Countdown

It's only a few hours until the new decade (or is it, since 2001 was "technically" the first year of the millennium?), and I'm hanging with John and some of our friends at John's apartment. We just watched Green Day perform for THE New Year on TV, and now we've switched over to [adult swim] until the ball drops in Times Square.

My mom went off to the funny farm today, and packing my stuff next week is now a mandatory task, as I will have to move my few remaining boxes in John's closets sooner than anticipated.

This post is mainly just to wish y'all a Happy New Year, so HAPPY NEW YEAR! Be safe, love ya, and see you next year!!

It's Time to Party like it's 2009

Another year has come and gone, and my mother is being sent to an insane asylum tomorrow (today, technically). Next week, I'm going over to her apartment to start going through the multiple still-packed boxes from our move this past April and getting rid of any trash I may have brought with us, figuring out what things I'll never need again, and packing a few choice boxes for when I finally move my stuff into John's apartment, either after I graduate or when we're kicked out of my mom's apartment, whichever comes first.

I, personally, find my wording interesting. "My mom's apartment," "John's apartment;" I don't really consider anywhere my home. I did once: my house. We lived in that house from the time I was 4 to the time I was 19. When we had to move, I decided that I would be technically homeless until graduation. I stay in the dorms when I'm in Austin, and I stay with whomever will take me in Dallas. It's kind of a nice change, a good transition for this point in my life, to not be tied down to any one place. I feel like a wanderer, in the most romantic sense, but still with the stability of knowing that I always have somewhere to spend the night. It's kind of cool. And because of this, I've been trying to become more minimalistic, which is hard, because I'm what you might call a pack rat. But clearing through my stuff will be a good way to ring in the new year, so let's do it.

John and I are watching Two Guys from Milwaukee, a 1946 black and white comedy with a total slut of a leading female character. It's amusing enough, cute, but a pretty shallow plot. Here's the trailer:



"All in?" Wow. I'm kind of an old soul, but sometimes I feel like such a 20-year-old when presented with the past.

And now for something completely different--Talking Dogs!



I'll try to post again before the day is over, to wish y'all a Happy Old Year, but if I can't manage to get to it, Happy Old Year and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

P.S.-The movie just ended. It was pretty campy, but with a hilariously awesome last 40 seconds. If you don't plan on seeing the movie anytime soon (meh), here's the ending:



TCM was having a Bogie marathon today (yesterday), but I don't think this was part of it. This was the only part of the movie in which he appears, but it totally was worth the camp to get to it.

After a Brief Hiatus...

It's been a few days since I last posted, due to all the holiday festivities, but I'm back now. My first real Christmas was pretty cool; I got some nice gifts (John gave me the collected stories of Grace Paley, which is currently missing, so I'm sad), John's mom and aunt made some really good food, and John and I built a snowman named Sid.

So called because of his twig Mohawk. Anything/one with a Mohawk can be named Sid.

He came up to about John's hip (John is 6'4"), which has to be a record for the Dallas area.

Saturday night, John and I went to a get together with his friends that they call New Beers Eve. The only rule of New Beers Eve is that you must bring some kind of beer that you've never had before. The problem I see with this concept is that there is a possibility of winding up with a bunch of beer no one will drink. Here is a list of 10 strange beer names. Here is a list of 10 more. None of these were brought to New Beers Eve--unfortunately.

In other news, I might be playing the lead in John's short film coming up this weekend. This is a super-exciting prospect for me, because John has consistently insisted that he'd rather have me on crew for his and Sam's (his hetero-lifemate) films, because "it's harder to find good techs than good actors." I love teching (in some form or fashion it'll probably be my career), but I've been acting my whole life, and since the roles have been scarce the past couple of years, it'd be a nice opportunity. I'll keep you posted.

I always hate the end of the year, being super-afraid of change as I am, but this has been a transitional year for me. Now that everything is mostly stable, I guess starting a new calendar year is a good way to celebrate getting my life back on track (or at least headed the right direction). If only I could quit sweating the small stuff, I might be unstoppable. Procrastination is my biggest adversary, and while I refuse to make New Year's resolutions (because trying to keep to them gives me anxiety attacks), I hope I can overcome my "why do today what you can put off until tomorrow" attitude.

Now--has anyone seen my Grace Paley book?

A White December 24th

The sheet of frozen precipitation blanketing the ground has thrown my fiance, John, into such a good humor, it's almost sickening. He and I represent two different sides of the native Dallasite population's opinion of snow; he, the wide-eyed child, I, the shivering person standing in the doorway. If I hadn't seen it snow, hadn't had to walk to grocery store in a Dallas-style blizzard earlier, hadn't had to navigate the ice at the end of the apartment hallway, I may be warmer (haha) toward the snow's presence. If I had woken up to the sight of white, I might have enjoyed the weather today for about five minutes longer, before I decided to through a snowclump barehanded and received a return snowblob to the face. But, no, it's cold, John's ecstatic, and it might be the first white Christmas I can remember.

But what I actually came here to talk about is the draft--er, I mean, Christmas. I'm a little Jewish kid. Look at my profile picture; that's what we call a Jewfro. I grew up getting both Chanukah presents and Christmas presents (my mom's a convert, her side of the family is all pork-eaters), but Christmas was something that happened for a few hours during the evening of December 24th and for the five minutes on the morning of Christmas itself that I was still interested in the contents of my Mogen Dovid clad stocking. The tree was taken apart on Christmas Day, and by Boxing Day, it was all just a fond memory and leftovers of my Grandmommy's lasagna. As I got older, my mother got rid of my beautiful Christmas tree and replaced it with a Chanukah bush decorated in blue and silver ornaments, and finally there was nothing at all. My Grandmommy was in a car accident two years and nine days ago, bringing the mood down considerably that year; and last Christmas, I had the flu, meaning our dinner and present exchange was moved to January 3rd (which isn't even the same year as Christmas), and was relocated to Casa Navarro Mexican Restaurant down the street. This year, though...

I'm typing this post on John's mother's laptop. I have been invited to celebrate Christmas with actual Christians! Now what does this entail? Apparently, it's exactly like the TV commercials: wake up Christmas morning, whine ("When can we open presents?"), open presents, eat a big meal, leave.

I had questions.

"Do your parents go to church on Christmas?" "No, they go on Christmas Eve. I don't go with them, obviously."

"What do I need to wear?" "What do you mean?" "Do I need to dress up?" "No, what you've got on is fine." (Jeans and t-shirt, as always.)

"Will your Aunt Karen like me?" "Yeah, she likes everybody."

Thus fully assured--oh, wait, not--I redyed the streak of red in my hair and sat down to watch Iron Chef America as we waited for John's folks to pick us up.

And here I am.

I hope real Christmas doesn't involve human sacrifice.

Christmas? Nuclear power plant? Viking Funeral?

Trick (or Artistic) Pool

I love shooting pool. I'm not great--I don't know if you'd even call me "good"; maybe "decent"--but it's one of those things I have to do at least once or twice a week; otherwise I get all tense and irritable. My father might be getting me a custom cue as a belated Chanukah present, and maybe then my life will be complete (sorry, John).

But I admit, I play some bullshit rules that I picked up from shooting free pool Monday and Wednesday nights all summer with my coworkers from the local community college's theatre department, so tourney-ers watch me play with disgust, and scratching is a more common occurrence than actually making a shot in most games with which I'm involved.

However, this post is not about my billiards obsession. It's about trick shots and artistic pool. If I were coordinated enough to do this stuff, I'd retire to a pool hall in Chicago right now and spend the rest of my days being bought drinks by muscular gangsters (sorry, John).

Check this out:



Holy crap, where do people get enough free time to practice this stuff?! Like those energy drink-addicted cup stackers and those guys who bounce ping pong balls off of moving skateboards and into the cups aforementioned stackers stack? Can you buy time on the black market? Because I could get into that. Hmm...

Because I now feel incredibly inadequate at life, I'm going to wrap up and leave you with this:

The Most Amusing (and Time Stealing) Website in [my] Universe

Whenever my fiance walks in on my unblinking, mouth-agape, hunched-over-the-keyboard affair with the computer, the first thing he asks me--OK, so it's more of a matter-of-fact statement with a question mark at the end-- is "(sigh) Cracked?"

He's (almost) always right.

There's a great reason, though: Cracked rocks. I'm sure many of you have heard of or experienced the wonder that is Cracked, but those of you who haven't entered this magical world are missing out on all that is good in life. I am absolutely addicted to the lists on the site, like 12 'Sexy' Ads That Will Give You Nightmares, 8 Racist Ads You Won't Believe Are From the Last Few Years, or 6 Geniuses Who Saw Their Inventions Go Terribly Wrong. There are tons of other articles, pictures, etc. on Cracked, but being a trivia freak (reading The Book of Lists and its sequels is like coming into possession of a huge bag of delicious candy to me--and I do love my candy), it's the lists I gravitate toward. Seriously, if left unchecked, I'll read Cracked lists all day, forgetting to eat and getting butt-sores. It's the only thing on the internet capable of distracting me from Facebook.

Basically, Cracked is my crack(ed). Here's the link:

Check it out, unless you hate puppies.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a pretty accurate personality test. It determines personality type based on four dichotomy sets: Introverted or Extraverted, Sensing or iNuitive, Feeling or Thinking, and Judging or Percieving.

To take a free, online version of the test, go to this site.

After you've taken the test, go to this page to read what the test says about you (at the bottom of the page are links to all sixteen different personality types). Once you've read the basic information about your type, you can click the icons at the top and bottom of the page to learn even more. It's kind of creepy how accurate it is.

For more information on the MBTI, you can of course visit the Wikipedia page on it here or The Myer-Briggs Foundation website here.

And in case you're wondering, my personality type is ISFJ. Have fun!