Featurette

Holy Sudden Spotlight, Batman! They like me! They for reals like me!

Last week, I listed your favorite blog (this one) on the Best Gay Blogs blogroll because I am vain and require attention. Great. So what's the first thing they do? Well obviously they feature one of my posts on their main page because it is an important piece of gay blogging history! I am such the up and coming writer!

So indulge me and check out my post on their site even though you've already read it here. You should also do it to remind yourself of how cute I look in that picture. I'm the one who doesn't have red hair that's only that way for a role in a play.

I'm also listed on the Newbie of the Week list. "Creative and well written." Didja hear that? I'm creative and well-written. In yo' collective faces!

It's pretty amazing what can happen when you abandon your stupid, insignificant, glib style to write an entry about something that requires a bit of thought. But don't expect it to happen again soon, I got shit ta do!

So anyway, I want to give a big fat hard THANK YOU to Best Gay Blogs for the most blog traffic I've ever had. Keep it up, I'm depending on you guys for my big publishing deal.

I don't care what my teachers say

I'm gonna be a model! Sorta.

Not sorta. For reals. Kinda.

Right, so this Brooklyn artist is doing a portrait project called 365 Portraits where he does a photographic portrait of someone every day for a year. I like his work, it's pretty cool, not that I know the first thing about art. I mean, he tends to make people look attractive, which is a plus. Anyway, I'm gonna be one of his portraits at some point in February.

Obviously, this is my first huge break, and I will soon be the most recognized embodiment of an artist's work since Edie Sedgwick and you will all pay me money to come to your stupid parties and silly premieres and it will be even better because I don't look like a horse-dog like Paris Hilton. So hold on your hats and socks because my whirlwind career as a socialite is taking off!

But if not, at least I get a cool picture or two for my myspace profile and the opportinity to say to someone "No, I cannot hang with you this Saturday for I have a modelling gig." That's really payment enough.

My mom and her friend Bonnie came to the city this weekend, so everything I did between Friday evening and now has been with them. I'm not complaining. My mom is great. I'm not sure what happened, but a few years ago we just started getting along really friendly-like. Our relationship is based primarily on movies, shopping (esp. purses, about which I know nothing), gossip, weight loss, and the hot guys at the makeup counter at Saks. (But she's still my mom. Emotional support and nagging are also major themes.)

Still, there's something unnerving about feeling totally at ease with such a high concentration of social interactions with middle-aged women. Everyone I work with is older than me. Everyone I date is older than me. This is how it's always been. But when I can hear Bonnie say "Hey, I used to Jazzercize to this song!" and not even blink, it might be time for me to go hang out with someone immature.

But even so, it was a great weekend. We helped Bonnie find a new winter coat because the zipper on hers had broken, so she had to step in and out of it, which was hilarious. Mom splurged on a little Louis Vuitton purse that she proudly showed off after threatening me with a painful death if I told my father. And most importantly, we totally cheated on our Weight Watchers diets with pastrami sandwiches from Katz's Deli.

Ok, I'm not on Weight Watchers, but I still played along with the feigned guilt.

Oh, we also saw Hairspray and Les Miserables, which were what you'd expect. Hairspray was super fun, and Ashley Parker Angel is taller than he looks based on his head shot. He's the guy from O-Town. I think I might have to make him my husband. Les Mis kinda bored me, and Daphne Ruben-Vega was horribly miscast and should never be allowed to sing Fantine again unless she realizes that she's not Mimi anymore. No offense or anything. K, thanks.

In conclusion, I am your number one source for Broadway news and reviews. To leave a voicemail comment or to invite me to a premiere, call 1-800-JAP-LIKE-MY-MOM.

Fluid Dynamics

I was up all night last night thinking about the roles people play in our lives and the labels we assign to those roles and then how we tend to relegate people to those roles as if the labels were there first and relationships have to be decided in accordance with them rather than the other way around.

"You're my friend so we could never date."
"We sleep together, suddenly you wanna talk and be friends too?"
"You're my boss, isn't it too weird to go see the penguin movie together?"

We tend to place these self-imposed restrictions on natural interpersonal development because of some "rules" that exist even though nobody wrote them down. But thinking back, I realized that some of my most rewarding and memorable relationships were those in which the dynamic made either a gradual or dramatic shift into another realm, causing questions like "Are you friends?" and "Did you ever date?" to become unanswerable.

My friend boyfriend and I didn't become close until after our relationship was over and we suddenly felt more comfortable sharing our feelings and doing the whole teenage sexual exploration thing. I started sleeping with a guy in grad school because he appealed to some gross, carnal part of me, and I told myself we'd never be friends. That all fell apart when we had something of a relationship after which he became one of my most trusted friends.

Putting a label on a relationship can be a dangerous thing because it can cement that relationship into eventual stagnation. To some people "boyfriend" means "never will be a friend" and "sex partner" means "never will be someone I trust", but that limits the gradient of emotions and interactions that the relationship will allow. But this also isn't to say having a "boyfriend" is wrong.

It may appear that following my logic on this issue is like driving along a downward slope to polyamory and incest with a cinder block on the gas pedal, but it's not. I guess the point is to encourage you to respect the labels you have placed on your relationships by constantly scrutinizing them and stretching their limits. Let things change instead of die. This is so important. It will allow you to keep things fresh and reinvent the way you appreciate the people in your life, but more importantly, you'll come to realize that even if something doesn't work out like you'd hoped, there is still a world of possibilities for where it can go.

You don't ever have to really lose someone if you're willing to allow the way you see or interact with or love them develop organically around your experiences. This is a supremely comforting thought that has helped me through a lot... and allowed me to sleep.

Putting the ass in class

I have no class.

No matter how many art shows I attend (zero so far) and how many obscure Baroque trio sonatas I can recognize by ear (like, 2) I'm really coming to realize that I have about as much class as a toddler with a plastic martini glass. I can shop well and stand up straight with my pinky out as much as I want, but when really put to the test, I always find myself knocking something over, making gross faces at food I don't recognize, and laughing during somber performances.

It all stems from one of two things: 1) my awkward gangliness, or 2) my inability to keep things to myself. I'm not ashamed of either because they both manage to garner me attention when I want it, but then it comes to being mistaken for a spoiled rich kid of the proverbial "belle" of some proverbial "ball", I'm afraid I'll always come up short.

For example, on a date last June after asking a waiter what foie gras was (which I've asked a million times because I can never remember), he told me, and I reponded with "Ugh, gross, people eat that?" "Yes", he said. And I: "Do YOU eat that?" He: "Sure." "Oh, ok. Yeah." The successful lawyer I was out with never called me back. I have still not eaten foie gras.

But I'm working on it. Monday evening, I went for drinks at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel by Colombus Circle. The bar was super cute (that picture on the website doesn't really make it look that way, but it is) and had this awesome view and was filled with people who made three times my salary when they were half my age. This is the perfect setting for Standing Out and Making an Idiot of Myself. So I fought it. When we walked off the elevator, I resisted the urge to blurt out "It stinks in here, man!", which it did. In practice, my restraint resulted in me simply saying it at a lower decibel level. The drink I ordered was the Jade Blossom, some sort of green tea martini (because I like green tea bubble teas). When it came, I was thrilled that it was fancy enough to have an orchid floating in it, which was this total novelty to me. "Whoa,sweet, check it out, there's a flower in it!" I was told I could eat it, which was totally out of the question for me ("Sick, who eats flowers?"), but I spent the rest of the evening tilting my glass back far enough so I could stick my nose in it as I sipped my drink. When my companion for the evening was in the bathroom, this practice resulted in my spilling half the martini on my pants, but I didn't tell anyone.

My next big challenge will be in March when I attend the premiere of Die ägyptische Helena, this Strauss opera that Deborah Voight is singing. I'm pretty sure the seats will be fantastic, and I'm gonna by a new jacket for the event, which will probably be preceeded by some sort of fancy dinner. My previous responses to seeing Deborah Voight walk onto a stage have been "Christ!" and "Whoa baby!" and "Sweet fancy Moses!", and none of those have been live. So we're gonna see how well I can fit in with the other people who will all be thinking the same thing, but keeping it in their heads. But if she has a flower in her hair, I can't guarantee I won't get up on stage and start sniffing her.

Buy now pay later

A terrible combination of events has taken place.

The first was Sunday when I purchased my first album on iTunes. I was about to read Fray, this vampire slayer story, and I decided that I NEEDED RIGHT NOW to have the Philip Glass Dracula soundtrack. I had a gift card. So there you have it. I registered and downloaded it. (I love it, I've already listened to it four times while stalking about my apartment in a cape. Bleh!)

Anyway, that's obviously not terrible in itself, but you'll realize the situation I am in when I tell you that I am home sick from work today (which sucks, yes, but that's not the point). I'm home sick, so I have nothing to do but sit on iTunes and download stuff! Jesus.

So the gift card is long gone. I keep finding these single songs that I want and thinking "Oh, what the hell, I'll just buy the whole album!" So now the national debt seems small to me and I don't forsee myself stopping.

The limiting reagent I have added to the mix is the decision I made to only look up stuff I haven't been able to find at stores. Unfortunately, everything reminds me of something else I've wanted for a long time.

The end. The moral of the story is being educated in music is a terrible thing and we should all spend less money on culture.

For those of you who care, I bought 2 Mactalla Mor albums, a Zap Mama album, and some other things, and it has all taught me that iTunes' World Music is horribly unorganized and needs a librarian's touch, thanks.

Somethin' Stupid

Somethin' Stupid

P.S. Don't read into this. It's just a cool song because I love Nicole Kidman.

Bibliomaniac Mansion

Read this.

It's entertaining, but I guess you don't have to read the whole thing. The point is: weird, huh?

I'm totally fascinated and totally grossed out at the same time. I really want to strap on my E.T.-style biohazard suit and walk around in there. It reminds me of an unsanitary version of this bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana called Caveat Emptor. (I used that link because the store's website is down.) The stuff there was roughly organized by subject and then kinda by author, y'know, if you squint... that is if you don't count the piles of unsorted things in the aisles (haha, piles in the aisles) and boxes of miscellanea peppered throughout.

I would go to Caveat Emptor all the time and meander about. The experience appealed me in the typical "vast tomes of knowledge that been read by others and ended up here; who knows what stories are attached to these stories" way, but part of my experience there went beyond that. It wasn't until one afternoon when I was sitting in the science fiction section idly browsing while rearranging an unordered shelf when I realized what that extra thing was. Caveat Emptor and similarly cluttered used bookstores appeal to my sense of order. Or more precisely, my sense of ordering.

Ok, think about it. Browsing at Barnes and Noble or a library or my bookshelf at home has less excitement behind it because everything's right where it belongs. But crazy-ass used bookstores are like this chaotic system that by its nature wants to come to rest. (I don't know anything about chaos theory, so don't get all uppity because that's not what I'm referring to.)

My infinitely creative mind has thought up an analogy: It's like Tetris! Ok listen, so Tetris is super boring if you keep everything at the bottom and fill up one line at a time, right? Totally unsatisfying. The whole fun of Tetris is in building up these huge towers with one column open and then giving the whole structure a video smackdown when you finally get a couple straight pieces. Then, any mess you made can be systematically cleaned up before starting again. Without the mess, it's no fun. Order from chaos.

Sitting in a clean house feels really satisfying only when you remember how dirty it was before. It's all the same principle.

I would love to take a year and tear apart the "World's Most Dangerous Bookstore" (after decontamination and without the World's Most Dangerous Tangental Storyteller following me everywhere, of course) only to put it back together in my own special order complete with a detailed database of the contents. Hell, with a nice pair of barbeque tongs, I'd even sort through the girly magazines.

Ever since Caveat Emptor, I've had this private little dream of owning a used bookstore, but the business and customer service aspects of the whole experience are enough to help me dismiss the notion right away. Instead, I turned to my own book collection. I'm out of shelf space in my tiny apartment, but there are about 525 books that I turned into 525 cataloged and organized books in very little time indeed.... mostly because I took a couple weekends off from my social life to do it.

So I guess the moral of the story is that I'm a cataloger at heart and that there's a yucky, fat man in Oklahoma City with his presumably unwashed long hair in a messy braid who is standing in the way of my dreams.

Dreamgirls

Ok, you're all going to think it's just because I'm all gay, but it's not. You all really really have to go see Dreamgirls. Now.

It won the Golden Globe for Best Picture - Musical or Comedy, so that's something. Though I really don't understand why they just shove musicals and comedies together. Musicals themselves usually fit into one or the other category, but whatever.

As you know, I'm not good at talking about why I like things, but the movie was totally solid. Jennifer Hudson made me cry like a woman (I don't mean that) during her big number, and I never cry. Not ever... especially not uncontrollably like I was. Hell, even Jamie Foxx convinced me, and I've hated him ever since The Jamie Foxx Show.

Eddie Murphy won an award too, but he's not fooling anyone. He may have been good in Dreamgirls, but he's still wearing a fat suit in his next movie.

P.S. I'm going to ruin the ending soon if you care. It's not really one of those movies where the end's all that important, so I suggest you suck it up and read on.

I found myself feeling really bad for both Jennifer and Beyoncé the whole time because the plot of the movie was: "Jennifer's too fat and Beyoncé can't sing." People kept saying that over and over, and it makes for a good story, but how would you like to be hired to play "the fat one" or "the untalented one"?

Incidentally, I want to point out how Jennifer Hudson looked amazing and elegant at the Golden Globes while Beyoncé looked like she hand-made her gown from the foil of 10,000 Hershey's kisses with almonds even though she had sadly not eaten enough (or eaten too many) to properly close the dress over her own golden globes.

But I digress.

Dreamgirls had two problems:

1) that Family song where they're all standing on the empty stage. H to the okey. I may have cried at the big Jennifer Hudson number, but I still can't stand such overwrought sentimentality. "Oh, we're such good friends, oh we'll be together forever." Save it. Give me something with substance.

2) Some of the music (like that Family song) wasn't integrated into the narrative very well. It's because for the first 40 minutes of the movie, all the singing the people do is part of a performance. Then, suddenly people are bursting into song during their daily life. It's jarring. I was thinking "Oh, we're doing this now? Ok... I guess that's fine. Wait, maybe they're rehearsing." A musical has to establish the role of its music at the outset. For instance, keeping with the movie-musical thing, Moulin Rouge established that it was going to do the typical "Characters burst into song when they can't express themselves in words" thing. Good, fine. Chicago did the "alternate-daydream-land where life is a cabaret, ol' chum but nobody sings outside of it" thing. And it worked. Dreamgirls was a little schizo, though the problem ended after the initial shock.

Also, the ending was stupid, I hate when people end things with "And then Effie got over years of being pissed upon and came on stage and everyone knew who she was and Jamie Foxx saw a girl sitting amongst a million people in the auditorium and automatically knew it was his daughter who he didn't even know existed" as so many do. Lame.

I give Dreamgirls 4.5 stars. It lost points for Beyoncé's Golden Globes dress and the looming threat of Norbit.

In conclusion, if you like awesome movies, see Dreamgirls. If you like awesome movies with violence, see Pan's Labyrinth.

I don't hate you because you're mean; you're mean because I hate you

My friend Emily from high school is visiting me and all we've done so far is talk about everyone we used to know and who got fat and who married a hobbit and who has gone from a tall, elegant, and intelligent high school girl to a tall, elegant, and intelligent investment banker living in Lincoln Park.

Emily keeps up with people from high school. I do not, so mostly, her job is to tell the stories, and mine is to ask about the people I don't like. "Did Gina get fat?" "Is Marsha pregnant yet?" "Did Halie get fat?" "Denise already was fat."

Of course, I care about people's successes too. And all those negative questions aren't about my old friends. They're about people against whom I like to pretend I still harbor a deep adolescent grudge, even if I didn't invent said grudge until college.

Really, my high school experience was a lot less torrid and hormonal than a lot of people's. There was one romantic liason that I got pretty pissed about when it ended, but other than that, I had some friends with whom I shared very little conflict, I didn't get beat up or made fun of, I didn't stress over classes, teacher's liked me even though I never did my homework. I even came out to my parents and took a guy to my prom without a hitch.

As a result, the only way to make reminiscing fun is to invent stories that never happened and then use them to find pleasure in the physical and social decline of the people I shouldn't have liked.

For example, there was this one guy -- we'll call him "Mrad" -- who was a dick, a prick, and a scrotum-lick to every guy he deemed his physical and athletic inferior. But Brad -- I mean Mrad -- never picked on me even though we were in the same gym class. (I guess it helps to be 14 and almost six and a half feet tall.) Nevertheless, even though I was graciously spared his snide comments and smooshes-into-the-locker, I have retroactively invented so many stories during my post-secondary-education daydreams that I have an acute personal interest in Mrad's inevitable Getting-Fat-and-Marrying-a-Bitch. (I would also accept Mrad's Getting-Fat-Going-to-Prison-and-Becoming-a-Bitch.)

But it's all a ruse. High school was an easy nothing. There were actually times that I was so level-headed and drama-free that I thought I was unable to feel emotions. I seriously thought there was something wrong with my brain. But one day, I noticed how distracted and concerned I was about this prospect. I didn't know who to talk to about it, I wanted to see a doctor, and I thought I would never be normal and experience life like other people. I got upset, the Irony Fairy paid a visit, and I was cured.

There's a quick portrait of what I will be indulging in this weekend. If you have never offended me (and especially if we never met in high school) and you believe you may be on my imaginary shit-list, please send a picture of your failure to the e-mail address in the sidebar.

Bi-Yearly Picture Posting

Someone was responsible enough to bring a camera, so I have New Year's pictures.

That's Mark, he's the coolest one out of all of us.

Highlights include Polish vodka with grass in it that tasted like apple pie as well as Luana's dress.

These took me so long to put up because I am obsessed with going into Photoshop and fixing the red eye and contrast and levels and colors. Can't you tell how good I am? I should work for Vogue. I only fix skin problems on myself though because I am vain and selfish except I didn't do too much of it this time because I also fixed up about 30 pictures from a couple nights at the Hotel Gansevoort, which I'll put up sometime later.

I posted that picture because I look pretty good in it.

Last night I had two dreams that I was Superman. Add that to my Smallville dream from Sunday night, bake for 40 minutes, and the result is I'm a total dork and you'd do well to sever all ties from me.

Kittens are starving in China

My cat normally eats Friskies. Y'know... "What's got into that cat???"

But she ran out of food the other day, so yesterday, I bought Purina Cat Chow. Apparently Purina's tagline is "What's come out of that cat?" because this morning she barfed it up all over the kitchen.

So I came home with a box of her normal food and gave her that again, but now she won't eat it.

The moral of the story is don't get a cat. And if you do get a cat, don't feed it.

Boston, Part 2/3 : Superman I & II

Has everyone seen the Superman movies? I hope so because if not, I'm going to spoil the ending. Now's your chance to go away.

Really, I only saw the first two. Even though I lied to my friends and said I liked the first one, I kinda didn't. The second was better, but y'all have to bear in mind that I was watching the Richard Donner Cut, which I am told is so beyond different that the two almost tell different stories. The Donner Cut is evidently more narrative-heavy, which is fine because I tend to ignore action sequences anyway (excepting those from Underworld: Evolution because they make me feel all manly.)

Anyway, for those of you who don't know, Superman has so many powers that he's nigh indestructible. You can shoot him, dunk him in water, electrocute him, step on his toes, kick him in the nuts (pictured below), and launch him into space before you realize that you are merely repeating his morning calisthenics routine. Pretty much the only things he can't do are stretch his arms out real far and go invisible, but these are lame powers anyway. But this is part of the problem with Superman. Nothing really bothers him, so there's no tension. In the first movie, the Lex Luthor started an earthquake because he wanted his cheap California land to become beachfront property (see below for further discussion of the dumbness of Lex Luthor). Superman had to do a million things at once, and you're just sitting there like "Yeah yeah, make with the speeding bullet and get it done, you might be more convincing if you broke a sweat." But somehow, despite all his power, Lois Lane dies anyway. "But wait," you say. "She's in the next movie, so something has to happen."

Yes. Superman has failed. But as they say: "If at first you don't succeed, fly real fast around the world and make it spin backwards until everyone goes back in time and you can give it another go." Apparently for Superman, life is a giant video game with a reset button. Lame, lame, and lame. Who knows how many times he's played this card? Bad dates, forgotten birthdays, premature ejaculation. No problem! Granted, this is the difficulty with older science fiction. It's sometimes hard to tell where the cliches began, so maybe when this movie came out, things like this were ok. That would never fly in modern cinema. (Get it? Never...fly! Hilarious.)

Now I'm going to talk about the other reason I don't like the first Superman movie. Quite simply: crappy villain. Again, this is probably more of a time period thing, but Lex Luthor needs work. Gene Hackman was pretty cool in the role, and Lex is a fun kinda guy, but there doesn't seem to be much reason for his existence or his inclination towards evil. Money? I guess, though your underground mansion with no windows is already pretty neat.

Personally, I think Lex's goal should be new sidekicks. The woman's alright, though I'm confused on how she can switch so quickly from total moron to bad-ass spy who can work a hot air balloon and other technology things and back again. Nonetheless, I can accept her, but that man. That man who's name I can't bother to remember... NOT. FUNNY! The schtick between him and Lex was tired after 10 seconds. The idiot sidekick thing only works in Spongebob Squarepants.

Luckily, Lex is a genius. Genius enough to draw the conclusion: "A meteor fell in Africa! Clearly it is a rock from the distant planet Krypton that has been made radioactive and is thus the only thing in the universe that can drain Superman of his powers!" Wow, Lex, Miss Cleo really came through this time. (Speaking of Miss Cleo, did you guys hear she came out as a lesbian?)

Thankfully for me and for my Superman-fanatic readers, I liked Superman II WAY better. I think it's largely because it was the Donner Cut, but the story and characters were much more solid. The evil woman was especially awesome. I forget her name, but she reminded me of Bellatrix Lestrange. (Yeah, you thought you'd get a whole blog entry without a Harry Potter reference, didn't you?) Anyway, you may have noticed, but I'm only good at talking about things I hate, so this concludes our discussion of Superman II.

OH! Except I need to point out that in the Donner Cut, Lois Lane finds out that [SPOILER WARNING] Superman and Clark Kent are the same. [End spoiler warning.] In response, Superman pulls out that stupid gay-us ex machina and turns back time again to she doesn't know anymore. Unfortunately, this also resurrects the evil people, but for some reason, this is okay with everyone and they go undefeated. So the ending sucked real hard. Thought you oughta know.

Boston, Part 1/3 : Clue VCR Mystery Game

Because my body can no longer handle anything more than a 3-day work week, I took last Friday off and was in Boston all weekend and yeah, I missed you too. Anyway Boston is great! It has grocery stores and the Superman movies and the Clue VCR Mystery Game starring Janet Wong as Miss Scarlet and me as the winner.

Some guy already reviewed the Clue VCR Mystery Game on the internet. Unfortunately, he is a dried-up old mushroom with no sense of fun.

That's not true, I'm kidding. Anyone who uses animated gif files in their game reviews has a fan in me. The difference between me and him is that I loved the movie. It had puns, bad acting, mystery, intrigue, no budget, and Janet Wong, my new favorite starlet. Mix in incomprehensible dialogue, ugly men in drag, horrible racism (CHOP....SUUUEEEEY.... YA GOT THAT?) and the occasional slapstick, and the result is a 60-minute cinematic adventure you will not soon forget.

(The game itself is too hard and takes a gabillion years and 10 viewings of every scene because nobody can remember who handled what weapon and what color the picture in the corner of the kitchen was during that 2-second shot 20 minutes ago. The cards don't help and everybody gets frustrated by the time it ends and starts accusing random people: "Miss Peach did it in the hotel room with the obnoxious, migrane-inducing southern twang." But we still played 3 times in a row and I'm the only person that won because I am a super sleuth.

Those are Miss Scarlets. Janet Wong is on the right, and as you can see, she is the best one of all. In the movie, Miss Scarlet is a Swiss spy who, according to a fabulous website I found, dreams of opening her own gas station one day. I, of course, only called her by her secret spy name, Dr. Tang.

Ok, the end. Next in this 3-part series about Boston, I'm going to talk about the Superman movies. As usual, it will be shallow and completely uninformative.

A Winner

I'm pleased to announce that the Washington Post's "Idiot of the Year" award went to Laura Mallory, the Georgia mom who wants the Harry Potter books banned from school libraries because it turns children into evil Wiccans. For a time, she even argued that the books cause school violence until some people who had experienced school shootings were seriously offended.

I don't really care about Laura Mallory. She's not the first ignorant person to try to get the books off shelves, and she won't be the last. She's just the current Paris Hilton of social activism: an almost-attractive-if-it-weren't-for-that-weird-face blonde who gets lots of media attention even though nobody takes her seriously. It wouldn't be America without them.

What gets me about her isn't that she's challenging the books. I mean if you believe that witchcraft (even fictional witchcraft) is evil and corrupting to children, then that's what you believe. Fine. And way to go fighting for what she believes in even though she should just mind her own business. She's concerned for everyone's children, and even though it's for a stupid braindead reason, there's not a lot of us that can say we've gone out of our way for what we believe is the good of humanity.

What bothers me instead about her (other than her nostrils, of course) is that she's never read the books and she has no statistics to back up her corruption claims. That alone just makes her stupid, and stupidity is forgivable or at least forgettable, but this goes beyond that. I would really like to know, Laura Mallory, what right you think you have wasting our time with your little campaign if you can't be bothered to do a little research beforehand. You must have very little respect for the people on the school board who took time time out of their lives to hear your case. If you seriously thought "because I said so" would get people to do what you wanted, you're a lot worse than stupid.

So that is why this year, for the first time ever, I am giving the Rachael Ray "Bitch of the Year" Award to somebody other than Rachael Ray, who still wins silver and is detestable. Congratulations, Laura Mallory! You've made history.

New Year's Resolutions 2007

• I promise to stop giving strangers nasty looks for having more fun than me in public.
• I promise to feed my cat on an "every day" basis rather than the current "whenever I feel like it" basis.
• I promise not to yell hateful and racist things at the television when I'm alone and assume my neighbors know I'm not serious. This includes obsessively repeating "I am Dr. Tang from Pyongyang" in a stereotypical accent every three seconds when an Asian doctor is on screen.
• I promise to stop assuming people are idiots and instead wait until they inevitably prove it to classify them as such.
• I promise not to sort everyone I know into their Hogwarts houses and use that information to decide whether I like them or not. In a similar vein, I promise not to assume I'm better than people because I'm a Ravenclaw.
• I promise to go one week without hating toddlers.
• I promise to start sending people coded messages in Wingdings font like we used to do in junior high. Because that's cool.
• I promise to judge movies on their quality instead of the hotness of their characters.
• I promise to watch Nanny McPhee once a week.
• I promise to start admitting I don't know important people and facts when talking online instead of looking them up real fast on Wikipedia and acting like I already knew.
• I promise to replace light bulbs when they go out instead of calling it "mood lighting".
• I promise to stop pushing my cat off the table while she is sleeping.
• I promise to stop using exaggerated cat abuse to get a laugh.
• I promise to stop singing "Jesus on the Mainline" when I see skinny bearded men on the subway.
• Finally, I promise not to pretend the new year is a time for intense introspection and renewal and think I'm making myself into a completely different person because emotional plastic surgery happens on its own, not when the calendar says so. If you can't do it in May or September, you can't do it in January. So I promise to put no pressure on myself by worrying about changing myself and then feeling bad for myself when I fail. But furthermore, I promise that in 2008, I will look back on what has changed and give myself due credit.