Sorry.

I wanted to post something really cute and actually taken from a journal entry I wrote on August 31st 1997, but I'm trying to be neat now and I can't find anything.

Random thought: I was thinking today about that show from a couple of years ago starring Geena Davis called Commander In Chief. I was really into that show. I'm a fan of Geena Davis in general. Did you know she had her own show for a little bit? Whe nI think CELEBRITY, Geena doesn't pop up first in my head but she had her own namesake show so that counts for something. Thanks to youtube for this gem. It can't possibly be the real opener. I mean, I really really hope it is, but it seems a little ridiculous.

The funniest video of my morning

Thanks to Micky for making my morning by sending me the link for this piece of wonderful. I love Koreans. And the girl on the left has some of the best moves I have EVER seen. She goes so insane, but you have to watch til the end.

New Jersey doesn't suck

I spent last week in a very quaint beach house on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. People rag on Jersey but I'll tell you--Beach Haven, NJ was a great place. The weather wasn't the best for the first part of the trip but the company more than made up for it. The house was cute and cozy and only one block from a beautiful beach. Every person I walked past said hello and flashed a smile. It's a family vacation destination so it was nothing like that awful MTV Truelife about the Jersey shore. It's wonderful to go to the beach or go out at night and not have to deal with obnoxious people in my demographic. Everything was so clean, and I think my boyfriend was the only person on the beach who smoked a cig.

And by far one of the most fun nights was spent doing my favorite thing ever: karaoke. Karaoke is only as fun as the people you go with and last Wednesday night, Heather, Seth, Allegra, and Christy proved to be one of the best groups to go with EVER. I sang country and being the only black person on the island, this place didn't know what to do. And then my friend Seth rocked the mic with Rosalita and those New Jersey old people went crazy.

It was really fun.

Other highlights:

• I rented a bike and nearly killed myself biking back to the beach house--against the wind and the rain.
• Our group built a fort on the beach to protect from the tide and this little girl comes over, introduces herself as "Julie" and asks if she can help. I have never seen anything as cute as her bringing us extra shovels and helping us grown-ups build the best fort ever.
• Justin found a starfish and a hermit crab during a walk down the beach. We became minor beach celebs on our walk back because at least 3 people stopped to see our cool finds.
  
• We got free internet at the beach house. Free internet is one of my favorites.
  
• Hairspray was a great film.
• There was a jigsaw puzzle there. Do you know how long it's been since I've had the time OR space to do a jigsaw puzzle? It was a hideous one, but getting that thing done was really fun for me.
• I love lobster. And I know it's not her fault that she has a shellfish allergy but I do still secretly blame my mother for not cooking it more when I was younger.
  

And here are some fun pics.

This is what I look like after 4 gins.


That's Julie, helping build the fort.

The ugliest jigsaw puzzle ever.

Our new friends, Starla and Hermie.

Beach Haven, NJ is a great place.

Props to Heather Fink for the introduction to this little piece of fabulous.

This guy

.....is why dorks always win.

This guy's name is George Hotz and even with the unfortunate name and the unfortunate hair, he is richer and more famous that I am and I have a good name and good hair. It's awesome that he's such a genius and figured this out, but it makes me wonder: how did he get a hold of so many iPhones? And what kind of spoiled brat fucks around with the $600 phone his parents just got him?

Possibly the funniest line I've ever overheard

A couple of weeks ago I was walking home eating a McDonalds ice cream cone and somewhere around 4th Street and Avenue A and this group of two guys and one girl are coming toward me. The guys look kind of gay and the girl is very much Miss Indie Rock. So imagine my surprise when I hear the girl say,

"And then he said to me, 'Lisa, I wouldn't eat your pussy for all the weed in Compton.'"

I almost choked on my cone. And the first two thoughts in my head were:

I've got to submit this to Overheard In New York

and

Lisa's pussy must be really nasty because I feel like there is A LOT of weed in Compton.

It's raining at the beach but I'm not so sad

I've been on vacation at the beach since Saturday. It's been raining non-stop since Sunday. It's also been about 23 degrees below normal temperatures for August. This is unfortunate seeing as that I packed only 3 things that will actually keep me warm because when planning for my trip I packed for August's weather not November's. So I'm in a beach house right now but I've only actually been to the beach once and felt the sun on my skin.

Luckily for me, I'm an inside person. Although I hate the gray the rain brings, I secretly love that rain is the perfect excuse to do nothing. And nothing is what I've done for the past 4 days. I've been reading a trashy romance novel with sex scenes that sometimes last for up to 5 pages as well as working on the world's ugliest jigsaw puzzle. This place is so much bigger than my apartment and comes with SATELLITE and FREE INTERNET so I'm okay with this crazy neverending rain--I have all the comforts of home here but better!

And the other night I had lobster and wore a bib.

Completely unrelated: I saw Hairspray last night. It was one of the most adorable movies I've seen in a while and I now have an embarrassingly large crush on Zac Efron. I'd been wondering what the hype was about with him and now I'm smitten. Jesus, one look in those baby blues--what's a girl to do?

Bill Murray is the man

He says "Fuck you!!" to golf car sobriety tests. Not only does he say "fuck you!" he says it in the name of America!!!


Because anytime you're in a foreign country and you get into the trouble, the best thing to do is refuse everything and say, "Not according to U. S. Law I won't!"

I'm going on vacation tomorrow!!!

I haven't been on a vacation since the summer of 2003. Every time I've had a week off I've spent it in Georgia and that's NOT a vacation and never counts as one.

But tomorrow I'll be packing up bright and early to head to a land where everyone's dreams come true: Beach Haven, New Jersey.

I know nothing except that it's right by the beach and there will be lots of families and old rich people around.

MY FAVORITES!!!


I can't wait to have nothing to do for a whole week except hang out. No emails, no phone calls, going online only when I feel like it, not because I have to. I went to Strand and dropped $25 on 4 new books that I've never heard of and my dream is to sit in a comfy chair by the beach and read like I used to before I started being a grown-up.

Also 2 thoughts:

• I secretly hate people who take the stairs two at a time like it's easy.
• My friend went to a club in Queens the other night and this girl was dancing really nasty all up on him and he thought she was a little weird. She came up to him after at the bar and said that he owed her $6 for the dances--$2 a song and they danced to 3. Apparently she and her friends come to this place and charge $2 to bump and grind on the dancefloor. I mean guess you have to make a living but $2 a dance? Give me a break.
  

Facebook did what I could not

I am addicted to Scrabble on Facebook and luckily for me and the mountains of work I need to get through today I just got this message after trying to start a new game.

How could I forget?

This morning I was very proud of myself for actually leaving the house on time. The trains were loving me and I got right onto the F and then right onto the E. I was standing at the very back of the car near the door, reading an article about Brangelina-style adoptions in New York and listening to my Singing Songs playlist on my iPod. Somewhere between 14th Street and 23rd Street I heard a chirping squeaky noise. Thinking it was the train's brakes or something, I dismissed it and went back to reading. Then the train stopped at 23rd Street and I heard the noise again, this time for longer. I turned around and right behind me in front of the door was a birdcage. It was sitting on the floor, about 3 feet square. A little lady who looked every bit of the Crazy Aunt was standing over the cage that was almost as big as her, smiling down at the bird I'm guessing but I couldn't get a good look at the actual bird from my vantage point.

The bird started singing at 34th Street. Like it started out as a little chirpety-chirp and by the time the train pulled out of the station, little Tweety was singing the sun out.

And instead of everyone on the train being pissed and grumpy, people were actually smiling and laughing.

I took my earphones out and listened to that little bird sing until the doors opened at 42nd Street.

Isn't that a great way to start a morning?

I like me some poems

On occasion, poetry is one of my secret loves. I don't get into it much but when I do I've found words to love for life.

Today I got a pedicure at lunch and I've been playing a lot of Scrabble on Facebook. This is what happens when no one is in my office and I don't have any pressing work. I also looked up a few of my favorite poems and I've posted two of them below for your reading pleasure. The first is one that has always affected me--it's really simple yet at the risk of sounding cliche, it packs a punch. It's the littlest things that people sometimes remember forever. The second I heard from a movie and fell in love with. Call me a sap, an eternal romantic, but if I ever get married, I'm reciting it at my wedding.


Incident
by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Balimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.


In and Out Of Time
by Maya Angelou

The sun has come.
The mist has gone.
We see in the distance...
our long way home.
I was always yours to have.
You were always mine.
We have loved each other in and out of time.
When the first stone looked up at the blazing sun
and the first tree struggled up from the forest floor
I had always loved you more.
You freed your braids...
gave your hair to the breeze.
It hummed like a hive of honey bees.
I reached in the mass for the sweet honey comb there....
Mmmm...God how I love your hair.
You saw me bludgeoned by circumstance.
Lost, injured, hurt by chance.
I screamed to the heavens....loudly screamed....
Trying to change our nightmares to dreams...
The sun has come.
The mist has gone.
We see in the distance our long way home.
I was always yours to have.
You were always mine.
We have loved each other in and out
in and out
in and out
of time.


And here's a fun fact that you may find amazing or lame and is also kind of unrelated to anything mentioned above--I LOVE that Rascal Flatts song "God Blessed The Broken Road" and I get all weepy every time I hear it.

Living With Cankles

I first became aware of my cankles my freshman year of high school.

Somehow I’d gotten lucky enough to go on a weekend beach trip with a handful of the most popular girls in my school. We all shared an Honors bio class taught by a teacher with a glass eye and was full of classmates who had all been plucked from the pages of an incredibly good-looking Abercrombie and Fitch ad. Our teacher asked us all one day who’d like to go to St. Simon’s for a long weekend because she had a conference and could bring a few students.

St. Simon’s is an island off the coast of Georgia, south of Savannah. I’d never been before and raised my hand immediately. I became one of the golden chosen ones and found myself on in a van under the guise of being one of the Popular People, sitting in a van and discussing the whether or not Express really made the best jeans.

All in all it was a fun weekend—one highlight was this new dance everyone was into that I learned called The Macarena. The other was the realization that I had huge ankles. And I can thank Rachael Carmichael for informing me.

We were at a beach gift shop and everyone was pouring over a display of these cute new ankle bracelets. They were thin strips of rope-like material with a string of colored jewels in a line down the middle of the bracelet. You could get different colors and the various colors meant various fun things like "green for honesty" and "blue for fun-loving." This was a time in my life when I lived by Seventeen's horoscopes and wishing on just about anything so I loved that the kitschy of these bracelets lay in the fact that you tied them around your ankle and with each knot you made you got a wish. Then when the bracelet wore out (which I figured would be about 2 weeks since they only cost $4) your wishes came true when the knots fell out.

Cute right?

We all bought one--I think I got green. We all went outside to the boardwalk to don our new purchases. Little exclaimations of "I got four knots!!" and "This thing is too big, I think" I noticed that I could only make one knot with mine and even then it was a little snug. What,were these things made for baby ankles or what? Did I get the wrong size or something?

Rachael Carmichael noticed my single knot at the same time as I did. She glanced at my ankle and then back up at my face. and she said,

"Wow Brandy, only one knot? You've got some big ankles."

I know she didn't mean to cut me to the core. I know that she was just making an observation because the next words out of her mouth were, "So are we going to get Dairy Queen now or go back to the beach?" She had simply stated what she saw.

I had big ankles.

In fact, now that I looked at all the lean slender calves leading down to perfectly bony ankles surrounding me, I wanted to disappear. I was skinny!! I'd always been skinny!! I hit 5'8 at age 10 and had only recently tipped the scales at my heaviest--119. How could I have big ankles?

I swallowed my hurt and pretended that this girl hadn't just started me down a path to hating my cankles. I had fun the rest of my weekend at the beach and Rachael Carmichael even invited me to a party at her house the following weekend.

But I came home aware for the first time that there was something I didn't like about myself.

All my friends had self-esteem issues--they were too fat, too short, too blonde, too freckly, too something. Being raised by one of the most vain women in the great state of Georgia, I was chock full of self-esteem. Even though I was skinny as a rail with huge crooked glasses and a somewhat unfortunate taste in floral print slip dresses and colored tights, I had never wanted to look different.

I told my mom and she said that it came from my dad's side of the family so if I was trying to pick a fight to save it for him. "You have fat feet, Bran. Nothing wrong with that. When my dad came home he told me that I only had big ankles because my body was getting ready to support a lot of weight. He always knows just what to say.

I became aware at age 14 and that awareness has always been in the back of my mind. And now at 26 I feel I can finally say that I am okay with my cankles. They are sturdy and they keep me grounded. Sure I feel flashes of envy when I see girls in their cute strappy sandals teetering on 4 skinny four inch heels. I will never teeter. I will never wear any type of shoe that wraps up my leg in any way.

And I'm okay with this.




I'm living with my cankles.

I went to a toga party

And in lieu of writing anything else at this moment please enjoy this photo and know in your heart that when you check back in tomorrow, I'll have lots of fun stories and jokes and coolness to update you on.



I wish I knew the girl in the background--I would send this pic to her and beg her to post it as her default photo of herself on Myspace.

Did you know.....

"More than two-thirds of Australians living outside major cities are overweight or obese, and extremely obese corpses are creating a safety hazard at mortuaries, according to two studies released Sunday."


I love odd news.

Do you like art?

I do.

And so does my friend Dan Zimmer.

He takes really great pics (one of my favorites is below). And he goes to really awesome places--Vietnam and Brazil are only two of the many awesome places he's gone a'photographing.


So if you are in NYC tonight August 7th, 2007, you should come to Jadis Winebar at 42 Rivington Street and see his all of his fantastic photos.

Support my friends people!!

Happy Birthday, you HOT MAN you.

My heart has burned for you since 1994.

I needed to laugh

Thanks to Jane for this link.

Right now.....

......I'm thinking about if my mom would think it was funny if I got her this shirt.

My new excuse

From now whenever I have to give an answer for anything I'm going to say:

"It's hard out here for a pimp."

Example:

Boss: Brandy, did you get those master tapes back from A&E yet?
Me: Not yet
Boss: We were supposed to have them two days ago.
Me: Sorry, boss. It's hard out here for a pimp.

People can be so dumb.

I mean sure, I want to see I Know Who Killed Me, so maybe I am dumb too.

But don't most people know that Harry Potter is NOT a real boy? Or perhaps they cling to the hope that JK Rowling was simply recounting a tale she heard on a visit to Bradenton, Florida 15 years ago and that Harry Potter is a real live person and you can just look in him in the FLORIDA PHONEBOOK. Below is an excerpt but read the whole thing here.

Me No Like.

I have a feeling that the kind of people who purchase handguns are

1. Not into metallic pink
2. Have never heard of Hello Kitty
3. Would maybe like to give Hello Kitty a shiner for one of her cute little eyes. And maybe a fat lip.