Because movie theaters oftentimes have air conditioning

This summer, my roommate and I had the thrifty-yet-miserable idea to go without air conditioning.  This being the last day of August, is it too soon to high-five, clink chilled champagne glasses and proclaim “We’ve done it”?  Maybe not, because we deserve some goddamn champagne.  It was hot.  I mean, seriously hot.  Hotter in this apartment than it was outside.  Our only screened window opens directly onto a tar roof, the heat waves rising off it turning into the mocking faces of grade-school bullies in our head-addled hallucinations.  Immediately upon entering the house, we were forced to either strip off all our clothes and lie motionless on the kitchen floor or die of heat stroke.  And it wasn’t a sexy-naked, ohhh no.  It was a sweaty-sobbing-heat-rash type of naked.

To beat the heat – and negate the whole idea of saving money – I spent a lot of time seeing movies.  And here are my heat-addled reviews!

(Note: it’s hard to dislike a movie when you spend the entire time dreading the end because you’ll be forced back into the heat.)

Orphan (2x)

That one part?  When the fall in the ice-covered pond?  Jealous!

Verdict: Ice cold

District 9

Them prawns don’t have air conditioning.  Poor prawns.

Verdict: too hot.  And sweaty.  And not in a sexy way.

(500) Days of Summer

These people are attractive, and most likely have air conditioning.  Also, they live in LA, where it is probably not 100 degrees, but may be on fire.

Verdict: Even beyond the might-be-on-fire thing, let’s be honest with ourselves.  This was a crap movie.  But they sure are attractive!

Inglorious Basterds

Ah, France: a nice, cool country.  Plus, though those Nazis have been scalped, I bet their skulls feel all breezy.

Verdict: Breezy

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

boohoohooohoooo

Verdict: I want an ice age, but I can’t even get my freezer to make ice.  Because it’s too hot.  Too hot for my freezer.  Boo hoo hoooo

Back into the fray

Today’s the last day of no-school before the first day.  The last last day of summer before school.  Tomorrow, the last first day of a full year.  So long as I don’t decide to get my PhD (in what?  Student loan deferment?)

Time to really learn something and make sure this debt is worth it.

My dentist is hilarious.

What do you do during a trip to the good ol’ Midwest for your brother’s engagement party?  Why, go to the dentist for the first time in two years, of course!  Apparently, I am an excellent brusher.  Of course, it having been two years and all, I did have a cavity – my mouth collects cavities like 2nd grade girls collect Lisa Frank stickers.

Facts about my dentist:

• My dentist’s receptionist is his mother.
• My dentist took me on a tour of the office, pointing out everything he had built.  He was lying.  Joke’s on you, patient!
• While looking in my mouth for cancerous lesions, my dentist kept demanding that the radio play the song it was playing a second time.   It was a song about making money.
• While making a new appointment to get this cavity drilled out of my face, my dentist brought me a cookie.

Bastille Day

The day my thesis play is due.  Also, tomorrow.

pictured: not me, but we’re making the same face.

There’s so much pressure to write this damn play it’s immobilizing.  The play that will define my education as a playwright.  The play that will showcase my talents for the school and the public.  And my mom will see it, so there can’t be too many titties.

Titty-restrictions?!  I can’t write under these conditions!

I’ve written approximately 30 pages of Attempt #3.  I started with Attempt #1, which was thrown in the trash can after a semester’s worth of work.  By the time Attempt #2 reached the hour-long mark, there was no hope for it, and into the incinerator it went.  Attempt #3 is barely a week old, but shows some promise, so long as I can keep from panicking about the fact that it’s my thesis play.

It’s like I’m in the final 3 in Top Chef and Tom Colicchio is like, “Make the best meal ever that showcases your talents or you’ll be humiliated in front of millions of people.”

sing it, sister.

So: good luck to me.  And remember – if it’s not perfect, THEY’RE ALL GONNA LAUGH AT YOU.

Back to typing!

I Watch Movies!

Being a film snob is tough work, mostly because I don’t like being bored, and you can’t just jump into watching an oldtimes “important” movie when you’d rather eat a giant bag of lemonheads while watching cheap horror and Die Hard.  But doesn’t every young girl dream of being able to wear her black beret just-so, and lord her knowledge of the auteurs over her (soon-to-be-no-longer) friends?

But you know what, berets are pretty dumb-looking.

EJJIKK REVIEWS A MOVIE EVERYONE ELSE HAS ALREADY SEEN:

STAR TREK

(2009, dir. J. J. Abrams)

I was totally into Next Generation as a kid, and my parents gave me Picard action figure as a pointed gesture to try and get me to realize how damn bossy I was.  Didn’t work, but he did have working knees and elbows!  Nice one, Picard, I always knew you were the best.  So going into seeing this movie that everyone else has already seen, I didn’t really know much about anyone, save that Spock has pointy ears.  But that didn’t stop me from enjoying it!  No, sir!  I was all AWWWW SHIT YEAH boom bang crash GO ON WITH YOUR BAD SEXY SELF CHRIS PINE zoooooom kick punch WOOOOOO DANGER kick punch NAKED DANGER kick punch – etc.

I hear there are some problems with this movie, accuracy-wise.  Good thing I don’t know enough about the original Star Trek to give a shit!  This movie has everything a good movie needs:  action sequences, in space.

SCORE: A hundred stars!  (a mere hundred, because Iron Man was totally better, and so was Die Hard and Dark Knight and Casino Royale and Terminator 2 and Serenity.  But not Watchmen.  Ugh.)

Of course, it’s no I Know Who Killed Me, but what is?

Tried & True: things you can say and do to embarrass yourself!

Some people – me, for instance – are able to flit through life without worry, knowing that no matter what situation they may find themselves in, they will always have their good looks, charm, and sensible wardrobe to save them from utter despair.  Because I lead such a blessed and luckful life, I often find myself saying some horrifically embarrassing things – but I don’t care!  Oh, no!  These things don’t keep me up for hours each night as I replay them over and over in my mind, torturing myself with my inadequacies!  No, I sleep very well, thank you.

Like, for instance, that time I tried to sound especially smart in an essay and claimed that whatever-it-was had been “bisected into three parts.”  O, how they howled with laughter.  Or here’s another good one – literally begging someone attractive for makeouts!  Literally, begging.  And the pity-makeouts that follow?  Not what I was going for.  (Note to self: next time, drink less whiskey).

The things you say are, of course, incomparable to the horrible things you do that will haunt you from middle school to forever.  Like that time you, an unaccomplished gymnast, were trying to look really awesome and do a doubly scissor-kick type thing on the high balance beam, but missed the landing and caught yourself on the beam with your mons.  Then slid off and fell on the floor.  While everyone was watching.  At least they were worried for you and not laughing, right?  Well, except for the accomplished and attractive and popular gymnasts, who snickered as they chalked up for the uneven parallel bars.

Or what about that time you were trying to look cool on your first date ever – ice skating, what a terrible idea – and you let Handsome McWhatshisname spin you around in a circle, only to fall flat on your skinny-jeansed ass and skid 20 feet away?  In front of all his friends?  Cute!  Of course, this is shortly after you called his house and tried to seem cool by knowing his voice, only to discover 10 minutes into the conversation that you were really talking to his incredibly confused brother.  What a catch you are!

Of course, I don’t know what this kind of mortification feels like, because my life is perfect and wonderful in every way.  But if you feel that deep-seated, haunting nausea in the bottom of your guts that makes you wince and reel at any reminder of your many embarrassments, may I suggest taking the high road:  cocktails.  At home.  Alone, preferably.  And lock that phone away.  God knows how many awful texts you’ve sent while drinking and lonely.

Happy Corned Beef & Cabbage Day

I always get pinched.  Doesn’t matter how much green I’m wearing.  It’s put me a little on edge.  So keep your distance on this, the Tuesday of Greenest Beers – I’m taking the “punch first, questions later” approach to possible pinchers.

pictured: stranger ingesting poison-green beer

Delving

Just when I thought grad school was making me smarter all the time, I get a progress report from my script analysis teacher telling me I don’t delve.  Still. We write a short paper a week for that class – approximately – and I haven’t delved once since the beginning of the school year.  Not once!

Here I thought I’d been delving all along.  In fact – you know what?  Screw this!  I was delving.  I just delved so far, I went full circle, and it looked like I hadn’t gone anywhere at all.  But if Mr. Teacher had only paid attention, he would’ve seen that I was like totally out of breath.

In order to make my delving more obvious, I have decided to adopt an essay-writing voice that is incredibly, undeniably pretentious.  Pretentious people are constantly delving, that’s why we hate them.  This plan is foolproof.

Moral:  exaggerated outward shows of undeserved intelligence and wit are all you need to get by in the world of academia.  (fingers crossed!)

A must-read for every post-virgin

Okay, so.

You know what the trick is to being a truly brilliant analytical mind?

Putting in the effort to bother.  Over and over and over.

Or, you could watch those big men in football uniforms run into each other and fall down and get hurt while sharing a pitcher of cheap beer.  Really, it’s up to you.  The options are endless.