room porn

This was the cover of Elle Decor a few months ago(one of only three magazines to which I actually subscribe...how gay is that?). It stuck in my mind for some reason.

I just like this room.
That's the only reason I've put up this picture. No deeper meaning than that.
Sorry.

It's also why I've just spent precious time I should be using to clean the toilet
looking up the decorator and then downloading photos from his website.
This is his own apartment, by the way, and not surprisingly looks better than any of the other places he's done. Why is that?
I love the mix of furniture, mid century, Victorian, and that velvet couch! I'm not too thrilled with the art work, however, but that could be changed. It's the palette of colors that intrigues me most, subtle but not too boring.

We are living in the end times.

Behold the bastard child of Abercrombie and Fitch, begat by Myspace, part of the lost tribe of Olan Mills.

Apparently, this is a new trend in high school yearbooks.

I found this by way of gawker.com and thought it represented perfectly....something....(note the sandals and cargo shorts by the way). I'm just not sure what.

Read for yourself here: Narcissus of Massapequa

a random intersection of recent posts

Today, I went on yet another one of my interminable dates with my lonesome. I saw "Atonement" for real this time. (in short, beautiful, and pretty good)

Driving into the parking lot, looking for a spot to park, I catch sight of a tall, cute kid. "What an interesting haircut that kid's got," I admire. "If I were as tall and thin as he is, I'd like that jacket too." The older guy next to him offers him a light and turns around.

And I see that it's none other than this guy, the one...well, one of them....who told me I was too old for him...ten or so years ago.

I waited a few minutes until they were safely in, bought myself a ticket, got a (real, not diet, dammit) coke...(albeit a medium) and went in.

deco mayo

One of the things that brings a tiny bit of joy to my heart every time I pass it is the old Blue Plate Mayonnaise building. It's not far from where I live now and even nearer to where I used to live. Although abandoned now and looking kind of rough around the edges since Katrina, she's still got it.

She's a streamlined Art Deco beauty, with a slightly nautical feel...perfectly appropriate for mayonnaise production, of course.

Howcha do, howcha do, howcha do

A mid-sixties show about a broke divorced society doyenne living with her daughter in a Hamptons mansion?

No, it's not "Grey Gardens," the sitcom, it's the forgotten Phyllis Diller vehicle: "The Pruitts of Southampton."

I'd never even heard of this until today, (by way of Lady Bunny), but I'd love to see it! "The Lucy Show" and "The Beverly Hillbillies" seemed to be front and center in the writers' minds, but who cares.

I mean who doesn't love Phyllis Diller?
And, most intriguingly of all, Gypsy Rose Lee plays a "nosey" neighbor. God, I'd kill to see that. (By the way the exteriors were filmed at the Biltmore house, the Vanderbilt mansion in NC. I remember going there when I was 13.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.)

Alas, all I could find was the intro:



You have to admit that's one hell of a catchy theme song,
and those outfits!

Let's see Nicolas Ghesquiere do some of that.

the cold cold business world

A while back my friend Mark mentioned that they'd come to "escort" a coworker of his from the office after she had been fired due to cut backs.

I was shocked by this and asked him if this was common in the business world.
I've never worked in quite this sort of environment, so it kind of shocked me. He works in a law office.

I suppose I'm just naive. He wrote this in response today:

No, it's not uncommon "business" procedure. Usually,
though, they're supposed to let you go on a Tuesday or
Wednesday, thus you still have some weekdays to cope
with your being let go, and a chance to go apply for
Unemployment Insurance and stuff.

They will, sometimes, escort you off the property,
confiscate your pass key, de-activate your e-mail,
etc. The fear is that you will try to sabotage the
place, and thus people with access to computer systems
or other technical things are carefully watched. And
the irony too is that the longer you've been at a
company the more they suspect you of malicious intent.
Like my uncle, he worked in the IT department of a
large insurance company. He worked there for maybe
20-30 years, and when they let him go they made him
leave that same day. No chance to say good-bye to your
co-workers, no nothing. It's very cruel, the business
world.

In that way it's much better to quit and give your two
weeks notice. Thus you get a chance to say your
good-byes (and maybe be taken out for lunch by
co-workers), you can wrap up your work, take home your
belongings, pass on whatever knowledge you have to
co-workers, etc.

But my coworkers... like _________ who was let go on
Monday...never even got to take their belongings home.
They shuffle you out the door and mail your personal
belongings to your home. You are treated like a
criminal.

I had no idea. Is he right? Is this the way it is in the cut throat world of tooth and claw capitalism? Or is it just the way it is in the canyons of Toronto.

You know they are a pretty savage race, those Canadians.

what does one do?

The other day at Dollar Tree (why do so many of my stories begin like this? Don't judge.), while wandering the frozen food aisle (did you know there's a frozen food aisle there now? It's mostly freezie pops and sour "creme"....but still...very exciting), I heard the shrill yell of a child.

This, of course, is not at all unusual in Dollar Tree. For example, on my last trip, the four year old diva hurtling herself headfirst from of a pair of still-wired-together plastic high heels....straight into the Laffy Taffy.

I can't say if that was a complete accident on her part, however, if you know what I mean.

But this yell was different. I could hear real pain in the boy's voice, and I could hear his father's (presumably) voice, low and menacing. Eventually I caught a good look at what was transpiring.

It was sickening.

The father had jerked the boy up off the ground. The boy was all of 6 years old or so. The father was a good 6 foot 4. With one fell swoop he jerked the boy up into the air by one arm, nearly dislocating it. The child screamed in pain, crying hysterically. The father put him down roughly and threatened to pull him up again, "if you don't shut up that cryin', boy!"

The boy, needless to say, couldn't stop crying. I mean what living being could after that sort of pain, and surely enough the father (I use the term loosely) jerked him back up again by the arm. He did this a total of 4 times. I swear it looked like he had dislocated the boy's shoulder.

All the while the mother (a term I use just as loosely) was wheeling yet a younger child around in the cart, also screaming, and a middle child, a girl, followed behind sullenly. The mother never said a word, watching her son be tortured.

I felt so impotent at that moment I was shaking with anger. I didn't know what to do. I glared at the guy, and kept my distance, but followed them around the store...keeping my eyes on him for the while. We made eye contact and this seemed to keep him from doing it again ...in the store at least.

God help the poor boy when he got home. I could see the manager looking at him too, but she never said anything either. I wish I hadn't been so intimidated by this guy, but he was frightening, let me be blunt. I didn't know what to do.

I mean, how could one report this, and to whom? "Hi Officer, yes, I see a guy. No, I don't know his name, but he's abusing a child right now. They'll be gone soon. No, I don't know where they live."

What does one do in this sort of situation? It left me frustrated and angry and just plain sad for this poor child. I'm still frustrated and angry and sad in fact.

"and trust us, we see you take your wieners for long walks"

“We are holding Jesus ransom until you clean up the poopie from your wieners and trust us we see you take your wieners for long walks w/out picking up their poopie in our yards. This has upset us dearly so please clean up all the weiner poopie, if you want to see Jesus unharmed. Sincerely, Lindy Lane Residents.”

Found this gem by way of dlisted.
It's a story about a ransom note that this lovely lady in Michigan got from her neighbors.

Chocolate Vagina Capital City of America

Excting news here by way of sturtle and the Times Picayune (I had to verify, because it seemed too..umm...good (?) to be true).
Can you imagine?

On April 12, "The Vagina Monologues," which has become a worldwide phenomenon, launching the V-Day project to end violence against women, will play the 17,000-seat New Orleans Arena with a cast scheduled to include Jane Fonda, Glenn Close, Jennifer Hudson, Ellen DeGeneres, Charmaine Neville, Salma Hayek, Rosario Dawson, Ashley Judd, Julia Stiles, Marisa Tomei and Oprah Winfrey, for whom Ensler is writing a new monologue.

April 11 and 12 will find the Louisiana Superdome interior turned into a pink and red vagina -- "with a big vagina entrance," Ensler said -- as a setting for performance events, parties, parades, workshops, wellness and education programs, speakers, even spa treatments, which will be free to residents of New Orleans and the Gulf South. (Men are excluded only from the spa.)

For those two days, New Orleans will be "the Vagina Capital of America," Ensler said. "We're coming here to say that we should celebrate New Orleans, cherish it, protect it, just as we do our vaginas, and make sure it goes on and on."

27 Cliches

Today, in a pique of boredom, I took myself to another movie (one day I'll put out, right?)
Actually, maybe it's time to slip a ruffie in my drink.

I paid for a ticket to "Atonement," but decided at the very last minute to see "27 Dresses."
I figured I have enough wet drizzly melodrama in my life already, right?

No, I figured I'd see the chick flick...well, the other chick flick.

Somehow I keep hoping to replicate the serendipitous chick flick magic of "Under the Tuscan Sun," a movie I happened to enjoy and roll my eyes at simultaneously.
It's never happened since

So it was just me and an audience of big girls (natch) on a rainy cold Saturday morning.

I ended up getting a coughing fit, so I left a bit early, but I'm sure I can figure out the end. I mean it's the most formulaic chick flick I've seen in a long while, and that's saying something. It's so contrived it's almost hilarious.
Yes, it was bad.
I knew it would be. I just wanted a few hours out of the cold watching scenes of NYC and pretty people who have "love" problems. Is that so wrong?
(don't answer)

Anyway, I kept thinking why is Katherine Heigl doing this to herself? She seems intent on sabotaging her career. And poor James Marsden. I think I like him.


Why's he in this crap? They both work really hard to make it adequate, but never quite do.
So there's my unsolicited review in a nutshell.