Slept in late today and made myself a big french toast/scrambled eggs breakfast IN BED. Just got a cable line installed for my bedroom TV and oh how sweet it is to spend my mornings off with syrupy bacon bliss and Rosie on The View. That big loudmouth woman is gonna RUN that show in 5 years, just watch. It’s just as delicious as I speculated, I love it.

P called from work, he was all excited about Jake Gyllenhaal’s reservation at his restaurant later that day. We metup after he got out and went to lunch @ Moonrock Diner, then caught the 4:15pm of The Science of Sleep @ Lowes 68. Although it’s visually really interesting, the plot didn’t make any sense, it’s not as well done as they make it look in the trailer. But damn if that adorable little mexican wasn’t worth the $11 ticket.

The weather was beautiful after we got out of the movie so we strolled across Central Park South (he wanted to do a horsedrawn carriage ride but the cabbie, or whatever you call him, tried to jack up the price) and wound up at the Apple store. I got the new sleek, aluminum black nano (8GB!) and sold P my old one… I can’t decide if a better boyfriend would have just plain given it to him, all free-like. Whatever, this way I feel better about my new splurge. That and the new shuffle I ordered.

It was a nice day.

My God she used to be amazing. What a powerhouse she was, even the musicians in the background are blown away! That voice could stop you in your tracks and she had such control over it back then. There are performances, like this one, where she seems almost shocked by her own talent. I just get chills watching this clip but looking at her now makes me so sad.

Ok so that’s not really her, it’s Deborah Wilson from MAD TV (here too!) spoofing the infamously uncomfortable Diane Sawyer interview, but damn if it don’t still wack the nail on the (crack)head. Maybe dropping the dead weight will bring her back to us. Pull up from the wreckage, Whitney! Free yourself and come back to us!

Every time I speak to my mom on the phone she asks me if I’ve watched Spanglish yet. When I say no she goes into her testimony, praising the movie, testifying to its glorious majesty and just condemning my damned soul for not wanting to watch it. My boyfriend is also a devout Spanglish Apostle and has been pressing me to watch this fucking movie for the entire time we’ve been dating. Finally, last night, I curled up on my futon and gave it a chance.

I didn’t hate it right away. I actually fell into its energy and layers quickly. I loved that this wasn’t a typical Adam Sandler movie, I loved that he was hardly in the first half and when he was he wasn’t being boyish, and I slowly began to build an investment in the characters. Tea Loni was hilarious and terrifying, she made me nervous and uncomfortable, a lot like Sarah Jessica Parker in The Family Stone; that sex scene was by far one of the ugliest and funniest I’ve ever seen in a movie. Cloris Leachman couldn’t have been better, I’m convinced that she took that part and ran with it b/c it wasn’t so much the things she had to say, it was the way she moved and reacted to everything that made her so interesting. And of course the Penelope Cruz Lookalike was absolutely charming and captivating and beautiful, totally had me at bueno. A Mexican making her way in strange new places will always win me over.

I really liked where things were going. This movie was about more than a family and their mexican maid, it was about people and the things we’re searching for — it was saying something. It was commenting on class issues, racial stereotypes, and disconnected family ties and just making beautiful nods at the need for a warm connection with other people in this world and the struggle of walking that fine line between movin’ on up and selling out. I comitted to the people in this story. That hilarious fight between the Mexican and Adam Sandler, with the little girl yelling the translations out for both sides, was pure movie magic. As I watched from my futon, I couldn’t help but feel inspired, like maybe everyone was going to learn really valuable lessons in the end and their lifeforces would be enriched and change for the better just from knowing one another, and that maybe even I too might be a better person for watching this movie.

Then it all by way of the devil. Suddenly there was a whole lot less insight into the dynamics of the troubled family and a whole lot more of sweet flirtatious moments between a befuddled Adam Sandler and the lonely doe-eyed maid — only after she started making the effort to learn English, of course. We stopped caring about whether or not the neglected, overweight daughter was ever going to be comforted and reassured that she is beautiful and important. We stopped looking at what it’s like for a woman to leave behind the comfort of her latin community so she can provide a better life for her daughter, what those challenges are like especially when she can’t verbally communicate with anyone. We skipped the grandmother’s struggle and triumph over alcohaulism altogether, like it was never even an issue. Suddenly all we really care about is whether or not the married man with a family is gonna get with the exotic wallflower who really appreciates him. The fact that they don’t actually have a full-fledged affair is irrelevant, he’d spent months pining for her in his heart while he’s MARRIED WITH KIDS and maybe it’s just my Godness kicking in but to me, that’s the same thing. We’re now watching a romantic comedy where Adam Sandler does his quirky sensitive Jew thing to get the girl (the same game we watch him pull in every movie where he lands an impossibly hot girl) and it just makes me annoyed.

I’m getting really sick, by the way, of this frat boy delusion we keep seeing in romantic comedies by guys like Sandler and Vince Vaughn and Jack Black and Jon Faverau where the schlubby loser keeps getting laid? How are we supposed to believe that these chubby underdog ex-fratboys keep landing beautiful, successful women? Are there no more hot guys that fit the bill? When did love handles, jowls, and neck fat jump to the top of Jennifer Anniston’s Requirements To Fuck Me List? I thought women didn’t want no scrubs. Don’t even get me started on Zach Braff’s new movie The Last Kiss. Am I REALLY supposed to be rooting for a guy who wants to put his beautiful pregnant fiance on hold while he runs out and romances someone hotter? Is this basically what happens to his average joe character from Garden State — he got the unattainable girl and became a little overconfidant and thus forgets how, if there’d been hotter more successful guys around at the time, he might’ve never even stood a chance in the first place? Whatever, I’m a hater. Don’t look suprised.

I’m all for plot twists and suprises. I actually love it when a movie goes someplace I didn’t expect it to — again, like in Family Stone, we thought it was about this and this and it ended up having a lot of layers — but if it’s not done well, ugh. I just hated where the movie went in its 2nd half. Fucking hated it. Infidelity runs abound, the white people NEVER made an effort the learn Spanish, the fat daughter is never redeemed, and the little girl narrating the movie gets yanked out her chance for a bright future all b/c her mom kissed the boss’ husband. I don’t get why people loved this movie so much. It left me feeling confused and shaken, the only thing I was sure about is that keeping it real (if you’re ethnic) means choosing poverty over higher education and cheating on a spouse who cheated on you is okay.

I think I need to have a talk with my Mom.

Got really caught up in normal things all day. Slept in late, ran some errands, reorganized my closets, dealt with a bunch of work-related bullshit ON MY DAY OFF, tried to get a new TV for my bedroom and ended up clashing with the unhelpful salesperson @ Circuit City. Spent all afternoon letting my frustrations mount and calling everyone I knew to vent my outrage; it wasn’t until a friend with whom I’d spent the 11th called to say he was thinking of me that I realized what today was. My mind wiped itself clean, perspective slid into frame, and I spent the rest of the day feeling stupid for getting so lost in things that don’t matter, but mostly just feeling very humbled to still be here.

“That was a memorable day for me, for it made great changes in me. but it is the same way with any life. imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns and flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
—- Charles Dickens

Went to a Jack Spade sample sale today afterwork. Some private sale they were doing in this old empty townhouse on the east side, so it wasn’t crazy crowded like they normally are. It was strange and fun going from floor to floor, room to room and finding every space packed with merchandise. All the closets had the Jack Spade coats and jackets, the shelves had hats and scarves on them. Luggage and bags spread all around random furniture, wallets laying along the hallway floors. I was picking up anything and everything I saw, just checking for pricetags like a crazy person. At one point I even grabbed one of those oldschool rotary phones to see if it was for sale, but it was actually connected to the wall. I still pictured it sitting in my apartment though. Such a cool way to sell their stuff, they were giving out drinks to shoppers too. I took a break from my treasure hunt and stepped out onto the beautiful old terrace on the 2nd floor, looked out over the sunny street block, and for a moment I got a tiny feeling of what it might be like to be a person who actually lived in the house. Old east side money, eccentric family secrets, Victorian digs, servants quarters in the back. It was very Royal Tenenbaums, especially their house.

I left with two giant shopping bags stuffed with purchases aplenty: 3 messenger bags (multicolored duplicates of the ones I already have), 2 luggage bags (for what?! I don’t go ANYWHERE), and numerous wallets and keychains (who needs more than one? me, apparently). I’m a marketing firm’s wet dream; put a Jack Spade tag on something and I’ll totally buy it.

Met up with Another Chris I Know for a late lunch and went to see The Covenant. It was exactly as awful as I was hoping it would be. Abercrombie gone goth, with plenty of angst, hair gel, black magic, and strapping young bucks sauntering around the locker room showers. Seriously, besides underage European pornstars, who looks that hot @ 17? I can’t wait for the DVD.

Could have sworn I saw Randy tonight @ 34th Street waiting for the train across from my platform. He looked fit, taller than I remember, and with longer hair, the kind of mod haircut I remember he used to pray he could grow out. I watched him for a good minute and a half before I was sure it wasn’t actually him, and my stomach did this weird thing. Strange. We haven’t run into each other in over 2 years, I don’t really know what we’d say if we did. Not much curious about it either, that’s a ghost I don’t mind leaving in the past. But It never ceases to amaze me how New York is so much smaller than you imagine yet sometimes just as big as you need it to be.

In current news of my heart, I sat across from P at lunch the other day for 2hrs, laughing and listening to him talk, and I realized that he’s my best friend.

Famous folks I helped today:

Mister DJ song pon de Replay! She looks like a beautiful alien.

I don’t watch his show and have never really followed his career, so I’m not sure why I find him so fucking sexy. I will flip right past his ass in a magazine but hell, up close in person he’s just sexy hypnotic. Cute little body on him too.

She’s skinner than my iPod nano. I almost asked her what it was like to have sex with Might Fine Matt but decided it’d be best to hang onto my job and just pull back. So I punched her in the mouth. After suffering through her scenes in Superman I figure it makes us even.

The last of my decadent 3 day weekends have dried up on me and dammit, I’m back to working the bullshit schedule of a mere mortal. What a glorious way to spend my summer, though — work didn’t have me sweating nor stressing for shit. Summer is ending and I’m cool with it, I’m already enjoying the change in season. Something about New York in the fall makes me wanna run out and buy school supplies. Those mini-Sharpies are the shit.

Despite the fact that I’d seen a single episode, I’ve been firmly denying the hype over Battlestar Galactica ever since the show started; it’s just the way the hater in me operates. But when Entertainment Weekly and Best ‘Week Ever won’t shut the fuck up about something I know absolutely nothing about? that’s when I buckle down and spend 3 days watching the DVD’s. I spent all weekend igoring my laundry, my dog, and my boyfriend b/c I just needed to get into the loop. The show is straightup awesome and long live DVD’s cuz commercial-free viewing is the only way to get engrossed. If everyone in the universe could just have Apollo serve them breakfast in bed (buttnekked) every morning, I do believe that perhaps there’d be no need for intergalactic war. All you frakking need is love.

P moved all his stuff uptown to his new apartment today, a nice 12 minute stroll from my place. His movers dicked him around all fucking day long, he finally just got tired of waiting, gave up, and came over to mine — of course that’s when they call to say they’re ready (11:00pm). He’s out there with them right now, moving everything in the rain. (Should I be a good boyfriend and go help?) But whatever. Living just blocks away and having such quick access to my boyfriend is gonna make life pretty damn wonderful. I’m so excited!

Some folks meet that someone special and get married. Some move in together. We’re getting there, small steps small steps.