The Playlist: A Love Letter

     Leaving is always bittersweet, and this time was no different.  The last few posts of last week were shorter, even though I had grand ideas for them.  Eventually, they became a tad gut wrenching, so I had to stop.  It turns out there were some pretty great people in DC, and the more I thought about them, the harder it got to say god-bye.  I spent the train ride thinking about it, and I became a cliche--the girl crying on the train, staring out the window, watching the world go by.
     I listened to this song many times:

It felt like the first day of my life. But also, and I realize this isn't what the song meant, I was holding onto hope that if I realized one day I wanted to go home, they would take me back.
     And now it really does feel like the first day of my life.

     I wrote this love letter to my friends.  It's a modern day love letter, so it's not a love letter at all, it's a playlist.  If you're interested, the song list is here.

5 Years Time – Noah And The Whale
This Too Shall Pass – OK Go
Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want – The Smiths
First Day Of My Life – Bright Eyes
No Children – The Mountain Goats
She’s Got You High – Mumm-ra
Swim Until You Can’t See Land – Frightened Rabbit
If I Had A Boat – Lyle Lovett
Hurry Up Let’s Go – Shout Out Louds
Kids – MGMT
Daylight – Matt & Kim
Monday Morning – Death Cab for Cutie
My Beloved Monster – Eels
This Year – The Mountain Goats
Portland, Oregon – Loretta Lynn, Jack White
Joy – Lucinda Williams
Song for Myla Goldberg – The Decemberists
Furr – Blitzen Trapper
Goodbye (This Is Not Goodbye) – Over the Rhine
Two Weeks – Grizzly Bear
You Got Growing Up To Do – Joshua Radin feat. Patty Griffin
Things – Frightened Rabbit
The Cave – Vitamin String Quartet
Moves – The New Pornographers
Coffee And Cigarettes – Jimmy Eat World
Girl in the War – Josh Ritter
Elderly Woman Behind The Counter in a Small Town – Pearl Jam
A Real Hero – College, Electric Youth
Always Love – Nada Surf
Dog Days Are Over – Florence + The Machine
Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing – The Magnetic Fields
King of Carot Flowers, Pt. 1 – Neutral Milk Hotel
Fake Empire – The National
Section 9(Light&Day / Reach For The Sun) – The Polyphonic Spree
I Died So I Could Haunt You – Stars
Mutiny, I Promise You – The New Pornographers
Underwater – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Six O’clock News – Kathleen Edwards
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? – She & Him
Lakes of Pontchartrain – The Be Good Tanyas
Head Full Of Doubt/Road Full Of Promise – The Avett Brothers
Leave Your Boyfriends Behind – Leona Naess
Float On – Modest Mouse
New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down – LCD Soundsystem
Oxford Comma – Vampire Weekend
Take Me Out – Franz Ferdinand
Honey, We Can’t Afford To Look This Cheap – The White Stripes
You Only Live Once – The Strokes
Nobody Move, Nobody Gets Hurt – We Are Scientists
Junk Of The Heart (Happy) – The Kooks
Pyro – Kings of Leon
Say It Ain’t So – Weezer
Drugs Or Me – Jimmy Eat World
Here Comes Your Man – Pixies
All Kinds Of Time – Fountains of Wayne

  I think this Avett Brothers song best sums up the playlist's thesis:
     

I think I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Thank you Friends. I love you all.

Farewell, DC

     Today is my last day as a resident in the District.  I've been planning it for a while, but it still seems unreal to me.  I haven't wrapped my mind around the fact that on Monday, I won't be walking to the Dupont Metro.  And I won't be sitting at my desk watching new houses go up in the dirt lot next to the building.  And I won't be drinking the shitty coffee, and I won't be making jokes about puppy dogs and ice cream at the Navy Yard.
     I've been pretty crass about the district.  The district and I broke up a few months ago, shown in this Dear John letter.  The truth is, it had its moments.  It wasn't all bad, it just wasn't for me.  We just didn't get along that well.  I think New York City and I will get along swimmingly, and I'm looking forward to our fledgling relationship. 
     (Apparently fledgling isn't really the word I want.  Mary, help me out--what do I mean?)
     Tomorrow I open a whole new chapter.  How exciting.  How scary.  Holy crap, I'm going to live in New York and try to make it after all, a la Mary Tyler Moore.  God, I hope I'm ready for this. 

Wednesday Rain

     Yesterday I told Mary that it always rains on improv days.  We made a few jokes about turning that into a song.  But really, I can't remember a time when I've had improv class or rehearsal and it hasn't been raining.  Then on the news yesterday the weatherman confirmed that on six of the last eight Wednesdays, it has indeed been raining.  It really does always rain on improv days. 

Buying Scotch

     This is my last week in DC and it is an odd one.  The packing is all done; the move has actually already happened.  I'm still in DC for appearances at this point.  A few great friends have been attempting to squeeze in as much time with me as possible.  I greatly appreciate this gesture, however, the same thing keeps coming up and I don't have an answer--what will you miss most about DC? 
     The real answer is that I'll miss the people who are asking that question.  Of course, that's not what they're talking about.  Where should we go?  What's my favorite happy hour location?  What's my favorite pizza place?  I usually just shrug.  I don't have a favorite place here.  That may in fact have been part of the problem.
     I've been to the Bier Barron twice in the last week--two more times than I've been there in the last year.  But I know it exists so when asked where we should go, it's the first thought I have.  It's a bar that serves a wide selection of beer, so it's good enough for me.  My friends now think it's my favorite place.
     There are a whole slew of things I have not done in DC though.  Someone suggested doing a greatest hits of DC before I go--visit all the monuments and museums one last time.  This would also mean I'd visit them for the first time before I go.  I never bothered going because I figured they'd always be there.  And I think they will be, and if I really get an itch to look at a monument or a museum I could come back, or use the internet to search it.  I'm sorry to say that all of the things DC has to offer just don't interest me.
     While considering all of these wonderful things that wonderful friends wanted to do, I felt compelled to reciprocate in some manner.  A gift of some kind seemed appropriate, to say thanks for being my friend and for putting together this lovely going away party.  You're nice.  I appreciate you.  But what?  Liquor?  Yes, that's always a good idea.
     I wandered into a liquor store near my place.  I enjoy Scotch, therefore I believe everyone should enjoy it.  At the same time, it's a gift, so I'm not going to throw a $15 pint of Johnnie Red at my friend.  It should be something nice, something a little bit special in a pretty bottle.  I had a bottle at home that would be perfect, except I wasn't willing to give that one up--it's for a special occasion to be figured out later.  But it was the right size and the right type to give as a gift.  I found the same brand at the store, but it was the large bottle, and came in at just under $150.  Well my, that is a lovely gift.  I tried to describe what I was looking for to the store attendant, but I came off sounding like a dolt looking for Scotch based on the packaging.  I tried to explain that I knew it came from the Isle of Islay, and it was petey, and that's what I wanted, I just wanted less of it, but it was no use.  I was the girl looking for Scotch based on a pretty bottle, and was too cheap to spring for the good stuff. 
     I left the liquor store defeated.  I'm sure my friend will also enjoy a tall bold coffee.  Thanks, friend.  I appreciate you.  Don't burn your tongue. 

The Best Part of Halloween

      I almost forgot about the best part of Halloween.  With the move that weekend, the event that is Halloween has fallen off of my radar.  Plus, I'm not a child so there will be no trick-or-treating.  However, this afternoon I moseyed into a CVS and remembered the best part of Halloween-- CANDY! 
     And not just regular candy either.  The kind of candy that you eat way too much of but don't realize you've eaten too much of it until you're already a pound in.  Candy corn, for example.  I won't stop eating it, even after vomiting orange sugary goo.  For some reason, it's totally worth it.  Candy corn should be one of those things that I avoid because of a bad experience in the past, like silver tequila and cranberry margaritas.  It is not.  I keep coming back for more. 
     It's the best time to get candy in fun sizes.  I know they're technically available all year, but not in fun colors and not really.  The ones that are available in April are just left over from Halloween.  This is the best time to get them. 
     Candy is on sale during Halloween!  You can get massive amounts of awesome candy for cheap.  You can spend all of November just inches away from a diabetic coma for less than $20.
     It's only been about 45 minutes since I purchased the bag of candy corn, and I have already eaten too much.  I've tried to pawn the bag off on coworkers, but they don't want it.  They claim it's because they're not 12-years-old.  Hog wash, I say.  Candy corn is for everyone.  I will power through.

Scary Movies: A Companion Piece

     Mary is my friend, and sometimes we claim to be brain twins because we often think about the same things at the same time.  There are other times when we're not actually thinking about the same thing at all, but I'm desperately trying to get her to continue to like me.  This is one of those times.  I am going to attempt to write a thoughtful piece on scary movies as a companion piece to Mary's thoughtful post about scary movies.
     The first scary movie I saw was Nightmare on Elm Street.  I was 8-years-old.  I actually loved it and begged my sister to rent all of the movies in the series.  She did, and I devoured the Freddy Krueger series.  I believed it to be superior to all the other horror franchise films, based on nothing of course.
     Eventually they lost their luster.  I think it was about the time the fifth one came out and I was old enough to see it in the theater.  By then, I was no longer interested in purposely being scared.
     Somewhere along the line, I started hating horror films.  There was no fun it for me.  I hate being scared.  I can count the number of times I've seen a horror film on one hand, and I don't do it by choice.
     I saw What Lies Beneath in theaters with college friends because I was obsessed with all things Michelle Pfeiffer.  My roommate, whom I had gone with, spent a large portion of the film holding on to me or the stranger on the other side of her.  I didn't mind the movie, but I did not appreciate the experience.
     Another friend forced me to watch The Shining.  It was late at night and my walk home involved a cemetery.  I was freaked out for weeks.  It is a good movie, but I would not have been happy watching it by myself.
     I have been told there are sub-genres within scary films; there are horror films, slasher films, and just scary movies.  For me, they all involve going through emotions that are similar to losing your keys in a sewer drain and having rats eat your face.  Or other sets of emotions that I am just not interested in.
     My knowledge of scary movies could fit in an applesauce cup.  I remember watching my first Freddy Krueger film in the basement, then apparently something happened inside that made me never want to see that again, and I just stopped watching them.  Oh, and I think I saw Scream 2, but that hardly counts, because Monica was in it (and Mary says it's awful).  

The Printing Saga Continues

     Now I'm out of paper.  Argh!  Printing should not be this hard.  If it's not one thing, it's another.  I bought the ink I needed.  I set up the parameters on the computer to print in gray-scale and bypass that pesky Cyan problem.  And now, there's no paper.
     The nagging part of being out of paper is that paper isn't really that hard to come by.  I'm surrounded by it.  I never run out of paper at work.  It's always there, just popping out of the printer whenever I need it.  I get lulled into this false sense of paper-availability security.  I expect it to always be there.  But then I go home and I press print and that little HP son-of-a-bitch just blinks at me.
     I've actually spent the last day thinking "where do I even buy paper?"  This is probably unreasonable.  I'm not looking for ancient paper, or a case of dot-matrix-style paper; I just need regular old printer paper.  I bet I could find it at CVS or about any of the fifty stores I walk passed on a daily basis.  Still, I get anxious.
     Basically, printing has become a major source of stress in my life.   

Why I Hate This Guy, Mike

     Mike doesn't listen.  I met Mike back in January in improv 1A.  He didn't listen then, and he doesn't listen now.  "Mike, the scene is not about pirates.  Don't bring up pirates."  Guess what Mike still brings up? 
     Mike thinks the following things are funny: child abuse, hopelessness, desolation, mud huts.  And I don't mean that he thought they were funny once.  In the 10 months I've practiced improv with this guy, he brings at least one of these things up in every scene he does.  He has never done a scene where he plays a father and does not say "I'm not too crazy about these kids" or "the middle one, not so much."  It's maddening.
     He seems to not understand reality.  During an exercise in class, he was asked to give three situations that he and his scene partner could be in.  They were a student and a teacher, which was already pushing some boundaries in the world of improv (teaching scenes are frowned upon).  Mike first suggested an incredibly elaborate scheme in which he had one final hope of raising standardized test scores by using the only smart student in his class.  He next proposed that the student was in fact a student-teacher, and Mike was his mentor.  His final suggestion was that he was teaching the Force, but Brian was using it for all the wrong reasons.  I shook my head for three solid minutes.  He was told to go with the student-teacher scenario, presumably because it was only one that wasn't completely fucking bonkers.  And in true Mike fashion, he began with a rant about how everyone was stupid and terrible and there was no hope to be had.  His scene partner looked lost; the rest of us were bored.
     He wears toe-shoes.  He wears them all of the time.  I've heard him explain how he has his "dressy" toe-shoes, and his casual toe-shoes.  It takes all my energy to not punch him in his stupid smug face.
     He does this thing.  He doesn't watch TV.  He reads a lot of books.  And then he liked to tell all of us about how he doesn't watch TV or stay in touch with current cultural phenomena because he prefers books.  And then he also continues to explain how he's an outsider, desperately trying to fit in.  He started a scene endowing his scene partner as Ramses.  Apparently Mike was playing a slave who was building the Sphinx.  Not only did no one understand what the hell he was doing, no one cared.  At the end of the scene, when we tore it apart, he was indignant about it.  How could we not understand what he was trying to do?  Well, because it's improv, not fucking history class.  You walked on stage and said "Oh boy Ramses, I think this is the best nose I've ever done."  Sure, we're the idiots.  Fuck you, Mike.  Also, nobody says "oh boy!"  Stop doing it. 
     The sound of his voice is grading.  His face looks stupid.  He breathes through his mouth.  At this point, there is nothing this guy could do that would alter my opinion of him.  He could put all that book reading to use and find the cure for AIDS, but I'd still push him down the stairs while screaming "who's gonna aid you now, ass?"  He's had so many chances, I now don't believe he can ever do anything right.  Also, I think other people need to start calling him out on all his bullshit.
     He negates offers.  This is a big no-no in improv.  And I suspect he doesn't always realize he's doing it, because again, he's not paying attention, he's not listening, and he doesn't have a firm grasp on reality.  He makes side comments in scenes that he thinks are funny.  Not only are they not funny, but they break the reality of the scene and completely ruin it.  He'll break character to make a crack about a mud hut.  Need I say it again?  NOBODY CARES ABOUT MUD HUTS!  He leaves his scene partner bewildered at every turn.  I started a scene with him once where I was clearly carrying an umbrella and I stated "this rain ruins my picnic."  He said something like "nobody was going to come anyway" in his stupid voice and did not acknowledge the rain.  The teacher called a time out and asked him what he thought I had in my hand.  He said "I don't, maybe a hanky or something.  I ignored it."  We know you ignored it.  Because you're an ass.
     Those are just a few of the reasons I hate this guy, Mike.  If there were a giant hole that led directly to the center of the earth, I would push him in.  Then I'd spit in it and hopefully my loogie would hit him in the face just before he melted in the earth's core.      

Passive-Aggressive or Oblivious?

     In the early stages, obliviousness and passive-aggressiveness look a lot alike.  Various context clues can help determine which behavior you're dealing with.  I don't enjoy overgeneralizing, but often if the behavior is done by a man, it's obliviousness and if done by a woman, it's passive-aggressive.  More specifically, if my mother does it, it's probably passive-aggressive.
     For example: leaving an empty carton of milk setting on top of the trash can.  This was my mother's passive-aggressive way of saying "some asshole in this house drank the last of the milk and left it in the refrigerator.  Come home with more milk, or don't come home at all."  We all learned this when forced to eat dry cereal for a week.  However, if my platonic male roommate left an empty carton of milk on top of the trash can, it would mean simply "I do not know where this should go.  I'll put it here." 
    I came home the other day and my living room was full of books.  Some were in boxes, some were just in piles on the coffee table.  The ones that were in boxes were in open boxes, of course, not the neat sort of book box that would make for easy stacking.  These were the types of boxes that get spread all over.  It looked as though we were at one end of a used bookstore sale- either the local used bookstore went out of business and we were the lucky recipients of their inventory, or we were going to start selling used books from our living room. 
     Currently, because of my impending move, I am living out of a suitcase that sets in the corner of the living room and I am sleeping on the couch.  It's not ideal, but it's better than sleeping in the bus station.  These piles of books boxed in my suitcase and created a sort of crib out of the couch, except instead of bars it was piles of books.  It was late when I came home and I didn't have the time or energy to really deal with what was in front of me.  I pushed a few boxes out of the way to get to my suitcase, and then I crawled into the book-tomb. 
     The next morning I was upset about the books.  An obstacle course had been set up.  I accidentally knocked a stack over and felt a little good about it.  The rest of my day was fueled with a decent amount of rage over it.  The previous weekend I had filled the living room with all of my worldly possessions.  They sat there for about three days restricting access to the room before the movers came to haul them away.  There was a bit of me that thought perhaps the book thing was passive-aggressive retaliation for that.  If my mother had done it, it would have been.  And then I started to think more about the culprit of the book-splosion.
     Obliviousness.  That's all it was.  He had books and he thought "I do not know where these should go.  I will put them here."  That was it.  He was not trying to teach a lesson or prove a point.  The next day he politely asked if they were in the way; he could move them if they were.  I thought that was a bit like a beaver asking if the dam he just built was in the way.  How could it not be in the way?  But he really just didn't notice.  Yes, they're in the way.  I moved some of them and created a path so I could get to my suitcase.  I do still have to sleep in a book-tomb though.      

HP Ink: A Thin Line Between Love and Hate

     I am willing to concede that I'm preaching to the choir on this one, and that most of these things can go unsaid because everyone already thinks them.  However, sometimes I just need to let the anger out.
     Oh HP ink, you get me every time.  Printing should be simple.  And yet somehow, each time I try to print something, I fail.  I blame HP.  Several years ago I purchased one of those handy all-in-one machines; even though I would never really need to copy or scan, it was nice to know that I could if I needed to.  And actually, I did copy things sometimes.  It's a color printer and at the time was one of the highest quality photo printers around.
     I printed a few photos, but since it's not 1984 and I am not my mother, I didn't do anything with them.  Soon, the photo tray was just a novelty.  It was something that would get in the way when trying to just print normal things.
     Ink is expensive.  I've never looked into it, but it must be made out of baby seal blood or the membrane in ostrich eggs.  Or presumably a combination of both depending on the color.  And it comes in such small quantities.
     HP has come up with some very specific ways to make sure you're always using HP ink, and that the quality of the ink is good.  For HP, this is great.  For me, who just wants to print off a crass sketch or a letter of resignation, this can be a major headache.  I don't print often.  Therefore, my ink will expire without me realizing it.  Somehow the printer knows just how old the ink is and will not allow it to be spread on the paper if it's beyond this date.  I can't imagine what could go wrong if expired ink were allowed to be used.  And I'll never be able to find out because the printer basically gives you the middle finger and just beeps at you until you replace it with a new cartridge.
     I print in color even less often than I print things in general.  The printer doesn't care.  Cyan is expired.  Cyan seems to always be expired.  I don't really care, because I'm not printing anything in Cyan.  The printer cares though.  The printer will allow no ink to be released from any of its 7 cartridges if one of them is expired.  This infuriates me.
     The idea of the printer communicating with the printer and telling me how much ink is in each cartridge is actually pretty good.  At first, I was impressed with the advanced nature of this feature.  Eventually, though, I came to resent it.  The pop-up window did offer a link to the HP website to allow for the immediate purchase of ink when the levels were "dangerously low."  At first this was uber-convenient.  Your ink was sent directly to your door!  How exciting.  But then you were buying a new ink every week, and the shipping costs were adding up.  So you decided to purchase a few of the ink multi-packs and save them.  How smart, you thought.
     But remember earlier when I talked about the expiration of ink?  It doesn't matter if it's freshly out of its packaging, that expiration date magically encoded into the ink is a hard-fucking-expiration date.  This is not a milk "it says the 12th, but it still smells fine, so I'll use it" kind of expiration date.  Apparently seal blood and ostrich placenta really seriously expire and if they excrete from that cartridge even one day after the expiration date, the printer will melt into a blob of plastic and glass, releasing evil spirits into your house that will rape your sister and murder your puppy.  HP takes that shit seriously.
     I think there should a waiver.  There should be a bypass button I can press that states "I don't have a puppy and my sister lives elsewhere.  Proceed with printing."  Especially when it's Cyan that's expired and I am not printing in Cyan.  I never print in Cyan. 

A Giant Post

     I have an announcement to make.  I've known about this announcement for a little while now, and it has been festering inside, causing me to be skiddish with my blog posting.  I basically couldn't think about anything else.  But now all the pieces are in place, the ducks are in a row, affairs are in order.  Now I can make my announcement.
     I am moving to New York.  Specifically, to Brooklyn.  In two weeks.  Everyone gets two weeks' notice, and this is it.

  

Weekend Movie Reviews...

...will not be a part of today's post.  I saw 50/50 and The Ides of March this weekend.  I would like to review them both.  I jotted down some notes, and they were good too, but I left them on my other computer.  And they were so good, I don't want to bastardize them by just trying to remember them here. 
     I had claimed that I was going to see Moneyball and then possibly A Dolphin Tale.  I didn't see either.  Maybe I'll write fake reviews (of their trailers) as place holders until I can watch them . 
     I did watch game two of the ALCS, and my review of that is "Boooooo!  COME ON, TIGERS!"  It was not fun.  I haven't actually been following baseball this year, but I always want my hometown team to win.
     I think I already covered my review of Columbus Day yesterday: bad guy, nice weekend. 
    

Oh, Columbus. What a Card!

     I don't usually post on federal holidays, and today is no exception, because this post is going up late!  Last years post, I don't agree with Columbus, but I'll Take the Day Off, still rings true for me.  I'm still amazed that people don't know even the slightest bit of truth about what an awful man he was.  At the same time, I do love a long weekend.
     Enjoy last years' post!

More Regrouping

     And then I remembered ALL the things, and there were so many things, it became overwhelming. 

A regrouping

I couldn't remember ALL the things.

Spotify: A Love Affair.

     I made a playlist yesterday, and it's awesome.  I want to share it with everyone, and I can.  Even better, it was a collaborative playlist.  I gave Mary the general theme of New York City and adventure and she added a whole slew of songs that I would have never considered.  And then with the wonderful "related artist" feature on Spotify, I was able to cultivate even more song selections based on her contributions.  And then I spent about four hours putting the songs in order. 
     I was skeptical at Spotify at first, but I've come around.  I have the premium service, and it is indeed premium.  There have been a few songs I haven't been able to find, even though they claim to have any song you could want, but they still have a hell of a lot of songs.  The feature that allows you to synch the songs from your iTunes library to Spotify playlists is amazing.  Of course, I can never ever get rid of Spotify now.  I'll keep it forever.  Forever ever.  Forever ever.
     The sharing aspect of it is what really puts it over the edge as far as music services go.  If I hear a song that I want Mary to hear, I just drop it on her name in my interface.  When she opens Spotify next, it's there.  I was actually online while she was adding songs to my playlist and they showed up immediately.  I opened the app on my phone and bam!, all the songs were there.  This is amazing to me.  We can share music like we were 12 years old sharing records after school, but we're several thousand miles apart.  Music brings people together.

45 Seconds of 'Hart of Dixie.' A Review

     What the hell?  This show came on my TV and I stared at it for 45 seconds, confused, like a dog who doesn't understand "sit."  What was happening on TV?  What time period were they in?  Was one of these people supposed to be a doctor?  More than one?  Did Nancy Travis lose a bet?  Why, why, why was this all happening?
     I had actually heard of this show before it aired.  "A heart surgeon named Dr. Hart takes over a small town doctor's office and whores it up."  Perhaps that wasn't the exact tagline.  But it's titled Hart of Dixie, and it's about a heart surgeon.  In Dixie.  I don't really know where Dixie is, presumably anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line.  According to Wikipedia, Dixie is just a nickname for the southern United States.  Based on the 45 seconds I saw, I assume the show uses this generalization so they have every southern stereotype at their disposal.  Why limit themselves to Kentucky stereotypes when they can run the entire gambit of down-home, redneck, backwards, southern-belle, hayseed, racist, slow-talking, comfort-food cooking, back-woods doctoring caricatures they can?  To be clear, I don't think that's all the south is about.  I think the show thinks that what the south is about. 
     Rachel Bilson is in this show.  This was supposed to be a draw; people were supposed to tune in to see her.  I've heard her name before.  I think she was in The Last Kiss with Zach Braff.  She plays a heart surgeon.  This doesn't make any sense.  I would believe it if she were playing a magician's assistant, perhaps.  But a heart surgeon?  I think she's supposed to be kind of down-and-out, a failed heart surgeon if you will.  But still, I don't believe she could have ever made it far enough in her medical training to call herself a failed heart-surgeon.  It's like scoring 750 on your SATs and calling yourself a failed Supreme Court Judge.  Or maybe she was a dog-heart surgeon.  I would also believe she failed out of veterinarian school.   
     In the 45 seconds I watched I saw Rachel Bilson play doctor to a southern belle hell bent on participating in a parade while Nancy Travis watched.  Bilson's great doctorly advice was "you need to take care of yourself."  The southern belle protested because she just had to be in the parade.  Southern belle left and Nancy Travis complimented Bilson on her doctoring.  She had the doctorly poise of a piece of wet white bread.  I was hoping Nancy Travis was being sarcastic.  Also, seriously, Nancy Travis, what happened?  You were in So I Married An Axe Murderer for crying out loud.  You're better than this.  Are you under water on your mortgage?  Do the producers have naked pictures of you they threatened to release if you didn't agree to this?  Are you actually Bilson's mother and as such are contractually obligated to hold her hand through train wrecks and terrible CW shows?  Save yourself, please!  We can forget this ever happened.
     There was also a diner, in which Bilson and the mayor, who was an ex-linebacker and apparently the only black guy in town, had breakfast.  He ordered for her- two number fives with grits.  And then some other tightly wound southern belle from the 40s was screeching about something.  And then there was float building.  And Bilson was dressed in a tank top, jeans, and a bandana and people accused her of being in a gang.  And there was a woman named Lemon.  It was her first name.
     That was 45 seconds of my life I'll never get back.  I was not a fan.  Grade F.  More like Shart of Dixie.  The pixels on my TV deserve better than projecting that crap into my home.  I do not like it.
     I scrambled for the remote and flipped to old episodes of Scrubs.  It's so much more satisfying, and they're believable as doctors.

The Ever Evolving Mother-Daughter Relationship

     I'm amazed at times how my relationship with my mother can continue to evolve.  It seems strange to realize that it can, because this is the woman who birthed me and wiped my ass for many (probably too many) years.  It seems like cleaning up after someone's bodily fluids would solidify that relationship early on, and not allow for a lot of wiggle room.
     Also, each of us are incredibly obstinate, but we disagree about almost everything.  Sometimes just for spite.  On both our parts.  She's the one who taught me about spite and how to use it to make all my decisions.    My best bitch comes from her.
     I supposed eventually she forgot about all the shit and vomit she used to have to clean up.  Also, I think a lot of the tension dissipated when she just started accepting that I would always try to make a joke.  And now we have almost normal conversations.  I recommended Drive to her.  Then I took it back.  She then told me about a movie she saw.  I told her it sounded awful.  And her reaction was probably racist.  You know, real good mother-daughter conversation stuff.
     Sometimes she tried to pull me into conversations about my sister.  I try to avoid these, as they are a trap.  I'm not interested in complaining about the one person who knows what it's like to have my mom as a mother.  But my mother tries every time.  I like to try to turn it around on her.  My sister's 40th birthday is coming up, and the topic of presents came up.

Mom: She asked me for the attachments to my mixer.  But you know, mine are all chipped, so I got her new ones.  I just hope nobody else got them for her.
Me:  Did you tell her you were going to give them to her?
Mom: NO!
Me: Not the new ones, I mean when she asked for them, did you say you were going to look for them or anything?
Mom:  No, I didn't say anything.
Me:  What do you mean you didn't say anything?
Mom:  I mean I didn't say yes or no or maybe in any way.  I didn't say anything.
Me: So you just ignored her?  The question just hung there?
Mom:  Well, yeah.

And then I pictured it.  I pictured my sister asking a very innocuous question like "can I have your mixer attachments?" and my mother's reaction to be just looking around in circles, pretending nothing was said.  I started laughing at her.
     I could sense that my mom wanted to complain about by sister, but I refuse to play that game.  She said she asked my sister to come over and install a hose-hanger in the garage.  I then asked if Sister just stared at her and refused to answer.  
     I also like to be sure that I'm at least a little intoxicated when I talk to her.  I have found that booze also helps our relationship bloom.