80s film reel

It's rare that I have the patience to sit down and watch an entire movie, but this weekend I stayed glued to the TV for the entire requisite two hours because of Daniel Larusso and his crazy ass pelican kick. This movie took. me. back. I mean, I really don't think I've seen The Karate Kid since I had My Little Ponies. Certain movie images somehow crawl into your brain, nestle down for a long stay, and then generate some vicious deja vu when you watch it again 12 years later. Now my memory is just a constant rotation of short-term input. But as kids our minds were cavernous. I started thinking about the movies I watched the most as a kid, trying to remember what stuck around in my brain and what got kicked out later by calculus rules and postcolonial literature.

I may have watched these movies with my parents or maybe some of them I actually liked...I don't really remember. What I do know is that it's a peculiar list to define someone's childhood. Shouldn't I have been watching stuff like The Land Before Time? Here is the Top 10, in no particular order:

1) Baby Boom (1987). Diane Keaton somehow acquires a baby and quits her high-power job to move to the country, where she falls in love with a vet and makes a lot of baby food.

2) It (1990). Stephen King movie starring the clown that scarred me for life. For a year after I saw this movie, I was afraid to go in the bathroom (he could be hiding behind the door), to sleep alone (um, clowns love it when kids are alone), and to sleep with my mom when I was too scared (because she could be It, disguised...duh).

3) Beetlejuice (1988). I think about this movie anytime I see someone with a little head. Which is not all that often, fortunately.

4) War of the Roses (1989). Michael Douglas and his chin fight Kathleen Turner to the death during a bitter divorce. There's some irony in this making the list.

5) Roxanne (1987). A witty firefighter with an obscenely large nose falls in love with a foxy astrologist that's new to town. Love you, Steve Martin.

6) Dirty Dancing (1987). Twenty years later, I still love to shake it on the dance floor.

7) The Little Mermaid (1989). Ariel is single-handedly responsible for me having more redheaded friends than anyone else...ever.

8) Working Girl (1988). Tess McGill is a young whose boss steals her business proposal. More importantly, Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford are hott.

9) Overboard (1987). Consequently, I named my first goldfish Goldie.

10) The Princess Bride (1987). How I learned that the only way to really prove your love is by fighting a rodent in a firey sandpit.

So it's a quirky collection. But I'm dying to know if anyone else saw these movies as much as I did! Or was everyone else watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

What's on your list?

fun friday fact

It's Good Friday, which means half days (for me) and holidays (love you, Jesus!) are on the horizon! I'm signing off with a little fast fun marketing fact I learned this week:

Q: When bodywash was introduced to Europe, it was a smash hit. When it hit American markets, it tanked. Why?




think....




think a little harder....





okay you probably won't get it.




A: Europeans tend to be more comfortable with their bodies and thus had no problem squirting liquid bodywash onto their hands and lathering up. Americans are generally more prudish, so they were uncomfortable using their hands to suds up their privates. They preferred a buffer, like a bar of soap or a washcloth. SO to make bodywash a functional product, the loofah was invented!

Now. I bet you feel a whole lot better about starting your weekend.

kermit was wrong

It's actually pretty easy being green. After being in Austin (consistently ranked in the Top 10 Greenest Cities) for about six months, I finally tried to get with the program when I bought my bike. It's only 2 miles and there's a path almost the whole way that keeps me out of rush hour traffic. Perfect. I think spring hit here in, like, December, so double perfect. And I get to watch stoners playing disc golf for a good portion of the ride—added value! So I decided to be "greener" by trying to ride a few days a week...while the weather's still cool at least.

Just when I was confident in my admittedly small effort to becoming more green, then I got totally guilt-tripped in my communications class. We have to do these ongoing presentations, which I normally block out until I heard one woman quote this: Using one reusable bag each time you go to the store will save an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime. Walgreen's has some great ones (green, of course) for $.99. Not bad, so I picked some up...and even used them.

So you'd think I'd feel pretty good about this, right? But now it's like everywhere I turn, I feel like I could be doing more. This weekend I felt like I'd totally failed as an eco-conscious consumer when the HEB bagger stuffed my groceries in plastic bags, which she then consolidated into my reusable bags. I mean, seriously? Why would I give you these bags to use if I actually just wanted you to fill them with plastic? And now everytime I drive my dad's truck (the Goliath of gas guzzlers), I feel like I just shat on Mother Earth.

Then I started wondering how many paper towels I'd use in my lifetime, and how many gallons of good water are being wasted during a long shower, and if foil was worse than siran wrap. Does it take more energy to recycle my plastic water bottles than it's worth? Is there any possible way to get a recycling bin at my apartment? Should I be buying organic food or does that even have anything to do with conservation? Did I vote for someone who ripped up a forest for a highway? Damn. It looks like the hardest thing about being green is growing a conscience.

Fate, stop being such a bitch

Fate and I are in a fight. When She shows me signs, I usually try to be respectful and pay attention. Most of the time I trust Her, whole-heartedly, without question. But now I'm just pissed.

Yesterday, I got grounded for the third time while trying to skydive. The first time (18th birthday), we didn't even make it into the suits before storm clouds appeared. The second time, we were harnessed and ready to go, and then the wind picked up and shut operations down. I realized maybe the greater cosmos was working in my favor and that skydiving just wasn't in the cards for me...

...until this weekend, when I planned out a surprise skydiving trip for Brian's birthday. I told Fate I was just working late at the office. Silly me...as if She's that naive.

We woke up early, snacked on the way, and drove through the country for an hour before arriving at a rural detour auspiciously marked Texas Skydiving Center. I ignored that nagging feeling that Fate was hot on my trail, reading my text messages and snooping through my e-mail.

I started to wonder if She had tracked me down when:

1) A 14-year-old handed us the sign-your-life-away form and then her 18-year-old cohort told us to go wait in the pavilion. No other instructions. Just go wait to jump.

2) Moments later, the head honcho (if a head honcho is allowed to wear burnt orange sweatpants gathered at the ankle) caught up with us and asked us to come watch a short safety video. Yeah, I guess that would help, wouldn't it?

3) The video featured Father Time, with his three-foot-long beard, telling us how not to die. And that if we did die, our loved ones should go ahead and not sue this place.

4) There was a rooster on the doorstep.

5) Head Honcho was toting one of those gallon jugs that you only see at Texarkana gas stations. G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S.

6) Three donkeys wandered up and parked it in the drop zone. And no one seemed weirded out.

7) Finally, the clientele. I won't expound, other than to say we were the preppiest crackers there.

By the time the jumpmaster walked out to the Cessna with a wind gauge in hand, that was the last straw for me. 25 m.p.h. winds had come out of nowhere to blow us all back home. Oh hello Fate. I...uh...well...okay I'm sorry. I lied. I know you're smarter than that. It's just that sometimes I need a little freedom and you're always on my ass!

So lesson learned. When Fate gives you the finger for the third time, maybe you shouldn't try to take matters into your own hands. I doubt my skydiving attempts are totally over, but I know I'm tired of fighting for now. Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned, right?

quarter-life resolution

I kind of hate making New Year's resolutions. What makes December 31st a hallmark in everyone's life? Plus, I'd like to think I'm living my life every day as I want or hope to be, and that I'm not entitled to wait to change my lifestyle until I flip a calendar page. New Year's resolutions mean slacking off. They mean you didn't get it right the first time around and were too lazy to change before you were supposed to.

I prefer to let resolutions arise where they're needed within the year. My birthday this year happened to fall near a very clear demarcation of then and now. So I've been marinating. 24 managed to pack in a whole lot more change, devastation, blessings, unemployment, deliverance, and newness than I saw coming. Some of it was crazy-scary, but one year later...my family is healthy, I have an incredible boyfriend, and 78705 is turning out to be a pretty nice zip code after all.

My 24-year-old self found out that being an eternal optimist can mean letdowns disguise themselves as crushing blows. So here's my resolution for being 25: assuage disappointment. I have a better grasp on this hope-defeat seesaw now. I'm hoping to build a new playground toy, maybe more like a slide, so when I'm let off at the bottom it's not too much of a drop, and maybe it won't hurt all that bad if I'm not ready. Wish me luck.

popping my political cherry

Tonight will be a first for me. You'd think by 25 (ok, almost 25) I'd have done this already, but I shamefully regret to inform you that tonight I'll be watching my first political debate. After years of eschewing politics altogether (that's what having two cops, a lawyer, and a judge in your family will do to you), I guess it's about time I start caring. I can't even vote in the stupid primary because I'm still registered to vote in Tennessee. Sloth. But since this debate will be just down the street, I care more now. Proximity will do that to you. Business school will do that to you. Besides, 25 years of apathy is just kind of embarrassing.

I'm excited about tonight for more than just the idea that Texas could make or break this primary. That's great and all, but I'm more interested to digest their tactics and see just how politely two people can fight. Maybe they'll even be good models for substantiating my own arguments. I've always appreciated a Devil's advocate, and I'm ready to be impressed.

...and cupid winced

I never had a Once. I never even had an Almost Once. I always fantasized that family trips would lead me to the man of my dreams, maybe for just one week, and definitely in some exotic locale. We could scuba dive and feed feral monkeys and watch the waves crash and pledge to never forget each other.

Since the last family vacay my parents and I went on involved grave rubbings in Salem, it's probably better that cupid missed that twisted boat.

I loved this movie though. It's heartbreaking to think of quelling that perpetual tug, the distance of a "what if." This is why I love depressing romantic movies so much....this is how Brokeback Mountain made my top favorites. There's something so much more visceral about love separated by societal hatred than there is about Jennifer Lopez realizing her soulmate is a sneaky groom whose wedding she's planning. Give me a break.

I realize it's a little fucked up for me to prefer Brad Pitt to find his wife's head in a box at the end of Seven than for him to just arrest Kevin Spacey and have life return to status quo, but so be it. There's no heart tugging in happily-ever-after and, really, there's not much reality in that either. You might have your heart broken 10 times before it fits perfectly into someone else's. Of course, not everyone wants to pay to have it vicariously broken through a fictional character. But I do. I'll pay $8.50 to stick my heart in a blender while Tristan Ludlow's brother, first love, and second love all die tragically and doom him to an estranged, desolate life. I'll do it twice.

Don't get me wrong, I love The Notebook as much as the next girl. I'm not completely anti-chick flicks, and I am certainly far from being a hardass, but if I'm going to cry, I just want it to be over a plot worth the Kleenex.

And tonight, Brian and I will be watching Six Feet Under. Happy Valentine's Day :)