So, the Costume Institute Gala was last night.

You would think that, as a costume/fashion nerd, I would be all over it. And you would be correct, except that I've been to two, and I have a near-pathological aversion to the ENTIRE MET that I am only slowly overcoming.

I worked that event two years in a row with the event production company.

JESUS GOD.

( I drop names! I whine! I make my own dress! Details inside! )

[Scene: a tango practica. GENEVIEVE is approached by PUSHY TANGO WOMAN, who rubbed intimate parts all over Genevieve the only time Genevieve made the mistake of dancing with her. PTW is known for approaching leaders and demanding they dance with her. It usually works.]

PTW: Are you going to lead me?
G: Oh! Well, I have my street shoes on, I was on my way out.
PTW: Let me ask you - do you just not want to dance with me any more? Because I've asked you, like, twelve times in the last year and you always say no. Is it that you don't want to dance with me any more?

[GENEVIEVE dies inside that someone is so unable to get a clue.]

G: [trying to allow PTW some dignity] I just usually dance with friends.
PTW: Well, I'm your friend, and I REALLY liked dancing with you. Just tell me you don't want to dance with me! I'm asking!
G: I usually prefer to dance with my friends, I'm sorry.
PTW: Fine!

[PTW suddenly morphs into Glenn Close.]

PTW: ...we're still friends.
G: ...
PTW: Well, goodbye.

[PTW sits down, stares directly at Genevieve.]

[Fin.]

I should feel creeped out, but instead I am just MORTIFIED that someone is so unable to read a room that after 12 "No"s she's still trying for "Yes".

Other people need more shame. It would spare me being ashamed on their behalf.

So, capitalism is alive and well, whatever, *cough* sometimes I want a wireless cafe without having to go into the city so I hit the new Panera *cough*.

Just a public service announcement for anyone who might ever go there: their chai latte tastes like the butt of a clove cigarette. It is FOUL. It's like rotten licorice and old smoke. It was so awful I made everyone at my table try some too, and then kept taking sips because I repeatedly convinced myself that it couldn't possibly be THAT bad.

WELL, IT WAS.

(It's also a good thing evolution didn't take totally legitimate revenge on me and poison me for continuing to drink something I could clearly identify as liquid evil.)

More than a day later, I still cannot fully rid myself of the taste. (BUTT OF A CLOVE CIGARETTE.)

So what I'm saying is, next time you find yourself in a Panera, order the chai, and suffer as I have suffered!

Actual conversation over the phone. All parties are played by themselves except me; I am played by Walter Matthau.



Me: Hey, Mom! I placed a story!
Mom: Oh my god, is it a horror story?
Me: No.
Dad: [mumbled]
Mom: Your father wants to know if it's too weird.
Me: ...no?
Mom: Well, can Grandma read it?
Me: ...I guess.
Mom: Well, then that's great, honey!


I guess that's a temporary pass on changing my name.

Okay, whatever I do to this movie? IT DESERVES.





ETA: Holy crap, EVERY TIME she says, "I love only Lorenzo!" with her head shaking like a dashboard puppy, I crack up.

ETA 2: This is a film adaptation of "The Decameron." We're boned.

1. Fun story! This morning on my way to work there were some workmen across the street. (Just so we set the scene, I was in loose pants, top, loose blazer.) I got the following.

Worker: *wolf whistle* *WOLF WHISTLE* Hey sexy! Hey! HEY YOU! HEY, BITCH, WHERE ARE *YOU* GOING? BITCH!

And I kept my eyes ahead of me and my hand on my cell phone because he had other men with him and I was alone, and at 8:00am one block from an elementary school I was worried that this guy would run after me for not being appreciative of his attention.

There's no red button in the world big enough, okay? There's just not.


2. I am planning a big post for the tango bitchface filter, showing what real tango is and is not, with multiple video examples, some of which are flattering, some of which are really not. I have no desire to publicly humiliate (most of) these people, so if you want in on the [tango bitchface] filter, speak up!


3. I had my tango lesson yesterday. Very interesting. This'll be a separate post. It's all about free will! Well, free will and high heels.


4. Uh, I like cake! (Now I'm just filling.)


5. I should have made this post just three things.

Sometimes you see a movie and think, "Oh, heavens most merciful and holy, bring me a sign that this is a joke."

Synopsis for "Heidi 4 Paws":

""Heidi 4 Paws" is a live-action re-telling of Johanna Spyri's 1880 children's classic, "HEIDI", but with fully mouth-articulated dogs in all of the roles. "Heidi 4 PAWS" tells the story of the young orphan (this time as seen through the eyes of a yellow lab puppy) who is sent to live with her reclusive Grandfather (in this case an old sheepdog). Just as Heidi adjusts to her new life in the mountains, she is taken away by her social worker (a scrappy beagle). Heidi finds herself living in the big city with Clara Sesehound (a cockapoo mix), who has been made an invalid after a debilitating illness. Although Heidi comes to love Clara, her quest to return to the mountains dominates her stay. In the end, she is able to reunite with her beloved Grandfather. When Clara later comes to visit, the final miracle of Heidi's story is revealed when Clara regains her ability to walk."

And then, in the cast list you see:

"Julian Sands ... Peter the Goatherder"

AND YOU KNOW IT IS ALL HORRIBLY TRUE.

Below, a production still from a movie that is, apparently, actually being made.





Julian Sands is out to get me, you guys. I don't know how this could be any clearer. I'll never give in, Julian, DO YOU HEAR ME?


ETA: I can't look at this picture without cringing and then laughing hysterically. THOSE POOR DOGS.

Guess what I just finished watching.



My only regret is that you can only watch it for the first time once. Never again will I watch this scene and say, "Holy crap, is he unbuckling his pants?" and not know the answer.

Hint: Yes.

More on this movie later, when I have more coherent thoughts.

After the class, a guy came up to me for what I assumed was a question about class (I got the move, one of two leaders who did). The little ditty went like this:

Dude: You lead really well!
G: Thank you!
[They shake hands.]
Dude: That was a tough class, wasn't it?
G: Totally.
[Dude suddenly reaches out and clasps G's arm.]
Dude: Can I tape you?
G: [Shaking arm free.] What?
Dude: It's just that you're such a good leader. Just one song - I want to learn from you.
G: Well, I can introduce you to my teacher and you can take lessons.
Dude: [wringing hands] No, I can just tape you -
G: - I'm not letting you tape me.
Dude: But I want to learn from you...learn from the way you move.
G: ...Are you SHITTING me? [walks off]

Sadly, the story did not end with [G returns with a chair and beats Dude about the head with it], but IT COULD HAVE.

Okay, in our office pantry, the Kellogg's cereal suggests you "Live Everyday Stronger."

Did I miss the memo on this? Last time I checked, "every day" meant "happens every solar rotation", and "everyday" meant "ordinary".

Actually, was this the same memo where things no longer happen "a lot", but "alot"? Did I spend all of 8th grade in a Catholic school parsing sentences for nothing?

While flipping channels last night, I came across this exercise show called "Shimmy". I'm not (totally) snarking on it - the girls are talented, the music is very good - but I mostly marveled at the number of locations they used. It's like someone told them, "You can have money for the show, but only if you visit twenty places every half hour," and they were like, "Okay!"

In this two-minute clip, we have the following locations: empty stage; municipal staircase; abandoned warehouse; underground ruin ON FIRE; the staircase of Marycrest Elementary; flooded parking garage; light-spangled backdrop; a beach.



Not featured here but present in the episode I watched: a rooftop near Epcot Center; outside the bleachers of an open-air stadium; outside a palace IN THE (fake) SNOW; an underpass near a forest; interior of a dance studio with lattice windows; different abandoned warehouse with alarm lights going off (!); tiny, submarine-sized industrial hallway in which the dancer is constantly banging her knees into the walls. (ETA: airport lounge.)

I never thought I'd say this, but these ladies could really benefit from a viewing of "My Dinner With Andre", you know?

Or, in this case, the spoken word.

The InnSpa World commercial now ends with, "Experience InnSpa."

Admit it; one of the InnSpa people totally reads this journal. Well played, InnSpa employee!

I can hold up my own head! I'm writing! Yay, healing process.

Also, yay, random TV descriptions.

From the Hallmark Channel description of "Big Red": "A gruff Quebec sportsman learns a lesson from the orphan who walks his Irish setter."

Check out all that random specificity, and yet the huge generalization of the actual plot. A lesson about what? Did he have to learn the lesson because he's Quebecois? Is it a lesson about orphans? About Irish setters? What is going ON with this movie?

InnSpa World has ads on TV that show people getting all massaged and bathed and whatever, and the voiceover lady assures you you will find "Relaxation...Beauty..."

Then she suggests, "Experience the Inn experience."

Okay, just read that sentence out loud to yourself, and then tell me who let that one go to air.

Worst. Bookstore experience. Ever.

Tuesday I went book shopping with a friend. I've been plugging away at a novel, and after writing 50,000 words in a vacuum, I felt I needed to come up for air, laugh at the bad romance novel covers, and covertly check the self-help shelves for What You Should Do About Your Stupid Stubborn Characters Who Won't Obey You.

I love bookstores. I love the cheesy romance novel covers (shoved in the very back where they store the folding chairs, clearly an important genre), I love the growing graphic novel section even though I don't read many of them, I love looking for insanely-spacifically-targeted magazines like Denver Studio Apartment Weekly. I love stalking Herodotus to find where, exactly, this particular bookstore is shelving him.

We were on our way out when two young ladies stopped us - early thirties, maybe, offbeat dressers. I guessed her favorite writers were Octavia Butler, Jonathan Safran Foer, and T.S. Eliot.

One of them smiled. "Can you help us?"

"Sure," I said, already settling into my inevitable career as bookstore employee. "What are you looking for?"

"Do you know who wrote The Da Vinci Code?"

I was totally thrown. "Uh, Dan Brown."

She turned to her friend. "That's who it was!" Then, back to me, "Did you like it?"

"I've never read it," I said, trying not to sound horrified and failing.

"Well," she chirped, "it has to be pretty good - I mean, you know who he is and you haven't even read it! Okay, thanks, bye!"

For a long time my friend and I stood in the middle of the science fiction aisle without speaking, waiting for the punchline.

Never came.