alec baldwin is stalking me

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last week i see him at this event.

on friday i went to the premiere of "suburban girl," a movie starring sarah michelle gellar and...alec baldwin.

so maybe i'm the one stalking him. subconsciously.

after all, i did feel compelled to write a bit of a post kind of defending him too.

i didn't think i had the time to stalk anyone else besides derek jeter in this town. although, with baseball season here, he does travel quite a bit. it gives me a few days of every week to concentrate on someone else...but i digress...

mr. baldwin was supposed to be at this premiere. about ten minutes into the movie it became painfully clear why he wasn't there. he and his character in the movie seemed to have a lot in common with each other. to the point where alex badwin had to deliver lines about nasty ex-wives and spiteful daughters. in one scene sarah michelle gellar sees him on the phone and when he comes back to the dinner table she says, "who were you talking to?" and he says, "i was leaving a message for my daughter." this line caused uproarious laughter that kind of faded into a certain uncomfortableness. it was awkward to see him deliver those lines, people didn't know what to do with them, and they ended up being completely distracting.

distracting to the point where you find it hard to imagine this film getting picked up for wide release. not to mention the fact that the movie was only decent. i wanted it to be a lot better than it was. and for all its sweet moments, there was a lot of poor editing. it was broken up into vignettes with titles like some woody allen film. also, along the woody allen lines, it was very very new york. and living here, that gets kind of distracting in itself. everywhere they go you recognize and then get stuck thinking, "that was the strand, right? or was that the barnes and noble on 18th st?"

so there's my review of a movie you'll all probably never see. bon appetit!

buying fake jeans

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as some of you know, new york is home for everything counterfeit. purses? of course. watches, absolutely.

what you see less often are designer jeans.

yes, the washes look good. all the tags look pretty much the way they should. the tags are a perfect match. so, by all appearances, these fake jeans look GOOD.

until you try them on. but that's the thing, most people don't try them on. there's a table set up on a busy corner and the guys selling don't always give you the opportunity to try them on. you pay them $40 and pray.

but i was wandering through soho, on my way to meet justin and found a table of them on spring street. i stopped, perused, and heard a guy say, "you can try them on if you want." i asked where and he directed me to an italian restaurant where they "had a deal" with the managers and we could walk on in and use their bathroom. all i had to do was leave my cell phone.

i was supposed to meet justin any second so i handed my cell phone over and told the guy, "if it rings, answer it and tell the guy on the other end of the line to meet me here." with that, i was headed to the italian place.

the bathroom was TINY...and...the jeans fit horribly. huge in the waist, not enough room in the thighs. they were just a mess. by the time i got back to the table, justin was there and waiting for me, i handed over the jeans, got my phone back and we went on our merry way.

i did, however, think it was hilarious that justin called me to have some huge black dude with a super low voice answering my phone. he said it scared the shit out of him. and when the guy said, "dude, i'm selling jeans on the street, she's in a changing room come on over" he had to laugh at himself.

only in new york kids, only in new york...

some seriousness

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in lieu of the debate tonight, a political diatribe.

i just finished watching john mccain's interview on the daily show.

not only was it irritating because he talked over jon the entire time and wouldn't give him a chance to ask mccain anything (something i'm sure his truly idiotic press people advised him to do, lest he get caught actually having to answer a tough question), but then he pulled the "you're not supporting our troops" card.

you know what mccain? fuck you. then he says, "all i'm saying is that if you talk to these young men and women who are fighting, they'll tell you they think it's a worthwhile cause and that they're fightin' for freedom."

my brother was a first division marine. he was part of the group that left the day after new years (when bush didn't "declare" war until after march) and was part of the group that stormed baghdad, ripped down a statue, the action of which prompted some stupid people to declare the "mission accomplished."

my brother killed people. he watched his friends die. and for what? it is a survival tactic to tell yourself that you weren't sent halfway across the world because some investigators and a bunch of people in the white house made up some stuff about the existence of weapons of mass destruction. you tell yourself that you are "bringing freedom" because you don't want to have to acknowledge that your life is being toyed with.

when your tours are extended, when the hospitals you come home to when injured look like 18th century brothels, when there is no plan for this war other than sending another 20,000 people over and when your president vetoes the bill that funds your stay in iraq (not to mention ensuring that you're protected and adequately trained)...it is all you can do to stay sane.

you have to feel like you're there to provide the most precious thing that we, as americans, have. "we are liberators," my brother says, mechanically, because that's what he's been told a thousand times. i can tell he's clinging to this idea because he needs it. he needs to know he didn't make the trip, risk his life, and come back mentally drained and damaged because of a shifty, lying white house. and i nod and tell him i'm just happy he made it home in one piece. even though he hasn't been the same person since (let's not even get me started on how inadequate the counseling post-combat is).

the house and the senate, those people we've elected to represent our country, have passed a bill supporting our troops.

and bush is going to veto that billl. and i'll be physically ill if i have to listen to any more republican assholes accusing the american people of "not supporting the troops" purely because the american people don't agree with the president or his followers.

re: all this alec baldwin mess

you can hear the message here.

i feel bad for alec baldwin, just a little bit.

where everyone says, "he's the worst father ever! he called her a pig!" i'm sitting here saying, "he could be worse. he could have used a lot worse words if he were that bad a person."

i listened to that message, and i acknowledge that i don't know what's going on and what led to that breakdown. it just broke my heart to hear him talking about how he calls her twice a day, at a certain time, and that's the only contact he gets with her and she doesn't even turn her phone on.

this girl is obviously being put in the middle of a nasty separation. she's living with her mother who does nothing but talk shit about her father all day (and talking to the press just as much). and then he's got his wife leaking this private message for all the world to hear. bitch.

so he calls and is yelling and says he's hurt and that he feels like a fool and that she's a "rude little pig."

you know what would have been worse? having a father who didn't give a shit. who didn't fight for custody, who didn't pay child support, who never wanted contact with you ever again. that's the kind of father i had. i actually just call him a sperm donor because he was little more than that.

at least this guy cares enough to be upset...

it all makes so much more sense now...

George W. Bush, January 2006: "There's progress. And it's important progress and it's an important part of our strategy to win in Iraq."

Bush, November 2005: "Iraq is making incredible political progress."

Bush, October 2005: "Iraqis are making inspiring progress."

Bush, September 2005: "Iraq has made incredible political progress."

Bush, April 2005: "I believe we're making good progress in Iraq."

Bush, March 2005: "We're making progress."

Bush, September 2004: "We're making steady progress."

Bush, July 2003: "We're making progress. It's slowly but surely making progress."

Actually, y'know what I think the president's problem is? Perhaps his definition of the word "progress." I have the reference book he uses when he doesn’t know what a word means: Mistaken P. Wrongingston's Diktionary of English. Let's see...ah, here we are. "Progress: Chaos caused by one's own incompetence that's portrayed as the result of others' malfeasance."

---The Daily Show

fun with keywords!

chester french, i get. falling lady, obviously. it's that last one that kills me. i imagine some person with an eating quirk thinking that that quirk makes him a genius. or some parent who wants to label their child a "baby einstein" because she eats her peas before she eats her meatballs. idiots.

glamour

i went to a charity event to support the old vic last night, the english theater where kevin spacey is the artistic director.

it was a star-studded event. in attendance: kevin, BILL CLINTON!, mary stuart masterson (who looked amazing and had the cutest cream colored jacket on), alec baldwin (who was rude, angry-looking, and on his cell phone most the time), sam mendes, gabriel byrne, and on, and on.

i wore a little black dress, my new favorite shoes, an some red hoop earrings.

I've heard kevin can be difficult to work with and a bit curmudgeony but he was sweet and energetic and so funny all evening as he was trying to get higher bids for some of the prizes up for auction.

the cater-waiters were good looking, but i have to say without a doubt, having been at a few events with bill clinton now, the best looking people in the room were the president's security detail. he has some HOT men keeping watch over him. they're always so serious and tough looking and they make me want to do bad things so that they're forced to restrain me.

oooh! and they also gave the anya hindmarch "i am not a plastic bag" bags to the winners at the auction. v. cool.

the little things

because work is so boring, one of our highlights for the week, and i kid you not, is finding out what new stuff is loaded into the vending machine.

we got orange hostess cupcakes a few months back. ick.

those made me think about the chocolate ones. and it became a "thing" with us. mainly, because we had nothing better to focus our energy on. so we accosted the vending machine guy to beg for them and they never came. and i had a co-worker call the company and they never came.

but today folks. today is my lucky day. if nothing else goes right this week, let it be said that it was still a good one because

CHOCOLATE HOSTESS CUPCAKES HAVE ARRIVED IN THE VENDING MACHINE!*

huzzah!

*and yes, i know i could have gone and bought some somewhere else, but i only want them if they come with the convenience of being 10 steps away and $.75.

160 killed in massacre...

taken from wonkette:

Normal life came to a screeching halt today in America as news of an awful mass murder spread across the nation. Politicians canceled rallies, Congress delayed impeachment proceedings and office workers stopped their usual banal chit-chat about teevee shows or whatever for impassioned if still ill-informed discussions of gun control, violence and the dangers of creative-writing programs.

Ha ha, just kidding! This massacre happened in Iraq, which we totally ignore even though it’s all our fault.

A series of coordinated bombings in central Baghdad included one particularly deadly blast that immediately killed 115 people — mostly moms and kids shopping for food. Also killed by that bomb were the construction workers rebuilding part of the al-Sadriyah market that was destroyed by another bomb two months ago. It’s the single bloodiest day since the magical American Surge “secured Baghdad.”

Carnage in Iraq as 160 confirmed dead [Times of London]

too cute

i didn't want to like this website...

but i did.

i might actually go buy the book from the website alone...

happiness = red patent leather

i own these shoes.

and they make me ridiculously happy.

is that wrong?

i don't believe in god

but some days, i try to make myself believe that there's a heaven.

and today, that i want to believe there is a hell for this guy to go to. he needs to suffer.

the more i read about the virginia tech massacre, the worse it gets.

beauty guinea pig part 1: in which i realize i'm a masochist

i'm a bit of a junkie. a beauty junkie. and both in bed and in life, i always say i'll try anything once. this series details the spa/betterment/prettying procedures i've had the good fortune to experience. and the ones i'd rather cut myself than do again.

remember this?

well, it's spa week here in new york and i did it again. i know, i know, i'm a glutton for punishment. but this time it was only $50. and each time you do it, you lose 15-20% of your hair for good. so if i manage to get this done 6 times i'll never need to shave my armpits again. each session usually costs $200 so if i keep waiting for these special sale weeks and go twice a year, it's not such a bad trade off, right?

wrong. i did my armpits on saturday and it hurt even more than i remembered. also, she did a couple swipe-overs so she got even more hair than the last time, but that means more pain than last time. imagine someone taking a rubberband and snapping it, as hard as possible, at your armpit. and imagine that person doing it about 15 times. my tolerance for pain is high and, again, i nearly told her to stop halfway through. i was tearing up, it seemed to last forever and i was sore as hell afterwards.

i'm a bit traumatized over the whole thing, but what's 15 minutes of excruciating pain for 50 hairless armpit years? it seems worth it, right? right?

doing my bikini area on wednesday, but they gave the option for a brazilian laser. which i, of course, signed up for. it's more bang for your buck...but also more pain for the ladyparts. this could get ugly...

your responsibility as an american

Matt Stoller had a beautiful post over at MyDD.com the other day.

For any person interested in politics and your role in our democracy, this is a must-read. I've excerpted part of it below but you should go and read the whole thing.

"The sickness of America belongs to every citizen of America. Every time we walk by a homeless person, or let a child go hungry, or allow an invasion of a country which causes the deaths of millions, it's our problem. We let it happen. That's what it means to be an American. We get the right to participate, but we must also take responsibility for what the polity does. This is true for other institutions as well, such as the Democratic Party. As a Democrat, I am represented by our nominee in 2008, whether I like it or not. What Senator Clinton does in that role is my responsibility, not just hers. That's what it means to be a Democrat and a citizen. You can't divorce yourself from your country or your party, and pretend that the problems we cause or let happen somehow don't belong to each of us as individuals.

This is how I see patriotism, but the consequence is very personal. I take the failures of Democratic leaders as personal failures. When they do the right thing, I take personal pride in their actions. That's what patriotic citizenship means to me; it means taking responsibility for what America does in all its aspects, while enjoying the privilege of having some incredibly tiny amount of control in affecting that outcome."

So it goes

Kurt Vonnegut died last night. So it goes.

times obit here.

my post about his interview on the daily show here.

Ting-a-ling! sir, ting-a-ling.

a missed stalking opportunity part 2: in which i fail, again, to make babies with joshua bell

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read this article.

read part 1 here. it is a damn good thing i was not at that station. i certainly would have tried to drag him into a closet somewhere.

joshua bell, why must you be so elusive? and so dreamy?

there has been an error in your favor, pass go, collect $200

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so when i got my rent bill last month it read: "$1400 due. $1400 paid. balance: $0.00"

this is strange because i hadn't yet paid rent for that month. but it looked to me like they thought i did. now let me say that there's always been a bit of a disconnect between what their computer system prints out on my rent statements and on what is actually going on. this was really obvious when my other friends were on the lease and were choosing to sometimes not pay rent and whatnot. basically, the computer that prints the bills isn't always accurate.

so i decided to wait it out. i wrote out a check for $1400, deducted it from my checkbook balance, but never sent the check in. it's sitting on my dresser as i type. wost case, i thought, was that they'd somehow realize the computer was off and ask for two months rent at the end of march. and if they tried to charge me a late fee, i'd dispute it with the statement that said i didn't owe anything and say i thought i'd paid already.

so i don't get a rent statement this month. but i call the office and ask, "hi, i'm wondering whether i've already sent in a check for next months rent, i never got a statement and i can't remember whether i sent you guys anything yet or not." "you paid already." "for next month?" "oh, no, for last month you paid. you haven't sent in a check for april yet."

so there you have it. i think i've literally been given a bonus month due to some glitch in the system. but, the conscientious person that i am, i feel like they'll still catch it sometime before my lease runs out in november and i'll have to pay then.

how long would you wait before spending that extra money? at what point should i feel safe tearing up that check and putting that $1400 back on my checking balance?

the beauty of UV

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"jasmine, you're just glowing! your cheeks are rosy, you look so healthy!"

"i went tanning and stayed in the bed a few minutes too long. i'm not glowing, i'm burned."

"oh! well, skin cancer looks good on you."

if this person knew about the blog, i'd refer them to number 3.

um, yeah

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random and unrelated to anything, peter just informed me that michael buble was on idol last night.

which is only funny to me because that republican trumpet player that i just posted about? well he MAY have been touring in michael buble's band when i met him.

maybe.

racist jasmine

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i caved in and joined facebook recently and i've been connecting with some of the most random people from my past. so i get an e-mail the other day, "hey racist jasmine! long time, no talk!" racist jasmine was my nickname in college amongst my college boyfriend's group of friends.

what did i do to be given such a decorous moniker, you ask?

one day as the "girlfriends" of a house of 5 men were making breakfast (yes, how subservient were we?) we were doling out mimosas. for the last person served, a big white guy named mike (a dead ringer for kevin smith), i had run out of champagne flutes and instead used a rocks glass.

"hey, how come mike doesn't have a wine glass?" someone asked.

in a loud, indignant tone, "because jasmine's racist!" was the first thing that came out of darling mike's mouth.

and it was SOOOOO funny that i ended up stuck with that as my nickname for the majority of my time in college.

and still, it remains.

Bush = Ass

"The bottom line is this," Bush said. "Congress's failure to fund our troops on the front lines will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines. And others could see their loved ones headed back to the war earlier than they need to. That is unacceptable to me, and I believe it is unacceptable to the American people."


No, George. The bottom line is this, your failure to approve the funding that congress has approved will mean that some of our families could wait longer for their loved ones to return home from the front lines.

That is what is unacceptable to the American people. Ass.

the arbiter

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men, i will judge you based on:

the ringer for your phone
your grammar
how well you tip at restaurants
your feelings towards cats
what kind of shoes you're wearing
what books you read (if you don't read, i won't bother with you)
the art on your wall
your political leanings


...that being said, all this judging goes out the window if you make me laugh enough.*

*unless you're a republican. i really can't date republicans. however, i slept with a republican once. he was a musician, jazz. so of course, i assumed he'd lean left. and the next morning as we lazed around his hotel room, discussion turned to the civil rights act (don't ask) and it was all downhill from there. the guy was a total neocon. ick. not even the fact that he was a trumpet player outweighed the negatives here (see number 65).

take me out to the ballgame

so the yankees home opener was yesterday.

this means many many MANY hours of jeter watching for the next several months. this, folks, is a good thing.

andy pettitte is back and even though he's a god-freak, the guy is still pretty handsome.

which brings me to mariano rivera. i've always thought mariano was so cute. he's kinda shy, and has these big doe eyes. and whenever he's in a really stressful closing situation, he looks kinda scared and i always have a strong desire to go give the guy a big hug. i adore him.

but lately i've been seeing his face plastered all over the subway on posters with sayings in spanish that are all about believing in god and reading the bible. he's a bible banger too?!

eh, you can't win them all.

but that's the thing about mariano. he can, literally, win them all. he puts those batters to sleep and for that, he gets to keep my devotion for a while longer. creepy god stuff notwhithstanding.

chester french

i am obsessed. their songs are like crack. obsession wouldn't be the right word. i am addicted.

i was joking with peter dewolf about how i'd go through withdrawal while i was in chicago this weekend. and peter, the chivalrous little enabler that he is, e-mailed them to get the mp3s of their songs for me. before long i had some yummy stuff in my inbox. huzzah for peter!!

this band's name does right by me. i love the name chester. and i'm a francophile. what's not to like?

anyway, they're not touring or anything...because they're still IN COLLEGE. at harvard. so they're obviously not too bright. good thing they have this burgeoning music career to fall back on.