Putting Me In A Better Mood...

... is the fact that Mel Brooks is turning Young Frankenstein into a musical, complete with black and white set. I can't contain my excitement. I really can't.

My New Favorite Thing

... is Amos singing Mr. Cellophane in Chicago. Best. Musical moment. EVER.

D took me to see Chicago last night for my birthday. He also surprised me this morning with tulips on my desk at work, which is wonderful except that it draws attention to the fact that it is my birthday and that I have turned, ahem, 31.

I woke up this morning and when D said "Happy birthday" I said "Oh my god, only four more years..." Leave it to the PMS to make me think of fertility as my first thought in the morning.

I'm still grumpy, and I'd like not to be given that there are lovely pink tulips next to me. I must admit that they help. Also helpful is a high school student group filming what seems to be a ninja/knight dance-off short on the roof of the building next to us. Needless to say we've been watching all morning. I will miss this sort of impromptu entertainment when I no longer live in NYC.

I was so grumpy last night that I nearly exploded when I discovered that D put the extra toilet paper not in the bathroom, but rather in his clothes closet, and even worse, on a shelf that I cannot reach. Who does that, especially when we're down to nearly the last ply!?! I should not have to climb on a chair to get toilet paper in emergency situations, especially when we have a designated spot in the bathroom for extra toilet paper.

Yes, grumpy. I really can't believe I've turned 31. Pressure, folks. Biological pressure. I'm not digging this. I feel this minor panic, like "FIGURE SHIT OUT THIS MINUTE" because, seriously, time is running out. Last night I said "You know what sucks about having kids? You never get to be alone." My grumpiness makes me want to crawl into a hole and not be spoken to, interacted with, or looked upon. I kept thinking "Imagine having PMS like this and having a child. I will be a horrible mother." D said the right thing with "Probably when you have kids you don't want to be alone, and you want to be with the kid all the time." Probably. Maybe PMS gets better once your hormones have gone all crazy during pregnancy.

I don't know.

Here I am complaining about being old, and my only complaint about Chicago was that Bebe Neuworth is too old to play Roxy. She looks amazing and she did a great job, but the wrong casting. This is a progressive move but it just didn't work. Oh, I am vile today.

I just have to keep thinking of Mr. Cellophane.

Grouch

I am very grumpy today. The hormones are to be blamed for this one.

The hormones, along with the man who practices opera at 6:00 am every day. I understand that opera needs to be practiced, but must it wake me every day? He disappeared for a while and recently resurfaced. He must have been on tour or something. I hope he gets another job soon because, really, I can't wake up to this every morning.

There's also the fact that the exterminator appeared this morning at 7:00 am, wanting to spray the apartment. It is lovely that he wants to exterminate our apartment, but might we be given any sort of notice? Again, exterminations need to occur at times when people are actually around to let the exterminator into the apartment, but must they do it unannounced? My last building had the decency to post a flyer when the exterminator was coming.

There's also the fact that we can't regulate the temperature of the apartment. When its really cold out, it is a mere 57 degrees inside the apartment. When the weather is weird (like it is now), it gets wicked hot. Last night it got up to 78.2 degrees. This, I think, is fan weather, but the fans are no longer in the windows. I opened the window for a few hours and this helped, but by this morning it was an inferno again.

Forces are conspiring against me, preventing me from sleeping when I would very much like to sleep. I wanted to sleep alot last night in preparation for my big date with D tonight. We are going out for dinner to celebrate my birthday and then to see Chicago. I am very excited, but I'd be more excited if I slept more.

In an effort to make myself feel better, I have scheduled my complimentary bang trim for tomorrow afternoon. Previously I have felt that a complimentary bang trim was a bit too luxurious for me - like bang trims are scheduled only by Ladies Who Lunch etc. But oh how quickly this particular set of bangs has grown, and I am going to a wedding this weekend and would also like to be able to see cells with the microscope. I think it is ok for me to have a bang trim given how much I spent on the haircut which, incidentally, was worth every penny.

Also contributing to my vile mood are people who talk VERY LOUDLY IN THE LUNCHROOM ABOUT THINGS LIKE STRING BIKINIS AND THEIR WEDDINGS, as though everyone in the entire company wants to hear about these things. All I want to do is read my magazine in peace. I would like to relax. I would like not to hear about how much the wedding gown weighs and the extravagant honeymoon options and oh how very exhausting it is to have rich parents and in-laws and fiance and the bridesmaids you wouldn't believe which ones are the complainers etc. I want to strangle everyone. Maybe I want to declare at the top of my lungs "Nobody cares about your stupid wedding! There are more important things going on in the world. There is a war. There is an even more giant squid. Britney has checked back into rehab. And I imagine there are other things going on but I wouldn't know because your talking is preventing me from reading the paper!!!!"

See? Grumpy.

But there are more important things going on in the world, and lately my philosophy has been that I am insignificant and nothing involving my little life is really worth getting worked up over. Everything will work itself out one way or another. My life is a product of the choices I've made and the choices I will make, and its up to me to react or not react to the things around me that are out of my control. I'm choosing to not react, except, of course, when the hormones are being uncooperative. Which they are right now.

I guess one thing that makes me happy is that my super happy little pink and yellow umbrella impulse buy fits hidden inside my equally little purse.

I also ordered headphones yesterday. I am looking forward to their arrival and putting them over my ears to cancel out the noise from the lunchroom.

Blaze

Oh Ghostrider The Movie, I knew you would be bad, but I never could have imagined that you would be that bad. Oh my.

Medications

Guess what I did last night?

I went home after work and... watched TV!

I don't think I've watched TV in six months. I realized that I miss watching the news. I am not a person who is able to absorb and retain news through reading. I am much better at news via listening, and even better via watching. I heart watching the news. I wish I could always be home by 6:30 to catch world news. Yes, I could watch the local news later in the evening when I'm available, but local news is lame.

I also managed to watch various entertainment shows and oh my. Britney's bald head and ongoing meltdown! Brangelina and the kids! Brad posing shirtless! Anna Nicole's bodyguard! Christie Brinkely at some sort of school benefit on Long Island! Jenna Elfman wicked pregnant! I wish I could remember all news as well as I remember ridiculous entertainment gossip.

Another noteworthy thing that has happened since the last time I watched the news is that nearly all of the ads during the nightly news were for medication. I guess adults want to buy medication. Right.

I transitioned into watching cooking shows on some local channel and got really excited about everything. If I had the Food Network I'd watch nothing else. No, that's not true. I'd watch The History Channel and The Discovery Channel and CNN. Sometimes I want cable. I think I'd actually save money by paying for cable since I probably wouldn't go out as much. Maybe we'll get cable in MA, if we ever move to MA, which with each passing day seems less and less likely. How irresponsible can we really be? I don't yet know the answer to this question.

Speaking of MA, I think I will look at apartments now. Until tomorrow...

I Heart You, Nice People at the Nice Karaoke Place

I am working today by choice. Work has shifted to a floating-holiday policy. If you don't want to work on President's Day, don't! If you do, take another day off some other time. Sweet. I will be taking next Monday off to recover from the Oscars and drive back from MA after what will hopefully be a fun weekend devoid of any sort of drama.

I love being at work when nobody is around. The heightened productivity! The guiltlessness of listening to your own music! The blogging! The accomplishments!

The weekend turned out in splendid fashion. Friday night’s soiree at the apartment was even smaller than I’d anticipated, but I didn’t care because there was food and drinks and dancing. We were trashed by the time we piled into cabs and cars (cars!) for karaoke. Sister arrived late with The New Man and he was kind enough to cart our drunken asses down to karaoke. I’m sure we were a terrible embarrassment, but I’m also sure he warmed us to it as the weekend progressed.

Karaoke? Awesome. This new place is the best thing ever. They didn’t overcharge us. As far as I can tell, they didn’t even include tax. We tried to leave a tip but they were so anxious for us to leave that they said “No, don’t worry!” They were so nice. I would go back in a second. In fact, I want to go back repeatedly to reward the rarity that is kindness in customer service in NYC. Thank you, IBop, for restoring my faith in the karaoke way. It was bring your own so we were all, of course, a mess. It’s amazing how much alcohol ten people can consume when karaoke is involved. We inhaled popcorn and Multi Grain Tostitos (recipient of the Leah Lar Award for Best New Chip That Kicks the Crap Out of the Original Chip Upon Which It Is Based) and salsa and something else, I can’t quite remember. There was a lot of falling and knocking over of beverages and snacks. There was a lot of 80’s. Since we were a reasonably sized group, we had room to dance. It was lovely.

We stayed until around 3:30, and I came home and cleaned the apartment because I had also consumed too much caffeine and was bursting with energy. I think we all went to bed at around 4:30, but I was up until 7:00 because D snores even more when drunk. I actually got belligerent at one point, because his body is also more rock-like and he cannot be rolled over. I also couldn’t get “Milkshake” out of my head, because it was the last karaoke song of the evening. Wait. Maybe it was “Cry Me A River.” I can’t be expected to remember these things.

On Saturday we slept until around noon, then headed to Vynl for the most gratifying brunch ever. I’ve eaten there 12,000 times and never noticed that they have eggs florentine on the menu! I was thrilled, because my hangover craving tends to be eggs florentine. Back at the apartment, we hung out and read and relaxed and then Brother hung out for an hour and a half or so, during which we watched the beautiful restored version of “The Last Unicorn.”

After he left, we napped, and then headed out for Ethiopian food after playing some games on the computer and more relaxing. The dinner, of course, ended up reminding me of the poor customer service in NYC. I’ve been to this place a million times and have split the combination platter. After waiting at least half an hour to be served, we ordered two combination platters (for four people) and an appetizer, and the waitress was all “For four people you have to order at least three entrees” and we were all “Uhhh…” and we had to think about it, and I wanted to leave because (a) it was bring-your-own and we didn’t know and were disappointed because we wanted honey wine and (b) there was no indication of a minimum order on the menu and (c) we specifically decided on Ethiopian because we wanted to split things so as to have a light dinner and (d) I hate ordering food that I don’t want. We cancelled the appetizer order and ordered another entrée, and then waited another hour for the food to arrive (while the waitress in the meantime hung out with her boyfriend at the bar and ate her own food – hmph). We were all a bit irritable as it was 10:30 and our blood sugar wasn’t doing too well. Needless to say we inhaled it when it arrived, and all was forgotten because it was so darn good.

I didn’t go dancing because the eggs florentine and I hadn’t gotten along earlier in the day, and I hadn’t got much sleep the night before. I read a bit and slept 9-ish hours. Bliss.

On Sunday we ate again (delicious brioche french toast stuffed with mascarpone and spiced apple, topped with berries!) and said goodbye to Sister and The New Man. I can’t wait to live closer to her. We missed “Breach” so killed time shopping, and then saw the next showing. We washed sheets and towels and made the apartment sparkle, and then I talked to Mother to give her the scoop. I stayed up too late, and am looking forward to reading and not having any sort of agenda tonight. Nothing will be checked off the list tonight, and I couldn’t care less.

Until tomorrow…