forget starter condo. i want an island treehouse.

One of the best Christmas presents I can remember receiving was my very own copy of The Swiss Family Robinson...the deluxe, remastered, restored, two-disc set (courtesy of Bethy).

I love those Robinsons. They're plucky. And golden-skinned. They can dance, and sing, and terrorize vicious bands of pirates using fruits and vegetables of the island.

I watched the movie last night, and after a quick discussion about what Family Robinson planned to do about the shortage of women (Roberta was darling, sure...but does Fritz really want to share, just for the good of the island?), I decided that the overpriced, windowless apartment conversions being sold as "condominiums" are stupid.

I don't want a starter home or a fixer-upper or a nice bland duplex.

I want a treehouse. With a retractable roof to gaze at the stars, and an organ to play so that the family can dance peppy jigs, and a water wheel...and ugly curtains, and a giant conch shell for a sink. That's what I want.


I want a deserted island, and a pet tiger, and a Fritz of my own...

Kale tells me "I'll build you one!"

"Okay!!! Where?!"

"Ummm...somewhere with trees!"

"Perfect!!!"

And we'll use a bellows to stoke the kitchen fire, and we'll catch and eat...wild chickens and we'll bathe in the ocean and frolick in the surf and live happily ever after!

And if we end up with a child as irritating as Ernst, we'll definitely send him off to a distant "University."

and i thought there were already too many reasons to visit dollywood

Add FREE GAS to the list of fantastic reasons not to miss Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

Apparently concerned that high gas prices would deter summer visitors to the town's one claim to fame, Dollywood, the town's executive director of tourism came up with this very original tag line: "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade -- or in this case, gasoline!"

Now legions (and when I say legions, I'm not kidding - apparently 11 million people visit Dolly Parton's home town every year) of kids can now tug on their parents' sleeves and say, "Dad, can we drive to Tenessee for gas?!" and Dad can say, "Sure, slugger, long as you let me ride a roller coaster or two while we're there!"

The giveaway continues through the summer. Apparently a giant red tanker (and a team of Pigeon Forge-ites in matching red t-shirts) swoops through the town's outlet malls, restaurants and other area "attractions" and distributes $30 gasoline gift certificates.

Meaning that clearly, I should scrap all current honeymoon plans and demand a trip to Dollywood...where, along with the beautiful memories of hot dogs and ice cream cones and lemonade in keepsake plastic cups and souveniere photos of myself on various roller coasters, I can hit up the shell station courtesy of Dolly Parton's home town...

making the whole visit worth it.

reasons seattle's okay

Seems most of the blogs I regularly read these days come outta NYC. And good for 'em. I like to think I could hack it in most cities if push came to shove, but that's basically a lie...I'm west coast-ish. I'm suburban. I'm not good with public transportation. I like generic chain restaurants. I shop at...malls.

West-coast-ish as I may be, I'm not crazy about living in Seattle...I've lived here long enough not to appreciate whatever it is the newcomers appreciate. The weather is - yep - RAINY and horrible most of the year. People tend to be clique-ish, politically correct, passive-aggressive. They drive miserably. Too many of them own boats that they too seldomly use.

That said, I have to appreciate a few things about this town:

• I can wear whatever shoes I want. This is the home of "socks with sandals" and while I may have ridden that wave ten or fifteen years ago, I generally choose to conform to fashionable footwear standards. But if I wanted to, I could wear the "LATEST, HOTTEST AQUATIC-HYBRID SHOE FROM REI!" with pride, knowing there were at least a few thousand others out there sportin the same. I could wear something from my high school Doc Marten collection and no one would look at me sideways.
  
• I don't have to worry about which place is this week's "hot spot" because...um...there aren't any. In a land of Microsoft money and Starbucks, the comings and goings of clubs and restaurants are few and far between. There are steadfast local mainstays where the food really is the point (think stuffy steakhouses where the "boat people" go for a ciroc martini after taking their in-laws out on the yacht to oogle the pieces of Bill Gates' pad visible from the lake). There are pizza joints, but the places with VIP lists and 4-hour long waits at the door are the breakfast spots serving the best "organic biscuits and shade-grown coffee."
  
• "Dress Code Strictly Enforced" means that I'm A-OK with a bright pink bra hanging out of my wife-beater and a trucker hat on my head. I kid not. I remember a club opening up a few years ago that called itself "Seattle's only Vegas-Style Niteclub...dress to impess, ladies!" Checked the place out...must have been five or six girls with pink bras, itty bitty stretched-out tank tops and trucker hats. Strictly. Enforced.
  
• Dick's Cheeseburgers. Not the deluxe, they over-do the runny sauce-relish stuff, but a nice strawberry milkshake and a plain old cheeseburger are tasty and cheap...leaving me with plenty of cash in my wallet for shoes from REI!
• The VonDutch trend came and went and we survived obliviously unscathed.
  
• If I know someone that knows someone that works at Microsoft, I can get cheap software at the company store.
  
• If I know someone that knows someone that works at Microsoft, I can get cheap xbox games at the company store (came in handy a few times for Christmas presents).
• If I know someone that knows someone that works at Microsoft, I can get Nalgene bottles that say "MICROSOFT!" at the company store.
• While I can't afford to buy a house here yet, I CAN afford to pay my rent and still have plenty of cash in my wallet for shoes from REI!
  

another baby robbed of any shot at normalcy

In a fair and balanced world, there would be a special school where rich little children with names like Apple and Suri and Coco and Sailor Lee and Dreena and Aspen go to feel normal, to fit in, to avoid the giggles and "huh? could you spell that" reactions from classmates with more...conventional names.

Enroll Bluebell Madonna Haliwell in that school, asap.

Because when reciting your baby's name, it's always neat to have it sound like a verse from "This Old Man." Nick-Nack-Pattywack. Bluebell Haliwell.

Maybe it was a subtle dig at the absentee father of Ms Ginger Spice's baby...because she knows he'll inevitably read about the baby in a magazine or newspaper. He'll probably recoil knowing that there's a lovely little girl out in the world that's made of 50% him and her name is Bluebell Madonna.

Unfortunately, I don't think such a school specifically exists...because even in the most expensive, exclusive, probably British private Academy, there's bound to be a perfectly rich and entitled Mary or an Ann or a William or a Jonathan...at which point all bets are off. Poor little Bluebell will come home some day and ask Mommy Ginger why the girls at school think she was named after a dairy creamery...

if office life was a disaster movie...

Power went out today at work - utterly debilitating, by the way. But as we're sitting around making awkward "hey, can we go home now!" banter (lots of needless jokes about doing work "the old-fashioned way"), someone says, "Sorta feels like we should be hiding under our desks or something, like it's a drill."

What prompted that, I dunno....BUT, in the spirit of Finding Creatively Inspiring Situations in Everyday Life, I had this absolutely fantastic idea:

If this WERE a disaster epic and we were the cast of characters, who would I be? Or the rest of the office for that matter...So I came up with the sort of standard "distaster movie" stereotype characters and tried to determine who fell into what role...

Since it's my disaster epic fantasy, I get to be the Surviving Damsel. Yep, the one that looks great in wet/scorched/maimed or otherwise clingy and partially obliterated clothing...I'm the one with the hair that looks fantastic even when wet and plastered to my face. I can be broken, bruised, battered and bleeding and the hunky hero guy still wants to plant a wet one on me as the credits roll. I have a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream that I use liberally...I'm not expected to come up with the means of survival, I'm just expected to be a "team player," swim when everyone else swims, climb when they climb, run when they run and cling to hero's arm for dear life, trailing just far enough behind to make him look manly and...heroic.

We'd need a standard Kurt Russell/Bruce Willis/Russell Crowe-esque leading man. These are in naturally short supply in the standard suburban office environment staffed mostly by middle-aged working stiffs, all of whom look about as dashing and heroic as my KitchenAid stand mixer. There's the ex-Army Colonel that may have been tough once, but now he's just a tall, thin man with a bald spot and well-shined loafers.

There's a young, broad-shouldered, tight polo shirt-addicted ivy-league type down the hall that might look the part, but he's lacking that certain rough-around-the-edges ruggedness that makes him believable in a save-the-world-from-certain-demise role...his skin is a little too fair (too many hours at the gym, too little time outside, I guess?)...if he got slashed by a falling tree while saving the damsel or punched by the villain during a narrow escape...it would ruin the whole look. Not to mention I think he'd cry.

MrCompanyOwner is also out...he seems camera-friendly, he's got a certain outdoorsy vibe that suggests he might be able to run faster than a tidal wave or hold his breath for 20 or 25 minutes while doing some under-water-welding to free trapped innocents gasping their last few breaths. Trouble is...he's about 5'5, 150 if he's lucky. A little too slight, perhaps to save the world. And he's a very picky eater. That doesn't bode well for his survival if he needs to stop mid-disaster and order up a steaming plate of edamame while everyone else is raiding the last vending machine on earth for Snickers bars and Doritos...

Basically, it doesn't look all that great for planet earth if it's left up to this particular group of working stiffs...maybe I should suggest we add a line to our employment application:

"Please list two qualities that would enable you to save the world in the event of an epic disaster."

ahh, Captain von Trapp...

Got a pesky bit of "The Sound of Music" stuck in my head this afternoon - "How do you solve a problem like Maria" came out of nowhere and absolutely broadsided me...the same verse, of course, over...and over...and over:

"She'd outpester any pest
Drive a hornet from its nest
She could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl
She is gentle! She is wild!
She's a riddle! She's a child!
She's a headache!
She's an angel!
She's a guhlllllllllllll!"

At any rate, the only way to get the tune outta my head was to dig out the 40th anniversary edition dvd and watch the pretty nuns sing the rest of the verses.

And then, there he is...

Captain von Trapp.

I think I actually swoon over the good Captain. So buttoned up and presentable. So straight-laced. So smug. So dashing. So crisp. So well-coifed, well-dressed, well-shaven. So trim and precise and starched..with that honey-smooth voice. And...shrill whistle. And strange child-rearing practices (but clearly, so virile...8 children, was it? my my my).

His transformation over the course of the movie is so subtle, I pretty much can't help falling in love with the Captain right along with Maria...I want to serenade him in the gazebo...snuggle up against those perfect lapels...

Ah, Captain.

"i know you by the tone of your clip-clop"

MrCompanyOwner loves wood. Loves old wood, new wood, dark wood, light wood, heavy wood, porous wood, expensive wood, very expensive wood, wood of any sort. For awhile, we had an entire slab of birch tree in the kitchen where a more formica-inclined office would have had a mere...table.

So it comes as no surprise that the floors in the office are made of wood (apparently very soft wood because I've found about half a dozen spots where my heel will sink into a stealthy hollow-spot if I'm particularly engaged in anything OTHER than watching carefully where I step and I end up doing a terrible...no, make that wonderful, attractive, graceful FLAILING maneuver to keep from ending up non-upright). They're very noisy wood floors. Sound hollow underneath. Cause VERY loud "clip-clop" noise for anyone walking on them.

After a few years of listening to people "clip-clop" toward my office, I'm able to recognize who's coming as soon as they start down the hallway. And it spooks people.

"Hi Jim."

"Whoa...how did you know it was me, your back was turned?"

"How did I know it was you? mwuahahahahaha."

I could probably use this to my advantage...develop a VERY mysterious reputation. Start telling them cryptic things like, "You have a vague, orange energy that's very distinct," or "Your presence is very disquieting to me, I can feel you from some distance."

my money's on an ugly baby.

If I had a bag of Sour Patch Kids for every time I read about BabyBrangelina being a genetic lottery winner: I'd. Be. Fat.

Why do we assume that this kid is gonna inherit only the photo-friendly parts of mom and pop? Is it just me, or are we overlooking the fact that Brad has one vertical nostril on his under-sized nose and one horizontal nostril? And if a baby popped outta the womb with Angie lips, it'd be a frightening little bundle of joy for the first 20 years of its life. And Daddy's pockmarks...ah, yes, the pockmarks. Maybe a baby with a mile-high forehead, giant lips, asymmetrical nostrils and a skin condition COULD be good-looking, but genetic lottery-winner?

I'd bet Jennifer Lopez and CadaverMark would have one heck of a pretty kid, and I doubt anyone would have expected Liv Tyler to turn out so lovely, considering where half of her genes came from.

I would venture a guess that neither of Alan Cummings' parents on their own look half as strange as Alan Cummings himself...just a guess.

Nope, I'm not poignantly homeless.

Did a little lite reading this morning. Read "The Wandering Scribe's" blog (lite; get it? LITE! As in: No-Paragraph-Breaks-For-Pages-At-A-Time-Written-In-A-Style-That-Reminds-
Me-Why-I-Had-Trouble-Finishing-The-Classics-In-High-School kind of lite).

Had long, deep, "I-feel-like-superficial-pondscum" moment, then pulled back out of it.

I'm sure Ms...Wandering is perfectly, legitimately homeless. I'm sure she really did sneak around hospitals to bathe and libraries to write, I'll assume the best, but in the wake of so much highly publicized literary...uh...misrepresentation, I'm taking her with a few grains. Because it's just turning out to be a little toooooo lucrative. Call me cynical (or perceptive enough to suspect that she had a larger audience in mind when she began writing...she wrote with a self-awareness that seemed - to me - slightly out of sync with what I'd expect a homeless woman unfamiliar with online journaling to crank out).

Here's an exerpt:

"And looking up through the window screen at the still deep-blue sky at almost 2:00 am. A high blue, star-studded dome. I'd never seen the sky like that before, like a funnel way high up in it, as if the lid had secretly been lifted off the 'flat' sky during the night to reveal this other space way high above it. A space which was distinctly domed. Just exactly like the blue-ceilinged cupola of a church, painted with stars — and across it, and at that hour, a handful of seagulls gliding silently and languorously back and forth, back and forth, way way high up through it. Pure and white and silent; their slow flight almost a roll across the deep-blue parabola glittering with stars, and seemingly almost choreographed. Divine. Like doves, sent out on some secret heavenly mission. Or a sign — a silent, wondrous scene — for my eyes only."

Then imagine about a thousand pages like that, all filled with wonder and awe and brain-splitting appreciation for the trees and the crashing surf and a general amazement about things like breathing.

I know, I'm just an American hick with a waning appreciation for finely-strung sentences, delicately crafted, lace-like phrasing and centuries-old British syntax. Or, yes, I'm just a jealous, unpublished, oft-frustrated writer that can't handle watching others succeed where I've failed. Guess I could just make it up. Literary integrity is a grey area these days anyway, right?

No, I'll be honest: compelling homeless plight aside, I just wasn't that into her writing.

I think we're in Kansas.

I remember listening to a comedy-snippet on the radio a few weeks ago and the guy (I'd give him credit if I could remember who it was) was making parallels between millionaires and hicks...("If you have a dozen cars, you're either reaaaaalllly rich....or reeaaaaallllly poor" and "if you spend all day in your bathrobe....really rich, or just scraping by" and "if you have upholstered furniture on your porch or in your yard...really rich, or down n' out).

SO - when I saw this picture, I thought of the same thing...if you shop barefoot and your friend brings the dog along, you're either in Walmart or Beverly Hills. Sigh.

It's gross, it really is. Sunglasses to obscure entire face: CHECK. Scarf that reaches aaaaallllllll the way to the ankles: CHECK. 'Hawk-shaved rat-dog? DEFINITELY. Ooops! Forgot my shoes!

No, I won't write about 'em cuz I don't like 'em. So there.

RichieHeatherDeniseCharlie (a desperate, last-ditch attempt by fledgling "stars" of stage and screen to save their kamikaze careers by means of tabloid-itis if I ever saw one. They're probably all camped out together garden-party-style sharing pitchers of mint juleps, anyway. )

TomKat (cuz they still give me the heebie-jeebies and absolutely ruined what used to be a cultivated, if not somewhat loathesome appreciation of MI:II. Can't help loving the way Dougray Scott makes a word like "gagging" sound so difficult to pronounce...but if it means skipping Tom scenes to get to the pinkie-snipping Dougray scenes...forget it. Too much work!)

Mischa Barton (other than to say that her head is oddly shaped and her feet strikingly large. Other than that, she's just BORING to me, no matter how many times she's inadvertantly cited in other catty girls' feuds)

Star Jones Reynolds.

She's so endearingly out-of-the-loop these days.

There's something sort of sweet about a fledgling, bloated starlet-that-was appearing on a late-nite show to promote a whole lot of not-much. It's even better when her hair looks a little lackluster and she's sporting fantastically squishable upper arms.
But here's what made me giggle: when Mr Letterman asked her if she was pregnant, she said, "Don't worry Dave, it's not yours." I didn't giggle because she was witty. I didn't giggle because she laughed at her own little joke. I didn't giggle because he replied, "Oh. Well I think that's good news for both of us." Nope. I giggled because it was a terrific, iconic example of hard she's trying to stay relevant, hip, "cool." And that she's failing.
See, she's just familiar enough with the Letterman crowd to know that most of the female guests like to "play-flirt" with Dave. It's cute. It's funny. It's ironic. Pretend that you're in love with Dave, pretend you're infatuated with Dave, let Dave make little overtures at you or ooogle your young little rack or compliment your "dress" or something. Play coy, chastize him for being naughty, slap his hand in that coquettish way, it's always a hit. Everyone likes to watch movie stars "play-flirt" with the funny, geeky man.

That much she understands. But she fails with the delivery. Are we supposed to believe, even in that waning-starlet-late-nite-tv-appearance-suspended-reality way that Dave and Britney ever knocked boots? She was too literal. It wasn't coy, it wasn't mysterious, it wasn't playful, it was contrived. And uncomfortable. And too obvious (maybe it's just my taste, but to me, it's not funny unless it's subtle...but then, silly me, sublety is not something rehearsed very regularly in the School of Pop Star). At any rate...she's having another baby. I'll refrain from any "Oops" references, because, well...it's not subtle.

But we can rest assured of one thing. Britney Spears and David Letterman didn't sleep together. Now we can rest easy. She may still be married to a lyrical...GENIUS, she may be modeling parenting skills culled from a combination of sitcoms and tabloids, but she is NOT carrying David Letterman's baby.

Gee, glad that's cleared up.

The games cell phone companies play.

So, I log into my verizonwireless account this morning to see what I owe this month. Oh gee, apparently I have a $149 CREDIT. Hmmm, this is puzzling since I paid my bill in fully last month and didn't pay anything since then. Puzzling. SO, I check out the payment history and there, on May 4th is a $200 payment...in CASH. Further odd, since I only ever pay with my debit card, wouldn't even know HOW to pay with "CASH" in this case. Strange.

SOOOO, I call customer service, say, "Maybe you have more information about this than I do, but I'm looking at my bill online and see a large $200 payment that I DID NOT make. And it says it was paid with cash, I always pay with a credit card."

"Oh my," says the customer service rep. "Heather, a cash payment is a payment made in-store at a kiosk. Someone probably misentered their account number by one digit and it credited your account, Heather."

I say, "Not that I'd mind a huge credit on my bill, but it's not mine."

"Yes, Heather, and whoever paid that $200 will be surprised when it doesn't show up on their account. Heather, I'm gonna put you on hold while I speak with financial services and find out what to do, Heather."

(I'm NOT embellishing the number of times she managed to work my name into a sentence.)

"Okey dokey."

She comes back a minute later.

"Heather, I'm still holding with financial services, I just wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten about you."

"Cool, thanks."

She comes back after a few more minutes.

"Heather, it looks like we're going to be holding for quite awhile for the next available financial services representative. I don't want to keep you on the line that long, so I'm going to research this for you, Heather, and call you back when I have an answer."

"Alrightee, thanks."

So, she calls back a few minutes later.

"Heather, I spoke with financial services, and they told me to tell you to pay your bill as normal at this time. Your current amout due is $50.06. Just pay that as you normally would, and when the cash payment customer calls to find out where their payment has been applied, we'll take the credit off of your account at this time."

"Ok, thanks."

SO, I go back to verizonwireless.com to make my $50.06 payment. I hit, "Approve!" for my payment, and get an error...Basically the error is telling me that they know I have a big massive credit on my account, and their computers think I'm a dummy for continuing to pay a bill that's at least 3 months prepaid...some sort of "amount entered cannot be less than the amount due or must be equal to or greater than zero." Ok, makes no sense, but basically, it won't let me pay again online until this is resolved. SO, they tell me to pay my bill as usual and wait for someone to call and complain about a missing credit...BUT, I can't pay my bill until someone calls to whine...love it.

Huh...???

And they say you can't believe everything you read these days.

Noticed this on CNN this morning: "Nicole Richie: 'I'm too thin.'"

Preposterous. She's too what?

Yes, right there between an article about possible peace in Darfur, Rep. Kennedy's "Ambien Accident," and today's oil prices is a snippet about all 82, burrito-eating pounds of Ms Richie, who "doesn't know what she weighs right now."

Riiiiight. And if she's really, truly, actually female and really, truly, actually human, that's a crock of you-know-what. "I have no idea what I weigh right now."

Apparently when under stress, she loses her appetite. She can't eat, she drops pounds, she damages legions of delicate, impressionably young girls who see her shrink and decide they need to shrink, too, she apologizes, she attempts to gain weight on her own. By eating her own weight in mexican food. Apparently that didn't work.

That's where I say "HUH...?" Let's imagine this is me. Let's imagine I go through a horrific breakup (been there), I'm depressed and distracted and unable to choke down my carrot sticks (been there, actually...I found the only thing I could stomach in a time of stress was chai tea, lite on the tea, heavy on the milk and honey...must have had 6 cups a day)...I drop 40 pounds (my hair becomes the heaviest part of my body, my lovely feminine "charms" vanish entirely) and when I finally tire of the incessant "Eating disorder! Eating disorder!" accusations, I decide to take matters into my own hands. I'll force the food down. I'll eat Taco Del Mar and Taco Del Mar only, breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack (sort of the reverse Subway-Jared trick). Now, if this were me, I'd magically see the problem solved. That lumpy area between butt and thigh would be thrilled to come back home, the squishy hips would reappear, and the strange phenomenon whereby each time I gain weight it finds a new, strange, wonderful place to settle where it never existed previously would definitely happen...in short: if I eat nothing but burritos in an unabashed attempt to GAIN WEIGHT it's a sure thing. I'd win every time.

Apparently didn't happen quite like that for Nic. Her boobs are still MIA. Her collarbone is still casting spooky shadows. Her elbows are still thicker than her biceps...

So she's seeking medical attention. The nutritionist's verdict is that if this is NOT an eating disorder, with some proper calories she should see some weight reappear. If it is, in fact, anorexia...well I'd imagine CNN will keep me well in the loop.

Radio stations and Cinco de Mayo

I have a very high tolerance for bad pop music. Love my top 40 over-played "hits." If it's over-produced, over-exposed, over-advertised and otherwise over-anything, you can bet it's playing loudly in my car. I love the self-indulgent, likewise over-produced morning shows that play the bad pop music, occassionally even listen through a commercial break if I think there's a ridiculously, embarassingly catchy Destiny's Child or Ashlee Simpson song on the other side. But what pushes me over the edge (or, what inevitably drives me straight back to the loving arms of NPR) is the ridiculous excuses they find to inflict their DJ's on the innocent radio-listening public. Case in point: Cinco de Mayo. I think my locally affiliated arm of the Infinity Broadcasting behemoth is managing to be at no fewer than 1,746 places simultaneously this Friday, interrupting our peaceful salsa-slurping, margarita-imbibing, and "Arriba!-"declaring...

Thing is, it's not just Cinco de Mayo...it's President's Day, it's Halloween, it's Valentine's day, (ooh, definitely can't forget St Patty's day....one of their favorites. If they can invade every local Irish pub in the greater Seattle Area in their "party vans" that makes them that much better than the other radio stations managing only to invade 97%)...no occassion to set up a tent and let teenagers give a "shout out" to their friends (inevitably with names like Chelsea, Jenny, Brittany, Lindsay, Carlie...always ending in "eee" sounds) is too small an occassion.

But here's my complaint: as a basically materialistic, more-or-less shopping-addicted, generally fashion-magazine-purchasing 20-something, I'm right in their target zone...I'm supposed to be responding to the "Get on the VIP List" invitations like tabloids to Teri Hatcher...I'm supposed to be spending my weekends at the same clubs and malls and car dealerships they're camped out, looking forward to weekends spent amped up on any combination of Red Bull and liquor I can get my hands on -I'm supposed to be on the edge of my seat waiting for the "By Invitation Only" Halloween Party, or that "Come get a free tank of gas and a bumper sticker" President's Day extravaganza...problem is...I don't do any of that. I just like bad top 40 music. I don't flock to the strip mall with my four Seven-jeans-wearing best friends hoping that "cute" DJ will be there and put me on the radio for three seconds so I can giggle and then text message the rest of my friends to find out if they heard me...

I just like bad music.

Surely I'm not alone...?

Famous people I just plain dig. Part I.

Can't help lovin the train wrecks.

I don't know if it was the bulimia, the car wrecks, the constant Fueds With Blondes, the briefly-linked-with-Brett-Ratner gossip (that one left my head spinning), the "I love the act of love...but I don't sleep around, that's gross!" concession or the desperate-to-be-the-face-of-a-designer hang-up (which leads, unfortunately, to bland, conservative, suddenly-always-lacey clothing choices - bring back the halter tops and biker jackets of the Wilmer-As-Arm-Candy days, you were much more interesting then!) that endeared me to lil Lindsay, but I guess I'm not alone...at last glance there were something like 40,000 people claiming to be said train wreck on myspace (compared to, say, 33,000 people masquerading as fellow train-wreck Nicole Richie). I spend waaaaaay too much time cruising celeb gossip, but my real weakness is "LiLo." I dunno, maybe I'm just waiting for her to get knocked up, or aisle-dash (please, just not with Brett Ratner!)...maybe I just want to (*gasp - yes, i'm about to say it*) BE her, in some convoluted way...yeep, that's probably it. Here I was, previously self-respecting, decently level-headed, prone to reasonably classy moments, now I'm wanting to life-swap with everyone's most maladjusted Jersey girl? More on this thought later...

Errr...maybe this matters a little bit.

I'm as envious as the next office rat about kids who's parents can afford expensive ivy league educations (and, ok, fine, I guess the kids had to work a little themselves), but add "Sophomore Harvard Kid With Book Deal" to that and I'm certifiably green-ish.

SO - imagine my disappointment (naw, better that that--my UTTER DISMAY...yep) when I noticed an article today about a teen chick-lit writer with a two-book deal and a "reported" six-figure advance being accused of plagarism. A Harvard student. Contributor to a local newspaper. Published author (aHA - so SHE'S the one out there stealing all the gigs I want while I'm sitting in an ergonimic antithesis, slapping the fax machine around, hoping the bank reconciliation balances for once...just this once...!). Fraud. Uhhh, yep, that's right. fraud.

Ok, so I'm probably overreacting...I'm just the aspiring writer-contributor-ivy leaguer stuck sitting at a desk all day in the accounting office of a construction company withering on the proverbial vine ("Yes, Bob Jones of Bob Jones Hauling and Excavating, I did sent your check for $624.12 on Friday, we paid that invoice in full. Yep, if you haven't received that by Wednesday, gimme a call back, I'll be glad to stop payment and reissue the check!" Now, be a good Mr Jones and never call me again! Thanks!)

I guess it made me start thinking...are the Harvard and Princeton and Stanford students of the world trading original, genuine thought and authentic compositions for an easy cruise on the coattaills of their alma mater's reputation? Have they become so disconnected from the rest of us working stiffs that they figure their school's brand is credit enough? Who needs to write their own material, they've got the greatest academic label in the country slapped on their forehead, who will bother to challenge 'em? I mean really, they worked hard enough to get where they're at, right? Isn't that enough? Good to know Harvard's busy creating the next generations's independent thinkers...

Sigh.

Oh, and I promise, I won't be nearly so soap-boxy by tomorrow...just had to brush off my "holier-than-thou" microphone and get a little social disdain worked outta my system. Watch out plagarizing ivy league sweetie-pies the country over...I imagine your agents will be thirsty for a hard-workin cute young thing like me once they're finished with scandalous damage-control. I've got plenty of my own ideas.

Ah, for now, uh...back to accounts receivable. Rich Guys A, B and C need to pay for their million-dollar remodels...hope their $450 toilet paper holders are servin 'em well. I imagine they probably graduated from someplace like Yale themselves...

"Good to know Harvard's creating independent thinkers..."