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The baby won “Most Funny” (seriously, that was the name of his category) at the neighborhood Halloween parade yesterday. He felt particularly triumphant after going home empty-handed last year and was rewarded with a $25 gift certificate to any business on the main boulevard that is a member of the local chamber of commerce which means he can get…uh…maybe an ice cream cone. Or what might happen is I’ll say to him, “Take mommy to the nail shop to get a fill-in and some airbrush. I want to get a beach scene on my right hand and I think ‘Water Lilies’ on my left. Chop chop.”

Or maybe he can go to the corner store that is a very poor front operation and buy some used jelly shoes and some chips.

We went to see the Zack and Miri premiere at the Oaks last night and it was so good. I’ve heard that it’s not been getting very good reviews which is just stupid. It’s so funny and really classic Kevin Smith. He did a Q&A afterward and was really funny and interesting.

After watching the movie and driving through “the wrong side of Pittsburgh,” I got a really strong swell of love for the city. It really is an awesome place to be.

I’m going to go bake a pie.

Oregon Trail owns. As an adult, I can say that one of my mottoes has always been, “Caulk the wagon. Ford the river.”

Oh, dudes. Rough, ROUGH day yesterday. There was the mid-term and that really didn’t go very well, and then some other stuff happened that I don’t want to get into just yet, but suffice it to say that you may find me more morose than usual for awhile. I’m okay, but I really have to hike my big girl pants up and…well, honestly…I know that the strength needed is in me somewhere, but it’s hard to remember where I put it.

Sigh.

For right now, I’m trying to be all serene and accept the things I cannot change and looking forward to spending the weekend at home. I think the husband and the sister-in-law and I are going to a haunted house tonight.

Last night, I was seriously in need of some quality TV and we finally finished catching up on our Sunday night shows, namely True Blood and Mad Men. I am just completely ga-ga over Mad Men, but True Blood has been slow to grow on me. Whenever we watch it, I always enjoy it, but I never really look forward to it and am never DYING to know what’s going to happen. Plus, I honestly find Anna Paquin’s character to be really annoying. I think her dialect coach needs to work with her a bit more. Her vowels are too round or something. And they need to tone down the color of her hair. Poor thing. Her vowels and her hair dye make her the object of my ridicule. Truly, everyone should tremble in the face of my judgment.

ANYWAY, this week’s episode of True Blood really and truly blew me away. It was so great. Lots of really funny moments and just a fantastic rush of development in the story. Also, Lafayette, who up until now has been mostly a side character, got some more screen time and had the honor of delivering one of the best smackdowns I’ve ever seen. Behold:

I am brimming with excitement because after nearly ten years I am finally getting new glasses! I went to the eye doctor on Saturday and ordered new contacts, which I am also in dire need of since I had been in my last pair for way too long and they were all cruddy. I also picked out a cheap-ish pair of frames that will house new lenses that are actually my current prescription. And I promise not to fall asleep in them this time, since that was part of the downfall of my current pair, seen here in a rather bizarre picture of me eating birthday cake with my hands while dressed as Carrie at a Halloween party in an abandoned store in the South Side in 2000:

That’s just how I roll sometimes. Those glasses were something of a trademark of mine and I heard howls of protest from both the husband and our friend Jwan when I announced that they needed to be retired. But, the new glasses are very similar. Fear not.

I’m excited at the prospect of actually being able to wear glasses from time to time since my old ones were only good for seeing me from the bathroom to my bed without walking into walls.

I also had my massage on Saturday and I told the masseuse about my problems with sleeping weird and waking up immobile. When she initially ran her hand down the left side of my back, she said, “Ew.” She found and worked on nine knots and strongly suggested that I buy a new pillow. I repaid her good advice by drooling on her shoes through the face hole thingy.

The baby spent the night with my mom and the husband and I went to see Choke. It was only alright. Palahniuk’s novels are, I imagine, a tough thing to translate to the screen and Clark Gregg just didn’t…get it. Plus, there’s a lot of stuff going on in that book and he tried to fit all of it in and just present it as it is. It didn’t work.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I hate it and really wish we had just waited until it was on DVD. We should have gone to see Blindness, but that’s another book that I love and if they fuck that up, too, I may go ballistic.

But to remedy that, the husband and I are going to see the premiere of Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Kevin Smith is doing a special screening at The Oaks and I’m really excited about this new movie.

To veer off into another direction in this already scattered post, I am very happy that the Steelers won but these late Sunday night games are totally messing up the one night that I have shows to watch. True Blood, Entourage, Californication, and Mad Men are all on Sundays and I missed all of them to watch the Steelers. I recorded them, of course, but I hate waiting. I need to know the latest on Betty and Don and I want to hear more about Joan and her fiance! God!

30 days until I turn 30.

It really doesn’t occur to me to feel old until I mention that I’m turning 30 and someone suggests that I should feel old. I’m not insulted by it, per se, but isn’t that attitude a little…dated? Like if this were, say, Medieval Britain…sure. I would fully expect the, “Christ, you’re ancient. Watch out for that wave of plague!” treatment.

There’s a great scene from an episode of Roseanne, when Jackie and Roseanne had spent the day looking at a retirement community for their mom and were overwhelmed to say the least. Roseanne asked Jackie how old she felt. Jackie thought for a second before responding.

“Thirty-…Twelve on a good day. Eight most of the time.”

That’s pretty much where I’m at. I can’t possibly feel old because I’m so obviously a pre-teen.

Of course, I do start to feel weary when I think about the fact that, deep down, everyone feels the same and we’re out here just…doing shit and affecting people’s lives and messing everything up.

I wish I was old enough to drink.

We took the baby to the Regent Square Theatre last night to see the original 1954, Japanese Gojira, aka Godzilla. The baby loves Godzilla movies because there’s a big monster who smashes stuff, but the screening last night also served as a platform for Remembering Hiroshima.

It seems that many Americans are still surprised to learn that the original Godzilla was actually a very serious film and commentary on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings during World War II, and on the neverending nature of the arms race and destroying The Enemy. In the film, there are two scientists: one who holds the key to destroying Godzilla, even though further H-bomb tests will simply create another monster somewhere else, and another who wants to study the creature and learn from it. Though how one would go about capturing a seemingly indestructible dinosaur and studying it, we don’t know.

Pthpthptthpthpth. I intended to go on here about the empty notion of triumphing over evil and how it’s still VERY relevant today(*cough*everywhere in the Iraq such as therefore *cough*) but frankly, I’m not up for it and I get the impression that the only audience for my philosophical rants are those two or three crickets that happily chirp away and the one or two of you who bother to say, “Nuh uh.”

Anyway, the baby obviously wasn’t that interested in the post-film discussion, but I think it’s good to at least give him the opportunity to hear these things.

If you aren’t already keeping a list of things that I demand that you check out, you should start one and add the following items to it: Bill Burr’s latest stand-up special, Why Do I Do This?, and Chris Rock’s latest special, Kill the Messenger. The husband and I often describe Burr as, “The red-haired, white guy on Chappelle’s Show who was one of the commentators on the Racial Draft.” We’ve actually seen him live a few times through those underselling, free-ticket deals through the Improv, which is cool because I think he might actually blow up a little bit fairly soon. Rock’s special isn’t as good as his earlier ones and seems to slack off into recycled material and generic “Let me tell you about the nature of black and white women,” schtick, seasoned, I would guess, with bitterness over his marital problems, but whatever. Dude is still hilarious.

Rest in peace, Paul Newman. I never really knew much about his acting until fairly recently. I have a hard time getting into movies from before I was alive. No real reason for that, really. I think it’s mostly a mental block, but I also think that the realism in acting had a long evolution, so a lot of earlier movies are too theatrical. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, I’m just not partial to it.

Anyway, the first time I really got Paul Newman was in Road to Perdition, which is an oft overlooked masterpiece. Newman was already pushing 80 by then, so playing the role of a weary mob boss who carries all of the disappointment of life on his shoulders wasn’t a great stretch. But Newman really knocked it out of the park.

In particular, there was this scene. By the way, if you haven’t seen this movie, here be spoilers. Newman’s character’s biological son is a despicable and traitorous human being while Tom Hanks’ character Sullivan, who he raised as his own and who is closer to him than his real son, is on the run from Newman’s minions. The family is slick with betrayal and what they did to Hanks’ character was wrong. Newman’s character, Rooney, knows this and knows that his adopted son must make things right.

On a very dark and rainy night, Sullivan waits in the shadows for Rooney as he departs a restaurant. It takes a few minutes for Rooney and his men to realize that something is wrong, but as soon as the first shots are fired, Rooney knows immediately who it is. Director Sam Mendes beautifully frames Rooney as the men fall around him and the pouring rain drenches him, spilling off of his hat and sloped shoulders. Rooney turns to face Sullivan. He looks at his boy, the one he should have protected, the one who now has to be on the run forever with his own son, and knows that this is right. “I’m glad it’s you,” he says, and Sullivan, fighting back tears, mows him down. When it’s over, he looks up to see illuminated windows and shocked spectators witnessing the act.

In other movie snob matters, the husband’s birthday was on Thursday and it unfortunately was kind of a bust. He had rather un-fun exams on that day and it was otherwise a typically annoying weekday. I couldn’t get it together to do something special for him, but hoped that the gifts that the baby and I gave him at least made up for it. We gave him Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass, Sade – Lovers Live, and the Criterion edition of the original Russian version of Solaris.

Last night, after the debates (ugh) were over and the baby was in bed, we put in Solaris. Now, Criterion is supposed to be on top of things. So why is the aspect ratio set up so that if you want to watch in widescreen and see the subtitles, you have to set it in subtitle zoom, which makes it all stretched out and wonky. There’s no 16:9 setting in which the subtitles are viewable, so we had to watch it in 4:3 with the letterbox. Grrraaarrrgggh! Unacceptable, Criterion.

Alright, I have to get moving. I’m in a book club! Look at me, all being sociable! Today we’re talking about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which I just finished reading last night and LOVED, even though I was initially irritated that it had a quote from Michiko Kakutani right on the front cover, but whatever. I guess when you get such accolades you show them off, right?

Last night, we watched the Steelers beat the Browns and immediately afterward, the power went out. Our windows were open so we heard the entire neighborhood go, “AWWWWWWW MAN!” It is indeed fortunate that the power went out after the game, as opposed to right in the middle, because then there might have been riots. But still: no post-game. Grr. We also didn’t get to watch True Blood, Entourage, or Mad Men and we didn’t get to finish watching The Seventh Seal, which we started watching the other night but we both fell asleep in the middle of it. I mean, it’s not like we knew what was going on, but it’s still awesome and I want to see all of it. I guess I never noticed how little I’ve heard Swedish being spoken, but it’s pretty rad since to my Latin-based ear it all sounds like gibberish and very…like…”I am Death-schnurgen. Do you play chess-schnurgen? Bork bork bjorn borg.”

I imagine that if I have any Swedish readers I’ve completely offended them and I’m sorry. But yinz talk funny, n’at.

The wind was pretty intense last night but I didn’t realize how much it messed things up until this morning. There was already a mess on the main street because a building that caught fire a few weeks ago partially collapsed, but now there were trees everywhere, no traffic lights, gutters and siding and shingles scattered all over. And the baby’s school had a 2-hour delay so we had to drop him at my mother-in-law’s house. But I wonder how people who don’t have family or trustworthy babysitters nearby manage when there’s something like a 2-hour delay and they CAN’T be late for work.

Oh, this is completely unrelated but we went to see Burn After Reading on Friday and it was pretty great. It’s been getting bad reviews but I think that’s because the Coen Brothers blew everyone’s minds so much with No Country for Old Men that people forgot that they make goofy movies all the time. Granted, Burn After Reading isn’t their BEST movie ever, but I can tell you that any time a whole, crowded theater cracks up at brutal killings…well, you got something special on your hands. Shit. I might make that into a Hallmark card.

*Okay, so, I know I’m a cornball but I am once again referencing Joe Rogan. He has a bit in his 2005 (a whole two years before Idiocracy came out, which is pretty wild since it’s basically the same argument) special in which he talks about how people are getting stupider, but we all think we’re smart because we use things that smart people have made. “If I left you alone in the woods with a hatchet, how long do you think it would be before you sent me an email?” Perhaps the best example he gives is what we do when the power goes out, which is just sit and wait for it to come back on. And last night, I couldn’t help but think about that, especially as the husband and I stumbled around breaking our toes on our furniture and downloading flashlight apps for our iPhones, for fuck’s sake. Totally helpless.

…and so you did. So fucking sad.

So, I had a doctor’s appointment this morning. It was notable because when I called the office last week to see if they thought I should come in for this problem that I was having, their answer was, “You should be seen as soon as possible.” And that’s not always encouraging.

See, a few months ago, I noticed that my left, uh, “dirty pillow” was always really tender in this one spot. And it would get even more tender right around the time that my period would show up. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but started poking around. I asked the husband to do the same and he said, “Hehehehe. Okay.” We both kinda felt…something.

“I don’t know. Do you think it’s Something?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell.”
“Me neither.”
“I’d better check a few more times.”

Of course, WebMD was like, “YOU SO TOTALLY HAVE BREST CANCERZ! OMG!!!111,” but I was skeptical and my gut feeling was that everything was fine. Nonetheless, I knew it was important to get an expert opinion.

So, this morning, I had not one, but TWO very nice lady doctors go to town on my chesticles. Their verdict is that I’m a-okay, nothing feels out of sorts, the tenderness is probably due to some ligaments acting up, and that my tissue is just kind of lumpy…like oatmeal. I’m going to go get an ultrasound just to be sure, but I am relieved. Definitely.

I don’t like to lecture, but consider this your PSA: if something feels weird, go get yourself checked. Don’t worry about “wasting the doctor’s time,” or anything like that. And don’t explain things away if you’re actually worried, even just a little bit. Take care of yourself! Reassurance is rad.

That said, they had to weigh me and…well…fuck gravity. ANYWAY.

Enjoy this picture of me (looking slightly deranged from this particular angle) and my cat.

He was being goofy last night at bedtime, walking around my head and purring, before he plopped down on my head. He intended to sleep there, but I was laughing too hard.

Speaking of laughing (but in horror), I watched a little bit of Painted Babies 2 last night. And I know that it’s best to just say, “Well, it’s just a different culture and blah blah,” but seriously that whole pageant thing is just ridiculously fucked up. I don’t like it. I mean, mainly because it’s just messed the hell up to do that to a little kid, but also that whole scene is just SO CORNY and just not based in any kind of reality.

I was reading this article the other day that said something to the effect of “Cosmopolitan is like The Onion for feminists,” which is so true and I think pageants, particularly pageants for little girls, fall squarely into that category, too.