Half-metaphor of the day

Fill in the blank:

"Blah-blah-blah_____ is like getting to go to the Grammys, only to find out your seat is behind Lady GaGa."

What year is it?

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

My audition to be Cindy Adams

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

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

Too dumb to be handed something for free

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

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

A nation ... mourns?

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.

Dead Kennedys

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"

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!

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

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?

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 16Rationally 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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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.)