Yeah, About That...

...Um. So, I didn't die in the hurricane. :D

Like Somefin' Is Brewin'...About to Begiiiin: Hurricane Irene Preparation

Sooooo...I live in NJ. RIGHT IN THE PATH OF THE DEADLY HURRICANE IRENE.

I kid because I can, but I'm kind of scared. I will be more than happy to feel silly on Monday morning. Look. I'm a Nervous Nellie, you guys. Though, I am sick of being told my weather-type folks to "hunker down." Yeah. We get it. I will not be floating through the streets on a surf board. I will not be standing in my front yard, trying to fly a kite. I won't be going door-to-door, ringing doorbells and yelling, "LAND SHARK!!!"* I will be sitting in my living room, enjoying the electricity, air conditioning, running water, cable, and internet for as long as I have it. I've got packing to do, since I'm moving in a week. I've got knitting to work on. I've got books to read (Room by Emma Donoghue and The Magicians by Lev Grossman). Board games. Weather Channel personalities to mock.

I'm a busy lady, ok?

We've got a radio, flashlights, non-perishable foods, bottled water, a full tank of gas, and a bag packed in case we need to FLEE. I had to battle a Lord of the Flies-esque situation at the gas station last night in order to get that tank of gas. I fought the Beast, I blew on the conch shell (NOT a euphemism. Well. Not the one YOU'RE thinking of, dirty bird), and drove away victorious.

Aaaand now the cable is flickering. Stay safe, everyone. Not today, you guys. NOT TODAY. /drama

*Though this sounds HILARIOUS.

A PSA From Me To You...

So, I got yet another text from Mame demanding that I back her up on the two things that Jersey kids were warned against in a most dire and repetitive fashion. I immediately texted back "Escalators. Railroad tracks." Because it is true.

When I saw Mallrats for the first time, I laughed until I cried at Brodie's rant about fearing and respecting the escalator. When I was little, my father had me convinced that if I didn't hold onto my parent with one hand and have the other on the railing, my shoes tightly tied and my Cabbage Patch kid held high above the platform, the escalator would eat me. And then spit out one pigtail and a Punky Brewster hightop sneaker. And then belch and laugh like Pennywise the Clown. (By the way, googling "escalator accidents" brings up some really awesome stuff. If I ever do a sequel to this post, which is sadly likely, I'll be sure to mention escalator accidents. I'm so sorry.) I still check to make sure my shoes are tied before I step on an escalator. YOU CAN'T BE TOO CAREFUL, OK?

Mame and I (and probably Sorsha, a fellow Jersey girl) sat through SO MANY assemblies about the dangers of playing on railroad tracks. A particularly memorable one showed us goggle-eyed 7-year-olds what would happen if you stood too close to a train going past. You know what happens? Your head comes off. Then there was the terrifying one I saw when I was a teenager with a lady who got stuck on the tracks when her car stalled and her baby was in the backseat. Yeah. The baby didn't make it. TRAUMA. OK? I am SO careful on railroad tracks, you have no idea.

Escalators. Railroad tracks. What are your PSA-related childhood traumas?

My Recent Trip Down Robert Downey Jr. Lane

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me In Real Life or is a reader of this blog that I go through celebrity boyfriends like most people change their sheets. You know, a new one every week or so, a little longer if I get lazy. I mean, this summer alone, I've gone through like, four. Whatever, I like variety. Because what I do is, I find someone to obsess over and then I rent every one of their movies I can find and watch them all. And then when I've viewed all the media I can find concerning them, I get bored and move on. I mean, by the time I got sick of Christopher Eccleston, I'd watched his entire season of Doctor Who AND all the DVD extras and every one of his movies. Including Jude. Which made me suicidal. Goddamn, that movie is depressing.

Hey, a girl has to have a hobby, right? So, this summer the lucky new obsessee seems to be...Robert Downey Jr. I know, I know. That's almost...normal, right? He's like, traditionally handsome and an actual movie star! I know. I'm disappointed too. But whatever. At least he's got lots of movies to choose from, many of which I've already seen and liked. Here's what I've watched so far:

• Iron Man and Iron Man 2: Duh. Any self-respecting geek has already seen and loved these. They're really great adaptations and Downey is great in them. And I think I love Iron Man 2 even more because I have a SEVERE hate-on for Terrance Howard. I hated Hustle & Flow and I resent everyone who was involved with that shit-ass movie. HATE. So, the fact that he was replaced by Don Cheadle, whom I ADORE, just made it all the better. Love Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper and I LOVE Pepper and Tony. They are so cute.
• Sherlock Holmes: Saw it when it came out, of course. Loved it then. Dragged EGT to see when she came to visit. Still loved it. I just watched it recently and aside from the actual DVD refusing to play on my PS2 (Fuck you, Warner Bros copy guard), I loved it even more upon rewatching. Downey is really great as Holmes, smart and bitchy and funny. One of the best things about Downey as an actor is that he's always thinking, always doing something interesting, even when not much is going on. I LOVE the scene at the end on the scaffolding with Holmes, Irene Adler (The lovely Rachel McAdam) and the bad guy, Blackwhatever. And Blackwhatever is about to push Irene off the edge and Downey does this subtle, begging headshake and bad guy shoves her off the edge and twirls his mustache and Downey shouts a clipped, "NO!" before he can stop himself. It's SO GREAT. And I love Jude Law as Watson. I am not notably a Law fan, but boy, was he fun in this movie.
• Chaplin: Ugh, sorry guys. I thought this was really boring. I don't usually like biopics because they usually suuuuuck. Downey was good in this and so was Kevin Kline (He's ALWAYS good) but ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
• A Scanner Darkly: I have this from the library and am watching it now. Hee. This shit is crazy.
  

And the movie that prompted this post was Less Than Zero, which the lovely Sorsha loaned to me and also blogged about. She is such a shameless enabler. I didn't really like the movie. I'd heard it wasn't very good but that RDJ was fantastic in it. I mostly agree with this statement. My first problem: I don't usually like movies about drug addicts. Second problem? I don't give a shit about rich people and how miserable they all are. Seriously, go dry your tears on your money. (Class issues? Me? NO. SURELY NOT.) Third problem? I hate Andrew McCarthy. I didn't like him in Pretty in Pink. I didn't like him in Mannequin. I do not like him in a house, I do not like him with a mouse. He has a high voice. It weirds me out.

So, with all these strikes against it, I watched the damn movie. Ugh. Whatever. It was ok. I think McCarthy and Jami Gertz are both pretty bad in it. I liked Gertz fine in both Lost Boys and Solarbabies (WHAT? I LIKE THAT MOVIE. IT'S NOT A CRIME, OK?) [It sort of is] but I didn't think she was too great here. Probably they just both looked really bad next to really fabulous performances by Robert Downey Jr. and James Spader.

McCarthy plays Clay, who has just come home from college at Christmas to see his ex-girlfriend Blair (I think it's Blair. Maybe it's Blake. Whatever, I'm not looking it up, I just won't mention her name again. PROBLEM SOLVED) whom he'd dumped at Thanksgiving because he caught her and his best friend Julian boning. Whatever. I can't fault her taste. It's all very dramatic, with a bouquet of flowers being pegged at their post-coital heads. HA. Downey plays Julian, the wacky best friend who's become seriously addicted to drugs. Cocaine, I think. I don't know, something snorty. Like any addict, Julian is, by turns, charming, needy, aggressive, affectionate, nasty and desperate. Downey is really great at switching him back and forth. It's a really painful performance to watch especially when you know that later it mirrored real life. Sometimes Julian is so vulnerable you can barely stand to look at him (Something I also noticed with Downey's performance in Chaplin) and other times he's so cocky, you just want to bitch-slap him. The scene with Julian and his dad sort-of reconciling had me in tears. I texted Sorsha and she laughed at me. NICE, RIGHT?

James Spader, my favorite douchebag, plays Rip (No, I'm not kidding you with that name), the drug dealer who convinces Julian that the best way to work off his debt is as a rentboy. Spader is really nasty and sleazy and great in his manipulation of the increasingly stupid Julian. It's pretty masterful. God, I love James Spader. Heh. I'm sure the sight of Downey on his knees in a day-glo hotel room was pretty shocking for the 80s but I wasn't very impressed. And I could have done without all the puking, thanks. And memo to 80s Downey: It's called Chapstick. Get you some.

Also, Mame would like you all to know that she had a crush on Robert Downey Jr. in the late 90s when she made me watch Two Girls and a Guy. I bitched the entire time. TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE movie. But Mame was right. That guy is hot. (Um, I urge you all to head over to the IMDB entry for that movie. Look at the plot keywords. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

ETA: DUDE. I forgot Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, basically the BEST MOVIE EVER. Ugh, I fail at my own blog. It's a great movie, Downey is great in it and so is Val Kilmer. Yes, THAT Val Kilmer. He's awesome. And it's written by Shane Black, who writes great action movies. Go rent it.

Wherein the Reader Learns That the Narrator is Batshit Crazy or Disasters I've Obsessed Over and Related Media

So, I'm pretty neurotic, right? Given toward anxiety and borderline OCD-ish tendencies. Not quite diagnosable for either Generalized Anxiety Disorder or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (I looked it up in the DSM-IV. At work. Several times), but close. I'm a lot better than I used to be, actually. I spend fewer nights in a tangle of panic-ridden insomnia. I don't have actual panic attacks. Pong used to call me a "ninny" when we were dating and I'd spin off on some tangent about how the bus driver on my route would think I'd cheated him because he'd let me on the bus without paying because I'd told him I was going to buy a monthly bus pass but then the store was SOLD OUT of bus passes and it's not like I'd ASKED him to let me on the bus for free! He offered! I couldn't help it!

See? That's how I am. A ninny.

But you know what doesn't help my ninny-like nature? My attraction to media involving disasters and disastrous things. If it could conceivably send a tickle of pure horror down my spine, I'M THERE. I WANT TO READ ABOUT IT/WATCH THAT DOCUMENTARY, ETC. This is not good. This is not conducive to my mental health/serenity/zen whatever. IT GENERALLY REALLY DAMAGES MY CALM. But I am powerless to stop. I totally get this from my mother, who also loves hearing about a good disaster. The woman lulls herself to sleep with forensic shows, ok? But the thing is, she doesn't freak out! I DO. You know who is my co-pilot on this trip to Panicville, Population: 2? Sorsha. You know who constantly is trying to stop me from boarding the S.S. Freakout? Mame. And EGT.

Mame and I have been friends for like, 17 years? Something like that? Our friendship is a high school student, at any rate. She has always tried to stop me when my obsessions reach peak levels. She tries to grab books about disasters out of my hands. She tells me I'm not allowed to watch anymore documentaries about Mt. Everest. If EGT could, she would break into my house and install internet controls on my laptop. Not to keep me from reading porn, she's fine with that. No, to keep me from reading about school shootings. Or extinction level events (PRIONS! ASTEROIDS! CLIMATE CHANGE! KRAKENS!). Or watching British Cold War PSAs. (NO, SERIOUSLY. DON'T WATCH THOSE.) I don't listen to them, but I appreciate their efforts. It makes me feel loved.

Ah, but Sorsha. I met Sorsha at work and we had a lot in common right away. We both are snarky and excitable and have a wide streak of geekiness. You know how the first time you hang out with someone from work, it's a delicate dance, almost like a date? You know, you have to sort of feel them out for how weird you can reveal yourself to be? Or...is that just me? 'K, then. The first time Sorsha and I hung out, we talked for 6 hours about: Lord of the Rings, Buffy, Doctor Who and all kinds of other geeky things. Then somehow, we turned to...disasters. And how we both LOVE READING ABOUT THEM. I told her about crowd crushing. She told me about rogue waves. I told her about Mt. Everest and how it wants to kill you for climbing it. She told me about how the Canary Islands might fall into the ocean and cause a mega-tsunami. Then we talked about serial killers. It was SO much fun. Her poor sainted husband sat and listened for awhile, eyebrows raised. And then he said, and I quote, "Dear God, there's another one of you" and stomped off to do something useful. Sorsha's and my bonding over disasters makes me feel accepted.

Here is a by-no-means-complete list of some of the horrible things I've obsessed about and related media:

• Anthrax and smallpox: The Demon in the Freezer, Richard Preston (I also read The Hot Zone by the same author.)
  
• Rogue waves/mega-tsunamis (There is an alarming lack of media about this sort of thing!)
• Crowd crushing (ALSO an alarming lack! This is a public safety issue! If you really want to freak out, read about the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster. *shudder*)
• People who leave their kids in hot cars: hyperthermia
• Various man-made disasters
• The Boston Molasses Disaster (No, that's not an experimental 80s band.)
  
• The Dyatlov Pass Incident (This one FREAKS ME OUT! It's like an X-Files episode!)
• Too many true crime novels to count
  

Yeah. So...click on any of those links and never sleep again. I know this isn't good for me and it will make me anxious and sad. And yet. If I know you in real life, I'm sure I have accosted you at some point and detailed some terrifying incident in excited yet wary tones. And I'm sorry for that. But hey, you did learn that four people per square meter is minimum safe distance in a crowd, right? IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE.