Dexter

I've had a major Tivo backlog for the last few weeks and the shows just keep piling up, but tonight I made a little dent: I watched two episodes of Dexter (I'm not quite caught up, I still haven't seen last night's episode) and I cannot get over how good this show is. It's crazy good. And who knew Michael C. Hall was one of the best actors currently working in television? I mean, I knew he was good and I always loved him on Six Feet Under, but I had no idea he was great. He's so completely different and compelling as Dexter (and charming--which is a weird adjective to use when describing a serial killer, but he is--he's utterly charming) that I can suddenly picture him playing the role of Nate on Six Feet Under and I think that he would have been just as good in the role as Peter Krause (who I love, but who I cannot imagine being able to play David). I also never realized how hot Michael C. Hall is (I never really thought he was "hot" as David), but he's really freaking handsome.

178-179

New Thing #178: I went to California Adventure for the first time. For Jesse's birthday. The Tower of Terror should be illegal. If the ride had gone on for even one more second longer, I think it might have literally driven me crazy. Because I don't think that crazy and me are that far from each other, and that ride was scary. Then we went to Disneyland and stupidly went on Splash Mountain at 9pm in the evening and by the time the ride was over I was literally drenched. And when I say "drenched" I don't use the word hyperbolically even one iota. I was literally you-can-wring-me-out soaked from freaking head to toe. And it was late and cold and I had to go home early because I was too wet to walk around the park. Sorry I had to leave early, Jesse.

New Thing #179: I was awake for 24 hours straight. I'm going to go ahead and say that's a New Thing because I honestly don't think I've ever been awake for 24 hours straight before. I woke up on Friday morning at 6am and didn't go to bed again until Saturday at 6am. On the button. There were meetings and there was hours spent in traffic and there was getting lost for hours with a dog and there were birthday parties and there was drinking and there was lots of eating and then there was more driving and it was just a really long busy (very fun) day. But by hour 23, my brain was like "what on earth are you still awake for?" And I went to sleep and sleep seriously never felt so good.

In Which I Attempt To Give A Blog Tutorial About Proper Usage of the Word "Natch," But Then Get Tired of Said Tutorial and Forgoe It Entirely, Natch

Someone found my blog today by googling the phrase “use natch in a sentence,” and I’m more than happy to oblige. Since I started teaching, I’ve been dealing with questions like that a lot lately. Like, for instance, just today I was asked to define the words “devoid,” “significantly,” and “morose.” I was happy to supply those definitions, but I’m even more happy to help out someone who’s trying to incorporate the word “natch” into their daily vocabulary because come-the-freak-on: “natch” is a great fucking word, natch.

(Wait, before I get to the meat of this blog entry, which is to supply some natchless soul with examples of “how to use natch in a sentence,” I need to go on a quick diversion, natch, and say that I recently had an email exchange with my friend Lara and I was asking her about her young daughter, the sweetest little girl you’ll ever meet, and Lara mentioned that her daughter’s “favorite words are everything, adorable, poop, and totally, and she peppers all thoughts with them.” How totally adorable is that? I mean, poop—right? Isn’t she your favorite child in the world? Because two of MY favorite words just happen to be “poop” and “totally” and I could definitely see how “everything” and “adorable” are pretty great words in and of themselves, and Lara’s email got me thinking about what my favorite words are.) (And I’m not talking about favorite words in a general James Lipton sense, i.e. words that you like but don’t necessarily say all that often. I’m talking about favorite words that you use constantly. Like, you might not necessarily even know they’re your favorite words but if someone made an audiotape of all of your conversations for a week and then tallied how often each word in your vocabulary came up, you would have to concede that something like “totally” is obviously your favorite damn word because you use it so pooping much.) (Like, I might say to James Lipton that “natch” was one of my favorite words, except if I said that then it would be a lie because even though I enjoy typing the word, I don’t actually ever really use it in actual spoken conversation. Just blog conversation.) (And also I wouldn’t tell James Lipton that “natch” was my favorite word because it would be a pretty lame answer.) (People would be, like, “natch? Really?”) (I enjoy watching The Actors Studio, despite the whole he’s-full-of-hot-air thing, and the one moment from The Actors Studio that I’ve always remembered as a kind of sucker-punch to the gut was when James Lipton asked Gene Wilder what his “least favorite word” was and Gene Wilder answered: “cancer.”) (I miss Gilda Radner.) (But back to my point—actually, not back to my original point but back to my second original point—I would have to say that the words I use most often in actual speech, i.e. my default favorite words, would definitely have to be: “dude,” “really,” “right,” and “poop.”)

Um, okay, this blog entry was going to be a whole tutorial on how to correctly use the word “natch,” but then I got tired of writing this blog entry and was like “I’ll finish it later,” but then I was like “do you think, realistically, that you’ll finish this blog entry later?” And the answer was no, natch. So I’m just gonna go ahead and post what I wrote without the whole natch tutorial because no one really cares about the whole natch tutorial anyway, natch, and I haven’t posted much of anything in over a week and it’s time to feed the blog beast, natch.

Lonelygirl15

I had a lunch meeting yesterday, and as we were leaving the restaurant we noticed lonelygirl15 also having a lunch meeting. How random is that? I saw lonelygirl15! (If you have no idea who lonelygirl15 is, then this doesn't mean anything to you, but if you DO know who lonelygirl15 is, then, well, right about now you're totally like I can't believe Erik saw lonelygirl15.) (On a scale of how big it is, it's bigger than seeing Britney Spears but it's not as big as seeing Jake Gyllenhaal.) (Obviously.)

The Book Club: Sophie's Choice (new thing #177)

I know I said I wouldn't be blogging this week, and that's still true (this isn't a real post).

Several people (Lindsay, Aimie, Michal, Rabbit, PAM, Christy, communicatrix, Mrs. Kickass) expressed interest in reading Sophie's Choice with me and I set up a New Blog where we could all share our thoughts. (Even if you haven't expressed interest in reading the book, you can still participate!)

GO HERE: www.myyearofnewbookclubs.blogspot.com/

Bookmark it, favorite it, whatever it: just read Sophie's Choice and share your thoughts there!

(New Thing #177: I started an online book club.)

I'll be back next week.

This is going to be a pretty sparse week when it comings to blogging (i.e. there might not be any new posts until next week). Sorry, blog readers! I will be back with a vengeance next week, I promise. I have to finish writing a play for a retreat this weekend, and I'm teaching every day, so all of my spare time's going to be spent working on the play.

In the meantime, here's a photo of Scott Caan I recently found:

Notice how his hands are wrapped? I'm just sayin'.

(And if you have no idea what I'm talking about when I say "I'm just sayin'," well, that means you've missed the previous Scott Caan hand posts, and I would link them right now to make them, ahem, handy for you, but I don't have the time or patience to find the old posts right now, but if you googled "My Year of New Things" and "Scott Caan" I'm sure you could catch up on all of the Scott Caan backstory.) (It's funny how the Scott Caan hand saga started out as the Jennifer Aniston hand saga, and then evolved.) (Or maybe it's not, but I'd rather post shirtless photos of Scott Caan than shirtless photos of Jennifer Aniston.) (But that's just my perogative.)

November 3rd...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!

(I haven't been near my scanner all day, so I'll post some birthday photos for you in the morning...)

I Saw The Sign

Kids are so clever. They really are. I'm impressed. They want to be social and they will find ways to be social through hell or high water, dammit.

Case in point:

These kids are supposed to be reading silently right now, no talking. And I just looked up and caught several kids signing to each other with their hands. Apparently sign language is now being taught in the school, as a foreign language option, and these kids are now using their hands to talk without really "talking," i.e. to communicate with each other silently while pulling the wool over my eyes.

(I just re-read the above paragraph. Wow. That is the most badly written, repetitive paragraph. I'm not going to rewrite it, though, because [1] I don't feel like it and [2] I'd rather leave it there as an example of "how not to write a persuasive paragraph." Call it the teacher in me.)

I barely have the heart to tell them to "stop talking" and do their reading because I'm impressed by their ingenuity. I mean, hell: we definitely didn't talk via sign language in class way back in my day.

William Styron, RIP (1925-2006)

Who wants to be in an online virtual book club with me and read Sophie's Choice this month. I have a big writing deadline on November 11th, so I don't think I should start the book until then, but the author of Sophie's Choice, William Styron, just passed away, and it's so sad, and now I want to read Sophie's Choice again. It's an amazing book, and the less you know about it, the better. When I read it, years and years ago, I knew nothing, nothing, NOTHING, and the book just floored me. Killed me. Even knowing EVERYTHING that's going to happen, I'm sure it would still floor you, though, because it's really well written.

So...Any takers? Anyone wanna read it with me? We can have little online talkbacks at the end of each chapter? Something like that? I've never been in a book club. (That's technically not true, Aimie started a book club years ago and we read Michael Cunningham's The Hours, but I think I only went to the first meeting.) (I did, however, finish the book.) (Which was gads better than the movie.) (Whereas the movie of Sophie's Choice, on the other hand, is terrific, and we could all get together and have a viewing of it after we've all finished reading the book.) (I just now realized that Meryl Streep was in both movie adaptations that I've been referencing. That's funny. Anyway, she's WAY better in Sophie's Choice.) (Not that she's bad in The Hours, but I could have done without her storyline in the movie version--that scene with Ed Harris at the end? Ug, I wanted to push him out the window.) (Talk about schmacting.)

Anyway, R.I.P. Mr. Styron. Thanks for the words.

Answers to the quiz

1. Erik has never broken a limb. THIS IS TRUE. KNOCK ON WOOD. (Though, I’ll admit, when I was a kid, I used to wish that I would break my arm—not only so that I could get everyone to sign my cast and feel popular, but also so that I’d have an excuse to sit out of P.E.) (But now I’m not so worried about being popular and I don’t have anything I want to get out of, so a broken arm would suck.)

2. Erik has read Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment three times in his life. THIS IS TRUE. (Crime and Punishment is my favorite book ever. I love it. It’s so good. I need to read it again soon.) (You should read it if you haven’t.) (It looks daunting, but it is so juicy.) (And you get used to the funny Russian names, believe me.) (It will make you want to call all of your friends by their last and middle names, then by their middle names only, then by their last names, then by their first and middle names, and then by their last and first names, all in the same conversation.)

3. Erik once performed a monologue on the Globe stage in London. THIS IS TRUE. (I was studying at the British American Drama Academy in London and our Shakespeare class was taught by Michael Maloney) (who just happens to be the coolest person in the world) (we all had crushes on him) (even the straight boys had crushes on him) (because he was just too cool)

4. Erik once threw up on the ceiling of my kitchen. (I think it’s funny how so much of the grammar in this post doesn’t match. It’s all hinky because I originally wrote the quiz in the first person, but then I went back and put it in the third person because it felt more like a quiz that way, but I missed a bunch of random possessives.) (So you get statements like “Erik once threw up on the ceiling of my kitchen.” Whose kitchen exactly is that???) (Well, as it turns out, THIS IS TRUE, and it was my mother’s kitchen and after I threw up all over the kitchen and the cupboards and the ceiling, I went to Magic Mountain for a school field trip and my mom had to clean up the mess.) (Sorry, mom.) (The vomit was so vociferous because I’d just had a bowl of cereal with bad milk and your body lets you know when you’ve had bad milk, and it lets you know fast.) (I was so Linda Blair from The Exorcist.)

5. Ian McKellen once told Erik he looks scandanavian. (THIS IS TRUE.) (This was in 1999, it was the last year my Step-Grandmother and I crashed the Golden Globes, we ended up standing next to Ian McKellen at the valet line waiting for our cars together. I told Ian that I was in rehearsals for a college production of Ibsen’s Enemy of the People and that I was playing the same role he had recently finished playing at the Ahmanson and his face lit up and he said “That’s perfect! You look so Scandanavian!” And then we proceeded to talk about the play for fifteen minutes and he could not have been a nicer person.)

6. Erik (still) owns every Garbage Pail Kid ever made. (THIS IS TRUE.) (I was obsessed.) (I have them in plastic sheafs and binders.) (I remember the first time I saw a Garbage Pail Kid, this kid showed me some in the back row of the school bus on the way to 2nd grade and I remember the cards felt simultaneously dirty and sacred. I knew they would have a profound influence on my life.) (I spent the next several years searching out every single individual card at garage sales and swap-meets until the cards were discontinued, as if God was saying, “enough already, Erik needs to move on with his life.”)

7. Erik looks like Jeff Goldblum. (THIS IS AN OPINION.) (And I have nothing else to say about it that hasn’t been said already.) (Except that I like to refer to him as Jeff Bloomberg.)

8. Erik had three pet rabbits as a child. Each one was named Blackie. (THIS IS TRUE.) (All three of the rabbits were black, hence their names.) (Blackie #1 ran away, Blackie #2 ran away, and Blackie #3 was abandoned in a park after we got a dog and no longer needed a rabbit to make up for the fact that we didn’t have a dog.) (We were horrible people for abandoning Blackie #3 in the park, but still we did it.)

9. Erik had three pet goldfish as a child. Each one was named Freddie. (THIS IS ALSO TRUE.) (I was a really unoriginal namer of pets.)

10. Susan Sarandon once told Erik he was "sweet" and that she was "a tart." (THIS IS TRUE.) (It was a 4th of July party, we were standing at the desert table, I had served myself a piece of chocolate pie and she had served herself a piece of apple tart. We both eyed each other’s deserts and she asked me, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?” And then I said, “what are you thinking?” And then she said, “maybe I’d rather have what you’re having?” And I said “yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” even though I was really thinking “Susan Sarandon is talking to me about desert, oh my god Susan Sarandon is talking to me,” and then she said, “wanna share?” And I said, “sure,” and we each had a bite of each other’s deserts and she said “I’m happier with my pie” and I said “me too” and then she said “you know what that means, don’t you?” And I said, “what?” And then she said, “it means that you’re sweeter than I am and that I’m more of a tart than you are.”) (True story.)

11. Erik got hit in the head with a baseball bat when he was twelve. (THIS IS TRUE.) (Afterwards, I had a bump the size of a golf ball and my eyebrow got stuck to an icepack and peeled off of my face.)

12. Two years ago, Erik sold his entire comic book collection (over 2,000 comic books) for 300 buckaroonies. (Sadly, THIS IS TRUE.) (I rented a booth at a comic book convention and only sold about 50 comic books all day. At the end of the day, someone from another booth offered to buy my whole lot. I was desperate for cash at the time and my comic books had received very little interest all day, so I sold them.) (All in all I made a total of 300 bucks.)

13. Erik once inadvertantly started a mini fued between Amy Irving and Kate Capshaw (Mrs. Speilberg #1 and Mrs. Speilberg #2, respectively). (This is a really long story, a story for another day, but it is TRUE, TRUE, TRUE.)

14. Erik has been to a straight porno movie theater in Venice, Italy. (WAY TRUE.) (Major vagina.)

15. Erik played a paramedic on ER. His scene was with Dr. Greene. (I suppose you could argue that this isn’t totally true, since I didn’t actually have any lines of dialogue, but I was in the scene with Dr. Greene and I was wearing a paramedic’s uniform and I improvised a little bit of action involving me and a telephone and I was clearly visible in the final cut, so, yeah, even though I was an extra, THIS IS TRUE.)

16. Erik applied to Barnum and Bailey's Clown College, but was not accepted. (THIS IS TRUE.) (I had big dreams.) (I still have big dreams, they just don't include cramming into little cars anymore.)

17. The first concert Erik ever went to was Weird Al Yankovic. (SO, SO TRUE.) (He was AMAZING in concert.)

18. The second concert Erik ever went to was Elvira. (Also SO, SO TRUE, and also AMAZING.) (Have you seen that movie she made in the early 90's? Elvira Mistress of the Dark? My childhood friend Katie and I once rented that movie and kept it for so long [watching it over and over and over] that when we finally returned it, about a month late, we were in big trouble with Katie's mom, who had been the original renter.) (We would watch that movie and howl.) (I cannot bear to watch it as an adult, though, because I'm sure it will prove to be awful and then all of my memories of watching it over and over will be tainted.)

19. The Real World/Road Rules Challenge TV shows are the best shows to have ever been on television ever. (You might argue that this is an OPINION, and I’ll give you credit if you said this was an opinion, so as not to inspire any wrath, but in reality, THIS IS TRUE.)

20. Erik has gotten two parking tickets this month. (Sadly, oh too TRUE.)

21. Erik can sing every lyric to every song in Into the Woods. (I didn’t know that this was still TRUE until a few weeks ago when I was eating dinner at Mi Casa with Jesse and we were talking about beans and suddenly the Witch’s bean song started to rumble around my head and I started singing it and the whole musical just came rushing back to me.) (“Beans, beans, the magic beans! I let him go, I didn’t know he’d stolen my beans. I was watching him crawl back over the wall and then bang! Crash! The lightning flashed! And, well, that’s another story nevermind anyway…”) (I could go on, but I won’t.) (I am a dork.)

22. When Erik was a kid, he had a copy of The Complete Guide to I Love Lucy sitting next to his television set, as well as a highlighter, and every time he saw a new episode of I Love Lucy he would highlight the episode in the book so that he would know when he had seen every single episode. (THIS IS TRUE.) (How could this NOT be true?) (I want to have an I Love Lucy marathon one of these days soon. I haven’t sat down and watched a block of I Love Lucy in years.) (Years!)

23. This one time, Erik broke into the Psycho house on the Universal backlot and he stood in the Janet Leigh shower. Naked. (THIS IS TRUE, too.) (Aimie, you thought this was a trick question, BUT I WAS NAKED.)

24. Erik subscribes to Entertainment Weekly, US Weekly, and The Week. (THIS IS TRUE.)

25. Erik knows the root of pi to the twentieth decimal. (THIS IS FALSE.) (Our first false statement!) (Urp, do you know the root of pi to the twentieth decimal? Because if I know anyone who does, it would be you.)

26. Erik saw Dude, Where's My Car in the movie theater SEVEN TIMES. (I love this movie.) (It’s so bad but so, so good.) (Love it.) (TRUE.)

27. Erik did not learn how to swim until he was ten. (THIS IS TRUE.)

28. Erik was born eight weeks premature. (THIS IS TRUE.) (I was supposed to be born in October, I wonder how that would have made me different?) (Because I bet I would have grown up to be a very different person.)

29. Erik celebrated his third birthday at McDonald's. (I have pictures, proof, TRUE.)

30. During elementary school, Erik had braced for two years, then he wore a retainer for two years, and then he had to wear braces AGAIN for two fucking more years. (The typo “Erik had braced” was merely a typo and not intended to throw anyone off.) (One of the most horrible moments of my childhood was when I went to the dentist to hand in my retainer, thinking I was done with ortodonty, and the doctor said that it was “time for phase two” and they were going to put the braces back on.) (Fuck you, Mr. Dentist.) (TRUE.)

31. Michael J. Fox is a hunk. (I will not give you credit if you said this was an OPINION. This is not an opinion. This is gospel. THIS IS TRUE.)

32. Lindsay and Bonnie, Erik received your prize Cambodian shirts in the mail (thank you Adam!) and he needs to make plans with you so that he can give them to you! (this is true) (I already said THIS IS TRUE and I wasn’t lying.)

33. Erik once pretended to be a bird with Will Ferrell. (We were in a play together a couple of years before he got the SNL gig and THIS IS TRUE, we played a large bird in one of the scenes. I was the bird’s head and Will was my right wing.)

34. Erik's favorite restaurant in the whole entire world is Wagamama's in London. (Holy fuck, I’m salivating right now just thinking about Wagamama’s. This is so TRUE.)

35. Erik thought he was allergic to chalk until he was fourteen, but in reality touching chalk just kinda gives him the chills (but chills do not an allergy make). (Yeah, I guess I’m a freak, this is TRUE.)

36. Chocolate chip omelettes are good. (Not an opinion. Fact. TRUE.)

37. Erik love The View. (I do love The View and I’m not afraid to admit it.) (I also love the missing “s” in this statement.) (“Erik love The View” is very poetic in a Rosie way.) (TRUE.)

38. Erik have a secret tattoo that he hasn't told anyone about. On his left hipbone. (I suppose this was a trick question, but it is FALSE. My tattoo is not secret, and I’ve told lots of people about it, and it’s on my right hipbone.)

39. Erik has never been to Mexico. (THIS IS TRUE, how weird is that?) (Even though Mexico’s only a couple of hours away.) (I never even went to Tijuana in high school to get drunk or cheap hookers or anything.)

40. This one time, Erik met Matthew Perry at a bar and told him he thought Perry was funny on Friends and Perry gave him a quick look and said "and I think you've got a great shirt" and then walked away from Erik. And Erik's shirt totally was not great. So Erik thinks Perry was being ironic. (THIS IS TRUE and I don’t really have anything to add to this story other than what I already said.)

41. Erik can juggle. (Well, I’m not good enough to juggle knives and bowling balls, but I’m good enough to say THIS IS TRUE.)

42. Erik can bowl a 150 game. (This is beyond FALSE. Oh my god, I am the worst bowler. I love bowling and I’ve got style on the lanes, but I’m lucky if I get over 50 points.)

43. Erik was once in a minor fender bender with Lara Flynn Boyle on Hollywood Blvd. (just past Tamarind) (Totally FALSE.) (However I did meet her once and our conversation was akin to a car crash.)

44. Erik has had sex at Disneyland. (Unfortunately, as much as I wish I had a great story here, this is FALSE.)

45. Erik is legally blind. (My vision is 20/400, which means that if you have perfect vision and you can see something 400 feet away, then I have to be twenty feet away to see it.) (Or something like that.) (It also means that my vision is really bad, bad in fact that it qualifies as legally blind.) (Therefore, THIS IS TRUE.) (Hence my glasses.)

46. Erik knows how to surf. (I wish.) (FALSE.)

47. Erik only does crossword puzzles in ink. (THIS IS TRUE.) (I used to do crossword puzzles all the time with my step-grandmother on my step-mom’s side.) (This isn’t the step-grandmother who I used to crash the Golden Globes with, this is the other one.) (And she taught me to only use ink, a practice I’ve never strayed from.)

48. Erik owns a unicycle. (THIS IS TRUE.) (My dad gave it to me for my birthday back when I was trying to get into Barnum and Bailey’s clown college.) (However, I’ve never been able to ride it.) (It’s reeeeeeally difficult.)

49. Eric Dane (McSteamy) is really freaking hot. (I know some people assumed this was an OPINION, and I’ll give you credit if that’s the answer you gave, but it’s wrong.) (THIS IS TRUE.)

50. Erik once slow danced with a nun. (This one time I slow danced to Radiohead’s Creep with a lesbian punk, but alas, I’ve never danced with a nun, slow or otherwise.) (So, THIS IS FALSE.)

Scarlet

Yesterday, I was talking to some students about The Scarlet Letter--we were talking about Point of View, and the difference between third person and first person--and I actually asked the students: "How do you think the book would have been different if Nathaniel Hawthorne had written it in the first person? From Scarlet's point of view?"

And then there was a pause and these students looked at me like I was crazy and then I suddenly heard what I had said.

"Uh, wait, I meant...uh, Hester. How would the book have been different if it had been written from Hester's point of view? Hester Prynne."

But by then I had lost them. By then I was the dumb substitute teacher who thought the heroine of The Scarlet Letter was actually named Scarlet.

(I was about to make a joke about how "that's when my cheeks went red, or, uh, scarlet," but the truth is I wasn't really embarrassed--I thought it was funny too.)

In my defense, it's been fifteen years since I've read The Scarlet Letter and I was teaching the book cold. When I started making fun of the fact that I thought her name was Scarlet, I won the kids over again--so in the end it was all good.

True, false, or opinion?

Okay, so I know Jesse did a True or False post a while back and I was going to link to his post but I can't find it right now and I'm not in a mood to google. (I know, weird right? Who's not in a mood to google?) And then I was reading In A Vault Underground, where Jeremy did a True or False post, and then I was thinking I wanted to do one, and then I was thinking that would be fun to do for Halloween. Sort of like a trick or treat post, except it's neither trick nor treat. (Maybe it's a treat?) (I'm really tired right now and I should be sleeping, so I apologize in advance if my grammar gets bad.) (everything on the true or false quiz below is totally random, there isn't logic to it or a theme.)

Anyway.

The following list contains some true statements, some falsehoods, and some opinions. Try to figure out which is what. (Whoever gets the most answers right gets a prize.) (each question is worth 2 points.) (I don't know what the prize is, but I'm sure it'll be great.)

The QUIZ begins...NOW. Begin!

1. Erik has never broken a limb. (except maybe a random toe here or there, but you can never tell if toes are really broken or not)

2. Erik has read Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment three times in his life, and he think it's time to give the book another read.

3. Erik once performed a monologue on the Globe stage in London.

4. Erik once (when I was sixteen) (what did I say about bad grammar?) (and now these parenthetical statements are totally throwing off the rhythm of this statement) (I can just feel it) threw up on the ceiling of my kitchen.

5. Ian McKellan once told Erik he looks scandanavian.

6. Erik (still) owns every Garbage Pail Kid ever made ("ever made," that is, until they started fucking making new ones a couple of years ago) (fuckers)

7. Erik looks like Jeff Goldblum.

8. Erik had three pet rabbits as a child. Each one was named Blackie.

9. Erik had three pet goldfish as a child. Each one was named Freddie.

10. Susan Sarandon once told Erik he was "sweet" and that she was "a tart."

11. Erik got hit in the head with a baseball bat when he was twelve (explains a lot, huh?)

12. Two years ago, Erik sold his entire comic book collection (over 2,000 comic books) for 300 buckaroonies.

13. Erik once inadvertantly started a mini fued between Amy Irving and Kate Capshaw (Mrs. Speilberg #1 and Mrs. Speilberg #2, respectively).

14. Erik has been to a straight porno movie theater in Venice, Italy.

15. Erik played a paramedic on ER. His scene was with Dr. Greene.

16. Erik applied to Barnum and Bailey's Clown College, but was not accepted.

17. The first concert Erik ever went to was Weird Al Yankovic.

18. The second concert Erik ever went to was Elvira. (Yes, she used to put on concerts.)

19. The Real World/Road Rules Challenge TV shows are the best shows to have ever been on television ever.

20. Erik has gotten two parking tickets this month.

21. Erik can sing every lyric to every song in Into the Woods.

22. When Erik was a kid, he had a copy of The Complete Guide to I Love Lucy sitting next to his television set, as well as a highlighter, and every time he saw a new episode of I Love Lucy he would highlight the episode in the book so that he would know when he had seen every single episode.

23. This one time, Erik broke into the Psycho house on the Universal backlot and he stood in the Janet Leigh shower. Naked.

24. Erik subscribes to Entertainment Weekly, US Weekly, and The Week.

25. Erik knows the root of pi to the twentieth decimal. (We had to memorize it in Algebra 1 and I never forgot it.)

26. Erik saw Dude, Where's My Car in the movie theater SEVEN TIMES.

27. Erik did not learn how to swim until he was ten.

28. Erik was born eight weeks premature.

29. Erik celebrated his third birthday at McDonald's.

30. During elementary school, Erik had braced for two years, then he wore a retainer for two years, and then he had to wear braces AGAIN for two fucking more years.

31. Michael J. Fox is a hunk.

32. Lindsay and Bonnie, Erik received your prize Cambodian shirts in the mail (thank you Adam!) and he needs to make plans with you so that he can give them to you! (this is true)

33. Erik once pretended to be a bird with Will Ferrell.

34. Erik's favorite restaurant in the whole entire world is Wagamama's in London.

35. Erik thought he was allergic to chalk until he was fourteen, but in reality touching chalk just kinda gives him the chills (but chills do not an allergy make).

36. Chocolate chip omelettes are good.

37. Erik love The View.

38. Erik have a secret tattoo that he hasn't told anyone about. On his left hipbone.

39. Erik has never been to Mexico.

40. This one time, Erik met Matthew Perry at a bar and told him he thought Perry was funny on Friends and Perry gave him a quick look and said "and I think you've got a great shirt" and then walked away from Erik. And Erik's shirt totally was not great. So Erik thinks Perry was being ironic.

41. Erik can juggle.

42. Erik can bowl a 150 game.

43. Erik was once in a minor fender bender with Lara Flynn Boyle on Hollywood Blvd. (just past Tamarind)

44. Erik has had sex at Disneyland.

45. Erik is legally blind.

46. Erik knows how to surf.

47. Erik only does crossword puzzles in ink.

48. Erik owns a unicycle.

49. Eric Dane (McSteamy) is really freaking hot.

50. Erik once slow danced with a nun.

Urine, I'm in, We're all in, for urine. (That makes no sense whatsoever, but whatever: New Thing #176.)

New Thing #176: Today I decided that even though I may not have the urge or desire to pee more than once a day, I do have the ability to pee more than than once a day, and whether I want to or not my body probably needs to and so I should probably just go ahead and pee more often.

I blame my amazing bladder on my mother for enrolling me in preschool before I was potty trained. We weren't allowed to wear diapers at the preschool and since I wasn't yet fully potty-trained I would just hold it in every day until I got home. I remember this very clearly. Suppressing my need to pee. Holding it in. It's probably my earliest memory. Weird.

But that can't be good for me. Most people pee several times a day. I'm sure it prevents things like kidney stones. I bet it's medically proven. So I'm going to make a concerted effort to pee more often.

(I am so so sorry that I felt the need to write a blog entry about my urination habits, but I figure most of you have come to expect that from me by now.) (But I'm sure this post will give certain googlers a thrill.) (Pee googlers.)

Pirate Mystery Man

My dad's birthday is this upcoming Friday (happy early birthday, dad!) and to celebrate we went to this crazy Pirate dinner theater in Buena Park tonight. It was kinda like Mideaval Times, except with Pirates. And everything's more fun with pirates, so we had a good time. Of course, Dad wanted everyone to dress as pirates, and since it was his birthday we all obliged. (Dad gets te award for best costume, though, and not just because it's his birthday--his costume actually was the best). My costume was kinda hodge-podge, but it did the trick. Anyway, after the Pirate Party, I went to a coffeeshop to do some writing and I totally forgot that I looked like this:

I mean, I had taken off my bandana and the scarf and the pirate shirt and all of that, but I had completely forgotten that I'd painted a mustache and goatee onto my face with mascara. It didn't hit me until I got back into my car after writing for two hours, but no one said anything and I didn't notice any strange looks, so people must have assumed I was getting a head-start on Halloween.

--On a total side note, there was this guy sitting in front of us at the Pirate show. He was really into it, it was also his birthday (I know this because they told everyone who was celebrating a birthday to stand up and this guy stood up), and he kept turning around and looking at us to make sure we were cheering and booing at all of the right moments (the show involved a lot of cheering and booing) (when I say that he was looking at us, it wasn't in a bad way, it was more like he was being a courteous host or something and he really just wanted to make sure that everyone was having a good time) and I knew the guy looked familiar and I realized pretty quickly that he was an actor and I'm usually really good at knowing where I know actors from (I never mistake actors for people I went to school with, even character actors; no, I'm usually like, "oh, the guy sitting next to us is the guy who played Angela's English teacher in that one episode of My So-Called Life," or "that woman in front of us in line is Neil Schweiber's mother who was also Working Girl's secretary!"), but I couldn't place the guy in front of us during the Pirate dinner theater and it really started to frustrate me, so I even tried to take his picture with my camera phone so I wouldn't forget his face and I could think on it later, but it was really dark in the theater and he was wearing an eyepatch so my picture isn't very helpful:

BUT as I was typing the above paragraph, it was like I suddenly stopped trying so hard to figure out where I knew him from and then I had a very clear image of him on Desperate Housewives and for a second I thought I was going to remember who he played...but then it slipped away again. It's going to keep bugging me until I figure it out. I'm annoyed now. I have to go to bed. Teaching English tomorrow and then I have to write in the afternoon so I have pages to bring to my writing group in the evening. (Actually I already have pages that I wrote today that I could bring, but I'm trying to finish this play by next week, so I'd love to get 10 more pages written tomorrow afternoon. We'll see.) (O, on a sidenote, as I write this I still have my eyeliner mustache, but the eyeliner goatee is gone.) (I washed the goatee off when I got home, but I liked the mustache so I left it.) (But now I'm going to wash it so I don't get mustache smears on my pillow.) (O, and don't you think we should start going back to the more Shakespearian and hearty "O" instead of the continuing to rely on the quotidian "Oh" we've all gotten so boringly used to?)

Me stupid. Me need advice.

Okay, I did this totally stupid thing and I need advice.

On Thursday, I sent out two packages in the mail, both of which probably arrived on Saturday, or will arrive tomorrow at the latest.

(1) I sent out a full-length play as a submission for a theater grant, and (2) I also sent out a ten-minute play as a submission for the Act*rs Th*atre of L*uisville's Ten-Minute Play Contest (I put asterixes in the name of the theater because I don't want anyone from the Act*rs Th*atre of L*uisville to google their own theater and then find out how stupid I am--at least not before I decide how I should react to my own stupidity) (it's really not a huge stupid thing, but it is pretty stupid) (but if I learned anything from Gilda Radner when I was a child obsessed with Gilda Radner, it was that we all have a Right to Extreme Stupidity every now and then)

Anyway, here's what I did: I wrote a cover letter to go with the full-length play, and then I started to write a cover letter to go with the ten-minute play using the same computer document (i.e. I had printed out the first letter and then I started rewriting a new letter using the previous letter as a template), but, well...just now I was sitting at my computer thinking: I don't remember actually writing that second letter...and so I opened up my saved document on my computer, and lo-and-behold, all I did was write in the Act*rs Th*atre of L*uisville's name and address at the top of the letter and then I must have gotten distracted or something because I printed out the second letter and I sent it with the first letter's content.

Did I explain that clearly?

Basically, I sent a short-play to this theater with a cover letter that was about my full-length play. A play that I did not submit to them. So the letter makes no sense at all. (i.e., it's like, "Dear Act*rs Th*atre of L*uisville, look at me, I'm submitting my full-length play X for your ten-minute play competition!" but then instead of the full-length play attached they'll find my ten-minute play. Which is either going to be ultra confusing, or they're going to realize that I sent them the wrong letter. (Of course, the confusion might be confounded by the fact that the letter is addressed to them.) Either way, I look stupid. But do I look stupid enough for them to throw the play away, unread? Or will they ignore the letter and look at the submission anyway?

My natural instinct is to just let it be and assume that they'll figure things out. They don't want a follow-up letter explaining my snafu. Or do they? And they DEFINITELY don't want a follow-up phone-call. Or do they? Maybe they want a follow-up email? (If they even have an email address on their website, which they probably don't.)

Any thoughts?

New Things #173-175, including bad soup

New Thing #173: Tonight, for dinner, I decided to try to get creative in the kitchen and I invented something I like to call Corn Pea Soup.

Unfortch, it's neither as good as it sounds, nor as good as it looks. (And I understand that it doesn't look very good.) (Which is to say, it was really bad.)

New Thing #174: I discovered and started using bloglines. (Thanks to communicatrix and her post HERE.) (Basically, bloglines is this website that helps you manage the blogs you read and tells you when people update.) (And colleen, I understand that your post was saying that you wanted to be freed from the tyranny of bloglines because of how it reminded you of all of the blogs you hadn't read--at least that's how I interpreted your desire to "mark all read"--but bloglines still sounds like a timesaver to me because now I don't have to click through all of my links to see which ones have updated--now I KNOW when they've been updated--which is exciting to me) (for now, at least)

New Thing #175: I saw the new Beth Henley play, Ridiculous Fraud, at SCR tonight. The play itself is slightly slight (things pick up in the second half, which was much stronger than the first), but it its own charm and a sweetness to it that I enjoyed. And the cast was great (especially Nike Doukas) (who I know) (and who's always so much fun to watch onstage) (and the three guys who played the brothers were also really good). All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable night at the theater.

New Things #171 & 172, an Instinct soiree, and some embarrassing moments

Okay, it’s mid-afternoon and my hangover from last night is finally (mostly) (almost) gone. I don’t drink very often, so when I do drink I tend to go a little bit overboard.

(That’s a lie—I don’t go overboard—jeez, “I tend to go a little bit overboard” makes me sound like I become Mel Gibson or something and that’s totally not the case—let’s just say that I don’t like to do anything half-heartedly and that goes for boozing it up too) (when I booze it up) (which is not that often) (which I already said) (but I feel the need to say it again so that my parents don’t think I’m a lush) (hi mom and dad, I’m not a lush) (but speaking of going overboard, how great is Overboard, the 80’s Goldie Hawn vehicle?)

(Best Movie About Amnesia Ever) (not that I’m changing the subject or anything) (because I’m not) (because Overboard is honestly in my list of Top 10 eighties movies) (the list would be rounded out, in no particular order, by: Tootsie, Irreconcilable Differences, Outrageous Fortune, Hello Again, Working Girl, All of Me, Broadcast News, Big, and E.T.) (I’m not counting any John Hughes movies because John Hughes sold his soul to the devil—in return for three perfect movies [Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, and Ferris Bueller], he would be forced to make dreck for the rest of his career—and we can just all agree to Recognize the Hughes triumvirate as Perfect, give them their own list, and free up some space for other great movies) (maybe I’m being a little harsh on Hughes—the first Home Alone movie is pretty good too, and dammit but I freaking love Some Kind of Wonderful, and hello he wrote National Lampoon’s Vacation, so I should forgive him for movies like Flubber, but the simple truth is that ever since Dutch his movies have gone down freaking hill)

Anyway, I got really drunk last night because I went to Instinct Magazine’s “Leading Men” Party (I was Jesse’s “plus one,” thank you Jesse) and the party was sponsored by Vodka (or, wait, I guess it was sponsored by Absolut, but I’m really bad at remembering product names) (sorry Wall Street, but product branding does NOT work on me) which meant that all of the booze was free. The party was also sponsored by underwear (more specifically, by 2(x)ist Underwear), which meant that there were all of these random men (or, four) standing around on tables in nothing but their underwear and I think there was supposed to be music pumping really loudly throughout the fete (do you like how I just used the word “fete?” I got tired of using the word “party,” so I opened up the thesaurus in my brain and thought “fete” would be appropriate) and I think that music was supposed to underscore the underwear models’ standing, but there was something wrong with the sound system, which meant there wasn’t any thumping pumping music, which meant that these (very attractive) underwear models were just standing there on these tables in their underwear and there was something extremely surreal about it. Like we were all rats in some sort of Dharma underwear experiment. Because no one seemed to know what to do about the models—if we were supposed to interact with them or ignore them or what—and then finally, to break the tension, (and I swear there was tension) (lots of tension), people started posing for photos with the underwear models, and I was no different. Check it out, New Thing #171: I posed for a photo with an underwear model:

Note the drink in my hand. I think that’s vodka #2. It’s important to keep track of the number of drinks I consumed last night because my level of drunkenness will come into play later in the evening when I do something embarrassing and slightly humiliating, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The most embarrassing moment of the night is still hours away at this point.

Actually, I think it was around drink #2 when a really embarrassing thing happened to Jesse (which we assumed, at the time, would be the most embarrassing moment of the evening, but Jesse and I both agree that the thing I did later in the evening clearly trumped Jesse’s embarrassing moment). Let me just paint the scene a little more clearly, first, before I get to Jesse’s embarrassing moment.

So, the underwear models (again, pictured above) are by the pool being all hot and stuff. (Except the above photo makes my favorite model look like his face is distorted, like he's a poster image for The Grudge 3, or something, and I'm sorry about that.) But we’ve already forgotten about the underwear models because there are literally millions of attractive people just bipping around, getting sloshed on free vodka (Absolut). When we were standing in line for our second drinks (so now I’m backtracking here) we met this woman named Allison who was like, “what’s this party for?” and we were like, “um, hello, it’s the Instinct Leading Men Party,” and she was like, “N’Synch’s here?” and we were like, “no, but close, it’s Instinct with an inct,” and then she was like, “oh the gay magazine,” except she didn’t really say that, that was just me inserting probably unnecessary exposition into my anecdote, and then we were like, “yeah, the gay magazine,” and then this helicopter landed on the roof of the hotel and we all joked that it was Tim Gunn from Project Runway arriving at the party (since he was this month’s Leading Man #1 coverboy) (but it wasn’t him in the helicopter) (Tim Gunn was a no-show), and then we finally asked our new friend Allison, “so if you didn’t know what this party was, how did you get in?” and then she basically gave us a crash course in How To Crash Parties at the W Hotel, and it’s really easy to do, so what I’m trying to get at here is that even though it almost seemed like every other person at the party was a gay reality television star, every other other person at the party might have been some crasher off the street, and I think it was mostly street crashers who were standing around us when—and yes, this is Jesse’s embarrassing moment that I’ve been building up to—Jesse and I were doing a “walk around” and Jesse forgot that there was a set of stairs leading away from the pool area and I looked away for one second and then when I looked back Jesse was GONE. And that’s when I looked down and saw that Jessehad fallen literally flat on his face on the ground (so Tara Reid of him) and then I rushed to help him up and, well, it all happened so quickly that I didn’t even realize that Jesse had thrown his entire drink in some poor woman’s face as he was falling ever so ungracefully to the ground—he told me about the woman with the drink in her face later, after we’d made our way to another part of the party and assessed the damage to Jesse’s body (one slightly bloody knee, one slightly embarrassed boy). But Jesse didn’t really have cause to be embarrassed because, miraculously, even though the party was packed, even though there were literally millions of people there, Jesse fell all over the ground at a really opportune moment because I think the only person who saw him do it (I didn’t even see him fall and I was walking with him) was the woman who got a drink in her face (and one could argue that she didn’t really see the fall either because her view was obstructed by aforementioned drink). Marcellas from Big Brother didn’t see him fall, that guy with the long hair who always wears a cap on his head from Janice Dickinson Modelling Agency didn’t see him fall, that one Survivor castoff (who I had no idea was gay, and who I still don’t know if he’s gay, but who I think maybe I had a little bit of eyesex with, and who I’m not going to out here) didn’t see him fall, and neither did Tim Gunn (who, given, wasn’t even there, but still, he WAS the man of the hour, being on the cover of the magazine and all), so I wanted to point out to Jesse that, on the plus side of things, TIM GUNN DID NOT SEE YOU FALL FLAT ON YOUR FACE AND ACCIDENTALLY THROW A DRINK AT A STRANGER.

Finally, the Instinct party ended, but we weren’t ready for our night to end, so we decided to go to The Abbey, so we could be boozy for a couple more hours. We got our gift bags (which included vibrating condom rings) (to check out the inventory of the rest of the bag, read Jesse’s blog post HERE) and then headed over to the Abbey so that I could have MY most embarrassing moment of the evening.

Okay, so: we go to the Abbey, we have a few more drinks, (drinks #4 and #5), and at this point we were really drunk, and that’s when I started to think about my old friend “T,” who I dated for a brief blip in 2001, and whose bed I’ve fallen back into a couple of times since, and who I know isn’t really right for me, but who I definitely like, (Jesse and I decided that he's definitely not my Mr. Big, but maybe he's my Aidan, and if you're a Sex and the City fan you know exactly what I mean) and, well, T lives a couple of blocks away from The Abbey, and so I sent him a text message. And I won’t beat around the bush here, it was basically a booty-text. A drunk booty-text. (New Thing #172: I drunk booty-texted an ex.) And here’s when The Most Embarrassing Moment of The Evening Happened. I feel my phone vibrating. I take it out of my pocket and see that it’s T, but I’ve missed the call, it’s already gone to voice-mail. I wait a minute and then my phone beeps: you have a message. Okay, cool. Let’s see if T’s coming over here, or if he’s asking me to go over to his place…

I check the message. It’s T. And this is what he says: “Hey Erik, you left me a text message about the Abbey. I don’t know who this is so maybe you got the wrong number. Thank you, bye.” And then he hangs up.

And I’m like, what? Seriously? You don’t know who this is?

In his defense, we don’t call each other very often—we only see each other a few times a year and when we are in touch with each other, it’s usually via email. So I could understand if he has a new cell phone and my number’s not in there. But still, I would imagine that he can’t know too many Eriks and when someone named Erik (I even signed my text “erik”) sends you a drunk booty-text, it can’t be THAT difficult to put two-and-two together and figure out who it is. Anyway, I called him back, and I was like, “T, it’s me." And then he was like, “Erik! I didn’t recognize your number!” And then we caught up for a few minutes and it turned out he wasn’t at his house by the Abbey, he was actually in Venice (California, not Italy) for the evening, and we made plans to maybe see each other sometime next week, and then I hung up the phone and felt like a fool because I DRUNK BOOTY-TEXTED AN EX AND HE THOUGHT IT WAS THE WRONG NUMBER. There’s something cosmically embarrassing about that.

Anyway, by that point in the evening I was exhausted and it was pretty clear I wasn’t going to get a chance to test out my new vibrating condom ring, (mom and dad, if you’re still reading this, I apologize for the mental image) and Jesse’s knee was beginning to bleed most profusely, so we left the bar and called it an evening. Embarrassments aside, Jesse and I had a really fun night. Thank god for friends because if either of us had been alone last night, I’m sure that Jesse’s falling-flat-on-his-face moment and my ex-not-knowing-who-I-am moment would have been moments that we obsessed over to the point of true embarrassment, but when you’re with a great friend then those mortifying moments become, well, like fucking battlewounds to wear proudly on your sleeve, you know?

New Thing #169: I gave a kid detention

New Thing #169: On Friday, I gave my first detention ever. My least favorite thing about being a substitute teacher is the disciplinarian aspect of it, but it has to be done. If you're going to come into my class and start calling people asshole and calling people gay and hitting kids--and that's what this kid was doing on Friday, repeatedly--then you're going to get detention.

So now, today, Monday, I'm at the same school I was at on Friday, but I'm in a different classroom. It's second period. This is junior high school--seventh grade. In other words, hell. (Oh, and it's my alma mater, too, which is strange and surreal. I swear to god this school is The School That Time Forgot.) (Every single inch of the school looks exactly like how I remember it, nothing has freaking changed.) (On Friday, we had an assembly in the gymnasium and so many memories flooded through my head; most vivid was my election speech for 8th Grade Class President.) (I feel like I've blogged about that fateful day before, but if you weren't reading the blog back then, here are the cliffnotes: it was supposed to be the best day of my life; instead it was anything but. I was naive and fresh and excited and I truly believed that I could make a difference. My campaign slogan, slathered on posters all over the school, was "Erik Patterson's mom wants you to Pat Her Son with your vote." [I'm not making that up.] [Seriously.] [That's how big a dork I was.] [I honestly thought that was a brilliant campaign slogan.] ["Erik Patterson's mom wants you to Pat Her Son with your vote."] [Actually, now I think it IS a brilliant campaign slogan, but in seventh grade it ended up being totally. Completely. Mortifying.] I had this great speech prepared, mostly about how I wanted to get the blacktop repaved and how I was going to "bring back the read-a-thon." [I remember that very specifically. One of the boys in P.E. asked me what my campaign promises were, and when I told him I was going to bring back the read-a-thon, he was like, "who wants to read?" And in my head I was like "I do," but I knew enough to just keep my mouth shut. We were, after all, in P.E., and I didn't want to get pantsed.] Anyway, flash forward to speech day. We're in the gymnasium. They started with the secretary speeches, then the treasurer speeches, then the vice president speeches, [there was this girl Kirra Steel, who I would later go to my junior prom with, who was running for vice president--during her speech, she asked everyone in the gymnasium to stand up and look to the left and then after everyone did exactly as she asked them to, she said "look at that, we're already working well together," and I remember that all of the other candidates were like "wow, Kirra really brought her A-game, that was the speech they're going to be talking about tomorrow, I wish I'd thought of that"], and then, finally, it was time for the President speeches. There were three of us running for President, and alphabetically I was the third in line, which meant I was going to be the last person to give a speech. This kid Graham went first, his speech went well. Then Katie Hawkins gave her speech, which was even better. And then it was my turn to step up to the podium. I was very nervous. I had my speech written out on flash cards and I didn't look up at the crowd until I was on my third flash card. And that's when the sounds of laughter started to seep into my consciousness. I had been so concentrated on what I was saying that I hadn't heard them. But as soon as I looked up, it was like God had turned the volume in the gymnasium up, way up, and I suddenly realized that everyone was laughing at me and then I heard someone yelling--like, SCREAMING at me--"We can't hear you!!!" And then I felt a hand on my shoulder and one of the teachers told me that the speaker system had broke and that I'd have to yell the rest of my speech. So I stepped in front of the podium and started yelling as loud as I could about read-a-thons. But I had lost the crowd, no one was listening, it was awful. The next day, one of my friends who was alread on the ASB told me that I'd only received two votes, and I knew that one of them had been mine. Katie Hawkins won--and she deserved it, she was totally presidential.) Anyway, sorry, but I was in the gymnasium on Friday and that whole experience came alive for me again, and it's kinda fucked up that junior high school even exists, like, in reality, you know? Like, maybe as a concept it's a good idea, but in reality we should really spare all of our kids the horrors. The horrors.

But moving on, back to today: the kids are supposed to be reading silently and taking notes on one of the chapters in their textbook. And the kid I gave detention to on Friday? Yeah, he's in my class again. When he walked into the classroom, I heard him say "dammit" and then he ran out into the hall. And then he came back into the room a minute later and he was like, "hello, Mr. Patterson, thanks for giving me detention." And I wish that I hadn't needed to give him detention, but he was out of control and I tried, I tried, but finally detention was the only thing that would get him to settle down and do his work. Now he's sitting in his desk looking at me like I'm the enemy and talking about me under his breath--he doesn't think I can hear him, but I can SO hear him--or maybe he knows I can hear him and that's why he's talking about me. Either way, I wish that he was reading his textbook right now instead of calling me names. But I just don't know how to get through to him the fact that doing your work is ultimately going to be so much more satisfying than being a bully. How do you get that message through to a thirteen-year-old kid?

New Thing #167-168

New Thing #167: I got my first free dvd screener in the mail. So this is my first "movie awards season" as a member of the Writers' Guild, and yesterday I received a dvd copy of United 93. I was like, what's this? A gift! In the mail! I haven't seen United 93, but I really hope it's better than Oliver Stone's movie, 'cuz I really didn't like Oliver Stone's movie. Oh, and speaking of screener dvds, Jessica got a screener copy of Little Miss Sunshine several days ago, and I'm really hoping they send me one too, because I missed Little Miss Sunshine and that would be a super fun surprise in the mail. I wonder if the studios only send some of the movies to some of the members of the guild and not to others? Or do they send everything to everyone? It's confusing.

New Thing #168: I created my own new favorite sushi roll. I just discovered this sushi restaurant near my house that lets you create your own rolls (maybe all sushi restaurants would let you create your own roll if you asked, but i've never asked before, and this place has it on their menu, like, "create your own roll") and the Erik Roll is kinda decadent but it is Oh So Good. The Erik Roll contains: crab meat, salmon, avocado, cream cheese, and crunchy roll flakes, and sweet sauce.

Not a New Thing, but still important: You can still VOTE FOR TIFFANY and she really needs your votes, so have at it.