the emancipation of jeffrey

Sometimes you have to spend the night with your phone turned off alone in your room watching Mariah Carey videos.

Her early videos are super classy.  She wears black mini-dresses and big earrings with lots of curly brunette long island hair and pageant makeup.  This eventually gives way to much lighter and finer, chemically straightened hair and full cleavage with even shorter, brighter mini-dresses.  When she divorced Tommy Mottola, she progressively gained 40pounds and her videos became more and more surreal. 

In "Butterfly," Ms Carey is in a nightgown being held prisoner in a mansion.  All she wants is to be with her horse in the backyard that she raised from birth but, when she finally gets outside, she lets the horse go free to run with all the other horses.  She pricks her finger on some barb wire, her eyes go crazy, and she runs from the house into the woods like the wild woman locked in the attic in Jane Eyre.  Her nightgown is suddenly all ratty and her hair a mess, eyes red from sobbing!  In one moment, she's laughing and riding the horse bareback with the nightgown hiked up, then she's alone in a field of grass.

In "My All,"  Mariah has a PERFECT body in black and white, but for some reason her hair is all wet and she's singing inside a giant clamshell. 

"Honey" is where the crazy train really goes off the tracks.

Mariah is speaking spanish.  She is in the black mini-dress, but this time she's tied to a chair and being tortured by terrorists.  This is the first time she starts really showing off her money, as she attacks the terrorist with $800 spiked heels and then dives off a miami mansion rooftop into a pool where she emerges in a stunning gold james-bond bikini - only to immediately change into a spandex catsuit and dolce&gabbana boots so she can get on a jetski!  This is inter-cut with footage of Mariah dancing in a bikini top on a cruise ship with a bunch of black men in sailor hats.  Inexplicably, everything is alright at the end because she's on the beach covered in sand being carried away by shirtless male model with a puppy in tow.

When Mariah went crazy after 9/11, I sent her a letter telling her how special she was along with a book that my drama teacher in high school gave me called "If You're Afraid of the Dark, Remember the Night Rainbow."  I thought she'd like it.  7months later, I got an email addressed to "my darling lamb" from Mariah, thanking me.  That's my bitch.

color all days blue, but save one for black

Today an agent came in and saw the trailer for Precious playing on the flatscreen. He said, in all seriousness, "Who is that fat girl?". Today a female agent came in and mocked the intern for not making her tea properly. 

Clearly I'll be leaving work at 3pm today.

hamburger helper.

"The Monster Club" was my favorite movie as a little boy.
This is what a husband looks like.

tinsel and glamour in westwood

As I was leaving therapy today, I found myself trapped in the elevator with a morbidly obese messenger breathing heavily out of his mouth and dripping with sweat.  So rancid was his body odor, so god-awful was his smell, that I actually threw up in the bushes outside where I had parked my bicycle.

I was going to get Carl's Jr for a reward meal.  I ate almonds instead.

Tomorrow Never Dies

Summer to-do check list:

Go to the Monroeville Mall in Pittsburgh and reinact scenes from Dawn of the Dead in high-waisted jeans.

Buy a pickup truck and go to the Mission Tiki Drive-In and swap meet in Montclair, CA.

Go night-swimming in a body of water with red baywatch trunks (preferably on a beach with a high concentration of phosphorus in the sand or in a quarry under the stars and not necessarily wearing trunks).

Wear CKOne like it's 1996.

Become completely infatuated with your best friend.

Listen to Belly, Lisa Loeb, Sheryl Crow & the original Ethel Merman soundtrack to Gypsy alone in the poolhouse while staring, glassy eyed, at the ceiling with your stuffed puppy, Mariah, firmly nuzzled in the nape of your neck.

After a day of clam-digging, go sailing and throw yourself into the ocean. Once ashore, abandon your wedding ring in the toilet and use the money you've been saving for the past 6months to start a new life as a theatre arts teacher in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

faith

Never forget that there was a time when a supermodel had the best voice in the entire world.

station.

The summer of Star Wars: Episode One was a riot. Try to imagine a time before you could buy movie tickets online. I waited in line with my high school bestie at the only theatre capable of digital projection in Massachusetts. Mind you, this was weeks before the movie even opened. It was super sunny and people were in tents. There was an adjacent Taco Bell and they gave out Episode One pogs. I still don't know what a pog is but by the end of that summer I had them all! I even developed a taste for Doritos to complete my collection. This was also the summer of Eyes Wide Shut. I was living in Brookline and working the 5am shift at Starbucks between acting jobs. I had passed up a scholarship to Northeasterns' pre-law program in favor of waxing my legs to play a 12 year old boy in "To Kill a Mockingbird". This was the summer I read the first three Harry Potter books.

A year later, I went to midnight release of the 4th book at the bookstore in Harvard Square with Jake. It was a perfect night. The crowd was comprised of students and waspy rich kids and the whole thing felt magical and new. I remember sitting at the fountains outside the Christian Science Center in Boston trying desperately to get through the book, but completely distracted by the nearby Boston Chicken Market and its siren song.

9/11 made the people care about magic and wizards and comic book movies. I saw the first movie alone in Columbus Circle in the middle of the day. I was living on the lower east side but I preferred the uptown theatre because you could pay for one movie and stay all day and it was usually more than half empty. I don't like a lot of people. I fell fast asleep.

I had one of the best "dates" in my life going to the midnight launch party for the 6th book at the Columbus Circle Barnes & Noble - complete with margaritas and aggressive making out against a brownstone. By this time, the adorable children wearing cloaks with kitschy forehead scars were replaced by a bevy of fat girls with stringy hair and officially licensed merchandise.

Do I really like Harry Potter?
Not really. I like Luna Lovegood and I like using magic wands as a metaphor for masturbation. I like Ron Weasley's mom and the arc of Percy Weasley. Other than that, I remember nothing.

Have I made it through any of the films without sleeping?
No. However, I think 10years, three states, and two different romantic midnight book launch parties is worth noting.

sundays are for white shorts and cardigans

This morning I woke up run ragged from two nights of being social in a row.  After one reaches a certain age, one must limit the nights one is social past the hour of 2am to one night per month.

I watched "St. Elmo's Fire" after making myself some pancakes and delicious coffee.   I do not relate to any of these characters or their pedestrian problems - however, their outfits were pretty sick.  I highly encourage boys to bring back high tops with colorful leggings that you tuck your cotton pants into.  Shaggy hair, big glasses, and scarves are also acceptable.

Last night I had terrible nightmares after doing some research into Jdate.  I will not meet the love of my life on the internet - this is certain.  

I shall dimish into the west.

an island in the sun

Listen.
I know that this will come off as self-hating and a rash of sweeping generalizations - but I wish that gay people didn't have such ugly faces and I wish they didn't take pictures of themselves bending over all the time.

Mazel!

I wrote a lot in my diaries about my reasons for converting to Judaism. The first page of this diary is a list of names:

Sandra Bernhard
Barbra Streisand
Elizabeth Taylor
Kate Capshaw

Mazel Tov on your conversion this week, Julia Ann. More life!

call me crazy

I like Sasha Fierce. However, over the past few days, I am convinced that the "Halo" song is not about Jesus. "Halo" is a song about a young woman who finally loves a man enough to let him climax on her face.

Today I had to physically stop myself from asking a black man in the elevator if he was going to the Michael Jackson funeral tomorrow at the Staples Center. I blame Good Morning America, not racism.

so much better

Once upon a time there was a lady named Elle Woods.

With her outrageous outlook and indomitable fashion sense, Elle was a girl that all the boys wanted to be with and all the girls wanted to be best friends with.  Not only was Elle an amazing interior decorator, but she had spirit to spare!  She was a wonderful and attentive girlfriend to her boyfriend, Warner - doing things in a hottub that would make a seasoned professional blush but always a class act outside the bedroom.   Even though Warner got dizzy in hottubs, didn't like to talk in public, and didn't know the difference between Tiffany and Walmart rings, Elle loved him with all her heart.   Long story short:  Warner decided that there was no room for Elle in his new life in Business College.  Boring.

Elizabeth Shue.

Elizabeth Shue had an insanely successful career.  Elizabeth Shue married into the Guggenheim family and then her husband (with her helping hand and loving embrace) had an insanely successful career of his own.  We all have a lot to learn from Elizabeth Shue and Elle Woods and their happily ever afters.

"My wardrobe is not really conducive to kneepads."

-Megan Fox