The Male Gyno & Other Random Thoughts

Well, it has been a long time since I posted, and I have been feeling a bit of blog guilt recently, so I have decided to throw out some things that I really think need to be discussed.

Lets talk about...the male gynecologists. I mean, I consider myself as open minded as the next person with a vagina, but I cannot fathom including a strange man in on something that primarily involves stirrups, forceps and something called a speculum (thats actually what its called...I looked it up.) I guess my biggest issue is what man would want to do this? Can you really imagine some perfectly sane and normal guy sitting around in med school saying...you know what I want to look at alllll daaaaaaaaay everyday for the next 40 years? Vaginas.

And we trust this guy enough to hop up onto the table (with the scratchy paper underneath) and nothing but one of those ridiculous little paper robes on and throw our legs in the stirrups. Not I.

Yet, there are tons of male gynos, so cleary someone is going to them. I want to hear from you. Please. Explain yourselves.

Speaking of uncomfortable situations.

Many of us had high school reunions this weekend. Now, I didnt actually have an official reunion, but somehow I ended up being convinced to go to the local townie bar the night before Thanksgiving, unknowingly walking smack dab into a defacto reunion of sorts. Now, I dont have a single friend who went to public school who was 'cool' in high school or was excited about their 5-year reunion. (Private school does not count, somehow people who would never ever been 'cool' in public school can be captain popularlity at a private school. (ahem. Bassi.)

Needless to say it was a horrifying experience. Yet, I still managed to have 2 delightful conversations. One with my next door neighbor growing up who miraculously offered to drive me home early, and another with a peripheral friend who really has her shit together, and who I really enjoyed. After that, I made the executive decision not to attend another reunion, real or defacto, until people have grown out of their "its wicked cool to go to the townie bar, get really hammered, drive home drunk, and make out with the prom king on the dance floor" stage and moved on to the "well my life kinda sucks, but Im going to pretend that its great so this person doesn't think Im lame, even though I still live in the same town I grew up in and have never really left, so Im going to drink and get sloppy, but Im old and fat so its even less attractive now that it was when I was 23" stage.

I would imagine this will be the 20th or 15th reunion. So Ill plan on attending them.

No, I'm not bitter or anything. (Yes I am. I'm very very bitter. Because I'm cool now (sorta-see below)! And people who were cool in high school automatically end up screwing up their lives in some way or another, and end up singing "Glory Days" in the townie bar. Im never letting my children be cool in high school, and thats that.)

Actually. In order to make it clear just how cool I am. I will note that I have been invited to not one, but TWO Holiday Parties. I didn't realize we were old enough to host holiday party's but Ive decided they are excellent. People getting dressed up, drinking like fish, eating wicked good food, I mean..this is basically my heaven and its all FREE! And, you are guaranteed to know less than half the people at the party, so..new people.

Anyway...maybe next year I will host my own holiday party- only if bassi and danger promise to come down from NYC for it. I can pretty much guarantee there will be lots and lots of champagne.

I was going to add some other stuff. But this is pretty long. Youll get more later this week.

black friday's gonna get you

it seems we've had a bit of a posting lull in the past week. but today i'm full of food from yesterday and in the mood to blog. wait, that's a lie. what i'm in the mood to do is sleep, but since that's not an option, i'll blog.

i love thanksgiving. it's so rad. for once, i ate the perfect amount, so that i was completely content, but not stuffed. it was magical. tam and i saw "rent" when it opened on wednesday. we graded it a "B." good performances by the cast, but chris columbus had no business directing it, and it showed.

i'm at work. we're broadcasting one of our shows from a MALL. awesome. black friday cracks me up. it sounds so sinister, when really, to anyone in new jersey, it's like "big fucking deal, another day at the mall."

tomorrow i get another thanksgiving with the other side of the family.

i have nothing to say and i'm saying it

i woke up 40 minutes before i had to be at work today. i overslept because i was dreaming about poetry. i'm not sure why or what it means, but it's weird.

during my lunch break, i heard ace of base on the radio. ace of fucking base.

we held a food drive at work, and today i volunteered to assemble thanksgiving baskets with all the food we collected. someone donated about 10 bags of rice that had little black bugs crawling around inside them. gross.

for dinner i ate a granola bar, a tangerine, and a bag of chedder and sour cream potato chips.

what do all these things mean? why am i posting this information? i have no clue. does anyone find this at all interesting, or is it too much information?

speaking of which, i have a blister the size of a quarter on my heel. should i pop it or just let it fester?

the critic

as promised, i'd like to rant briefly on time magazine's list of the 100 greatest films. i've seen 17 of the films on this list, and while 2 of my all-time favorites are on there ("a hard day's night" and "the 400 blows"), some were overlooked.

"a hard days night" is a sticking point between me and bassi and eel. in short, bassi and eel love the movie "field of dreams" and i think it's a steaming turd of a movie, and i tell them so at every opportunity. in turn, bassi and eel call me all sorts of nasty names - fascist, unamerican, "she who is dead inside" - and they make fun of my favorite movies, one of which is "a hard day's night." (guilty admission: i do own "the object of my affection" and i love it.) anyway, even though bassi and eel have never seen "a hard day's night," they mock it merely out of spite. if you're a beatles fan, you're doing yourself a disservice by not seeing this movie. that's all i have to say about that.

as for "the 400 blows": the title is midleading, there are actually no blow jobs in the movie, but there is beautiful cinematography and it takes place in paris. need i say more? i love love love truffaut.

hey, time magazine, where the fuck is "THE GRADUATE"? seriously, this is a movie that hit me hard from the opening sequence, and has stayed with me ever since. it totally captures that feeling, that feeling of restlessness and ineffectualness that comes with graduating from college. mike nichols is one of the greatest living directors, and this movie is fucking great. it's so good, i don't even know where to begin. first of all, the casting of dustin hoffman: brilliant. the soundtrack: genius. the cinematography is just super, and there are some pretty sweet lines of dialogue. "plastics, ben." plus, it was considered slightly subversive, which gives it cred in the book of danger. this is one of the few films that was based on a book that didn't disappoint.

which brings me to....."wonder boys." i have to credit eel and bassi for introducing me to this film. i literally NEVER get tired of this movie. it's funny and sad, it's smart, it's got frances mcdormand and a kick-ass soundtrack. it also features toby maguire and katie holmes before they lost their souls. it's based on the novel by michael chabon (who writes so beautifully, it hurts), and it's just...so well done. the characters are exceptional. seriously, see it.

other films i love but didn't make the list (and that's okay, they're great, but maybe not cinematically superior):

-when harry met sally (bassi and i spent an entire 2 hour drive to foxwoods reciting the script)
-the royal tenenbaums
-being john malkovich
-hannah and her sisters (i had to pick a woody allen, and today this one is my favorite)
-waking life (this movie literally blew my mind open)

can someone explain why "finding nemo" made the list? that's bull.


p.s., in the spirit of film criticism, i have added "the critic: the complete series" to my amazon wish list. feel free to buy it for me.

Quasi Celebrity Spotting

After my ladies left me on Sunday, I decided to spend the afternoon watching my New England Patriots on TV. But, of course, all the Pats games get blacked out so we can watch the 2-7 Baltimore Ravens on CBS all the time. (This is one of the top 2 major draw backs of living in DC-cause I love it here- but Im tired of not getting to watch Boston sports- especially Tom Brady)

So I went down to a new bar in my 'hood (you heard me) The Cleveland Park Bar & Grill. Let me just say that the owner is really doing a great job, we came in and all the booths were full, but they put us up at the bar until one opened up, and changed the channel on one of the TV's so we had a perfect viewing of the game we wanted to watch. I really appreciate good customer service.

So Im sipping on my bloody mary, and next thing I know a familiar looking character sits down at the table across from us. I lean over to my companion and say "Man, that guy really looks like Tony Reali, you know...the host of Around the Horn and Pardon the Interuption on ESPN."

I would like to make it known that I watch both of these shows religiously on the treadmill 4 days a week, and that is my excuse for being able to pick this guy out of a crowd.

Honstly, we weren't sure at first, but as time went on...we hear his voice...and I continued to gawk at him from about 6 feet away, eventually I became convinced that its him.

The proverbial nail in the coffin is when Tim Cowlishaw- Around the Horn Panelist and leading reporter at the Dallas Morning News joins him at the table. Now it cannot be denied.

Needless to say I end up giggling like a school girl because:

1. No one is going to understand who either of these guys are except me and a few other sports dorks and yet I find it incredibly entertaining and had to share it with you
2. Tony R. seemed like a big dork (not that its a bad thing) actually I think the phrase I used was "a big tool" (which is a bad thing)
3. The Pats won- and I love them
4. I found a great new bar to watch sports games at- where you never know who is going to show up.

the northern lights

we were too busy having fun this weekend to drunken blog. i wanted us to post the ransom letter we wrote to our friend, whose name i can't post here for confidentiality reasons. i can't divulge the contents of the letter, but i believe it included the phrase "balls in a jar." as in, testicles.
also, we didn't eat the meat'normous. i conveniently forgot that bassi doesn't eat eggs, and i think eel and i lost heart after our delicious but deadly dinner and brunch combo, which left me about 4 pounds heavier than i was on friday.
however, bassi and i did stop at 3 burger kings on the way to d.c., attempting to obtain a meat'normous display poster as a housewarming gift for eel. i even offered a BK employee ten bucks for one that was just sitting there on the counter, not even on display. it didn't work, though.
on the 7 HOUR ride back, bassi and i decided to make a mix cd of rock songs that feature backup gospel choirs. it's gonna rule.
i'm back home, west wing is on the dvd player, and i cannot stop listening to "kathleen" by josh ritter. i think if anyone ever said to me "all the other girls here are stars, you are the northern lights," i'd swoon.

corzine wins

they just called the election for jon corzine. yay democrats. i want to take a minute to thank doug forrester for being an enormous douchebag, thereby making this a no-brainer for women and those with common sense in the garden state.

i'm not naive enough to think corzine = good just because forrester = bad. corzine's only slightly less douche-y than forrester, but no way was i going to vote for someone who's not loud and proud about a woman's right to choose. and if you'll indulge me in a brief tirade, what the fuck is up with ANYONE acting like they have the right to tell me what i can or cannot do with or to my body? seriously, if men were the ones to have babies, abortion would be a non-issue. it's not about life or death, it's about oppressing women, or at least not trusting women to decide what's right for themselves. don't get me wrong, there are women who abuse the right to have abortions, and they make all of us look bad when they do. then again, fifty percent of marriages in america end in divorce, and no one's looking to make marriage illegal. (oh, unless you're gay.)

okay, i've drifted from my point, which is this: keep the government away from my vagina, please.

p.s. on a separate note: the yankees didn't re-sign tino martinez. i don't disagree with the decision, but i'm sorry to see him go.

one angry dwarf and 200 solemn faces

went to see ben folds tonight with my bestie from NV, bec, who i've known for 9 years now (!) but haven't seen in ages. it was good to catch up. we ate a way overpriced (but delicious) dinner and talked about old times. and we decided to team up to write a screenplay about our high school adventures. i use the term "adventures" loosely, since bec and i were co-presidents of the drama club (read: nerd alert).

bec also told me a hilarious story about watching "harold and kumar go to white castle" with her grandparents over the high holidays. classic.

ben folds was ben folds, which means he's awesome, but it wasn't my favorite show ever. he lost me pretty early on by playing only uber-new tunes, which are not as good as the old stuff. but he won me back during his solo set, during which he played "eddie walker" and "don't change your plans" back-to-back. and seriously, you haven't lived until you've heard his cover of dr. dre's "bitches ain't shit." (bassi, you know what i'm talking about, and eel, it's on your upcoming mix.)

also, the shitheads at radio city music hall for some reason decided that ben had to be off the stage at 11pm ON THE FUCKING DOT, which meant he left the stage before he could finish his last song. here's a picture of him walking off the stage:



the audience was PISSED, so i suggested we riot "like we're in paris," but i was met with blank stares. BLANK STARES.

speaking of blank stares, don't forget to vote today. unless, of course, you plan on voting for a republican. in that case, stay home and bang your head against a wall instead.

go corzine.

i'd trade modest mouse for oasis any day. there, i said it.

is it too soon to be nostalgic for the 1990s? on my way home from work, i heard pearl jam's "elderly woman behind the counter in a small town" on the radio and felt incredibly wistful for my high school, nay, my middle school days when pearl jam was the shit and me living at home was perfectly acceptable and not utterly pathetic. and then i heard an acoustic version of foo fighters' "everlong" and it was SO good. even though high school was dumb, at least it had an alright soundtrack.

i'm about to head over to barnes and noble for the first time since i quit working there. i will NOT go to applebee's with the gang afterwards. no. matter. what.

if life were fair, i'd be moving to manhattan tomorrow.

Coke Zero has changed my life

Since apparently I am captain product placement - its time for me to introduce a fantastic new invention.

Coke Zero

Well..I guess we should take a step back. Im gonna tell you a little story about how coke zero came to be.

Once upon a time there were some Coke executives sitting around, and they said. "We have this awesome product called Coca-Cola ( ps: Regular coca-cola is awesome. It tastes like heaven. I still get a rush when I twist open the cap of a 20-oz coke, that little hiss is pure nirvana) but American's are getting very fat, so we should create a diet brand of coke. But lets not create this new diet coke based on the old coke (which is good) lets create a whole new recipe using Sweet and Low (which is bad).

Thus, this new diet coke tastes nothing like regular coke-it tastes like poo (gotta get a bodily function reference in).

So now I can't drink Diet Coke (because of the poo) and I feel guilty sucking down gallons of regular coke (over 200 calories for a 20-oz bottle).

EEL is forced to go long periods of time without Coke. Depression ensues.

Flash forward to 2005:

The suddenly brilliant coke executives decide to create Coke Zero.
A no calorie cola that is derived directly from the original coke recipe. Hence, IT TASTES LIKE REAL COKE.

It has single handedly changed my life. And yet somehow NO ONE knows about it. Thus, I am sharing this with you. You should all go out and buy some next time you see it.

You can thank me later.

Also two quotes I want to share with you that pretty much sum up how I feel about being out of college:

"We're adults. When did that happen and how do I make it stop"
(Grey's Anatomy) Really you should all watch..so good

And a litte quote from enbattled Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Tice:
"Sometimes you wake up and you say 'Man, I didn't have anything to drink last night. I didn't eat anything fattening. So why do I want to puke?' Then you realize, 'Oh, that's right.' And you start remembering what's going on in your life."

The end

PS- Danger is right. Im really pissed about the serious lack of John Irving on the Time list. I heart John Irving. Especially "A Prayer for Owen Meany"

i've got your back, john irving

time magazine recently published a list of the greatest 100 novels of all time ( see list here), and disturbingly, i have read only 17. and i'm including "lord of the flies," which i didn't read so much as i read the cliffnotes the day before the essay was due and still got an A-. take that, high school!
anyway, i agree with some of the choices: lolita, catcher in the rye, to kill a mockingbird. and i'm psyched to see that david foster wallace made the list with "infinite jest." two of the titles "play it as it lays" and "day of the locust," i read in litvak's class (thanks, joe, for this and also for being so sexy). but where the fuck was garp?? i'm pissed, and i know eel is, too, because she's also a john irving fan. anyway, i thought i'd give you a sampling of what you'd find on danger's list of books that are important. and i'll leave the meaning of "important" open to interpretation, because i don't want to have to fight with any righteous english majors (i only minored in english, thankyouverymuch) over this shit.
-the world according to garp, john irving
-the little prince, antoine de saint exupery
-the philharmonic gets dressed, carla kukin (marc simont's illustrations make this book)
-pastoralia, george saunders (short stories)
-the mysteries of pittsburgh, michael chabon
-the bell jar, sylvia plath
-the vagabond, colette
-dogwalker, arthur bradford (short stories)
-frankenstein, mary shelley
-the collected works of frank o'hara (poetry)
i think with these titles on your shelf, you can never go wrong. there's fiction, non-fiction, a children's book, a poet, and half of the authors are dead. to my knowledge, none of these titles have been in oprah's book club, though "the philharmonic gets dressed" was featured on reading rainbow back in the day ("but you don't have to take my word for it..."). you'll laugh, you'll cry, etc. etc. to this day, the only book that's ever made me cry is "the little prince." when i was in paris, i took a picture of saint exupery's memorial at the pantheon. it doesn't look like much, but it was a special moment for me.

in protest, i'm cancelling my subscription to time magazine (metaphorically speaking, of course).
xoxo
danger.
p.s. can we have a serious discussion about "to kill a mockingbird?" was boo radley an albino?
p.p.s. soon we will tackle time's list of the 100 greatest films. finding nemo, my ass.