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This post originally appeared on MamaPop on December 20, 2012. MamaPop is no more, so I am reposting it here. I took the opportunity to fix a few typos, but the post is what I published a year ago.

I watched Love Actually last Friday night. This marked the third or fourth time since Halloween that I had watched it and my reasons for doing so were mostly therapeutic. I had been crying off and on through most of the day and I needed something that would just make me feel good. Love Actually is one of my favorite Christmas-time movies, and watching it helped. Plus, I got to do my research for this post, which I had been planning for a few weeks.

See, the last time I watched it, I suddenly noticed how many turtlenecks were worn in the movie. It was pretty remarkable. I mean, I realize that it’s set in London in December, so obviously warmer clothing is called for. And turtlenecks are not unreasonable. But when you think about the interwoven characters in this movie, and if they were your social circle, you might wonder, “Hey guys…why are we collectively so big on turtlenecks?”

Those particular shirts showed up in almost every scene. Being a sane person, I decided to take note of each one and see if I could reconstruct the story of Love Actually through its turtlenecks.

Opening Montage Turtleneck

First we have the opening montage of the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. And Hugh Grant’s monologue about messages of love coming from the phone calls during the September 11th attacks and whoa, why is my face all wet?

Cheating Wife Turtleneck

We meet Colin Firth’s character, Jamie, whose wife skips out on a wedding because she has a cold. Really, she’s just using the time alone to diddle Jamie’s brother…who apparently has a thing for babes with red noses and chest congestion who mouthe-breathe during sex. Hawt.

Funeral Turtleneck

Liam Neeson’s (Daniel) wife has died after a long illness. People mourn her with warm necks.

Funeral Montage Turtleneck

Daniel’s wife had specific wants for her funeral, including this picture of these turtlenecks.

Vaguely Creepy Boss Turtleneck

Snape plays Harry, the owner of some hip, early 2000s company that probably has something to do with graphic design judging by the looks of it. He’s weirdly invested in both Sarah’s (Laura Linney) crush on Karl and his assistant’s lady bits.

Karl Turtleneck

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over all of this sexual tension.”

That’s Not a Turtleneck, It’s a Red Flag

Mia is maybe 25 and shockingly hot. But she doesn’t have a boyfriend, is attracted to her old, married boss, and her eyes get really wide sometimes. Keep the pet rabbits away from her. She cray.

Concerned Stepfather Turtleneck

Daniel is worried about how his stepson, Sam, is handling his grief. He’s vaguely concerned that the 11-year-old is injecting heroin into his eyeballs. He starts crying because dead wives will make you do that and Emma Thompson helpfully responds, “Ew, stop.”

Saying Good Night to Karl Turtleneck

Sarah stays late and refreshes her makeup all for the two seconds at the end of the day where she gets to say good night to Carl. This has been going on for 2.5 years. I think maybe it’s time to step up your efforts, Sarah. Also, the word “burden” is right above the picture of Sarah’s mentally ill brother. I see what you did there, Love Actually.

Saying Good Night Does Not Lead to Sex with Karl, Boss

But thanks for sitting on my desk and grilling me about it. It’s not weird or anything.

Bello…Bella…Turtleneck

Jamie doesn’t know Portuguese, but he knows he loves the new housekeeper that’s helping him out while he recuperates from heartbreak and writes a terrible novel at his French country home.

The Most Reckless Writer Alive Turtleneck

Jamie also doesn’t know about computers or writing your novel not right next to a body of water or even just leaving the rest of the pages inside instead of precariously secured under a small rock.

If Only We Could See Our Subtitles Turtleneck

They’re saying almost the exact same things to each other! Awww! Granted, Jamie appears to have one turtleneck that is his writing-in-the-French-countryside turtleneck, but it’s pretty versatile.

The Turtleneck that I Wear When I Show My Best Friend’s Wife My Creepy Video of Her

Amazingly, Keira Knightley does not frantically try to find the nearest exit when she sees Mark’s collection of close-ups and slow motion shots of her licking icing off of her fingers. Mark takes a walk and his zip-up cardigan becomes the turtleneck of broken-hearted embarrassment.

Thank the Lord Turtleneck

Sam was not injecting heroin into his eyeballs or having a hard time dealing with his mother’s death. Rather, he’s hopelessly in love and will learn to play drums in two weeks so that he can participate in his school’s Christmas pageant and await his crush’s declaration of love. Daniel signs off on this because he knows girls love it when you aren’t just honest with them.

Buy Me Something Pretty Turtleneck

Mia gets increasingly inappropriate with Snape and demands that he buy her something pretty while he’s out Christmas shopping with his wife. Hawt. Snape gets increasingly inappropriate back.

I’m a Douche Turtleneck

“I spent 270 pounds on a necklace for my assistant but you think I bought it for you. No, you get a $15 CD. Merry Christmas.”

Language School Turtlenecks

I Just Realized My Husband Is Cheating on Me Turtleneck

I’m Just Judy and I’m Not Really Sure How Our Plot Line Fits In Turtleneck

These two are adorable, and they know a bunch of people in this movie. But Judy shows up later at the Christmas pageant wearing this same outfit and the timing gets lost on me. Is this a flashfoward? Did they go to the pageant and then kiss on Judy’s doorstep afterward? When is this? I don’t understand.

Sam’s Learning How to Play Drums Turtleneck

We’re the Cutest Turtleneck

The Prime Minister is looking for Natalie by going door to door instead of just calling, I don’t know, anyone and getting Natalie’s address. Because he doesn’t have any resources? Or wants to do this the more difficult way because it will be more rewarding? I don’t know. But he and his companion sing “Good King Wenceslas” to these three and it’s great.

I’m an Extra and I Get to Overhear this Awkward Conversation Turtleneck

Always sort out your marital issues at the kids’ Christmas pageant. What could go wrong?

I’m Claudia Schiffer Turtleneck

It’s so funny that I’m Claudia Schiffer but I’m supposed to be someone else (I think) because Claudia Schiffer was mentioned a few times as Daniel’s potential new mate earlier in the movie!

Whoa, It’s Weird that Everyone at the Arrivals Gate Knows Each Other Somehow Turtleneck

Jamie must have finished his book so he gets to wear a different shirt.

I’m Liam Neeson and I Own a Turtleneck for Every Occasion

There were other turtlenecks that I spotted in crowd shots but I didn’t want to appear too obsessive. And good luck not noticing this whenever you watch this movie from now on.

A perhaps too-large portion of my brain is dedicated to remembering movie and TV quotes, which has served me well in life almost never. Nonetheless, I’m trying to figure out a way to note on my resume that I have a running database of Boston actors rattling of a list of names:

Mark Wahlberg in Ted

Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting

Comedian Steve Sweeney performing a bit that I initially saw on a Comics Come Home special in 1996

Disabling embedding is fascist.

Thanks, Brain. Appreciate it.

See more on Know Your Meme

Hurricane Sandy is having the side effect of extending Halloween. The city has postponed trick-or-treating to Saturday evening. I can’t say that I’m upset, since I really like Halloween and am happy to be able to fit a few more specific activities in while it’s still technically the season. We haven’t watched many scary movies and our pumpkins are still waiting to be hacked and anthropomorphized. This past Saturday, our neighborhood had the annual parade and the baby debuted his D.M.C. from RUN D.M.C. costume.

He obviously needs to work on his intimidation skills.

Unfortunately, he didn’t win any prizes for his costume. I think it was just too obscure (*coughhipstercough*).

Friday evening, while the baby was at his piano lesson, the husband and I plopped on the couch to unwind. I turned on the TV and was pumped to see that Teen Witch was on. You would think that after nearly 12 years together, there wouldn’t be much that would surprise me about the husband. But I was shocked to learn that he had never seen this masterpiece. But I guess it kind of made sense since, thinking back, all of the girls in my class were always obsessed with that movie and how absurd it was, while all of the boys were fairly ignorant of its existence. I guess something called Teen Witch doesn’t really appeal to boys in their early adolescence? Weird.

At first, the husband was pretty dismissive, but I advised him that he needed to treat this event like the paradigm shift that is. Life can be broken up into to two periods: before Teen Witch and after Teen Witch. There’s just so much wonderful in that movie. Like, where does Louise even find those frumpy clothes to begin with? Why is her little brother…like that? Oh, holy wow, the inappropriate harassment from her English teacher? How Brad is just not quite Tom Cruise but tries so hard to squeeze it out of himself? Remembering how most of the girls gave the side-eye to Louise and Brad’s trip to the abandoned house? NO red flags, Louise? None? And why the hell would you ever take your shoes off in a place like that? The quintessential synchronized dance sequence at the prom? And the kind of completely amazing original soundtrack? And how watching it now I think the whole thing is actually just a metaphor (of course) for teenage drinking and/or drug use?

As we were watching it, I said, “There’s this scene…I can’t remember if it already happened or not. No…wait…here it is. Just so you know? This is the greatest thing ever.” And if you’re familiar with Teen Witch, I think you know that I’m referring to this:

After that final, “Top THAT,” from Polly, the husband and I sat in silence for a moment before he finally whispered, “That was awesome.” Halloween truly is the most magical time of the year.

I went to Baltimore last weekend to hang out with Tracey and Charlie, which was nice but incredibly short. I brought workout clothes with me, knowing that Tracey had a treadmill, because my schedule had been kind of wacky last week. The only flaw with this plan was that I did not take into account that those two would keep me at a pretty steady level of inebriation all weekend. Every few minutes, it seemed like Charlie was standing in front of me with a plate of grits and something boozy. Not a bad way to live life, I must say.

Saturday, we were going to go to Amy’s for dinner and it was getting to be about time to get ready to go. I sucked down the last of my Bloody Mary, stood up, and said, “Where’sh your treadmullll?” I don’t necessarily recommend jogging while tipsy, especially not on a treadmill, which is really disorienting. There are a lot of buttons and screens to interpret. Plus, the whole 15 minutes I could stand being on there, I was thinking, “Oh my god, I’m going SO FAST! This is insane!” and I was at, like, 3.7 miles an hour or something.

At Amy’s, Ezra fed me cantaloupe and Baby Ike took his first steps. I had forgotten how thrilling that moment is, since with older kids they accomplish big things seemingly all the time. But remembering how amazing it is to see a little guy have things just click between his body and his mind was so, so cool.

Speaking of my older kid, he’s still regularly cracking me up. He attended an Ultimate Frisbee camp a few weeks ago. (And since it was a really nice program I’m going to go ahead and give them an unsolicited plug on my well-established blog: Camp Spirit of the Game.) He had a really nice, full day of playing Frisbee, eating lunch and watching a bit of a movie, swimming, then more Frisbee. He got a really nice shirt to wear for the week and if that weren’t enough, the camp sent us these great pictures that their resident photographer took. This one was the cutest:

So many points and angles to this kid.

This one is my favorite:

A big aspect of the game was learning about sportsmanship and every day they had a key attribute that they would focus on. We were supposed to discuss these with him at home. The first day, I was asking him about camp and he was all worn out and whatnot. “What was your sportsmanship word of the day?” I asked. He replied, “Enthusiasmmmm.” But he said it in the most unenthusiastic way possible. Like the word just kind of fell out of his mouth. He’s just ready to absorb life lessons in a hilarious manner.

This morning, on the way to work, we were talking about Hoosiers because we watched it last night. I mentioned that they used to play the locker-room-speech-slow-clap scene at Pirates games and everyone would get all riled up.

The husband didn’t remember them playing that, but did remember seeing the “We Will Rock You” scene from Cheers at Pirates games, and told me to pull it up on YouTube.

And then, of course, we fell into a Cheers wormhole on YouTube, which isn’t the worst way to spend a morning commute. (But wow isn’t life weird now?)

After that last scene ended, the kid asked me, “Mum, now play that one where, um, the, uh…………….uh the girl is at……uh…..Disney? And it’s like….tragic?” The husband and I just sat there with our mouths hanging open because neither of us knew what he was talking about. “Can you, maybe, take a minute and try to form a coherent request?” When he trips over his words like that, he reminds us of George Michael in Arrested Development, when his dad insists that he doesn’t have any problem communicating and he replies, “What? Yes. Maybe? I don’t know. Okay.” My darling little Bluth.

So, hey. It’s been a minute? No big, I just became a little overwhelmed with work stuff and needed to simplify life where I could. This meant more or less taking a hiatus from the internet, minus my usual spewing of brilliant nuggets onto Twitter when the spirit moved me.

Physically, I’m doing okay. My insurance had had enough of me going to that physical therapy snakeoil treatment, so I’m basically trying to make sure that my neck doesn’t get any worse the next few months and hopefully will continue healing. It seems to be doing okay and I mostly only notice any discomfort or pain if I sit for too long or if I get too ambitious during yoga and try to do like plow pose or something.

Neck says, "No."

What’s kind of really upsetting is that the combination of my neck injury, the required period of inactivity, Christmas, and the god-I’m-depressed-about-this-let-me-eat-this-stick-of-butter methods of dealing mean that I have more or less gained back all of the weight that I lost after working so hard at getting healthy and active. I’m bummed and trying to do what I can about it, but I easily get stuck in the, “I’ve ruined all of my hard work and now I shall be overweight forever,” rut of self-loathing. Also, last night I made the extremely poor decision to watch the first episode of the first season of The Biggest Loser (I know, I know) and one of the contestants was my size exactly. That was upsetting.

ANYWAY disordered thinking aside, things are okay. The husband and the kid and I are trekking to New York this weekend (no, that is not an invitation to rob my house). They’re going to go see Kraftwerk while the sister-in-law and I will spread our distinct brand of classiness all over Queens.

Now that spring is settling in, I’m getting excited about stuff that will be happening the next few months. On the 26th, presumably still glowing (read: scrubbing the grime off) from NYC, the husband and I are going to go see Big Freedia. You might recognize her as the singer in the episode of Treme when Davis and Aunt Mini go to a bounce show. She is also the creator of this wonderfulness.

Speaking of Azz, I made the husband watch a documentary from 2000 called American Pimp that had recently popped up on Netflix. It was obvious that it had influenced parts of Idiocracy (the Upgrayedd character) and “The Playa Hater’s Ball” from Chappelle’s Show. I, of course, fell asleep midway through. This morning, I asked the husband if he had watched the rest of it and if it was any good.

“Yeah. Great soundtrack. It was just kind of way too long for what it was. They just kept explaining the same thing over and over again.” Then he sighed, “Like, ‘Yes, we get it. You can’t show the bitch no love.'”

Having finished Downton Abbey a few weeks ago and still aching for costume dramas, our heroine returned to the offices of 1960 Sterling Cooper. After Roger Sterling suffered a heart attack while in the arms of a young model, Don Draper lingered in the hospital’s hallway. He noticed a commercial for Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy on the TV in the waiting room. As it played, our heroine’s ears perked up at the mention of a familiar phrase.

At 00:28, someone asked President Eisenhower about Nixon’s contributions while he, Eisenhower, has been The Decider.

“But…I thought…there was only one Decider,” our heroine whispered to herself.

This changes everything!

You will please forgive our heroine’s goofiness. She had a rough week, physically, and now her uterus is trying to start some shit.

Frank and I communicate via text message almost everyday. We rarely, if ever, discuss anything important or substantial. It’s kind of like our iPhones are a perpetual 9th grade classroom and our iMessages are the notes that we pass back and forth. Occasionally, they give me a glimpse of how goofy we are.

"Watch" should be "watching." Stupid fat fingers.

I think it’s worth noting that this conversation took place on Valentine’s Day, which means that the husband and I were partaking in a very romantic viewing of that Michael J. Fox classic. It’s been on cable a lot recently and for some reason, I can’t not watch it. The husband and I discussed how popular it was when it came out, which is weird considering how little sense a lot of it makes in retrospect. I’ve also decided that there are far too few characters named “Boof” in popular culture. Also also wik, how awesome is the Beavers’ coach? (Be sure to note the fan with his junk hanging out at the end.)

I don’t know if you’ve heard but it’s been crazy hot here this week. As such, everyone is becoming a little…punchy.

For example, me taking a picture of myself first thing in the morning just so I can show you how my hair has been acting.

We don’t have air conditioning in our house and this is one of the few days out of the summer where that just sucks. So there’s lots of ice water being consumed and cold showers being taken. Last night, I climbed into bed and realized that there was no way I was going to fall asleep without cooling myself down somehow and de-stickifying my neck and cleavage. So, I hit the shower and then got back into bed. That meant that I was putting my wavy hair to bed wet and then waking up in the humidity. The results were some kind of science experiment.

If it wasn’t so messy, I would have just rocked this Shirley Temple ‘do, but it was obvious that my pillow had styled my hair so I clawed a brush through it.

Downstairs, I set about getting my coffee, breakfast, and lunch together for the day and I was supervised by my cat, who I had forgotten to feed yesterday. Today, he made sure that I wouldn’t make the same mistake.

That’s his food bin that he’s sitting on top of. And he meowed at me in a very direct tone. He’s very subtle.

After I got myself and my hair out the door, we rode in to work. Close to my office, we gaped at a man who was easily over 6 feet tall riding along on a Razor scooter.

Like this, but completely absurd.

The image of him hunched over and kick-pushing his way to, presumably, educate the youth of America has now burned itself into my brain. Imagining him kissing the wife goodbye, all, “Off to bring home the bacon, honey! Hey, son, I’m taking the Razor today,” makes my head hurt. Zombies can’t be far behind.

We went to see Harry Potter last night and the baby got all dressed up for the occasion.

He is currently devouring the books and while I don’t share his enthusiasm for the franchise, I’ve found almost all of the movies to be pretty enjoyable. I didn’t sob through the last hour of the movie like the grown women in front of me, though. I mean, I get being attached to characters that way, but histrionics in public are a little unnerving.

One of my favoritest people on the internet is Gayle. As she so hilariously puts it in her bio on MoxieBird, “she works as an actor and writer to support her passion for secretarial work.” A few weeks ago, she told me that the Bricolage Production Company was going to be having a blogger night to celebrate the opening of their newest play Hunter Gatherers. It had been awhile since Gayle and I had hung out, and there were going to be some free drinks, so I agreed.

I had never been to Bricolage, but it’s a very cool space downtown with an intimate stage, plus a resident dog, Odie. There was a quiz before the show started to find out if you were a hunter or a gatherer. I am an Ultra Gatherer, which they didn’t have an explicit sticker for. So I hacked mine with a ballpoint pen, hence the horrific scrawling.

So, the play…

Two couples have been friends since high school and have continue their annual dinner through their 30s. On this particular night, all four people are at a crossroads in their lives and none are satisfied with keeping things the way they are, no matter how badly they want to believe that they’re living the lives that they’re supposed to. Over the course of the evening, they each strip away their middle class veneers and get down to their base human natures. They’re shocked at how primal they really are as they allow themselves to indulge in carnivorous urges of all kinds: sex, procreation, alpha male posturing, and actually eating meat.

Yuppies breaking down might not sound particularly funny but the writing was quick-witted and hilarious. And the actors were inspirationally good. As in, I wanted to become an actor SO BAD watching them on the stage, fully engrossed and kicking ass.

Hunter Gatherers will run at Bricolage now through May 7th and I highly recommend that you take in a performance. As we emerge from that excessively long winter, it’s wonderful to be reminded of what an amazing cultural community we have here in Pittsburgh.

To get you started on your spring/summer activities, I would like to offer you the chance to win two tickets to a performance of Hunter Gatherers. All you have to do is leave a comment here and I’ll pick a winner at random next Friday, April 22nd. Good luck!

If you are a cashier at a coffee shop/cafe and you suddenly resume your conversation about meatloaf with a co-worker who is invisible to customers behind a stack of boxes, some confusion may occur. You see, the frazzled secretary waiting to pay for the somewhat dodgy sushi lunch will assume that your question, “So, you don’t like it with gravy?” is regarding her impending meal. And she may be overly polite and will produce an answer, despite the terrifying nonsensical context, and reply, “Um…no, I don’t think I’ve ever put gravy on sushi.” And you and your co-worker, who has suddenly peered from behind the boxes to study this odd creature who allows words to just tumble out of her mouth about meatloaf and gravy and sushi, will suddenly become just as confused as the now thoroughly embarrassed secretary. And eye contact will no longer be bearable.

So, you know, don’t do that.

The husband whisked me away for a restorative weekend of food and walks and TV because I’ve been really sad lately. We watched many episodes of Food Network’s offerings to the reality TV gods, including Chopped, Cupcake Wars, and…I don’t know…manufactured drama over fondant. Much like the tic of reality stars of other competition-based shows to say, “I’m not here to make friends,” competitive chefs have a tendency to say, “Go big or go home.” This makes sense when you’re talking about cupcakes, as they’re known for their gigantic size. The husband, who doesn’t absorb bumper sticker folk wisdom or cliches very readily, which is odd since one of the first gifts he ever gave me was a book of cliches, took note of this repetitive boast: “They keep saying…like, ‘If you’re gonna go, go big.'”

We took great delight in reconstructing cliches in this manner over the rest of the weekend.

There’s a box and you’re outside it. Thinking.

That’s evil but less so than this other evil.

If there’s something that you can do now, you should do it and not wait because procrastinating is doing stuff later.

Mi casa es mi casa but you can come over whenever.

We watched most of Sex and the City 2 last night. It was offensive. And terrible. And offensively terrible. And two and half hours long. The husband and I have a really unhealthy habit of watching particularly bad movies for the sheer delight of giving them the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 treatment.

“What happened in the first one?”

“Uhhhh…you know, honestly, I think I blacked out in the middle of it. But it was also two and a half hours long and I remember the realization that I had been watching it for hours depressing the hell out of me.”

Upon seeing Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda peek around a corner wearing burqas:

“I know that it is not in any way okay to say this, but I’m pretty sure this is why planes get flown into buildings.”

“Maybe the 9/11 terrorists saw this movie and traveled back in time to try to stop it.”

“Like Terminator?”

“Yeah…I think.”

“Maybe John Connor wrote Sex and the City 2?”

Upon watching Carrie, insecure in her marriage after confessing to kissing her old flame in Abu Dhabi, come home to a Big-less apartment and the TV missing:

“I bet he’s just out buying a new TV.”

“I hope she goes totally Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale and is halfway through burning all of his clothes when he comes home.”

Pondering the last five minutes of the movie, in which all plot development abruptly stopped and the writers just threw all of the characters back together happily with their spouses:

“Huh. They must have been two hours and 25 minutes into the movie when they realized that it was going absolutely fucking nowhere and were like, ‘Okay, let’s just end.'”

“Orphan is coming on. That movie was also terrible. Come to think of it, Orphan was similar to Sex and the City 2. This girl is being weird and killing people for over two hours and you’re supposed to be thinking, ‘What could possibly cause this little girl to go on this rampage with this ridiculous accent?'” And the big reveal is that it’s because she’s actually 35 and you’re like, ‘Uh…’ That’s not even a twist. Someone being 35 is not a twist. That’s just starting a whole other movie.”