Regaining the Will to Live

I wish the headline was an exaggeration, but it's not. yesterday I had the will to live slowly drained from me as I had a migraine for about 12 hours. It was my longest migraine to date and the only one that got so bad that I had trouble seeing, which caused me to be nauseous and sent me home from work. I figured it would generally be frowned upon to lay my head on my keyboard all day and pray for the sweet relief of sleep. Not exactly billable hours.

I drove home and then curled up in  bed with the blinds closed for a few hours. I drifted in and out of sleep and then got up and moved to the couch. When I could deal with sound again, I laid there with my eyes closed and tried to keep the room from spinning. About 5 pm, I was able to not want to die. At 10 p.m., I could read again without feeling nauseous and this morning I was back to normal. Or as normal as I usually am.

I'm happy this happened yesterday and not last week. I was in Las Vegas for the second time in two weeks for work. By Sunday, I was ready to be home. The sounds of slot machines would ring in my ears at night (not that I was gambling. I prefer to keep my money in the mall--where I'm always a winner!). I did, however, get to take a 5 mile walk and see the new Twilight movie in between the convention and a lot of eating. Mostly I just wished I was at home with my hubby. :)

Here are some shots from the trip:

Stayed at Caesar's and saw these t-shirts in the gift shop. They made me chuckle.

Walked over to the Bellagio to visit the work of one of my favorite artists--Dale Chihuly

The Bellagio also had this cool Fall scene with a beautiful talking tree

The tub in my room was large and jacuzzi. I took about 2-3 baths a day while I was there.

Leave Britney, I mean Kristen, Alone!

I'd make a caption about her not having
expressions, but that seems too easy.

Or not. I could care less (which is the correct use here, because I care enough to write and read about it, so I could care less). Kristen Stewart is getting skewered in the tabloids for cheating. She seems to be getting more heat for cheating on Robert Pattinson than being the other woman, but let's be honest: who had more to lose in this scenario? An unattached starlet with at least one more blockbuster to come out or the director of ONE film with a wife and two kids? I rest my case.

But in the mean time, I've been glancing at the coverage. Until Jodie Foster's diatribe on The Daily Beast yesterday. At which point, I scratched my head and said "What the fuck?". I even took the time to read the whole damn thing, which was a chore. Mostly because I had to stop myself from having the Jon Lovitz voice go off every time the words "ACTOR", "ACTRESS" or "ACTING" were mentioned. Let's be honest, the arts are exceptionally good for the soul: both the people making the art and those receiving the art. But in the end, art will not cure cancer or feed the homeless. So, let's put things in perspective.

After reading the whole thing I thought two things: 1) Jodie Foster thinks an awful lot of Jodie Foster, and 2) Jodie Foster likes to use a lot of unnecessary words to make a point or sound smart (which might've been the point). Then I had to quickly admonish myself because Jodie Foster would've been mad that I made snap judgments about her when she just told me not too.

Anyway, it's a long-winded kind of confusing essay about how hard today's actors have it. But let's be honest. It's not all actors. Just the ones that get cast in mega-blockbusters and then think it's a good idea to have a relationship with their co-star of the mega blockbuster that had millions of rabid fans before it was even a movie. Maybe that's just a bad idea. Adding fuel to the fire.

But that's just an outsider's opinion.

I'm not an ACTOR.

Pizza Slut, Vampires, Stuffed Animals and Succulents

Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, on
the left, Soleil Moon Frye on the right
(Man scratching his head-dead center)

I spent the weekend carbo-loading. Not for any particular reason other than I had a heart-to-heart with myself last week and decided that my skin, hair, body and clothes were telling me one thing: I needed to try harder. It's not my full effort and without that, I can't depend on my best results.

So between my gorging of all things baked, fried or just plain delicious and shopping at various nurseries for Chef's new love of gardening, I got my car fixed (kind of. The damn tire pressure sensor was off for half a day and then came back on which sent me over the edge in a fit of fury), added red to my head, got my hands and feet all pretty in coral, and saw Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, being interviewed by Soleil Moon Frye (aka Punky Brewster).

Chef was gracious enough to go with me to the Bloggess event (book reading, signing and interview thingy) even though he wasn't totally into it. I could tell because he was looking up gardening stuff most of the time. However, I enjoyed it, although there was a lady there who blogged in the voice of her stuffed sheep which kind of creeped me out. The Bloggess is delightfully dirty and odd, but that was a little odd, even for me. Also, Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, was in the crowd in cognito. I remember seeing her at the time, but didn't put two and two together. As is the case when you're still reeling in laughter from a story about an at-home cleanse using ex-lax and a question from a lady that came through the voice of the stuffed goat she blogs through (FYI- the goat was not full size, but rather a small hand-held goat. If it had been full-sized, I think I would've been less confused. Maybe.)

After that, I helped pick out two plants that I wanted because they were pretty and made me happy. Then I decided that I needed to concentrate on making myself happy, in various ways. I bought a book of writing prompts, read about 100 magazines that had been piling up, and decided to get my ass back in gear. Again. YES AGAIN. I work out now and count calories, but I haven't been super strict about my diet in a while. And while I haven't eaten an entire box of TGIFriday's potato skins and an entire DiGiorno pepperoni pizza (that may have happened in the past, I'm just saying), I also haven't stuck to lean proteins, restricted carbs (my love for which can only be topped by my love for Chef and our cats, most of the time), and eaten fruits and veggies. So back to the original diet plan it goes. I even had Chef buy my old protein shakes when he went to the grocery store. I had a French Vanilla EAS CarbAdvantedge (yes, it's spelled like that) this afternoon for my "high-protein" snack. And tomorrow, I go on a cleanse. We'll see how that goes.

Breaking Dawn Dilemma

I also spontaneously break
out in songs about what I'm
doing at the moment. 

Fine. I'll begrudgingly admit that I have seen and read all the Twilight series iterations. I read them all and they were pretty bad. The story was fairly interesting, but the details and the characters bugged the shit out of me. Mostly it is Bella. The whiny, "I'm not good enough for Edward" routine is pretty tired. Could we not have a heroine that had some balls? Perhaps that explains my preference for The Hunger Games series. I hope the movies don't suck.

But I digress. For some reason, lately I've been enjoying watching Twilight. Fx has been playing it and I've got it on the bedroom DVR. I start it out before I doze off and enjoy it. Mostly the cheesy puppy love stuff. I don't know if I'm more romantic or less as I've gotten older, but I enjoy a good doze of cheesiness now more than I did before.  And now you know my secret shame. Not so secret any more.

Chef volunteered to go see Breaking Dawn with me. I'm debating whether or not to take him up on the offer. People here are going nuts for the movie. There's a whole camping area outside of the venue of the premiere. Yesterday morning I saw a news piece where the reporter interviewed two people who had come from Florida to camp out for nearly a week to get a glimpse of Robert Patinson and Kristen Stewart as they walk the red carpet. That seems like a drastic measure.

Anyway, how much would I owe Chef if I make him endure Breaking Dawn in the theaters? What's the proper amount of payback for a movie like that? I like to know what I'm going to owe going in.

Movies I Can't Wait to See

Being in LA (or New York too, actually), one thing you see a ton of is movie posters. They're on billboards, plastered on construction sites, bus stops, and buses themselves. They are EVERYWHERE. And they start about 2 months before the actual movie comes out, so by the time the TV ads kick in, you feel like you've seen the movie almost.

My PR theory on why this is done is that the majority of those people who make movies or act in them live in NYC or LA. If you want to make someone think the movie is being promoted heavily everywhere, promote heavily where they are. They'll never know that there's not one damn billboard in Nashville for The Cape or not an out-of-home campaign running in Indiana for Drop Dead Diva.

That being said. There are several movies coming out that I'm itching to see. Here they are:

• Moneyball (Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman and baseball? WINNER!)
• The Ides of March (It's a movie about a press secretary that messes up. Love the idea. Did I mention Ryan Gosling is that press secretary?)
• Twilight: Breaking Dawn (no judgement people. My only hope is that Kristen Stewart is mute for most of it)
• We Bought a Zoo (interesting premise and Matt Damon) 

I'm sure more will pop up as the (brace for it) holiday movie season gets hopping. 

Two Things that Made Today Weird

1) For some reason the eyeliner I used decided today would be the day that it would smudge under my eye. This not only made me look creepy but also gave me the appearance of a fighter with a black eye for a good part of the morning until I went to the bathroom. All in all. Not a good look for me.

2) I was on my way to Lowe's to buy some rope (different story, different day) when I was behind a bright yellow Toyota FJ Cruiser that bore a Twilight sticker and a personalized Tennessee license plate with the word "Cullen." For those of you not in the know, or not caring, that is the name of the main vampier character family in the Twilight books.

I have been known to be a super fan of things (Anne, you don't need to mention Matt Damon, as I can "out" myself of being completely obsessed with him during my college years. And yes, I did go to two Backstreet Boys concerts --in my defense on that one, the beer lines were WAY short at those concerts.) That being said, I draw the line at having a personalized license plate or, as a separate matter, airburshing of any type. I also will not give naming rights to my children to a fictual character unless it's something cool and enduring like Scout.

Am I wrong?

Darkness comes after the 'Twilight'?

A few months back my friends (and there were several of you out there) persuaded me to give the 'Twilight' series a try. The aforementioned friends also got me to jump on the 'Harry Potter' bandwagon fairly early, so I was more apt to give their reading suggestions a whirl.

However, 'Twilight' is no 'Harry Potter.' It feels like it was written by a repressed Mormon. I can sense the danger in mentioning their touches, but this is 2009. Few dudes, Master Vampire or not, is going to take the chivalrous route to sex. I get that he comes from a much earlier time, but I'm still not buying what she's selling.

Aside from that, Bella is a pretty pathetic chick. She's ruled by a dude she met and fell madly in love with. She moves away from her mom and shows very little interest in her dad, other than wanting him alive and sparing him harm. Why didn't Meyer just kill the parents like most good kids books do? She's not necessarily strong or endearing and other than being the "new kid", I'm not sure anyone in Forks would've paid much attention to her. I'm not buying Edward's intrigue other than his inability to use his "powers" on her.

Look, I'm all for books that get people reading. Especially kids. So for that, I'm going to respect "Twilight." But while Harry Potter took me to a world where things were entirely different, Edward just falls flat. Instead of learning about Quidditch, we get...baseball? really!?!?! Also length is only NOT an issue if the story is constantly moving forward. Potter repeats itself a lot, but mostly following the format of repetition in kids' books. Twilight just feels like it's haphazardly put together and things made up at the end to pull the pieces together. Not interwoven into the plot.

And before people get pissed, I'll let you know that I'm into the third book. I keep trying to find that spark that makes me a fan, because I want to be if it's worthy, but I haven't yet. Perhaps book four? Until then, I'll just watch the Twilight movie. Shorter plot, less moony dialogue and Robert Pattinson (aka Cedric Diggory).