slow or Cary is gone. Sometimes I feel bad for the listener.
I'm sad to change hometowns again. Wherever you learn a lot it feels like home.
I learned I'm bad at being a ballet mom. I would show up in not enough time to get her hair up tight, sweating and having forgotten again to glue her decorative laces so they wouldn't come undone three times during class. She would get kicked out anyway for doing things like playing with the giant stuffed animals they were supposed to be leaping over gracefully.
I learned, in living color, your second child is different from the first. Cole falls asleep on the ground, demands to be read to, leaps off stairs and furniture with his sister, became surprisingly coordinated at a riding scooter early on – and he will sit in Jules' battery-powered truck inside the closed garage, long after the battery dies. He'll study wheels for minutes on end.
I learned I'm still struggling with writing for enjoyment versus writing for pay, or working with a family to take care of when the other caregiver can't be there. More money for my family or that rewarding feeling that oftentimes comes without much compensation or with more snuggles, laughs and memories. Sometimes you do get a bit of everything. But not all at once usually. It may be a never-ending tightrope walk, carefully weighing the stage of life and adjusting your quality of life.
I learned home is where my family is. This one I chose, the one I share a roof with – whether a hotel room, a camper or a home we rent, own or live in on a military base.
I learned when one kid poops in the bath and you have another, both get a lot dirtier. We all do.
I learned being happy is to be grateful. And that I have no good reason not to be.* (Thank you, Downton Abbey.) I've also learned that me letting Cary accept his new position makes me essentially the biggest badass I know. Or the biggest dumbass.
And San Diego? It's like the book Hatchet, only instead of returning to grocery stores I'm faced with an abundance of Targets, ramen shops and dry bars.
I stopped waiting for Cary to throw me a surprise birthday party.
He knows all my favorite people. Just get them in a room, and have them yell surprise, and feed me cake fit for a six-year-old. That's all I ask to celebrate 30 years of Aly on planet Earth. The thing is, I told myself it was time to grow up.
It was hard to not celebrate all month. And given the decade milestone, it was hard not to celebrate all year. But as I Googled "ways to celebrate your 30th", I realized I'd either done it or couldn't afford it (although, I'm still planning on sampling all 31 favors at Baskin-Robbins).
And then it dawned on me: Maybe I should just chill. Treat the big day like a proper 30-year-old and bashfully dip my head like, darn it, you found out it was my 3-0, saying no, no, no party, no presents, please.
Ha! Who am I kidding... I'm a childless female who married at 23 and still can't seem to let go of Friday evenings alone with my husband or hours spent burying my nose against the screen of a Kindle. I can discuss 30 Rock jokes any day of the week, and I still try to pull off the "skater" look. (Wow.)
So how did I think I could possibly pass up the chance to have an immature fete? ... Well, I sulked until November hit, then decided to go hunt down some cake to shove in Cary's face.
At work we were on deadline the week of October 22. This means everyone was nose to the grindstone to get a glorified PennySaver to the printer on time. Then they finish and throw a party while I get passed the baton and have to push all those Groupon-wannabe offers online. Then pretend I'm excited about them while posting deals to Facebook and tweeting them to our 55 followers.
Love ya, MBA. OXO. But this is what happens when you relocate every couple years. And I'll take it.
Here's why:
Having a job in this economy is like getting one of the last tickets before a movie sells out. Whew.
We can squirrel away the extra cash and enjoy a social security-free retirement in Tampa - unless we have 15-year-olds living with us at that point.
A space away from home, and a purpose away from your spouse, is like the endorphins from exercise; there's pain, but it's an oh-so-sweet experience overall, and your heart will thank you for it.
Insta-friends who always seem to turn out to be the salt of the earth.
Whether I'm copywriting a coupon or a story that will eventually be turned down, writing's writing. (Thanks, Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious.)
The goal of where I work is to save people money. That's something you can believe in.
Cary's Uncle Greg drew us a diagram one time that illustrated how we all just wanna move up. Up in life. Up in income. Up in glory. But the key to going up is going down. Because in this drawing, there's a ceiling - just like there's a limit to almost every get rich quick scheme. So if you don't buckle down and swim down in this case, you won't find the path out - the one that's likely not the least resistant.
If you do this, you will surface on the other side of life's barriers, very likely contentedly bobbing around and sunning yourself, telling the rest of the world who so badly wanted change yet were afraid to change it themselves:
"let them eat cake."
*Terraplane was a car brand and model build by the Hudson Motor Car Company in Detroit between 1932 and 1938. They were inexpensive yet powerful vehicles. Car enthusiast and 1934 Ford Falcon owner Uncle Greg did more than give me a cool blog post title, he gave me a metaphor for life.
I like hearing how people have earned their money. Usually a lot of it. If you're more middle-class, sometimes on the verge of low - like me, wearing your husband's clothes because at least they're different and living off sandwiches eaten over a grubby white keyboard - not so much. But if you have a house on the blue, clear lake of Tahoe, in the flats of Paris, or planted on the isle of Coronado, spill it.
While writing from home and applying to local gigs and watching Netflix episodes is maddening when your neighbor is drilling up every inch of their concrete surroundings, we otherwise wouldn't have found out that avocado farming (go figure) can be a lucrative business, including selling the more mature regular trees that dot Walmart parking lots. Our neighbor was out and about and too kind to be mad at for the incessant, house-rumbling construction. So we found out their household apparently did a proverbial "fall" into the nutritious, green egg business. Meaning they paired a good idea with a good brain filled with business skills and not B.S.
I wish I knew other neighbors' careers or history, especially when they have one of the blue and gold Coronado Historical Association signs perched in front of their home, reading "Home of a Naval Aviator." Why are there so many of these? What the hell kind of career did they lead? I jog by mansion after cottage, beach house after craftsman after villa, and I want a tour, to chat, to sit in the glowing gardens with an iced tea, or patrol the spooky halls of the brick mansions shuttered tight above expansive lawns for so small an island. I might have to settle for open houses and a tour at The Del unless I can figure out how to use being a freelance reporter to my real story-craving advantage.
White Collar: It Takes a Thief
By Ghostey at DeviantArt
As I submit yet another application to Kashi and The Active Network, and play the 23rd episode of White Collar, I realize maybe thievery is the way to go. White Collar is in the vein of true story Catch Me If You Can: Successful thief (except for that one time you get caught) turned FBI consultant. I could stop...retire at one billion or whatever. No guns. No partners. If I were clever enough. And that's a big 'if.' Plus, it's tough to be a theif when your husband believes in things like justice and hard work.
(But this islet's bound to be home to mounds of wealth behind those trusting unlocked doors!)
While I may not have the brain waves or skills to be a master of purloining, I also find I wouldn't be that useful in an apocalypse. Even though Cary and I have a great zombie plan - get to an island (check), blow the bridge, and kill all the zombies in residence, (his idea though). I can't shoot let alone stand the idea of using a knife or my weak, bare hands; I can't provide healthcare; I can't lead a group of idiots with my wisdom and charm. I can, however, compose the perfect corporate Facebook post. WTF?
Somehow, I got the idea in my head in school that writing for a meager living and having the time to read and watch everything I desired, was more for me than learning more about the remarkable reproductive system and ushering life into this world at 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve. While I don't regret the choice except in random conversations and on random shopping trips, I do wonder what role I'll play in the inevitable dire situation.
Until then, I guess someone does need to teach the leaders of the free world how to tweet.
There's too much unpaid writing going on. Those of you with real jobs might feel the same way sometimes, or most of the time. So get away before you slit your beautiful wrists. Beach over blog. TV over studying. A sickie. A babysitter. (Seriously, it will all be okay.)
Well, I gotta go learn a bunch of people's names before I fire them.
We know there's a black spot on the X-ray - you don't have to keep tapping your finger on it.
She died the way she lived: surrounded by the people she answered phones for.
Damn it, I don't want to die in this office. I almost have twice ... If it looks like I'm going, open a window. I'd rather flatten the top of a cab.
You don't know how to drink. Your whole generation, you drink for the wrong reasons. My generation we drink because it's good. Because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar. Because we deserve it. We drink because it's what men do.
A wooden leg ... They're so cheap they can't even afford a whole reporter.
Look, I want to tell you something because you're very dear to me. And I hope you understand that it comes from the bottom of my damaged, damaged heart. You are the finest piece of ass I ever had and I don't care who knows it. I am so glad I got to roam those hillsides.
You know what my father used to say? Being with a client is like being in a marriage. Sometimes you get into it for the wrong reasons, and eventually, they hit you in the face.
Lane: England won the world cup.
Roger: Cup of what?
I bet there were people walking around in the Bible complaining about kids today.
My mother always said, "Be careful what you wish for because you'll get it. And then people get jealous and try and take it away from you."
When I was 11, I went to Disneyworld. I haven't been that excited since. Until April 9, when Lady Gaga came to The Big Easy, just three hours west of P-town 2.0. Two days prior, I was driving and listening to the radio, hoping Gaga's latest hit would be played. The DJ came on and briefly mentioned tickets were being given away to see our lady in New Orleans. I had to find out when, and how I could make my attendance happen.
StubHub showed me that I had 48 hours to make it happen. (How had I not heard?) Then the best kind of excitement kicked in. A wish. Was coming true. NOW. Grateful for fellow Gaga fan and co-conspirator, Marine wife Leslie, we bought corner seat tickets and prepared ourselves for a night of driving and dancing. Serious dancing. The kind that involves jumping up and down, fist-pumping, screaming and singling along at the top of your ooey-gooey lungs. Because who hasn't felt like they were born to feel that way.
My favorite concert to that date was Britney Spears. Yes, even over Coldplay's yellow beach balls popping through the audience, Lilith Fair's free-spirited weed smell, and Jars of Clay crowd-surfing (and yes, the only mosh pit I've dared enter is a religious one - but this will hopefully change the day I can afford a floor ticket). So Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta took the cake and ice cream, too.
Courtesy of Anirudh Koul's Flickr stream (since my shot sucked)
While the former reining princess of pop Ms. Spears had an indoor waterfall, laser lights and eye-sticking, all-American good looks, our lady had a flaming piano, a flaming bikini, a piano inside the hood of a pickup truck, and a wiggly fame monster from the bottom of the sea. But above all, she committed wholly to putting on a riveting, passionate show centered on what was, in my opinion, pure pop musicality and branding genius. She can write, sing, dance, entertain and NEVER lip-syncs.
"I never have, and I never will," she growled prettily.
She also intermittently yells at us little dressed little monsters to put your fucking phones away, stand the fuck up, get your fucking hands in the air, and just dance. So I did.
Queen's Radio Gaga incarnate also took fall-defying (and sometimes submitting) stances, posed precariously between piano bench and bandmate guitar stem. The girl is crunk - striking poses, strutting moves, and singing notes that would make the greatest artists gape in awe. The cherry on top is that this chick's not publicly political, just out for equality.
If you can get past your normal self (aka a civilian versus a star) - perhaps one who doesn't sleep with both men and women, drink from a teacup with a fake diamond at the bottom every morning, try to give a Vogue interview buzzed, or wear masks, meat, wigs and decals that make you look like you've got protruding bones - you'll see how you can't argue with that. Equality, in case you forgot. WINK
The kicker ... She knows what everyone says. Her body's okay; her face is blech. She shrugs it off. Because she puts on her cape (her fans' fandom) and holds her head high. Can't we all learn from that? Feel it? Can't we all ignore the peanut gallery a little more successfully because of our own personal fans and her anthem-esque music, a cornucopia of hits with hooks and climaxes like Just Dance, Bad Romance, Telephone and Alejandro. They can make us hold our heads a little higher, try a little harder, think outside the box. Run further, dance bigger, make love crazier.
Twenty-five years old. As the hus would say, lock her up and throw away the key, so she can do no harm to herself and continue to create musical bliss.
One concert tour T-shirt later, I fold it in next to my "It's Britney, Bitch" T. It's no plastic dress, disco stick, go-go boots, or even feather earrings, the other little monsters were sporting as we watched Gaga live - but I'm a bigger little monster for having been there, seen it.
Courtesy of This is Not the Blog You Are Looking For
Some 20,000 people poured out of the arena, adrenaline happy, experience appreciative, maybe even ready to tackle another chapter in the next great American novel all us writers claim to be working on. Paws up. Show your teeth.
The only thing that would compare to being Stefani's bud might be being Coco's. Sure, the gaunt, brilliant designer would have been a nice friend, but Conan O'Brien's team Coco takes the cake here.
Every night, he joins our DVR, waiting with self-deprication, corny but down-to-earth jokes, quirky impressions, awkward movements and self-centered interviews.
Can't the stars just interview him?
I would settle for working for him over a lifelong friendship, just writing out the queue cards or being assistant to the assistant to the talent booker, even polishing Andy's shoes. But if there was a chance I could be in a sketch, write a sketch, or merely shake his hand - as I walk on stage to be interviewed as the youngest Pulitzer Prize winner ever...
Er, maybe I should start by just seeing his show live, too.
Latest funny Conan bit. Fricking watch it all.
And a bit of a song from our lady's new album, (releasing May 23). (Yup, sorry, I shot it.) Don't worry about the ballad feeling, she said - and I so-called quote - the new record will still be something you can dance to and shake glitter at.
Mardi Gras extends from the Louisiana boot to Pensacola Bay and up to Floribama, Mobile and beyond. There's wannabe Lakers colors and strange "king cake" everywhere. And you've got to watch out, because if you don't pay attention at the parades, you'll get beaned in the head with candy, and whipped with beads. Like me. And like our friends - who wisely invited us to the downtown Pensacola Mardi Gras celebration - you can take this time to avoid eye trauma and hone screaming, waving and catching - collecting as much free shit as possible. From Indian (is that PC?) headdresses to plastic cups and moon pies. (Though a crushed, 'orange' flavored moon pie is a little iffy.)
Dirty pretty things
Cloudy, pretty things
The city barely had time to sober up before St. Patrick's Day hit, begging for beer festivals following 5k runs and slutty green outfits. But what are we doing? Skipping the corned beef and sauerkraut and watching Top Gear, letting the hus rest up from his second solo flight, flown today. Oh. His first! That was done a couple weeks ago (ahem, sorry) with the T-6, number 056. Surprisingly - apparently - the check ride (the flight prior to a solo), is the more challenging and nerve-wracking. And after your first primary school solo (one is already done during IFS [Introductory Flight Screening]), those around will happily oblige you a dunk in the tank outside the line shacks.
So, military wives do things like yoga while they're husbands are out buzzing around in the MOA (military operating area = 2 layers of 12, 4-6,000-foot blocks). And while I'm doing sit-ups (yes, I know these aren't technically part of the yoga plan), I pull a muscle. Not a leg, arm or back muscle like a normal person. But a neck muscle. Not even a normal neck muscle. But the muscle between my throat and chin. Like my swallowing muscle, let's call it... I pulled my swallowing muscle doing sit-ups. (That'll teach me to stray from crunches.) I seriously had to stop what I was doing and lay there breathing, willing the pain and swelling sound in my ears to go away before I was compelled to run around the neighborhood screaming. It did go away. And when I told my formerly-a-physical-therapist-hus, he said, oh yeah, I've had that - it sucks. Suck it did.
When I was able to wolf down food again, I had the energy for a shopping trip. This was of course between hours and hours of productive, well-paid (pah!) freelance marketing writing and a side of novella editing (in which after each paragraph, I start to think about writing head-beaning parades and pulled neck muscles into the storyline). With goals of freshening a pointless wardrobe (an occupational hazard when working from home), I instead got sucked into the miraculous shopping activity of picking out Crocs Jibbitz.
Alright, so for any fellow writers short on whimsy or advice of late - or any interested readers or followers - the below are some faves from the last couple weeks.
Use the time of a total stranger (your reader) in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character to root for.
Every character should want something, even if it's only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things - reveal character, or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your main characters, make awful things happen to them, so the reader can see what they're made of.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Give your readers as much information as possible, as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what's going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves - should cockroaches eat the final pages.
Vonnegut qualifies the list by adding that Flannery O'Connor broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that. (Good ol' Catch-22. [If feeling less polite - insert stream of consciousness cussing here.])
The gods of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) will be with many next month, hovering in their minds and creaked necks - their raw mouse wrists - as they attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That's approximately 5.5 pages per day to reach the goal of having a 175-page work of fiction in hand by November 30, midnight.
Thirty days and 30 nights of literary abandon, they say. Freakish novel writing for an amateur at best, I say. But if the body gods will carry me 26.2 miles without forsaking me, maybe the NaNoWriMo gods won't either.
A week ago, I turned 28. The Day of Disappointment in the Seventh-day Adventist histories. My parents even picked the date. So did the Adventists. Growing up, every school morning devotional with my mom and brother over orange juice or cocoa and bread, which landed on my birthday, had the Great Disappointment as the topic of choice. No cool story about Susie's stolen ice skates or Robbie not giving in to peer pressure. Nope. Just about how we got it wrong.
My birthday sometimes turns into a disappointment. Because I have such grandiose expectations like zero zits and double rainbows. I love surprises and gifts, sweet text messages and cards. I love flowers and jelly beans and signs the people I love GET me. I love that most remember and mark the day of our birth as special, something worth celebrating, indulging. It's a day to be alive. A reason to paint your fingernails or get a haircut, drink an entire bottle of wine or spend 13 hours fishing.
Self-oil-changing on base
It seems like we're always on a budget though. Because we are. But this year we drove down to Destin - for dinner and music on a boat covered in white lights; it motors out of the bay and into the Gulf in a perfect line, to avoid the water sometimes only 3-feet deep. The invisible canal is marked with red lights on the left, green on right. Each light post has a pelican sitting on it, camped out for the night, the red or green glow shining through its thin bird feet. Watching this from the decks is the best part of the booze cruise for 80-year-olds.
Cary is going home to California before his primary training starts immediately after Thanksgiving. I’m staying home in Pensacola, taking my new Mac mini, double monitor setup - with a Bootcamp PC tucked safely inside for work - for a true spin. Working and writing. Zero distractions. Probably home for the entire series of winter holidays due to few frequent flyer seats and Cary’s devildarned schedule. The holidays will be prolific.
It may be a while before the blog is blogged. The wannabe book will take priority. But if the dreaming well is dry, and the creaks and wrists become too testy, it may be time for some keyboard lifting and non-novella words. Besides, where else does one write about the Lost in Translation wig for Halloween, or the plans to whisk Cary away to Disneyworld with whiskey, or to one of the last launches of the space program. Where else would the logs of life be published without strenuousness or compromise.
But the smell of a blown out birthday candle is one of my favorites. Time to make my own wish come true, 3 days and counting. Then lift-off.
The 2010 fall season of television kicked off with a bang. A big one.
Since the world of freelance means PowerPoint presentations on Hong Kong time and novel writing at noon, I find myself more myself lately with DVR stints glued to the box that should be a flatscreen.
Naturally, I had to reserve a spot in my blogoworld for a review of this pleasingly even numbered and high-keeled season of comedic and dramatic entertainment that spans the back-to-school bustle, calm weather, my birthday, and Halloween.
It's half over, fall 2010 television, and, as it should be, that's making me panic. I mean, we've already had the midseason, two-week breaks in shows, which make me want to grip the throats of the actors - push down the writers' pencils - and unleash my full wrath on the big wigs in charge of building intensity. (The people who need to come find me.)
Like Cary and I say, 'lock 'em in a room and make them create.'
To sate my appetite, and wet yours, these are the air wave polished gems that deserve full attention, no blogging or Facebooking.
The Big Bang Theory
Even if only the intro song played for me once a week, it would suffice as my happy pill. I entered the show at season 4, upon little bro-in-law's recommendation. I will not leave. I had to catch up. I had to find out why the elevator was broken. Why Kaley Cuoco was drawn to these boys with beautiful minds - man nerds. I had to hear every smart in more ways than one comment that Sheldon had to say. Let the nerd inside us all reign. Who doesn't understand why a world without USB ports isn't a world at all.
Cool person: Did you watch 30 Rock last night? (This person really wants to share some funny lines like "Help! I need to get all these swears out of my system, you stupid assholes.")
Uncool person: No, I don't really watch it.
Cool person who's becoming annoying: What?! It's like the best show ever! ... Just watch it. From the beginning if you can. Like everything else.
Uncool person: I don't really watch T.V.
Cool person: Well, shit.
Running Wilde
This new comedy's 30 minutes goes by much too fast. Will Arnette, Felicity, a girl named Puddle, and a next door neighbor named Fa'ad stir up a lesson in giving and taking every week. There's opulence and an ongoing game of existential hide-and-seek. There's a going green and a tree house, science projects and school dances. And Felicity wears really cute clothes. There's price fixing - a liter of soda costs $100 to Will, but he doesn't realize his heart-in-the-right-place butler is pocketing the change because Wilde Oil has made Will wealthy enough to make a dent in our debt. It wins the ALY for best new comedy series.
Dark Blue
This is included even though the timing is a little off. But the trailers were off-putting. So in between the summer lull and fall TVbusters, I started TiVo-ing it with a TiVo. The shows were grizzly and surprisingly not too much. Well, sometimes they're too much. But it's okay. McDermott is back. And there's this kick-ass girl cop Jamie. And Dean, Ryan's brother Trey from The O.C., is the token hottie who's not too token-looking. Hottie-driven shows are important as you'll see. And Casting usually tries to please all orientations. (Mea culpe for all the references lost on TV haters and indifferencers, but you probably haven't read this far so nevermind.)
The Vampire Diaries
You new it was coming. WB slash CW and all. The vampire show that serves as fang-lover life support until True Blood returns next year, and the first installment of Breaking Dawn hits theaters. It is young. It is cheesy. But it's decently scary, full of surprises, and filled with shots of hot bodies, blue eyes, and black nail polish. The team gets credit for choosing veins and fangs over constant good looks - and alluding to werewolf nudity. The cherry is the fast becoming token bad boy hottie with funny or ominous lines. The true question is, how does Elena's hair get and stay that straight and shiny?
Nikita
Oh, WB. I can't help but love you. Cary, keep your phfs to yourself. These people gave us the new Buffy and Dawson's Creek. Now they're giving us an old youth, er young adult, spy femme action drama. The star's name is Maggie Q. How cool is that? Add Dylan from Desperate Housewives as the tough, willful recruit with secrets shared and not; an all grown up Shane West; and a boss man from 24 - and you get a nice little piece of cake. The indulgence is in the suspended disbelief that good ol' Maggie Q wanders around in a tech-ridden loft wearing a J. Crew-ish nightgown between the operations her skinny minny legs carry her too. But the overall plot is intriguing. Because the more it moves along, the more I can see Dylan and Shane getting together. And having babies.
Dexter
The Showtime show with a hunk and bite. It has blood without the gore. Cussing without the senselessness. There are twists and turns and guest stars with roles so intense you can't blink. The kicker is that it makes me wanna give up my firstborn for a writing gig on it. Any show that does this is a keeper. Season 5. Julia Stiles has me hooked on Lumen. Lumen and Dexter. Doesn't that sound cool together? More babies, please.
I feel like this show deserves a more substantial review, with substance. But the best I can think to convey at blogworthy length is that Michael C. Hall is it. Carries it. And I like how he dresses. Wow, I am not sounding critical at all. But once I know the writers and creator are in sync with what I and like fans want, it's a guaranteed good time. And isn't that what television is all about. We want a killer central character, writing that don't quit, and a storyline that indulges out every fantastical whim. As Liz Lemon would say, Blamo!
Veronica Mars
This won the ALY for best new Netflix 'Watch Instantly.' I remembered watching bits of it in college, admiring Veronica's ability to head to school and into a sleuthing stint head to toe in Brass Plum bling and string. But I'd forgotten how the whole glow of the show, the cool apartment and detective dad and office, the laptops and messenger bags, the courage and coyness of Veronica - was much enviable and admirable. It's a contemporary Nancy Drew with a believable convertible, friends that rally George and Bess, and, oh yeah, visuals.
Marie Antoinette
This won the ALY for best movie channel debut. It didn't compre to the theater version because Sophia Coppola's colors and style, and arguably captivating quiet, need the big screen - but it was the best movie to watch while writing. Sophia inspires. From The Virgin Suicides to Lost in Translation. The best way to be distracted. There's something to be said about pink poker chips covered in champagne and frosting, high fashion, and girl power, that makes you want to write your own.
Choice Commercial
This season's run of Levi's commercials branded "go forth" is a little breath-catching and artsy fartsy American. Award!
My life as a mediocre sitcom...
The novel grocery cart; it corners like it's on rails.
The toothpaste is gone! Give it up.
What you get when you lose low card punishment games. 45 minutes. On your head.
Cary officially finished API (if you still don't know what that is, Google it; I'm not even providing a link) the day before yesterday. The last two weeks of air, water, and land survival training are under his belt. Having been strapped, slam dunked, twisted, pushed, dropped, deprived of air, and shown how to rub two sticks together (shown but not really honed), he is being debriefed today at his new duty station, Whiting - and this time, it's labeled "permanent" (which means reimbursement moolah for any of our moving expenses).
Okay, here's a video to explain the last six weeks of Cary's life - because I realized Google, myself, and Cary can't even decide what the acronym API stands for.
I appreciate a man who can fly a plane and jump into survival mode with a dozen other hard asses as well as esteem a pop diva. We settled in for Fox's Glee Tuesday night, the long-awaited Britney Spears episode with cameos and a dance-begging soundtrack. It was the highest rated series episode to date. The last TV show that grew in week two when compared to premiere week was Seinfeld in 1993 (audience age 18-49). It was also the number one trending topic on Twitter.
The top selling artist of the decade also knows how to ride with the punches. Forget the head shaving, umbrella poking, and odd, quick husband choice - not to mention the child endangerment - 63 million albums later, she can still make a good manager choice. Last spring, Spears' manager Adam Leber tweeted to fans "Do you guys want to see a Britney Spears episode on Glee?" Six million fans said yes in less than 10 minutes. (Talk about cheap, effective marketing. The Social Network movie might be incomplete without Jack Dorsey.) Ryan Murphy, Glee creator, got interested. You'd think American Idol creator Simon Fuller would take the hint.
Watch the full episode if you missed it, or watch it again, and follow the cast member Brittany's new Twitter account @BrittanyGLEE if you like offbeat comments akin to Creed's on The Office.
As we drive around later in the week, looking at mountain bikes, Tempurpedic beds, and longing for bigger, better electronics, we listen to Britney Spears' greatest hits and try out Mellow Mushroom.
It's a pizza baker like California Pizza Kitchen but with some differences like a menu page of hoagies and a menu page of calzones, and a menu page packed with beer names. And the pizza names and tastes are at least a little different and therefore my favorite, new. Plus, the sodas come in ginormous cups, those red ones that are plastic but meant to look like glass - but huge - so refills are few, and the soda is a more efficient and a less annoying bottomless. There's also a magical looking mushroom fountain that should grace the Teacups ride at Disneyland; it's the center of the back patio where we sit. And there's a rolling ball fountain out front that Cary can't stop playing with. Hm.
We end up at a dollar store, picking up some raw hide bones for Butters. I get distracted by cat toys, holiday dishes, and fairy wings. But we manage to leave with just the bones, following a car out of the parking lot that has a plastic sheet as its rear windshield. It billows and snaps as the car picks up speed. I don't need Mythbusters to tell me that's not aerodynamic.
I see another bagged window - just the back, little triangle one as usual - at the Asian diner Siam, a new favorite that's close to home. It's not just the good food, prices, cleanliness, and more than friendly service. It's the pineapple fried rice. It's got like all the food groups covered. The grain. Pineapple and raisins for your fruit. Cashews and chicken for more of your protein. A garnish of tomato, cucumbers, and cabbage for your veggies. Not to mention the stems of green onion. And some oil for energy (or lip moisturizing as my brother likes to say). Moreover, the chicken l'orange I tried at Yum's, a Chinese food dive I found in the midst of errands, in no way compared. I only got a couple bites down before I couldn't fight back images of bad meat.
When he gets home, I tell Cary about Yum's and how we need to go back to Siam. He briefs me on his debrief. February will probably be the latest point in time that he'll class up for primary pilot training as part of Training Air Wing 5 and hopefully get the new T6 over the old T34. But planes are planes, he says. So the next few months stretch out before us. A weekend in New Orleans. Holiday plans. My first official freelance project starts up next week. So maybe he should take a turn at making me lunch and cleaning the toilets. In that order. I'm back to being a working diva now, bitch.
Friday I drove around with my eyes dilated. I disposed of my disposable sunglasses before I stepped outside. The fluorescent lights of the mall-way outside Lenscrafters isn't bright at all--I don't need these while I try and juggle my also useless receipts for paying nothing. Chuck! Go through automatic doors. Ahhh! It's so bright! So this is what the vampires have to deal with.
By Saturday morning my eye muscles are finally back to normal. A few hours, my ass. We crawl out of bed to go mountain biking at the University of West Florida - where people keep trying to tell us where to find the popular mecca of trails for mountain bikers, a sprawling web of loops off a trailhead mysteriously lying somewhere on the outskirts of campus. The guys have been looking for weeks. After I tucker myself out on trails that probably bore the rest of the group, routes including a long road jaunt that involved hills which lead to that puke feeling, we find it - behind a series of parking lots, a building, and work shed.
We balance our bikes across some half a mile of narrow boardwalk, extending over a swamp where people slowly paddle orange and yellow kayaks around the bend and into the trees, and where there are still no alligators in sight. (How long do I need to live here before one graces me with its presence?!) We get off the boardwalk where there's a gap in the railing. Several yards of grass and spindly trees later, there looms the giant trailhead map. Level color-coded lines trace routes that will entertain for months. My butt bones are sorer just thinking about it - a good sore, and I bear with Cary a few more miles until I force him to take a shortcut back to our truck parked beneath the university's water tower.
Aly: Why do we even have water towers?
Cary: It's like, hey, we have water. (He makes a water tower holding his arms straight up and cupping.)
Aly: That's dumb.
Cary: You are so gullible.
Aly thinks: Shit. (And then Cary continues to explain why we really have water towers.)
We wait in the bed of the truck, in the shade and warm air, until our partners return for a Waffle House stint, where a chocolate chip waffle and grits disappear off my plate in 10 minutes or less. The slight ups and downs, sporadic roots and fields, and hopping a couple broken logs that would be no more than a bump to most anyone else make me think I should fork over the cash and jump on my own bike. Coming in last ain't bad if the reward is feeling like I'm pedaling through New Zealand to the tune of Youthgroup and a chocolate chip waffle is waiting at the finish line. Good marketing and my healthy appetite can get me to do just about anything.
Speaking of. I've done extensive research for us to get the cheapest satellite TV service for our needs - but I was bummed to find out DirectTV did this commercial instead of Dish Network. The script. The actor. The mini giraffe. The boob rubbing. The dogs playing poker. It may be in part due to the Superbowlish effects, but this is a hit, which Cary exploited on Facebook already yet failed to include the commercial in its entirety, and therefore its beauty.
Yes, the mini giraffe and case of the Russian giggly legs are the kickers. But DirectTV did what many marketers are afraid to do - jump in it. Push the envelope. And do it well. And if you hate clean cliches, go balls out. Just execute the shit out of it. The best writer. The best actor. And most important, tap the best brains at your organization, which may not be in the marketing department.
Dirt grits and grease smears wash down the shower drain before we head to the National Naval Aviation Museum and 33rd Annual Pensacola Seafood Festival. I finally learn (never ask me to recite though) the difference between and how turbine and internal combustion engines work. We sit in an old plane. Cozy. Smelly. We sit in a newer plane. The T34 (though the newer T6 will soon be used), a training (hence, the T) plane Cary will jump in, in a few. I ask dumb questions. Cary continues to tell and show me the same thing over and over about engine "cans." I'm still confused obviously. On our way out, we drive around that area of base and see where the Blue Angels park their cars and their planes; where the naval flight officers (Gooses) get their primary training (while Cary and other student pilots go to Whiting Field for theirs); and then we "stumble" upon this bad ass SAM (surface to air missile), what NFOs hunt down. Enemy heat.
Grouper fish (more than what it was cracked up to be), hush puppies (not what they were cracked up to be), a cup of boiled peanuts, and half a fennel cake later (powdered sugar plate licking included), we return to bed and watch Boise State take Oregon State. Boise - they jump in it too. Into that blue, blue field.
Do your parents and/or sibling(s), even childhood friends, still view you as your 12-year-old self? Does your spouse or lover or boss only view you as the person you are, and not the person you've become?
When I used to ask my dad if life got better, or if I should enjoy [insert stage; e.g. middle school, puberty--or the lack thereof--or, what felt like the grips of mean girls akin to a Courtney Summers young adult novel], he said, you have something to look forward to--he said it convincingly, but slowly and cryptically, as usual. Hm. I think about that at least once a year. And starting with my year abroad in college, he was right. It just keeps getting better. Wiser. Secure-er. Exciting-er.
With each new life step--steps that mean you get to organize your own bookshelves, till your own garden, part your hair however you want, wear your favorite T-shirt over and over if you want--you pave your own way. But there's even more--I know it's hard to believe--but there is. You get to pick exactly who you hang out with. What you do on the weekends and in the evening. What you do and who you live with. Whether you play the piano or on the computer. Whether you sit there and do nothing or run around like a tailless lizard. We could go on and on, couldn't we? Steps that lead you away from annoying people and into the arms of people who haven't had the chance to annoy you yet. Into a state with seasons, or a place that skips the shitty ones.
But the dark side of a new moon is that your accountant wants proof you tallied your invoices right (good idea); your workplace demands consistent excellence and sweetness; your newfound friends need to know you're not a snob or a prude or an idiot; your in-laws want to know about the baby stage; your neighbors about the dog that barked and is now three-legged; your new lunch spot your new usual. New, new, new.
So it's a toss-up, between nostalgia and newness. And as we age, the former seems to get worse. The memories and catchphrases repeated too often. The throwbacks to the good 'ol days and the obsession with death. Enough. Politicians are always fucked up and music is always pushing the envelope.
Image courtesy of Fridinger BBQ 2.0
We were born this way, baby, Lady Gaga growls pitch perfect as she claims one of her 8 moon men at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards and preludes her next album. Though I walk the precipice of artist intent, I daresay, we were born screaming and imperfect, stuck but in an oyster. We grow into humans that choose meaty rib cages or Paradoxical organics and vegan foodstuffs, create companies like Lockheed Martin, and question everything, including the end of the world and why it's not fun to hang out with people who suck the life out of knowledge and objects, therapy and conversations and charity.
Grow with grace, little monsters. And keep asking, "How did I get here?". Because you don't want to end up but be reborn.
