But last night, as I watched episode 3 I realized it doesn’t matter.

I had no trouble following along. This is due to my superior powers of following a narrative thread or the fact that this show is written for 5th graders. Either way, I feel so light and carefree today.

Here are this week’s SMASH NOTES:

SCARVES, USE OF: Yes, Debra Messing’s character, Julia Houston, continues to wear scarves with nearly every outfit as a way to signify that she is: over 40, arty, kinda hip, chilly. However, this week saw a relaxing of the scarf, as in it did not have to be snug to her neck but was allowed to free flow in long tendrils that cascaded down, draping her body.

Also: is she single-highhandedly trying to bring back the Baby Doll Dress? What cheek!

ENGLISH BOYFRIEND: Karen Cartwright (Katharine McPhee) has been given a boyfriend with such a high sense of morality and values that I am quite sure he’s going to end up a crackhead by episode 9. Every time I see him I think “Chariots of Fire,” and I’m not sure why. I have never seen Chariots of Fire in its entirety.

I think he reminds me of someone who would train for long-distance running in the Olympics and never, ever crave a sip of beer. He’s that good and kind-hearted.

Just watch a little bit of this and you’ll see what I mean. He should totally be running the beach with these guys:

SATAN’S ALLEY – In this episode, the producers of the Marilyn show go to see Michael Swift, the guy they are hoping will play their Joe DiMaggio, perform in another musical. I am fairly certain that this musical is a rip-off of Satan’s Alley, the musical performed in the movie Staying Alive, starring John Travolta. Either that, or it is the musical version of Glenn Fry’s life.

What I mean is, something very 80′s and disturbing was going on in this scene. I was certain that they (the producers) were going to turn to each other after watching this performance and say, “No, this is not who we want for our Joe DiMaggio at all. First of all, why didn’t we realize that he looks more like Glenn Fry than Joe DiMaggio?”

Here is Joe DiMaggio:

Here is Glenn Fry:

And here, just for the hell of it, is Will Case, the actor playing Michael Swift:

Am I getting too involved with this show? Yes, you could say this. But you also see my point, don’t you?

BABY SHOWER: Karen travels home to Iowa in this episode to attend a baby shower. The purpose of this trip is so she can sing karaoke in a bar in Iowa, thus fulfilling the need for a musical number in this episode. Everything about the baby shower is wrong. I know this because I have attended many baby showers and the producers and writers of this show have apparently attended zero.

Here are the errors I feel I must point out:

• There are only 4 people at the shower, one of which is the pregnant lady. In Iowa. No aunts, cousins, second-best friends, neighbors, grandmothers, mothers, etc? In Iowa. Really?
• Karen brings as her gift a gigantic stuffed bear that will surely fall over on the infant and smother it. Even if she is Highly-Focused-Rising-Star-On-Broadway-Who-Lives-In-Manhattan, she grew up in Iowa and so would know that she should go to Target and get whatever her friend registered for, which is more likely to be burping clothes and onesies than a toy one might procure on a midway after tossing rings onto milk bottles for 3 hours.
• It takes place in a bar, not a church basement, house or community rec center. In Iowa.
• She comes into the bar and, after a minimal amount of small talk, gets right to the karaoke. No discussion of their lives for two hours? This was perhaps written by a man? How about a cut-away and a cut back, showing the time that has elapsed after gossiping, eating and drinking for at least 2 hours?
• In case you forgot they’re in Iowa, there was a painted sign on the karaoke stage that had a picture of an ear of corn on it and something about Iowa written beneath it. Yes, this is how we do it in Middle America. We like to have banners and signs surrounding us at all times telling us where we are so that we don’t become lost in all this empty space.

KAREN’S FATHER: Is creepy and has to die. As for her mother, I weep for Becky Ann Baker, who I loved as the mother in Freaks and Geeks. She is better than this.

EVIL INTERN: This is the best plot line going on this show so far – Tom, Julia’s writing partner, has, for some reason, an assistant/intern. His main job is to stand around and then make tea, as is the case with most interns. But he’s evil. He’s out to crawl his way to the top. So far, he took Julia’s notebook and read it (then returned it, when he should have been shown throwing it in a gutter) and then he had a cat fight with Julia.

I believe Evil Intern deserves his own spin-off show and demand to see one this summer.

SCARVES: What is with Debra Messing’s character, Julia, and scarves? There was not a scene in which she did not have something wooly wrapped around her neck. Is this symbolic of something about her character? There was even a scene in which she wore men’s pajamas, a cardigan sweater and a wooly scarf. In her bedroom. Do they not have heat on the set? WHAT GIVES??

I suspect that they aren’t sure how to make this character someone women can relate to so they went overboard with the natural fibers. I mean… See, she lives in New York and her job is “lyricist.” And she loves it so much that she’d kind of shunting aside this whole adoption thing, which could potentially be really boring for a couple of years… you know, taking care of a baby when you really want to be writing euphemistic songs about baseball.

APPLE PRODUCTS: OK, we get it. Apple is the only cool kind of computer anyone anywhere ever can ever, ever use. Even the waitress-trying-to-be-a-star has a freakin’ MacBook Pro. For all that Photoshop work she does on the side. Or whenever she comes home from a long day of try-outs and slinging sweet potato hash and gets the burning desire to edit a video.

Let’s try for some more realism here.

Which leads to me to my final note:

SEX: Turn up the sex volume to 11 in key scenes. It needs to go way beyond the lukewarm pap served last night.  The seduction scene between the director, Derek Wills, and rising star Karen Cartwright (Katharine McPhee)? I didn’t even understand what he was asking her when she came to his apartment enormous loft the size of IKEA for some “coaching.” Did he want her to act like Maryiln? Give him a blow job? The right answer was both, probably a bit more the latter,  but this was not immediately understood.

After his request, she, upset, excused herself and went to the bathroom. There, she mussed up her hair, grabbed a conveniently-placed, oversized white men’s oxford shirt that covered her ass (which is horse crap because every self-respecting New York man right now is wearing slim-cut EVERYTHING and would not have a shirt that could also double as a tent hanging in his bathroom) and went back out.

She lamely sang the tired, breathy Happy Birthday Mr. President to him while crawling on his lap.

Then she leaves in a fit of forthrightness and disgust. For him, I guess, not for the fact that she put on the oversized shirt and crawled on his lap.

They can do better than this. No, NBC is not Showtime (where the show was originally set up and which would have allowed the episodes to be longer and, presumably, sexier) but that just means they have to be more creative. Let’s not hit on every last trope in the playbook, shall we?

But all is not lost. No, there is potential here. Especially if they corrupt Karen (well-played by McPhee) and don’t allow her to remain the wide-eyed ingenue past the second or third episode. I can practically hear the drums beating in the background on this one.

And the best parts are, thankfully, the singing parts. The ending scene to last night’s episode, which shows the two rivals, Karen and Ivy, getting ready for call-backs for the part of Marilyn was done to the song “Let Me Be Your Star” and it was great. It captured that competitive, the-claws-are-out feeling we need to feel in order to invest in this story.

I’m not buying my Smash t-shirt quite yet, but I’ll be back for episode 2.

Time for some hot, hot Town & Country Magazine horoscoping.

Of course, I first need to refer back to January horoscope and see how things came out. If you’ll recall, this was the prediction for The ‘Ol Bull (Taurus):

When Venus is as beautifully aspected as it will be this January, you’re bound to attract attention. And with the Sun in your travel angle, your most magical moments are likely to occur far from home. Aspects on the 13th seem to be telling you to look in a new direction or perhaps to make a life-altering decision. And Jupiter’s forward motion in your birth sign is also telling you that there’s no time like the present to go after a dream.

Well, as it turns out, I did not have magical moments far from home. I’m not sure I remember leaving home all that much. I also don’t recall making any life-altering decisions on the 13th…

Oh, wait. Yes,I did! I bought some songs from iTunes. And also, on the 14th, we decided to throw out all our old spices in the kitchen and purchase fancy spices. This has changed our lives – food tastes so much more foodier now.

There really is something to deciding to be a spice snob that changes your outlook on life. You think, “Well, if I’m not going to settle for crappy spice then… What else am I entitled to?” Plus it gives us an excuse to stop while cooking and announce dramatically, “The spice must flow!”

And T&C did get this right – there is no better time than the present to go after a dream. My dream is to no longer be sick and I’m making progress every day! I’m vertical right now. I also dream of having better hair. I dream of running 10K. I dream of finishing a novel. Before I got sick, I was going after all these dreams.

It would have been nice to have some warning about the sickness in my horoscope. You know, something like, “Mercury is moving towards a shadowy path. Better look out – you’re going to have the chills for eight days!” But I really can’t hold this against them.

Final January Horoscope Grade: B

Now I turn to the latest issue, which features Ali MacGraw on the cover. I’ve never understood the allure of Ali MacGraw. I read the article and she sounds like a perfectly fine person who is still a bit sad that she opted not to get alimony in either of her divorces, one from that creepy producer guy Robert Evans and one from Steve McQueen. I think that if she wanted to make some extra cash, she might be the perfect pitchwoman for a brand like Chicos. She’s got the chunky jewelry thing down anyway.

Month after month, one of the best things about T&C is the weddings it features. If I ran the mag, I would do about 5 more pages of weddings. Give the people what they really want.

I read these blurbs with an eye to figuring out why the couple in question is being featured. There are clues even if you don’t recognize a family name. Is someone a big shot lawyer? Were over 350 people at the reception? Did the reception take place in Paris or Amsterdam and/or include a fireworks display? Did the couple go to more than one place for their honeymoon? Paris and Tuscany, perhaps? Rome and Majorca?

Did they go to the same prep school, only to reconnect later when they found themselves both working on Wall Street?

Is the groom seemingly underemployed but the reception is at “a private club owned by his family?”

Anyway, the weddings page was more entertaining than the feature about Ali MacGraw.

My horoscope for February, as prepared by Katharine Merlin, star astrologer,  is:

With Saturn turning retrograde on the 7th, you need to decide what you want to do about what’s going on at work. The full Moon in Leo, also on the 7th, indicates that your emotions are going to be your best guide. And with Mercury and the Sun both trining Saturn this month, you’re in a better position to call the shots than you think. Don’t hesitate, though, to explore any intriguing situations that crop up professionally or in the personal arena.

Hi, welcome to my Personal Arena. Sit down and watch as I canter around for awhile.

Wow, the 7th is going to be some day, huh? All retrograde and full moon and shit. The 7th… THAT’S TODAY! Holy shit.

How should I prepare? Do I dare leave the house? Do I spend the day meditating inside my Personal Arena, listening to my emotions as they tell me that soon I will be working at AMC Rosedale serving popcorn and drinks so large I have to hand them to customers by wrapping  both hands around them?

That I will be pumping liquid cheese onto salty wedges of tortilla and for some guy from Falcon Heights who just wants to go watch Man Standing On a Ledge Being Dramatic?

Listen, T&C and Ms. Merlin (if that is, in fact, your real name), I’m going to accept this horoscope in good faith and assume that you wrote it in a similar sort of faith but I gotta say that my emotions have not been a good guide in work-related issues at all. As in, ever. In fact, if only I were dead inside, I would be a millionaire, making cold-hearted decisions and opting to work late every night in my 20s instead of wanting to be home watching Felicity or Survivor.

And did you make up the word “trining?”

Anyway, it is what is is. The stars don’t lie, do they? Although the bit about exploring any “intriguing situations” that “crop up” in the “professional” or “personal arena” covers just about everything possible. Am I right or am I right? I think this is called CYOA in some professional settings.

I begin compiling my list of “intriguing situations” in the month of February forthwith, to be shared in March. Stay tuned, horoscope fans.

The Outlook

Recently, I discovered running at the Metrodome in Minneapolis on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Yes, that beleaguered building is at least good for providing exercise to runners too cheap to join a gym. Besides, it’s much better, if you need to run inside, to have a circumference like that of the Dome’s instead of a smaller track.

At the Dome, if one runs along the outer edge, 2 laps around equals roughly 1 mile. At the gym I used to belong to, it was something like 10-12 laps per mile.

Running is supposed to be a somewhat zen activity. The rhythm of the running helps you leave your worries behind. Or maybe it’s that you don’t have time to think when you’re trying to breathe. The Dome’s repetitious scenery helps this along – soon enough you’re lost in the loop of identical beer stands, doorways, DiGiorno pizza stands, etc. You have to stay somewhat alert to note a return to your starting point and tick off another lap.

But, at least for me, running in a group of other runners makes it harder to think, well, nothing. I simply trade my worries for thoughts about the people running with me. I wonder a lot about them as I run. I divide them into categories. When I forgot my iPod the other night I was reduced to eavesdropping on their conversations.

I have uncharitable thoughts. Here are some:

• I wonder if the guy who has the tattoo on the back of his calf of a man lifting a barbell over his head will one day regret it. Sure, that calf is nice and taut right now, making the weightlifter look appropriately muscled. But what if one day this man can no longer run? Or get much exercise? It would be sad to see the deflated weightlifter, a shell of his former self on a deflated calf.

• I don’t like pairs of young women who plan weddings as they run. If this makes me a horrible, old bitch, well… guilty. I don’t want to hear, as they glide effortlessly past me, about how one’s thoughtless aunt said she should have her wedding in her hometown so that more family could attend. I don’t want to hear about party favors and fish vs. chicken vs. beef.

• There are people for whom running is their entire lives. They even have “running crushes.” I heard a woman say, “Well, he was my first running crush.” She was very thin and had ropey calves. Her calves looked like Madonna’s arms.

• I don’t believe in barefoot running unless one is at the beach. I don’t believe in barefoot running at the Dome. I don’t like the way Barefoot Runner Woman’s feet slap the ground, pounding away any arches she once had. The look on her face scares me. She’s in a place where the rest of us can’t follow.

• While I’m running and thinking bad thoughts about Barefoot Runner Woman I start to think about Paula Deen. No, Paula Deen was not running at the Dome. But I found myself wishing that one of her legs would have to be removed due to gangrene from mismanaging her recently-announced diabetes. As I said, these are uncharitable thoughts that float up from nowhere, maybe due to the fact that running in a circle, even a very large circle, can get boring. I’m more than a bit annoyed that the woman who urged people to eat things like hamburgers on doughnuts now reveals she has diabetes and will profit from it due to a deal with Novo Nordisk, a drug manufacturer. Fuck you, Paula Deen.

• There is an older man, with sliver hair, who is always running at the Dome. He runs without his shirt. He looks great for his age, for any age. But I wonder about people who need that kind of attention; who simply cannot run with a shirt on even at the Dome. I wonder how much better a runner I’d have to be, and how much trimmer, before I would dare run in a sports bra and no t-shirt. For no particular reason, I think of Roger Sterling from Mad Men every time he laps me.

• A woman was jogging and talking on her cell phone at the same time. Not even exercise is a reason to “unplug” anymore. I think that’s sad. I don’t want to talk to anyone on the phone while I run. How would they understand me? Why would I care what they have to say? Unless they are calling to tell me I’ve come into a lot of money, I have no reason to talk to them. This woman who was running and talking on the phone… let’s just say she was not fit. She was heavy and she had to put a lot of effort into the entire thing, just to keep going. As I moved past her she gave up the running part, deciding that the conversation was more important.

• A lot of people talk about work as they run and a lot of people have very boring work. And they are worried about very boring things at work. It sort of drives home the point to me that, unless you are a stuntman, I don’t want to hear the details of your work.

Running at the Dome continues until the end of March and then, presumably, we will all be set free on the streets and trails again for another season.

The Round-Up

Reading – The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011; some amazing work in this volume and I’m only halfway through. Also, guiltily finished Beauty Disrupted by Carre Otis last night. Skimmed the last 50 pages when she was working on her Buddhism and having kids. The bottom line, at least in my mind, is that getting only a 9th grade education can really put a hamper on your options in life. I mean, hooray for you if you can be a model but that doesn’t mean you’re going to make good decisions. Oh, and Mickey Rourke is an asshole. But we knew that, right?

Watching - The Last Days of Disco (1998). After I got through watching this I was like, “OK, why didn’t anyone ever tell me about this movie?” For a few minutes, I was actually pissed. Then I realized that it was silly. Because no one can be your pop culture mentor. What I mean is, I really loved this film and wondered why it took me over then years to find it.

I’ve now seen all three of Whit Stillman’s movies, having watched Barcelona over the weekend when it was shitty and cold and I didn’t want to leave the house. Once you get into the rhythm of Stillman’s humor and sarcasm, it’s terrific. Of his three films, Last Days of Disco is definitely the best. I said this in an earlier post, but he finally has another movie coming out this year and I am greatly anticipating it.

Anticipating: I never thought I’d say this, but I want to go to Arkansas. The reason? I must see the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Yeah, the one built by the Walmart heiress. I’ve done a lot of reading about this, and seen some stories on TV and I think, yeah, I want to go. The combination of art and nature at that spot would be highly enjoyable. Zen-like, even.

The bitch is kinda butch, is what I’m trying to say.

That heavy decision out of the way, I can focus on the nominations.

Best Supporting Actress – I’m all for Melissa McCarthy winning this one for Bridesmaids. It’s time for the Academy to recognize comedy as a legitimate art form. You don’t have don a prosthetic and weep/drown/or kill someone in order to deserve recognition. It’s much harder to make people laugh.

Berenice Bejo, while beautiful and peppy in The Artist (in fact, her character’s name is Peppy), didn’t have to speak. I’m just saying.

Octavia Spencer was very good in The Help but I fear  her performance won’t hold up over time. I fear that the entire The Help phenom might make us either wince or shrug in 2020. Many movies dealing with race relations feel instantly dated. Have you tried watching Dangerous Minds lately?

Best Supporting Actor – I’m placing my bet on Christopher Plummer. OK, it’s because he’s super cool more than because of his performance. But it seems fair that I support him because Beginners is the only movie I’ve seen in this category (the others being My Week With Marilyn, Warrior, Moneyball and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close).

Watch this profile of Christopher Plummer on CBS Sunday Morning and you’ll probably love him, too.

Note: What the hell is Warrior? When they first read this on TV, I thought they were referring to The Warriors, which would have been more interesting except Nick Nolte wasn’t in that.

Also, Nick Nolte seems to be back amongst the living. No more drunken arrests complete with crazy hair in the near future. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Note: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was panned by almost all the critics. And yet it got the nod for Best Picture. Why? It’s Tom Hanks. There are a few things that equal nominations no matter what. Here is a brief list:

• Famous actress donning a prosthetic that makes her ugly. Everyone knows this.
• Anything Tom Hanks does, is in, produces, mentions that he likes. Exception: Larry Crowne
• Double the above rule if it’s something with Tom Hanks or sanctioned by Tom Hanks that involves WWII.
• Dames Mirren or Dench. You want awards? Hire a Dame.
• Most bio pics. This year’s heavily-awarded biopic that no one saw is My Week With Marilyn.

Best Actress – We’re not going to have any democracy in this category until Meryl Streep is either too infirm to leave her house or dead. I wonder if it’s not just a little bit embarrassing for her at this point. If she voiced a raccoon dying of mange in a Pixar movie, she would get a nomination. “Oh, Meryl, that inflection you gave Rita Raccoon! Unbelievable! For the first time I felt as if I knew what it would be like to have mites.”

It is my dream, and I know this makes me an awful and petty person, that, upon her death, one of her daughters will publish a Mommy Dearest-style memoir and we as a nation will be shocked and chagrined. And then there will be a biopic made from the memoir and the actress portraying her – Anne Hathaway with a dye job? – will win an Oscar.

I don’t know what to do with this category. Besides Streep for The Iron Lady, there’s Viola Davis for The Help, Michelle Williams for that Marilyn movie, Glenn Close for the disturbing Albert Nobbs (the trailer sure made it look like some funny business goes on between Close and Mia Wasikowska but not in a fun, lesbian kind of way), and Rooney Mara for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Best Actor – I’m going with The Cloon. I saw three out of the five films in this category and I think George Clooney turned in a fine performance in The Descendants. Is it life-altering? No, but none of the performances I saw are. I like Jean Dujardin’s expressive eyebrows as much as the next gal, but I don’t think his performance in The Artist is Oscar-worthy. Maybe the two foreign guys in this category – Dujardin and Bichir, cancel each other out – because we’re in a Theodore Roosevelt-inspired, jingoistic mood. Then Gary Oldman goes out because it’s determined that his glasses and trench coat did the bulk of the heavy lifting and Brad Pitt… well, I heard he’s busy dealing with a severed head.

Best Director – Of the two people I know who actually saw Tree of Life, neither one had anything good to say about it. Perhaps Malick is nominated in this category because it took him so long to make this movie and people feel bad about that. “This took you how long? Oh. Well, bravo. Here’s a… statue.”

This is one film I will have to try to see before the awards though, so that I can keep putting it down but in a more intelligent manner.

For me, this category is between Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris and Alexander Payne for The Descendants.

Best Original Screenplay – I’m waiting until I have more information on this one – there are two films I still need to see in this category, which I take ridiculously seriously. In a contest that has no bearing on my everyday life, this category means more to me than the price of a gallon of gas and maybe more than who is going to get the Republican Presidential nomination, although in that contest I’m rooting for Gingrich because it will be more fun for all of us.

The nominees are Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist, Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo for Bridesmaids, J.C. Chandor for Margin Call, Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris and Asgar Farhadi for A Separation.

Best Adapted Screenplay – Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash for The Descendants.

Best Picture – They could have nominated 10 films in this category but, for giggles, they nominated nine. Those tricky Academy members! By the way, I know of two people who are actually in the Academy and they have awful taste and the film projects they’ve been involved with are shit, so it raises the question of whether we should put any stock in Academy members’ opinions in the first place, but then again it’s not just one or two votes that matter, it’s the aggregate, so in that sense it’s like the popular vote in the Presidential race.

I guess.

The nominees are The Artist, War Horse, Moneyball, The Descendants, Tree of Life, Midnight in Paris, The Help, Hugo and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

I’m going with The Descendants because it’s got it all – Clooney, Payne, Hawaii, the other Bridges brother, some laughs, some tears. What more do you want from a movie?

Or it could be Midnight in Paris, just for Corey Stoll’s portrayal of Ernest Hemingway alone.

Here is a transcript of my notes. If you live at any of the addresses I insult below, I’m sorry you have to live in such a terrible place.

Oh, I almost forgot a very important detail. These notes are in a spiral-bound notebook with a black-and-white photo of a cat on the front. Well, rather than describing it, I’ll show it to you:

The only thing worse than using this notebook then is that I recently found it in a drawer, realized it had a lot of paper left  in it and started using it again.

The notes:

$10 month/cat [Note: I had a cat named Ella. A very bad cat.]
$30 application fee
$510 security dep. (one month rent)
Alarm systems installed.
Grand Lake Apt.

[Note: Interestingly enough, I drove by this building with my sister and she forbade me to actually look at the apartment, declaring it unfit for a single woman living alone. She meant that it seemed sketchy. About eight years later some friends of ours moved in to this same building and my husband helped them move a piano up two flights of stairs. They did not seem to be aware that people are in the business of moving musical instruments of this size professionally.]

2 1/2 story, 10 unit    $460
1828 Columbus Ave S
All-brick building
Secured entrance
Extra large 800 sq. feet
Maple floors
3 arched openings, 2 china hutches
panel mahogany doors
floor to ceiling
shower (!!?)
cable

[Note from 2012 self: when can I move in?]

Grand Avenue 1 block
323 W 31st Street
1/2 mile to Lake Calhoun [might as well be 20 miles]
$700 1BR
20x
shower
$510
sewer, water, trash, heat, laundry

[Yes, again with this apartment. I don't know why it is written down twice. It must have been like forbidden fruit to me.]

3404 Emerson $500 MAYBE
3236 Garfield $559 NASTY
2621 Pleasant $535 BRICK BUILDING NOT BAD

2621 Pillsbury *** OK
19xx Ridgewood Ave South $550 ADDRESS??? COULDN’T FIND
Aldrich & Franklin 1 BR $475 NO SHOWER
James & 31st small 1 BR NICE STREET/HOUSES/LAKE

Final note: I did not live in any of these places. No, I opted to move into an apartment directly above Bryant Lake Bowl. Yes, this was a huge mistake. Yes, I thought I was being incredibly urban and hip.

I may be urban (but the older I get the more I suspect I’m not; I was raised in the country and it seems that, at some point, I will make my return) but I have never been hip.

To give you an idea of my lameness: there was a video store on the corner of Lake & Bryant at the time, which I  also lived directly above. I rented videos there. I would have to pass their door everyday in order to go anywhere and yet I racked up so steep a late fee on rented videos that I was no longer able to rent there unless I paid it off. I felt I could not afford to do so. I was no longer able to rent videos at the store right beneath me.

This was before Netflix.

I hit the photo jackpot the other day, finding an entire basket of color photos from various people’s albums. Color photos are harder to come across than black and white photos. I think this is because the black and white photos have probably reached the stage now where no one is left to claim a lot of them and they got released out into the world.

The back of this photo says:

“Boogie off to college (admittedly, the first word might not be “boogie” at all but something else – it’s tough writing to read) with Mom’s car for 1 week. Her bike was our grad present. I was sad seeing #7 leave. xxx Peg”

The time goes quickly, Peg. One minute you’re seeing your daughter off to college, the next minute your photo is in the hands of some weird woman in Minnesota.

Sweet grad present, though. I approve.

I’ll be sharing more photos soon.

This week I’ve been thinking of words and phrases I’m considering using more in daily speech. Here’s what I have so far:

• “Better than pushing broom.” A statement to use when someone is complaining about something work-related. Example: “I hate having to sit in these meetings all afternoon.” “Hey, better than pushing broom.” I think this could get annoying pretty quickly though, if you’re the person always saying this. Especially if you don’t ever have to push broom yourself.

• “Why you gotta front?” Reviving this from the 90′s, when Wheezer asked this question with great aplomb. I still think it has relevance today. Maybe more so. I’d like to go on Facebook and put under a lot of “stories,” this exact question. “Why you gotta front? We know your life ain’t that great.”

• “Don’t just sit there biting your beard.” A good put-down to hipster guys, especially, but not limited to, those who live in Williamsburg. Means – don’t just sit there, judging, but doing nothing.

• Rinky dink. Saying something is rinky dink is still, to me, an exact and devastating putdown. No one wants to be accused of being small time. Right up there as dismissing someone as boring.

• Hatchet job. I find a lot of delight in saying someone did a hatchet job on something or someone.

• Jinking. I learned this word by looking over Keith’s shoulder while we were on a plane and he was reading a Tom Clancy “novel.” That’s his thing – he reads Tom Clancy when he flies. I no longer question. Well, I do when I look over and see the word “jinking,” which apparently describes something a plane does. Shaking? Listing to starboard? I’m not sure. But it’s fun to say and can describe any number of movements. Works well with cats.

• Escape-uate. This is Keith’s but I like it. “Let’s escape-uate.” A cross between “escape” and “evacuate.” To use when a situation or place is bad news.

The Weekly Round-up

Reading: OK, so I’m reading The Puppy Diaries by Jill Abramson of the New York Times. And loving it. I remember so much about my own days as  frustrated human with puppy. It’s a very fast read. Also reading Best Nonrequired Reading 2011.

Watching: I tried to watch, in all earnestness, Uncle Sam Magoo, a cartoon from 1970.

It is supposed to be about… I guess the history of America. It is beyond terrible. As in, you start out laughing, thinking it’s going to be a great time, and end up stewing about everything that’s wrong with this country. First it glosses over our entire history with American Indians, high- kicks its way through the Revolutionary War and then reverts to a song and drawings to “Illustrate” the Civil War, with no mention of slavery at all.

Keith and I decided the only way one could possibly enjoy it was if one were high on nutmeg.

Also, along with the rest of America, watching Downton Abbey.

Doing: I’m on page 150 of the second draft of my book. I do five pages a day because that is all I can stand. One day I did 8 pages. That was a major day. It is hard work. And lonely. But sometimes I make myself laugh out loud. I have no idea why I’m writing short sentences as if I’m Hemingway.

Anticipating going to seeing the performanc of  Dirty Girls Come Clean, by Freshwater Theatre, in Northeast Minneapolis (Nimbus Theater) on Friday night. Should be fun. Karaoke party afterwards!

On the same morning President Lincoln died, Andrew Johnson was sworn in as President. Of course, since the White House was still occupied by a grieving Mary Todd Lincoln, lying in bed, he and his family could not move in.

This was in April; the Lincolns did not leave until June.

It must have been a bit irritating. You can see your big mansion but you can’t live in it.

Johnson’s daughter, Martha, arrived in Washington DC from Tennessee in July. She took up the duties of First Lady because her mother, Eliza, was sick with  tuberculosis (see my post Understanding the Olden Days: TB for more info on that disease). Eliza did come to Washington in August but she immediately retired to a bedroom and stayed there for the next couple of years.

In one of her first public statements, Martha said, “We are plain people from the mountains of Tennessee, called here for a short time by a national calamity. I trust too much will not be expected of us.”

That’s an interesting way of saying, “Don’t get your hopes up.”

The Johnsons were a folksy folk. Martha insisted upon sewing her own dresses, making all the butter used at the House and cleaning the place up. Apparently, after the Civil War and the looting after Lincoln’s death, it was a dump.

One senator referred to Martha, her sister and mother as “sensible and unpretending.” You know what that means?

Nice enough, but ugly.

Let’s take a look. Here’s Mom:

Ouch.

OK, here’s daughter:

Not too bad. I mean, she’s probably not going to come out on top in a “Hot Or Not?” competition, but those are some kind, butter-churning eyes.

Anyway, there was at least one good year at the White House. There were grandkids running around and some solid dinner parties were thrown. The place wasn’t such a pig sty anymore. The First Ladies Cook Book says it took, “Soap, water, mending, patching and a $30,000 appropriation from Congress to do the job.”

Meanwhile, President Johnson was busy screwing up Reconstruction in the South by pissing off the radical Republicans and not doing  much to help the freed slaves (Wikipedia explains that, despite some actions to the contrary as Vice President and early in his Presidency, Johnson possessed “heart-felt white supremacy.” I can’t say I’ve ever heard white supremacy described in quite that way before).

Eventually, he was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives although it failed to pass the Senate.

What was going on was that Johnson was really a Democrat, back when “Democrat” sort of meant what “Republican” means today. Let me put it this way: it would be like if Obama was assassinated, Joe Biden was sworn in as President and then he was like, “Guess what? I’m a Republican. And not only that, I like what these Tea Partiers have to say.”

The First Ladies Cook Book, in true 1960s fashion, skirts the issue, choosing instead to describe President Johnson as the hardest-working man in Washington.

“He got up at 6 in the morning in the summer; at 7 in the winter. He would write, study or read until 10. For the next hour he saw visitors. At 11 came lunch, and in the next hour he met with his Cabinet or special visitors. Often at 3 he took a walk if he could get away; 4 was his dinner hour and relaxation. At 5 he was back at his desk, often working until midnight, with a cat and a coffeepot for company. At 8 he stopped briefly for refreshments with his family.”

Sounds like a lot of eating to me. And so early! Dinner at 4? Was it the Early Bird Broasted Chicken Dinner with an iceberg lettuce salad, mashed potatoes, a roll and a slice of lemon meringue pie for $8.99?

[Side Note: Perhaps the most interesting nugget about President Johnson is that, at his and Lincoln's inaugural ceremony back on March 4, 1865, he was wasted from drinking the night before and all morning and made a long, rambling speech that made no sense. Apparently, this was a one-time thing. Lincoln said afterwards, ""I have known Andy Johnson for many years; he made a bad slip the other day, but you need not be scared; Andy ain't a drunkard."

Andy Ain't a Drunkard is the name of my new album.]

At the end of the term, Andy did not get re-elected. The Presidency went to Ulysses Grant because he had the cooler first name. There were hard feelings all the way around. One of Johnson’s last acts as President was to grant unconditional amnesty to all Confederates on Christmas Day, December 25, 1868.

So, what was the racist bastard eating for dinner, anyway?

Saddle of Lamb a la Duchesse FTW!

Did simple Tennessean folk really eat Saddle of Lamb? By the way, this is a lamb’s back, not a saddle that you place onto a lamb to ride it around if you are, say, an elf.

The first thing this recipe says is that, should you not be able to locate a saddle of lamb, go for the loin and have the butcher crack the bones between the joints for easier carving and serving. But you knew that, didn’t you?

What you need:

8-pound saddle of lamb
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
5 or 6 strips of bacon
1/4 cup flour, for dredging and gravy
hot water, for gravy

Rub the saddle up with the salt, pepper and flour. Place on rack in open pan with a few slices of fat bacon on top. Roast at 300 degrees, allowing 30-35 minutes per pound. Americans prefer it well done; the French prefer it rare. No one is sure how the Canadians like it and, frankly, I didn’t ask them.

Pour off surplus fat, add flour to drippings, stir carefully to avoid lumps, brown slightly, add hot water for gravy to serve in sauce boat.

You have your gravy boat, right? The one you got for your wedding? Oh, you gave that to the thrift store? Oops.

Put paper cuffs on the little bones before serving for a festive dead animal look.

This is one of my favorite works of art at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. It’s “Santos Dumont – The Father of Aviation II,” 2009, by Kehinde Wiley. Until recently it hung in the Baroque Gallery among other works depicting the go-to subject matter of the Old Masters – religious figures and scenes. It was stunning to see “Santos Dumont” side-by-side with these paintings because the poses of the two figures evoke that of religious paintings from times gone by and yet it’s a thoroughly modern painting in tone.

I enjoy going to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts because it’s a place to unplug. You wander about, looking at art and making what you will of it. No need to Facebook it or tweet about it.

I’ve been thinking about Twitter a lot lately. The thing about Twitter is that it is such an ephemeral medium until the moment you die. Then, if you are a Twitter user,  it can suddenly define you. Your last tweet encapsulates you. It’s your last message to the world and, sort of, what you stood for.

This scares me a lot. It could go horribly wrong. What if your last tweet was something like:

Ya first Tatt …Oooweee #unforgettablefeelings

or

Hey who has a science exam tommorrow?? I do and im gonna fail!!!!

You know who got lucky with this? Heavy D. His last tweet, before dying of a blood clot, was “Be Inspired!” I believe that the “I” was indeed capitalized. Be Inspired. How inspirational! And so we remember him as an artist, as someone who broke through boundaries and enriched our lives with “Now That We Found Love.”

His last tweet could have easily been something like, “H8 waiting in line at Arby’s.”

Then what would we have thought?

Other famous last tweets include:

• “Green” by Dan Wheldon, the Indy 500 champ who died in a wreck
• “My interview in Bazaar with Kim Kardashian came out!!” by Elizabeth Taylor

• A photo of himself drinking with friends tweeted by Ryan Dunn from Jackass just hours before dying in an auto wreck.
• “… Stuck in the plane on the runway. You can always count on US Air.” by Billy Mays, the infomercial king, after the tires of the plane he was on blew out during landing. Cause of death was heart disease (the silent killer).

• “oinka oinka oinka why you awake” on Amy Winehouse’s official Twitter feed. True fans are quick to point out that it was NOT her personal account. Still, baffling.

What to do about this? Treat every tweet as if it could be your last? You see people on Twitter taking this approach with their goodness. Their tweets are things like, “Good Morning Twitter Friends!!! What can I help you with today??” One imagines them sliding into their chair with a headset on, like a customer service representative.

Or they spend their time diligently pounding out tweets that are quotes from Gandhi or the Buddha or even Mark Twain.

While I can’t imagine becoming a Twitter Do-Gooder, my tweets are far from what I’d like to be my lasting legacy. Let’s take a look at some of my recent activity:

Rebecca Collins @NotShallow

• James Cameron is like, “Yeah, I can do anything I want. Anything at all. So I’m going to spend my time making this old movie of mine 3D.”
• Walgreens called me while I was in Walgreens. Whoa.
• “Disappointment is a beautiful woman reading Ayn Rand.” From the short story “A Bridge Under Water” by Tom Bissell. Two thumbs waaaaay up.
• Hey, MN friends. I’m looking outside and I can see. It is not dark out. It is 4:57. We will win this
• Here’s something that’s not boring: Handmade Ryan Gosling. bit.ly/txiHlB
• I agree with my sister, the phrase “skill set” has to go in 2012. If you define yourself by one “set” of “skills,” you are boring.

Actually, while a single tweet could be embarrassing when trying to sum up a life, it turns out that a decent eulogy could be written from just a handful of tweets. For example:

“Rebecca was a person charmed by the little things in life. Once, she got a call from Walgreen’s automated call system regarding her prescription while she was in Walgreens picking up said prescription. Her mind was blown! She was determined to make it through the harsh Minnesota winters, she found Ryan Gosling and crafting to be two things that made life worth living and she loved her sister. While she, like many of us, found the ways successful filmmakers like James Cameron choose to squander their time confusing, she took comfort in good short stories.”

Done and done. Note to my loved ones – feel free to use this should I die within the next few weeks or even months.

The Round-Up

Reading: Finished Just Kids by Patti Smith (Yes, it’s as great as everyone says it is) and Sleepwalk With Me by Mike Birbiglia (going to see him on Feb. 13th at the Guthrie Theater). Next up: a titillating memoir by Carre Otis (she of modeling, Mickey Rourke, heroin fame) called Beauty, Disrupted. I got this book from the library and I had to wait months, yes, months to get it. Shows you what people really want to read.

Watching: I just watched, for the first time, Metropolitan by Whit Stillman. It’s about some preppy college students who are home for Christmas break and making the rounds of the Christmas balls (I’m not sure this kind of thing actually happens anymore. The Christmas deb balls, I mean). Whit has definitely been one of my cultural blind spots. He’s custom-made for me and yet I was only marginally aware of his existence until a few weeks ago. I think this is what keeps art and culture exciting – who’s out there that you don’t know about yet?

I really liked this film, once I got used the stiff line delivery. In some ways it felt like a play.  I need to watch it a second time, now that I’ve got the hang of it. I put his other two films, The Last Days of Disco and Barcelona on my Netflix queue. Well, Barcelona is available for streaming but not The Last Days of Disco because that would make it much too easy on me. Metropolitan is available for streaming, then Disco is not and Barcelona is.

Just to make it tough for you to see the man’s entire 3-film catalog.

Then I found out that he has a new film (his last one came out in 1998), which will screen at Sundance (or I may have just made that up) and will be released in April. It’s called Damsels in Distress. So look out for that if you’re a Stillman fan. Or quick watch his other three films and become a fan. Become superfan, if you want.

Listening: I believe Tom Petty is having a moment with me right now. Also, the Elvis song “It’s Now or Never.” And Red Hot Chili Peppers. I’m stuck in the past, people.

 

* The Wednesday Outlook is a weekly feature on Not Shallow. In the past, it became something of a “hit-or-miss” affair but in 2012 it will make a strong resurgence. It generally features a photo that has nothing to do with anything else tin the post, a mini-essay and a round-up of what I’m reading, watching, listening to, doing, going to do or eating. Past Wednesday Outlooks may be found here if you’ve got the time and inclination.