The Hollywood Exception

Every couple in the world should utilize the Hollywood Exception rule. It doesn't actually have to be someone that lives or works in Hollywood, just someone that is in the public eye. I just happen to be incredibly shallow and am only turned on by/made aware of people that are on the screen.

Anyway, the rule applies to anyone famous and alive. Basically, each member of the couple gets to pick one person that they get to, providing the opportunity presents itself, engage in a romantic or physical relationship for ONE NIGHT.

For instance, say I choose...Johnny Depp as my Hollywood Exception (I won't), and let's also say that I'm in a relationship (I'm not)...if somehow I find myself in a position to have some sort of escapade with Johnny Depp, as long as it's known that he is my chosen Hollywood Exception, I get to act on it. Just one time. Same goes for the guy in the relationship and his Megan Fox or whatever.

Since I'm not in a relationship at the moment, I'm going to choose 3 people as my Hollywood Exceptions...just for kicks: My first, my current, and my forever. Behold:

My first and longest-standing Hollywood Exception:

My current and mainly conditional Hollywood Exception:

Annnnd...every woman's secret fantasy and my forever:

Shit. I can't keep it to just 3. This last one is someone that I wouldn't necessarily insist that I get to be romantic with (though I totally would) --- in the event that I'm simultaneously in a relationship and in the presence of such a breathtaking man, of course --- but I definitely would straight-up ditch my significant other in a nano in order to hang out with this dude instead:

Ladies and germs: Sir David Attenborough

*Swoon*

Who would yours be?

Pearl of Wisdom #7

Don't interrupt people while they are talking on the phone to someone else. It's fucking mega-rude. I don't care how important it is, wait your turn.

I'm Every Woman

I dated this semi-famous-for-a-minute reality TV chef for even less than a minute last year, mainly because I knew that no matter what happened, it would be a good story to tell. Even from the start it had all the components of a brilliant little memoir: he was currently on television being portayed as "the villian," he was wildly European (not just mildly), and he lived like a block away from me. All it took was a simple email inquiry about cooking classes and we were off!

Cut to the present day and I will tell everyone to avoid dating a chef. Well, give it a shot if you don't mind dealing with someone that is compleeetely spastic and never available. Nothing terrible ever happened between me and the chef. There were no falling-outs or fizzles. The story just became less and less fun to tell. I still keep in contact with him, though. Only now the broken-English semi-naughty texts that I used to find endearing drive me crazy. I got another one today. Ugh.

But it's not the chef's fault that I no longer care to bounce texts back and forth, pretending that either of us actually wants to see the other. The chef was just another in a series of distractions that were keeping me from having access to anything meaningful. Now that I'm on a break from romance, I'd rather distract myself with something productive - - - like exercise. Or learning how to make those French macarons that I'm so desperate to make.

It's funny how it works. When you're in the thick of it, it's all you can think about. Love, sex, company. But when you're on hiatus, it only takes a short while before you've completely forgotten about it. And once you get to that point, then you can really start to get shit done. I changed my own fucking bike chain last weekend, for chrissake! I am kicking ass and taking names and I've got absolutely no time to stop and worry about silly relationship bullshit. Yeah!!!

Now cut to a 30 second montage of me getting my shit together (i.e., sweatin' to the oldies, pulling a batch of perfectly risen macarons from the oven, leaving the hair salon with a gorgeous new set of extensions) all to the sweet sound of Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman" blasting in the background.

Yep. That's me.

My One True Love (Forever and Always)

This Message Will NOT Self-Destruct!

I was digging through the trash in my email inbox today looking for any promotional codes from drugstore.com that I had immediately written off as junk (up until now) and deleted --- I'm purchasing biotin so my hair grows faster than one fucking inch per year --- and I came across a dinosaur of an email from my first L.A. love. The trash box in Gmail lies, btw, because it told me that any messages left in there after 30 days would be automatically deleted, and this email was sent 4 years ago.

I wasn't really prepared for the sneak attack from the past, but my curiosity got the better of me, so I opened it. When I saw that I recognized the subject of the email, my heart started to beat a little faster. I don't have romantic feelings for this guy at all anymore --- we're totally friends, we just never make out or anything --- but it still sorta stung to see it. Probably just because it was another reminder that I can't seem to lock things down in the romance department; my smug little inbox was rubbing my failures in my face! I (reluctantly) opened the email and read its contents and it was sweet and charming and everything I remembered it to be. No wonder I liked that guy!

I thought about his words, and how he meant them at the time, and how they completely made my world when I first read them. I read the email at least 10 times and tried to imagine how I would respond to someone if I received something like that now.

Reading the email over and over was like torture, so I closed out (after I moved the email from the trash and back into my active inbox for safe-keeping) and went back to my trash box to continue my search for vitamin coupons. No luck, btw --- I totally paid full price.

I've sort of had romance tucked away in the back of my mind these days, but seeing that email brought it back up to the surface for a little bit of my afternoon. I don't miss the whole crapshoot Los Angeles dating scene one bit, but I kinda miss being in love.
 
This photo was attached to the email:

Why can't my hair be that long now?!?

The City of Sisterly Love

As much as I believe that I'm going to have to move as far away from Los Angeles as I can if there is ever any hope for me to find love, there are other reasons that make me think this is the greatest city in the world. Life's not only about romance anyway. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself.

I made my Valentine's Day plans a month in advance. There is nothing worse than the impending explosion of red velvet hearts and white fuzzy bears and diamond commercials on the television every 15 minutes when you know that you will not be on the receiving end of any of that shit. Rather than worry about whether or not I'd be able to lock something down with someone (anyone) by the big day, I felt it saftest to preemptively make non-romantic plans with a bunch of people that might also have that night free. Lucky for me, I was able to lock in a solid bunch!

So 8 of us painted our faces, put on some frills and met up at The Grove for a 7pm showing of that shitty romantic comedy (?) called Valentine's Day (how appropriate!) featuring every single actor that has been in any film for the last 15 years. We were 15 feet out of the parking structure and into the mall before we saw our first celebrity sighting:

He literally was sitting in the most public spot in the entire mall. On a major holiday. At first I thought it was irritating because I assumed he just wanted attention (MORE attention than he already gets) but then I decided that it was his little Valentine's Day gift to the shoppers of The Grove. Whether it was his intention or not, he was something exciting for us to talk about, and it made our day seem more glamourous. Sadly, he was wearing clothes and was on a date with some girl that wasn't me, but I'll take what I can get. A sighting is just fine.

The show was sold out and we were saving seats for the second half of our party before the movie started and every single person that came into the theatre asked us if the seats were taken, which...got annoying. At one point this old lady came up behind my friend and asked her if she could sit in the seats next to her and, annoyed, she told the old lady the seats were taken, forcing this old lady to split up from her equally geriatric husband (on Valentine's Day) and sit alone in the special little isolated handicap chair right by the exit. Once she realized that this lady would have would have to sit on the opposite end of the theatre as her husband on this romantic day, my friend felt like a royal heel. Especially when we all realized that the old lady was this person:

The movie was terrible, as expected. But it was the kind of bad that was so ridiculous that it was almost comical in its own, unintentional way, so none of us left the theatre feeling like we wasted any money. Then we darted over to the restaurant where we promptly began to shove our faces full of anything containing sugar, alcohol or fat until the restaurant manager literally had to come up and tell us it was time to leave.

By the time I got home, I was stuffed, sleepy, and totally without the feeling that I was missing out on anything this Valentine's Day. If I had to do it again, I would pick the same people to spend it with. Los Angeles may not be a good place to find love, but the friendships and celebrity sightings and delicious food more than make up for that. Romance is for suckers, anyway.

Pearl of Wisdom #6

Long stem red roses are tacky. Give her something else.

This is also a bummer:

Somebody That I Used To Know

Remember 1997, when we all thought we knew exactly what Elliott Smith was singing about, and we were certain we were feeling every bit as heartbroken as he was? Ever listened to his music as an adult and realized how delusional you were as a teen? I had my ipod set to "shuffle" this morning and an Elliott Smith song that I hadn't heard in years came on and I had a brief shame attack for my 17 year-old self.

If only I had to deal with the same woes that I was dealing with back then instead of the ones that plague me now, how carefree I would be! Of course, if I were working with the same mindset as my 17 year-old self, that would mean that I'd probably still be wearing overalls doused with CK Escape (to cover up the smell of cigs) and a ratty pair of Chuck Taylors. Waaaait a minute...I still wear ratty Chuck Taylors. Maybe that's why I only attract men that act like children (!!!). Looks like I need to go shoe shopping!

Mission: Accomplished (!!!)

Oh, I made that loaf of bread.

Pearl of Wisdom #5

Women and gay men: You can only throw a drink in someone's face once in your life. If you make a habit of it, people are going to stop inviting you to parties, so choose wisely and really make it count. I, myself, have yet to meet a person that was worthy of being on the receiving end of my one drink in the face, but I look forward to the day. Then again, it would be nice to never be that enraged...

Sans Mans

Instead of thinking about boys this weekend, I'm going to actually be productive. First I'm going to learn how to bake bread. It's supposed to be pretty easy, but I'm really good at fucking things up, so I'm gonna leave myself a few hours (the whole weekend?) to figure it out.

Then I'm going to make sweet & spicy almonds.

Then (!!!) I'm gonna organize my goddamn shoes so I don't have to go through what I went through this morning when I couldn't find a fucking partner for any of my pairs of black flats.

Finally, I'm going to watch that movie on HBO where Claire Danes plays an autistic scientist. I should design a drinking game for this one: Everyone has to drink each time Claire Danes makes that hideous monster face she makes every time she cries. Guaranteed we'll all be wasted by the end of the movie.

Riding on the Metro (oh-oh)

I don't really like bringing this guy up anymore (he's not even relevant), but this morning I thought there was a sighting and I had quite a scare. I was 35 minutes into being awake for the day, sitting on the 333 eastbound, when we stopped at Venice and Overland.

There are always a bunch of people waiting to get onto the bus at Overland. So many, in fact, that Overland is the stop where I decide to actually scoot over to the window so someone (hopefully someone clean - - - I've already given up on the dream of someone attractive sitting next to me on the bus) can sit down. If I didn't let guilt get the best of me, I would stay put and leave the window seat vacant, leaving me to sit without any neighbors, and some poor fool to grab the bar and stand until another seat becomes available. But I always cave at Venice and Overland.

Anyway, a bunch of people start crowding onto the bus and I'm halfway watching and then I see something that makes my stomach drop to the floor: The Comedian. I swear to you, from where I was sitting, this person was a dead ringer. Same height, same build, same hair, same nose, same EVERYTHING. I panicked. I didn't know what to do or where to go. I honestly wanted to open up the window and jump out. The bus wasn't going that fast, anyway...minimal damage.

Then I realize that the only seat left is the fucking one next to me and I start to panic more. HOW IS THIS MY LIFE, I thought. Never did it occur to me that it would be totally strange for him to be on the same bus - - I'm one of the only people I know that takes the bus - - as me. Especially not at the same time and going to the same place. But I didn't have time to think about this stuff. I only had time to freak the fuck out. So the dude comes up and sits next to me and I realize that it's not actually him. Holymotherofjesusthankgod.

As far as DNA goes, he's gotta be only like one genome away from The Comedian's actual genetic makeup. Maybe The Comedian has a brother, who knows. All I know is that he has got the most extreme doppelganger in the world out there, and that dude scared the shit out of me by sitting next to me on the bus this morning. Not funny at all.

Zach Galifianakis

I wonder if Zach Galifianakis has a girlfriend. Not that it would matter, though. It's too late to get in on that shit, thanks to the fucking Hangover. A year ago it might have been an actual possibility to get someone like Zach Galifianakis to go out with me.

Physically, we're a decent match; both of us have some rather fetching physical attributes, and we also both have parts of our bodies that should indefinitely be wrapped up and covered entirely by fabric or hair.

A year ago, I would have seemed like a pretty cute girl to a dude like Galifianakis! But now that he's in one of the most popular (and wildly overrated) films of the year, I'm sure that I look like a troll compared to the girls that are throwing themselves at him now.

I should have gotten his attention when he was still oafish and riddled with insecurities. I needed to strike while the iron was hot.

Success: the ultimate cockblocker.

Pearl of Wisdom #4

Plucking grey hairs out of your head with tweezers only makes them grow back thicker, greyer, and more uncontrollable. Trust me. Right now I practically look like I'm wearing dark brown extensions clipped onto a bed of 1 inch greys.