Postcards from Kate

What year is it?

2009-11-22T23:43:00.002-05:00

Michael is looking terrib ... oh, wait, now I remember.

My audition to be Cindy Adams

2009-11-07T13:08:00.003-05:00

Best scene of the week.

Lower East Side, two cars get into a fender bender. The two drivers - both young and tough - hop out, puffing themselves up for a fight. They inspect their respective cars, see there's no damage, high five each other and drive away.

Only in New York, kids. Only in New York.

Thought of the day

2009-11-04T11:12:00.002-05:00

Your thought to ruminate on for the day: Why are there no capital numbers?

Too dumb to be handed something for free

2009-10-30T10:19:00.004-04:00

There's a new Sephora makeup store that was set to open in my neighborhood this morning. Excitedly, I hustled over, hoping to be one of the first 100 people (Ok, first 100 girls) so I could get a free gift card.

I rolled up early enough that the line was barely 20 deep and waited patiently, with visions of sugar plum colored lip gloss dancing in my head. Promptly at 9 the line started moving, and I shuffle along, following the girl in front of me ... right into Barnes & Noble.

That's right. The Sephora line - 300 people deep – was around the corner. I'd gotten into the everyday line for the bookstore.

Graphic graphics

2009-10-27T16:11:00.002-04:00

Why does "Babies Making Babies" in this graphic sound ten times dirtier than "babies having babies"?

A nation ... mourns?

2009-10-25T04:45:00.001-04:00

I'd like to think this guy is too choked up by the Stephen Hawking death rumor that he can't even make full sentences.

Can I get a "what what" Jazzy Jeff?

2008-07-26T13:14:00.007-04:00

Moms. Am I right, people?

My own mother is impervious to teasing, either because it goes over her head or because she’s way, way more clever and calculating than I realized. I think we know the answer. She has a knack for responding to teasing with heartfelt sincerity. It's adorable and I love her for it.

Witness:

Me: I know I’m your favorite kid, Mom. It’s ok, you can go ahead and tell Kevin and Annie so they can adjust their lives accordingly. You have to start pitting us against each other for your love and affection like Dad does.

Her: I have always loved all my kids equally! You know that. One year at parent-teacher conferences…

And so forth. I recently realized this delightful peccadillo is not confined to my mother when I went to dinner with a friend and her mom. And this is what happened.

My friend: I have this student whose mom won’t let him participate in gym class since he scraped his knee. She wanted him to wear a helmet! Now she wants to meet with me because I gave her son a “meets expectations” instead of “exceeds expectations” on his report card.

Me: You should tell her that he’d have gotten an “exceeds expectations” if he hadn’t suffered all that brain damage from not wearing a helmet.

Her mom: OH NO! YOU CANNOT TELL THAT POOR WOMAN THAT!

Friend: Mooooom….we’re kidding.

Friend’s mom: She’ll be worried sick.

Friend: It’s a joke, mom.

Friend’s mom: You can just be very rational and tell her that while “exceeds expectations” is the ideal to shoot for, there’s nothing wrong with –

Friend (to waiter): Can we get some more bread? Thanks.

Then there was last week’s email exchange with Mum:

Hey, I remember this old story in The Onion and I thought it was funny EVEN THOUGH IT DOES NOT REMIND ME OF YOU.

Clear? OK, it's funny and I'm not teasing you, because you don't like to be teased.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38572

Response:

That was lol funny! I saw no similarity to you and me working out somethings on the computer when you were home, so I never would have thought you were putting me in the same class with that poor woman. God bless her daughter!

Love you
Me

Which is the total essence of the woman. The total love for me. The pitying a fictional daughter in The Onion. All the LOL funny.

Obama poster Bloutout™

2009-01-17T18:03:00.013-05:00

Feeling a wee bit too productive at work because of the inauguration coming atcha? Have an excess of Hope and Change to burn off as we bid Bush ado? Have you met: Obaniconme?

Not since the great personalized M&M debacle have I wasted this much time customizing something for friends and family.

Let's meet Kate's supporting players!

The Kosher Cupcake I used to babysit.

Here she is testing out my glasses.

KC and another baby friend enjoying a snack.

My brother modeling his second-favorite Christmas present after the blanket "so soft it makes me wish I had polio."

My mom, looking like a dame from a noir film.

My dad, showing off my parents' comically oversized remote.

Hey, and speaking of things that are comically oversized, it's the previously discussed pink bunny pants...

...which - I wasn't exaggerating - really were big enough for my sister and me.

Happy St. Stereotypes Day, everyone!

2009-03-16T17:54:00.004-04:00

St. Patrick’s Day is the perfect day to commit a crime. The parade is literally two solid hours of marching (drunk), smiling (drunk), tuba-playing (drunk) Irish policemen. “Who’s guarding the city?” I ask every year.

If you thought the above paragraph was even faintly amusing – or even recognized it as a joke – you’re one step ahead of my date last Thursday night, who just sipped his beer dully and responded, “I think the police force is more diverse than you realize.”

And I did not throw a drink in his face for being stupid. Just like St. Patrick would have wanted.

After that false start to festivities, the holiday came early this year in the form of a Saturday night pub crawl in lower Manhattan.

At one point in the evening, some friends and I were waiting outside for a friend to tap out when we realized that on either side of us, magic was happening. A fight. And a girl puking.

Without a word, everyone’s cameras instantly came out. The guy in the group with a podcast brought out his Flip camera and started a video introduction while ducking behind a car like he was a reporter in Baghdad.

Here’s my winning St. Patrick’s Day scavenger hunt checklist. One point for each stereotype that I actually spotted:
Green beer

Guy drinking Heineken because of the green bottle, even though it’s Dutch

Girl physically supported by her boyfriend while she pukes the green beer

Guy who’s officially part of your pub crawl group who disappears after the first bar

A street brawl where the guys are named Mikey and Dan, but they just call each other “bro” repeatedly before coming to blows

A freckled girl with eyebrows plucked too thin who earnestly tries to separate them

The guy wearing a green sport coat like he won the Masters who eventually takes over the refereeing

Even though we’re in Lower Manhattan, they have wicked heavy Boston accents

U2 cover band called – of course – 2U, which the poster billed as “the second-best U2 cover band on the East Coast.”

“The Edge” calling out for a shot of Jameson from on stage, along with a tall glass of water

“The Edge” reminding everyone the importance of staying hydrated

Someone who takes it upon himself to wear an old-fashioned Irish hat

Guy in kilt

Random girl crying (x2)

Two dazed girls plopped down on the curb

Dude in an “Erin go braless” T-shirt

A (lost?) Asian wandering around

Someone who feels the need to enlighten everyone that this is “nothing like the real Ireland”

Irish roommate who has one of her five siblings fly over from Dublin only to get in a 3 a.m. fight with her

Dead Kennedys

2009-08-29T20:11:00.007-04:00

Thoughts from Ted Kennedy's funeral:
• Bill Clinton is now magenta apparently? Is someone on top of this?

• Also, do you think he got handsy during the kiss of peace? (Answer, yes. As a friend said: He's aiming for kiss of piece. And this led to 20 minutes of Catholic sex puns.)

• Uh, there sure are a lot of Kennedys left. For a family with a knack for dying, someone has made sure to manufacture plenty of spares.

• And the orthodontia bills! My God, those chompers. You've got competition, Biden.

• The men seem more handsome than the women are pretty. "Square-jawed" is not a complimentary term for a lady.

• I don't know this kid, but keep an eye on him. He'll be trouble. And kudos, kid, to whoever set you up with this photo-op idea. You got yourself into the New York Times.

• A lot of the eulogies seem to focus on the lesser-known Kennedy tragedies: A kid with a fake leg who's slow at sledding; a kid with asthma. Truly these are the worst times this family has endured.

• The son who told of his dad helping him get up the hill to sled – yes you can climb this hill and face the challenges of life! – made me teary, yes, but as a friend and I discussed: A hill metaphor, really? Is this the relative of some of our nation's greatest leaders or 8th-grade me writing inspirational poetry? As my friend said, "I feel like I could be holding on to you with one hand while you're dangling from a cliff and if I said, 'Hang on! I won't let you die!' I'd still have to add, 'Ugh, that was cheesy.' "

• Hey lookit! It's Yo yo Ma! (A chellist so nice they named him twice.) Bringing the tally up to 547 white people, two Obamas and one Asian.

Yeeeaah, I meant to say "brute bump bump bump butt"

2009-08-04T17:57:00.005-04:00

Somehow I'd lived all these years without knowing the corporate joy of working with dictation software. (I hate to name names but let's just say it rhymes with "Mac Speech Dictate.") Trust me when i say I was enunciating.

And how'd things go? A little something like this.

I said:

Hello, I'm not sure if this dictation is working or not. The words aren't appearing on the screen. Hello, I'm not sure if this is working or not, but I would like words to appear on the screen please. Please. PLEASE! Please, please, please, please. I'm worried now because please is an easy word. An EASY word.

What the machine wrote was:

Hello I'm not sure depletion is working or not at the words to appear in the screenplay hell I'm not sure if this nation is working or not but I would like some words to appear on the screen needs plea plea USENET believes to be for Lee believes leave believes he easily worried if and eat EA is if it is an EEG word if an easy word

I don't know what this was:

If I worked in worked is that if worked a day or way old lady old he
only with a don't lay I know I can say is and I just saved my and make
her I am I just stayed out of just a just staying gestating A.D.

Finally, this is the alphabet as the software heard it:

ABCDE and GHIJK era (and no PE you are asked TUV W. at why is the lets
try that again a PC the 80 GHIJK and Amanda PQFT you see preview at
line and see what you

Then I tried to make it type burp, because that's what you do when you're 11 and someone hands you a new robot toy to play with:

Brooke bunt brute bump bump bump butt, but but bump

This is all cut and pasted exactly as it came out. I'd still be saying "burp" over and over into a microphone but the cleaning lady walked in. You'd think things couldn't get more awesome, but oh they can. I emailed the text to myself and the targeted gmail ad for this gobbledygook text was:

It's Biden time!

2009-07-30T20:01:00.006-04:00

I'm going to admit it: I straight up love Joe Biden.

You just know he sauntered down to today's beerfest all casual-like and popped his head into the yard all, "Oh hey, guys. Thought I saw you from my window while I was reading about health-care refor- oh, wait... today's beer day?

Sure, sure, I could stay for just one. What's that? You already each have a red, white or blue beer picked? No worries, Joey B travels with his own cooler of Silver Bullet. Silver for the stars on the American flag. Can we all just do a little scooty-scoo down there? Reminds me of my Amtrak days. I'd always try to get the window seat and have to get past the people in the aisles. Tricky little train dance. If you're in the aisle seat the trick is to pretend you're asleep and hope they go down to the next car. It's a long way to Delaware.

Thanks for moving down, Gates, I'll just sit right here. I won't stay long, just one drink. How you doin', Crowely? Different to be invited into a house and not be bustin' down doors, am i right? Boy do I feel like the black sheep of this group. Oh boy, probably shouldn't have said that. Have you always had that cane, Gates?

Drink up! Taste of the Rockies! It's Biden time!"

Kate reviews movies she hasn't seen yet

2009-07-21T16:40:00.007-04:00

Here's The Ugly Truth as I understand it from the movie poster:

After a lifetime of suffering from heart-of-the-groin disease (Latin: viscus via penileus) a man plans to undergo a risky penis-transplant operation. He meets a woman he's attracted to, not realizing that "she's" really a man preparing for gender-reassignment surgery. Love blossoms when she donates her penis to him. Will they get married, or will he find out...The Ugly Truth?

Coming July 24.

I have a what now?

2009-07-14T11:27:00.005-04:00

Whoops. I forgot I had a blog.

Frank McCourt is supposedly near death, (from skin cancer. The sun can be more fatal to us Irish than Guinness.) and because you turn to me first for all your Frank McCourt-related news, I thought I'd share my story of meeting him.

Like everyone in Oprah's Book Club that year, I'd wept my way through Angela's Ashes, so when I heard he was coming to speak at my campus, this sophomore reporter – fresh from covering the ins and outs of the chess team (P.S. Shit got craaaazy. P.P.S. That's a lie) – lobbied hardcore to cover the event.

~~Whining like a local-car-dealer's Chanel-purse toting daughter on My Super Sweet 16~~Rationally stating my case to my editors did the trick, and I was off to the all-purpose conference room for the glamour of the evening!

Trouble brewed early in the form of shrimp salad. At the time, I'd been a vegetarian for about two years. But even when I ate meat, I couldn't bear that weird crunch of shrimp. (That and the summer I had to de-poop shrimp at a restaurant. Never forget.) I realized I couldn't eat anything in the shape of an animal, which put me in a bind with animal crackers. Regardless.

So shrimp was served. Frank dug in. How could he not? I thought, with his empty-stomach childhood. This was the man who'd stolen his teacher's apple peel after all.

Crunch. Good God, that crunch. Shrimp won't let you forget that it's shrimp-the-animal. It doesn't have the courtesy of ham. It's so hard like harder than celery. My teeth wanted to stop at the first resistance, but I chewed up bite after grim and grusome bite. They landed in my stomach almost intact, which my stomach was none too keen about. I'm probably going to see these almost-whole shrimp again in a few hours, I thought as we talked about the book.

I asked him to sign my copy of 'Tis.

"Where's your copy of Angela's Ashes?" he wants to know, reverting to his teacher tone and seeking my delinquent homework.

"I leant it to a friend." I left it on the bus? The dog ate it?

"Well, tell them to get their own copy!"

We burst out laughing. I slid a shrimp under some lettuce. My stomach had its work cut out for it, but it was worth it to not insult his childhood trials by wasting food.

The waiter came to mercifully clear our dishes, and I looked at Frank's plate.

Fucker barely touched his food.

Oh, I get it ... no, wait, I'm back to not getting it

2009-05-19T17:14:00.005-04:00

Apparently this Chick Downtown thing is a clothing store and not a hookup site for transvestites. Excuse me, I need to make a few phone calls.

Even in this recession, a humble patron of the arts steps forward

2009-05-18T11:33:00.002-04:00

So I'm at a coffee shop, trying to get a table, but I'm thwarted by this woman blocking the only two free tables with a giant-ass painting. I could say the brushwork was obvious and derivative, but it really just looked like if The Scream were painted in actual blood. Another broad saddles up beside me and the two of us start conferring about how to best get to the blocked tables.

"Do you want to see it?" the woman asks us.

"Not really," the other girl mutters, for naught, as the woman has already hoisted the 6' x 8' frame above her head. "This is the artist. I just bought it. For $5,000!"

I smile the "holy hell you're proud about getting ripped off" smile.

"Is that your bag on the back table? Can I get in there please?" I say.

"And the one by the wall? Is there a way to get around to that table?" the other girl says.

"Five thousand!"

"Right, that's great, it's just..."

"Oh, right, the bag."

She leaves within the next 10 minutes, but not before telling the entire cafe about the painting and its cost. When she leaves, she abandons her half-finished coffee for the older gay guys taking her table.

"Ma'am, you forgot your coffee..." one calls after her.

"Eh, what does she care," his companion said. "She bought a painting."

"Did she say it cost $5,000?"

Frown

2009-05-14T12:57:00.004-04:00

When my parents moved into their current house, there was my room with a double bed, my brother's room with two single beds used for the guest room and my sister moved into her own apartment with her furniture. Now that the three of us are out of the house, this arrangement leaves three beds too many 360 days a year. But every year at Christmas, I have to give up my bed for my sister and her husband, because nothing punches you in the face and yells, "YOU'RE SINGLE AND UNLOVED AT THE HOLIDAYS!" than literally being kicked out of your own bed on Christmas Eve.

One of these years I'm getting off the couch and unwrapping everyone's presents.

That's generally my saddest single-girl day of the year, but today may surpass that.

I just wanted to look at pictures of cake. A friend of mine is getting married and is registered on some wedding site, which is also home to numerous pretty pictures of sweet, sweet cake. Since I'm a person who DVRs Ace of Cake (what up, Duff?), I consider myself an aficionado of cake culture, I just wanted to look at the pretty designs.

Well, that wasn't to be. I clicked on a picture and the site told me I had to not only log in, but also give them my wedding info. I got rejected from looking at pictures of cake. Rejected from cake!

I got cake blocked.

And to all a good night

2009-05-11T18:01:00.003-04:00

Because I’ve become the Eastern Seaboard black sheep of my family, I was the only one who wasn’t home to fete Mom yesterday. This is apparently what I was missing:

ME: (On the phone with my sister) What are you guys doing today?

SISTER: Mom wanted to watch Atonement, so we’re just about to put that in.

ME: Aw, no, I saw it. Tell Mom it’s pretty sad. OH MY GOD! NO, WAIT! Tell her it centers around the c-word.

SISTER: What? The c-word?

ME: I’m not even joking.

MOM (in the background): What’s the c-word?

SISTER: C-u-n-t.

MOM: What’s that? (Pause) Oh! Oh. Oh no.

BROTHER: (Deadpan) I’m still not following.

DAD: (Hoot of laughter)

ME: Annie, did we just expose Mom to the c-word on Mother’s Day?

SISTER: I’m pretty sure we did.

ME: OK! My work here is done.

AFTERMATH UPDATE:

I called today to see how it all went down.

MOM: Oh, we put it in and I remembered I’d seen it on TV before. It was too sad so we turned it off.

ME: It’s never been on TV before, Mom. You can admit why you turned it off.

This woman also panicked when she pushed on the pull door and thought we were locked in

2009-04-15T14:51:00.005-04:00

We're rounding the bend on April, and this sentence I said to a woman recently is still the best thing I've said all year. Possibly in my life:

"Sorry, ma'am, I'm not sure if it's affecting your vision or not, but your glasses are actually on upside down."

This is gonna be the best Mother's Day ever!

2009-04-13T15:20:00.004-04:00

Kids, go get mama's stilettos. We're goin' clubbin'.

(I found this postcard on the street today. I'm getting it framed.)

The butterfly effect

2009-04-03T13:08:00.002-04:00

In 1996, a Canadian high school student participates in an Austrian exchange-student program.

He befriends a young Austrian.

13 years later, that Austrian comes to New York to study at a music school.

His dorm has no sheets available the first night, so he bunks with the Canadian.

The next morning the Canadian and the Austrian go buy sheets at Bed, Bath & Beyond.

The Canadian is 20 minutes late for work.

Kate, without office keys, can’t get in.

The boss is mad.

Kate gets to have her own set of keys made.

That night, Kate realizes she locked herself out of her apartment.

She calls a locksmith.

On the phone, they tell her it will be $45.

They can’t open the front door. The locksmith is miffed and confused Kate doesn’t have keys to the front door.

Poor Segundo, the 4' 11" basement-dwelling super, is summoned to unlock the front door.

Once he’s inside, the locksmith’s price jumps to $45 for just showing up plus $89 to actually unlock the apartment door.

There is yelling. The locksmith storms out.

Thanks to her first day with office keys, Kate actually has a place to sleep while she waits for her roommate to come back from
California.

Tweet tweet!

2009-03-27T10:45:00.004-04:00

Self pimping

Anyone and everyone on Twitter, please follow me at TweetAMovie. (Twitter.com/TweetAMovie) I'm helping my boss with the bit-off-a-lot task of writing a screenplay 140 characters at a time.

Here's what we've got so far. (Click to enlarge.)

Close enough

2009-03-23T12:33:00.003-04:00

Kim Kardashian's two sisters look like two prototypes built before the blow-up doll manufacturers were satisfied.

Executive 1: Too Sasquatch, too rodent, just...right? Eh, close enough.

Executive 2: We can just throw the other two in the pile in the back with Nicky Hilton and Haylie Duff.

Oh I'm sorry, are we boring you, Joe Biden?

2009-02-25T14:20:00.009-05:00

Let's review. What did we learn during the Address to the Nation or whatever the non-State of the Union was called. (Change!)

Now we know that ol' hairplugs-and-Chicklet-chompers Joe is wont to nod off when Obama isn't instructing people to clap for him directly. And we learned that Nancy Pelosi is an applause slut who'll apparently just hop to her feet gleefully for anything Obama says.

But the big star of last night came after Obama's part.

America, meet Bobby Jindal, your twing-twanging Bollywood Cajun. He's just a good ol' Southern boy who loves gator wrasslin', boot scootin', and not protecting us from volcanoes. (The fuck?)

(I have a friend who - as a kid - was playing in a friend's yard and the friend's mom yelled out the door, "Get in here! We're havin' meatpies!" Without missing a beat, another friend turned to the kid and goes, "Someone has a new nickname." And the kid answered to Meatpie ever since. I'm calling Bobby Jindal "Meatpie" from now on.)

Don't worry, rednecks, he's not a foreigner, he's just tan from all that good American sunshine. Vitamin D, yo! And if you say it with his Southern accent "Jindal" now sounds like the hickest name ever. (Try it out: "Bobby Jindal! Get yer butt in here! We're havin' meatpies!")

When was the last time the nation rose up as one to think the same thought at the same time? Probably when we all decided we all disliked Bin Laden, right? How do we explain the national consensus that Meatpie Jindal is Kenneth the page from 30 Rock?

And never has Chris Matthews' potato head summed up the feeling of a nation when his open mic caught him muttering "Oh God" as Jindal strode out for his response.

Is it his wide-eyed wonder about the world? The slow enunciation that made us all feel like he was teaching us how to make turkey pictures out of our handprints? Who's to say. All I know is I went to make the comment on a blog and found 50 people had beaten me to it.

Here's a quick roundup of the best (non-Kenneth) reactions I found:

* If I closed my eyes, I would swear Smokey the Bear is giving this response

* Bedtime stories with Bobby

* All I can think of when I see his face is "I'm Casey Kasem counting down the Top 40 songs in the USA, and now, our long distance dedication. It comes from Suzie and she writes, "Dear Casey, could you please play 'Somewhere Out There'?"

* It's like watching a Gomer Pyle cameo in Slumdog Millionaire

* He must not have received his 'extras' check from Slumdog Millionaire yet

* By the way, that is how people talk to 9-year-olds when they aren't used to talking to 9-year-olds. It drives 9-year-olds crazy.

* Also, I'm pretty sure Bobby Jindal is a Muppet.

Jindal/Palin 2012!

Great moments in old people

2009-02-09T11:31:00.006-05:00

They shuffle slowly among us, making us late, tripping us with their walkers and guilting us into giving up subway seats, but what do we really know about old people?

I don't know much because I prefer to stay out of earshot of the death rattle. (Note to future grandkids: Come visit! Why don't you stay awhile! Nana'll bake you cookies!)

I've started to rethink my avoidance of The Olds after my dad told me last week that he was doing a story about seniors in a nursing home being introduced to Wii games like bowling to help keep them active. The workers wrote "WII" in 72-point font and all the old people came down to hear the lecture about World War II.

Most adorable story ever (where the punchline was WWII).

I thought it couldn't be topped, but the old man and woman on my bus this morning may have won the championship belt.

The woman started off strong, asking if the greyhound saw his shadow last week.

The old man countered with his excitement about the merits of TD Bank. "It's got the penny machine! It's got Regis Philbin!"
To which the old woman replied: "You know you can deposit all change, not just pennies?"
Old man: "I did not know that."

But then the woman won the day with her movie analysis:

Old man: Have you seen the new Batman?
Old woman: No, I've only seen the very first episode (Ed note: First movie in the series?)
OM: Ah, yes, was it one with Val Kilmer?
OW: No, it was, ahhhh...
OM: George Clooney?
OW: No, no, no.
OM: Do you remember the gentleman's name who played Batman?
OW: Bruce Wayne