friends, romans and countrymen

lend me your ears. it has been over a week since my last confession, er, blog post, and i must admit it is getting harder and harder to update this ol' thing. life has been kind to me in many departments, but free time ain't one of 'em. but, because i love thee so, here's a random list of stuff:

* found out today there is a chance we're going to get to meet michele obama. i am so excited and am going to wear my chunky necklace and azzedine alaia belt, just like her!

* just got back from celebrating the 10 year anniversary with the mister in santa fe. that is one beeyooteefull place, my friends (as john mccain would say). we went to SITE santa fe, the modern art biennale and it was out of sight, including one installation that involved signing your life away and jumping off a platform into mid-air 7 feet above a series of stunt mats and trying to land on your ass and not your neck. now THAT's art! we did it twice. of course, my back hurt afterwards because i'm an old fart. it was amazing and we're going back in november 'cause i got a backload of free southwest tickets and the need for alpine getaways.

* "mamma mia" shaved at least 40 points off of my IQ and i felt like i was high on nitrous through the whole thing. this is not a recommendation, in case you're wondering. there are things in that movie that fully qualify as crimes against nature. that movie bears the mark of satan, i tell you.

* we are knee deep in restoring the house in palm springs and are camped out in one little room while the rest of the house is fluffed and prettied. looks like we will get to move in in a few weeks, but there's still about 65% of the total work on the place left to do, mainly outside (both structure and yard).

* still loving 'mad men' -- now into season 2. delicious.

* have you seen 'the strangers,' that horror movie with liv tyler and scott speedman? it was kind of creepy. it was filmed in florence, south carolina, where my grandmother's family hails from, and the "summer house" in the movie is actually a late '60s, early '70s ranch not unlike the one i grew up in about an hour away from florence, and let me tell you from experience -- those puppies are no one's idea of a summer house. so it probably would've been a lot scarier if i hadn't been wondering throughout "what kind of freaks would buy a tract home in the piney woods as their getaway?" the funniest part is when liv tyler puts on a record (the stereo plays an integral role in the film) and out comes some 2007 trip-hoppy track. i'm sure they have all the latest LPs up there at the tract house, even though nothing else in there has been changed around since the 1970s purchase of said tract home!

* my work is apparently going to take me to the east coast for the first time and i think i'm going to get to catch up with lots o' peeps in ny, boston and philly. word.

* the iphone is great as everything but a phone. i am ready to hold it over an open fire for hours on end and then sink it to the bottom of an ocean, cursing it as it sinks and spitting in its general direction. if my iphone had its own house, i'd leave a flaming bag of my own excrement on its doorstep, ring its doorbell and hide in the bushes so i could see the look of surprise on its face when it opened the door.

and with that, i head back to the asylum.

sister puhleeze

pea green with envy

from today's maureen dowd column:

Now John McCain is pea-green with envy. That’s the only explanation for why a man who prides himself on honor, a man who vowed not to take the low road in the campaign, having been mugged by W. and Rove in South Carolina in 2000, is engaging in a festival of juvenilia.

The Arizona senator who built his reputation on being a brave proponent of big solutions is running a schoolyard campaign about tire gauges and Paris Hilton, childishly accusing his opponent of being too serious, too popular and not patriotic enough.

Even his own mother, the magical 96-year-old Roberta McCain, let slip that she thought the Paris Hilton-Britney Spears ad was “kinda stupid.”

McCain’s 2000 strategist, John Weaver, was equally blunt with Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter: “It’s hard to imagine America responding to ‘small ball’ when we have all these problems.”

Some of McCain’s old pals in the Senate are cringing at what they see as his soulless transformation into what he once scorned.

“John’s eaten up with envy,” said one. “His image of himself was always the handsome, celebrity flyboy.

“Now somebody else is the celebrity,” the colleague continued, while John looks in the mirror and sees his face marred by skin cancer and looks at the TV and sees his dashing self-image replaced by visions of William Frawley, with Letterman jokes about his membership in the ham radio club and adventures with wagon trains.

somehow this never gets old

15 minutes

my quasi-hometown made it into the ny times! (again, thanks miz d):

capital city!

if i weren't tina chen, i would be...

...this little fella (thanks miz d):

wal-mart is bad, mad and dangerous to know

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25967103/