Li'l Blog of Lists

People I'm inclined to like

2011-11-12T09:14:00.009-05:00

OK, I'll admit it: people drive me nuts. (Makes total sense that I live in a city with 8 million of them, right?) But I don't loathe everyone. Here, wild generalizations about certain categories of folks, designed to make me feel like less of a misanthrope.

1. Women named Jennifer. There are a lot of them out there, so it's interesting that I've liked pretty much every one I've encountered. Sorry if I'm discriminating against men named Jennifer. It's just that I haven't met any.

2. Public transit riders who, when they get a phone call, say, "I can't talk right now, I'm on a bus/train."

3. People who went to so-called Public Ivys. If your parents ever told you, "Sure, you want to go NYU, but we can only afford SUNY," I'm predisposed to be on your side. (Not that I dug everyone I went to college with, exactly, but I still feel a certain kinship.)

4. Minnesotans in exile. I've met at least half a dozen Gophers in New York and I've enjoyed them all. What is it with those people? Surely some of them must be jerks, but I haven't come across any. On a related note:

5. Californians who have moved to New York. Growing up, I always saw Cali as the promised land. So I'm impressed by people who gave up swimming pools and movie stars to live in a place where the weather is crap about 75 percent of the time. It shows they have character.

6. People who laugh at their own jokes. This is adorable. It helps if the jokes are funny, but it's not strictly necessary.

Six people, living or dead, with whom I'd like to have a beer

2011-10-15T08:24:00.004-04:00

Feel free to use any of these in your college essays or job interviews. You're welcome.

1. Willa Cather. O Pioneers! is one of my favorite books — sort of a Little House for grownups. (Never mind that I still read the Little House books as a grownup.) I'd love to hear firsthand what it was like to live on the frontier. And Cather was a pioneer in more ways than one: as a high school student, she cut off her hair and dressed like a dude. This was in 1888. In Nebraska. Gotta respect that.

2. Jimmy Buffett. Hear me out on this, hipsters. It is my contention that Jimmy Buffett has the Best Life Ever. Seriously. He makes insane amounts of money traveling around the world, playing happy music for people in aloha shirts looking for a good time. I want to ask Jimmy if his life is, in fact, one big party. Also, he's rich, so he'd be buying.

3. O.J. Simpson. If I got him alone, I'm sure I could get him to 'fess up.

4. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I saw her once at a Simon and Garfunkel concert. That was so cool. We could talk about our favorite songs, and she could tell me how she resists the urge to smack Scalia upside the head.

5. Joey Ramone. It would have to be in a really dark bar, though, because his beady eyes and awful teeth would start to freak me out after a while.

6. Laura Bush. Look, I know Michelle Obama is infinitely cooler. But I probably have more in common with Laura. We're both librarians and we both love the national parks. I think if I got a couple of pints in her, she'd drop the whole Stepford facade and tell me how she really feels about, say, Dick Cheney.

Things I don't like about rock shows

2011-09-25T21:14:00.007-04:00

1. People who talk through the entire concert. Seriously? And you paid $45 for this why?

2. When people cheer after the bandleader says, "This next song is from our upcoming album." Bullshit. No one likes when they play the new stuff.

3. Not being able to see the stage. I'm 5'3" so this happens, oh, pretty much all the time. When I open my venue there will be a corral up front for the short folks.

4. Ticketmaster "convenience" fees.

5. When the headliner doesn't go on until 11 pm. OK, I admit it: I'm old. But really, it's hard to rock when you're thinking about bed. (Pretend I didn't just use "rock" as a verb.)

6. Drunk guys. Who always seem to be standing near me. Acting drunk.

Status updates about my cats

2011-09-15T22:46:00.000-04:00

Mr. T (left) and Sally Timms

There are two kinds of people in the world: cat people, and people who find cat people infinitely annoying. As a reformed dog person, I can see both sides. Therefore, I have restrained myself from making all my Facebook status updates about my new kittens, Mr. T and Sally Timms, who just happen to the BEST AND CUTEST THINGS EVER. (Really. Look at them!) Here, to get it out of my system, are some things I resisted posting on Facebook.

1. Can't get off the couch. Got 2.5 lbs of kitten on my lap.

2. For some reason I occasionally pronounce Mr. T as "Mistah T." Friends of a certain age might remember Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter. I sound like him.

3. I allow Mr. T to sit on my head. There's gotta be something bad about this.

4. I have been about 75% happier since we got the cats.

5. In the past week I have found myself Googling "cat butt smells" and "kitten stool soft." (Don't worry, everything's fine. It does, however, make Item No. 3 all the more alarming.)

6. Cats who desperately want to get into the fridge or dishwasher should be careful what they wish for.

7. I know you think your cat is cute, too. That's great.

8. What cat toys do you recommend?

Awful Astoria real estate photos

2011-09-07T19:04:00.013-04:00

As anyone who has even briefly watched HGTV knows, proper staging is crucial to getting top dollar for your home. You're supposed to hide your personal effects, make sure everything is spotless, and generally give the appearance that no one lives in the place. Well, evidently many realtors in my neighborhood of Astoria, Queens, don't have cable. Here, some of the least appealing photos I've encountered on local real estate web sites. All are posted for your viewing pleasure with no permission whatsoever. (To freak out the non-New Yorkers: the properties below are two-family houses selling for just shy of $700,000. Please don't tell me what I could buy in your town for that kind of money. It would cause me to go into a corner, hug myself and rock.)

1. The bad bathroom. Nothing says home like an ill-fitting toilet lid cover, a full wastebasket and some stranger's toiletries all over the sink.

2. The bad bathroom, part deux. Because really, what's more attractive than leaving the seat up?

3. The bad bedroom. This house is cool because it comes with a dead body covered by a green sheet.

4. The other bad bedroom. Perfect for the homeowner who doesn't think closets need doors.

5. The bad stairs. To quote the late great Joey Ramone, "Hey, daddy-o, I don't wanna go down to the basement." Because I'd probably break my neck on the way.

6. The bad workshop. Free with home purchase: a big pile of crap. Oh, and a hammer.

Features of my fantasy bar

2011-08-28T18:02:00.028-04:00

I'm not a huge drinker. (Really. See No. 2 below.) But I do love a good draft beer, and since I don't (yet) own a keg, having a pint requires going out. And let's face it, being around other people is (sometimes) better than being on your couch. Here, a list of things I'd love to see in a drinking establishment.

1. Hooks under the bar. I hate when there's no place to hang your bag. I also hate groping under the bar for hooks and finding only gum.

2. A two-drink maximum. You read that right: maximum. That's my own personal limit and it has kept me out of any number of scrapes over the years. No one really needs to get more drunk than they do on two drinks. I will, however, be flexible: if you weigh more than 150 pounds, you can have three. Soft drinks will be served for free in between rounds.

3. Friendliness toward board game players. On weekend afternoons, Mr. SZ and I like to bring our travel Scrabble board to a pub and have a pint or two. It's helpful to have some lighting and fellow patrons who don't mock us. (Remember when I said I was through being cool? Well, yeah.)

4. Good music played at a reasonable volume. No one should have to scream to be heard. It's no fun to wake up after a night out sounding as if you've smoked a pack of Kools. And by good music, I mean stuff I like. No lite jazz, no Bieber, no Whitesnake.

5. Five to 10 interesting beers on tap. Any fewer is too limiting; any more makes me anxious about making the right choice.

6. Decent food. What's up with the mozzarella sticks, potato skins and cheeseburgers? I might be poisoning my liver but the rest of my body shouldn't have to suffer. A nice spicy hummus, veggie flatbread and hey, even oysters are excellent things to serve.

7. Clean bathrooms. One of my favorite bars, d.b.a., has a toilet so appalling that I limit my beer intake to avoid using it. That ain't right.

8. Big windows. I like watching rainstorms at bars. It's so noir.

Some recent grand delusions

2011-08-23T22:29:00.012-04:00

1. I will never go gray if I continue to pluck out gray hairs as I find them. Nor will this practice make me bald.

2. My former co-worker did not see me casually adjusting my underwear just before we bumped into each other on the street.

3. Chocolate cupcakes could not possibly contain white flour. They're brown.

4. I never heard back from that person because my e-mail got caught in her spam filter. (Corollary: if I don't check my e-mail for at least two hours the message I'm expecting will arrive.)

5. Not washing my face before bed is good because the oil moisturizes my skin overnight. Hey, free wrinkle cream!

6. One of these days a big check will turn up in my mailbox for absolutely no reason.

Movie titles that give it all away

2011-05-30T15:01:00.008-04:00

1. Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead. Seriously, don't tell her, because then we can have HILARIOUS AND AMAZING ADVENTURES with no grown-ups around to spoil the fun!

2. Snakes on a Plane. Without having seen this film, I'm gonna guess it's about a millionaire newspaper tycoon and his sled.

3. Bad Santa. That Santa? Really, really bad. (See also: Bad Teacher.)

4. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. OK, this doesn't tell the WHOLE story — for example, how exactly did that gal get so tall? — but you get the gist.

5. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Yep, that about sums it up. Side note: if you haven't already seen this film, don't. It haunts me years later, and not in a good way.

6. Zack and Miri Make a Porno. What more does one need to know?

7. Revenge of the Nerds. It might not be apparent from the title (or the poster), but the dorks prevail.

Free crap I got after a charity run

2011-05-02T22:26:00.011-04:00

It's hard to say what's best about charity 5K runs: the exercise, the supporting of a worthy cause, or the swag you get at the after party. Below, some highlights (and lowlights) of a recent haul.

1. A tote bag. The way they give out totes these days, they're practically as big an environmental menace as the plastic they were meant to replace. This came in handy on race day when I needed something to carry all my free crap. In the future, however, I am unlikely to run around town sporting a bag that says "Sensible Portions" on it.

2. A Womentum T-shirt. Let's be honest: Womentum is not a great slogan. How do you even pronounce it? Whoa-mentum? Wimmin-tum? Whatever. The shirt is ill-fitting and destined for Goodwill.

3. A medal. Unless you have some sort of display case for your, um, medals, I can see no earthly use for this. That said: I did wear it home on the subway because really, how often does one get to wear a medal?

4. A mini box of granola. Score! Any breakfast food with dark chocolate in it is OK by me.

5. Minute Rice. OK, this was cool: the rice booth had a wheel you could spin to win fabulous prizes, including magnets, measuring cups and, of course, rice. I hit the big time, people. Also part of this package: a Quick & Easy Minute Rice cookbook, featuring such family favorites as Cheesy Tuna Dinner and Porcupine Meatballs (with real porcupine! OK, I made that part up).

6. A change purse. This is actually fairly useful as it can hold a credit card, keys, etc. and clip on to your shorts when you run. It came with a free one-week pass to Lucille Roberts, that gym that only allows ladies.

7. A nail buffer. And not just any nail buffer: this one promises "400% shinier nails in just 10 seconds." Jeez, how shiny would they be if you buffed for 20 seconds? (That involves math so I'll leave it to you to figure out.)

8. Lipstick. The shade: Wink for Pink. It seems to be the exact color Barbie wears. This will sit unused in my makeup basket for about two years until I remember that you're supposed to chuck your cosmetics after six months or you'll get leprosy.

Reasons why I♥NY

2011-04-19T10:14:00.030-04:00

20 years ago this month, a young SZ moved to New York City (OK, Brooklyn) with stars in her eyes and the dust of a small town on her shoes (OK, so she took the Metro-North in from Peekskill. THAT STILL COUNTS). She's had a bit of a love-hate thing with it ever since (hence the idle threats of moving somewhere else). But today, it's all about ♥-ing. (Note: these are in addition to all the obvious things like museums, music, theater, etc.)

1. The anything-goes atmosphere. It is impossible to feel like a weirdo in this town. No matter what your quirks, there's always someone even kookier.

2. The pizza. My God, the pizza. In the past year I've had the pleasure of dining at Paulie Gee's, Lucali, Co., Franny's, Keste, Rubirosa, Saraghina, Roberta's, Motorino, Fornino, Zero Otto Nove, Donatella, Veloce, Luzzo's, San Matteo and my beloved neighborhood joint, Sac's. Truly we are living in a golden age.

3. The unlimited Metrocard. Yes, the card technology kind of sucks, but oh, the luxury of taking all the subway rides you want for what seems like free.

4. Central Park. I used to think it was an overcrowded scene — and on warm weekend afternoons, it totally is. But if you get there before, say, 9 am, it's among the most magical places on earth. The city planners of the 19th century were geniuses.

5. The health care. If I were, God forbid, to get ebola or something, there are no better doctors or hospitals in the world.

6. The spring and the fall.

7. Brownstones. For my money, the most attractive form of housing anywhere.

Reasons to celebrate the Irish (that don't involve getting blind drunk)

2011-03-17T07:00:00.043-04:00

1. They write like this.

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

2. They make music like this. (Note: the dancing is not under any circumstances to be celebrated. Same goes for the hair. And sure, I could have picked something less obvious, but why miss the chance to showcase a tiny Bono?)

3. Their countryside looks like this. (OK, I ripped this photo off the Discover Ireland web site. But I've been there, dammit, and it really is that green.)

4. They make movies like this.

5. They produce bloggers like this. Well, 5/8 of me, anyway. Hence my sick dance moves and culinary prowess.

Jobs at which I would fail

2011-03-05T09:04:00.002-05:00

1. Cabbie. This involves two things I do not like: 1) driving and 2) dealing with the public. Oh, and those air fresheners shaped like pine trees.

2. Neurosurgeon. You really don't want me anywhere near your brain with a scalpel.

3. President. Why anyone would want this gig is beyond me. Barack Obama seems like a cool guy but he's gotta be essentially effed up to take on something like that.

4. Waiter. So what'll it be: awkward interactions, the wrong entrée or a bowl of gumbo in your lap?

5. Accountant. This job apparently has something to do with adding. Also, subtracting.

6. Prison guard. Hey, I've watched Oz: I KNOW WHAT THOSE PLACES ARE LIKE. I'm a wimp and would probably get shiv'd on my first day.

7. Stripper. Unless it was at some sort of fetish club for people who like bad middle-aged dancers with cellulite.

10 reasons why I don't totally suck

2011-02-13T14:05:00.010-05:00

Most days I'm what Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner calls "happyish." On occasion, however, I fall into what likable motivational speaker Stuart Smalley calls a "shame spiral," leading me to believe I am what acerbic former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann calls "the WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD." This happens after I've wasted an hour screwing around on Facebook or watching crap like Half-Ton Teen. At times like these I have to tell myself, "Honey, you've got nothing on genocidal dictator Adolf Hitler." This makes me feel somewhat better. Anyway — today, being a wintry Sunday, is one of those days. So I'm making a list of reasons why I'm fit to be part of the human race.

1. I never give waiters a hard time. I'm a good tipper, too.

2. I write a blog that amuses me and possibly others. Perhaps you've heard of it.

3. I'm kind to animals.

4. After decades of utter slugdom, I became a runner. Now that I've finished five races of 5K or more, I think it's OK to say that. I'm not fast, but I finish.

5. I can spell.

6. My sense of humor is, um, quirky. For example, I think this cartoon is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. You do, too? Let's be friends.

7. I'm not normal. Unlike 80 percent of American women my age, I don't have a kid. Unlike 95 percent of U.S. households, mine doesn't own a car. To quote bowtied funnyman Pee-wee Herman, "What's the significance? I DON'T KNOW!" But it seems sort of cool.

8. I've knitted garments that people can wear without being the object of ridicule.

9. I've been happily married for nearly 15 years. To the same person, even. In some circles this counts as a major accomplishment.

10. I vote. Almost always for the good guys.

Parts of the week (in rank order)

2011-02-05T09:04:00.009-05:00

While most of my lists are in no particular order — really, what would be the point of ranking words or phrases I would (or do) feel stupid saying? — this one is. So pay attention, OK? It matters.

1. All day Friday. Oh, the promise this day holds: 48 full hours of doing whatever I damn well please. I particularly enjoy my Friday morning ritual of disabling the alarm clock, which culminates in a joyful flipping of the bird. (I really do this. Every Friday.) Some will argue Saturday is the better day since most of us don't have to work. They're wrong. The workplace on Friday is generally a nice place to be because everyone is thinking about those 48 full hours to do whatever they damn well please.

2. Saturday morning. I especially love getting up before 8 am and feeling like I have all the time in the world. Sometimes pancakes are involved and that's a very good thing indeed.

3. Thursday night. Friday (see No. 1 above) is so close you can taste it. (Mmmmm... Friday.) Also, the excellent television situation comedy 30 Rock is on.

4. Midday Wednesday. I'm fairly neutral on Wednesdays, but lunchtime is cool because the Taim falafel truck usually parks outside my office.

5. Monday morning. No explanation necessary.

6. Sunday night. To quote the legendary band Gum, "Sundays are the lamest days." And once the sun goes down the dread really kicks in. There's a reason the phrase "beating the Sunday blues" gets 80 kabillion results in a Google search. (Don't test this. I totally made it up.)

7. All day Tuesday. Tuesdays suck. Perhaps it's because the reality of the work week has sunk in, or because the weekend seems so far away. Whatever: annoying things always seem to happen on Tuesdays.

Resolutions for 2011

2010-12-31T07:32:00.020-05:00

Yeah, yeah, I know — New Year's resolutions are a recipe for failure. Most of the time, anyway. Way back during the Clinton administration I vowed to floss once a day, and I enjoyed it so much that the habit continues. (You should floss daily, too. Forget about the dental hygiene aspect: it's fun.) So, as we usher in the bizarrely futuristic-sounding 2011, here's what I'm gonna do better:

1. Update my blog more than once a month, for God's sake.

2. Talk less, listen more. This has been on the list for a few years running. So tell me — how'm I doin'?

3. Get to the gym and/or run at least three times a week. Another carryover from last year. I actually did pretty well on this one.

4. Finish the freakin' throw pillow I started knitting in 2009.

5. Quit beating myself up. You know, over things like not finishing the freakin' throw pillow.

6. Stop wasting food. Oh, the pounds of vegetables I've thrown out after they decayed beyond recognition. (Uh, better add "clean the damn fridge once in a while" to the list.) From now on if I buy it, I'm eating it.

7. Get out more. This sofalizing thing ain't cutting it. Who's buying me a beer?

Material things that make me happy

2010-11-20T10:23:00.006-05:00

The New York Times ran a story a while back that said, in a nutshell, stuff doesn't make you happy. (Read it here. No, really. It's a good article. I'll wait for you. OK, are you back? Cool.) For the most part I agree with them. There are, however, some possessions that have genuinely made me a happier person. To wit:

1. My cast-iron skillet. After reading that Teflon frying pans do bad things to you (I forget what; Google it if you're interested), Mr. SZ decided I needed some nontoxic cookware. Not sure if he saved my life or anything but this pan freakin' rocks. It weighs about as much as a preschooler and everything I've cooked in it has been edible (which, if you've ever had dinner at my house, you know is saying a lot). I also love that you don't wash it with soap and have to season it every once in a while with olive oil.

2. My hiking boots. I used to think people who wore just-for-hiking gear were poseurs. But before a trip to Glacier in 2003, I decided that if I was gonna go to a big fancy national park I was gonna get me some big fancy boots. Holy crap. It changed the whole hiking experience. Rocks and tree roots that used to kill my feet were no longer a problem. I stopped twisting my ankles and I could stomp through streams without getting soaked. Hiking boots: four-wheel drive for your feet.

3. My bathrobe. It's one of those giant white terry deals you can ~~steal from hotels~~ buy from hotel gift shops. My sister gave it to me several Christmases ago and it makes me smile every time I step out of the shower. It's starting to get a little ratty but I worry a new one just won't be the same.

4. My art. Behold "Yey Tree," a woodcut by Roman Klonek. OK, it's not to everyone's taste, and at least one visitor to our home has asked, "Did you make that yourself?" But Mr. SZ and I thought it would be fun to invest in some actual art, made by a real live artist with paint and everything. We don't generally agree on these things, so when we both liked this when we saw it in a gallery in Williamsburg we decided to drop a few bucks on it. I love the colors and sense of humor. And yes, I know he spelled "Yay" wrong, but that's part of its charm. Now go tell all your friends about Roman Klonek so he gets really famous and our woodcut increases in value.

5. My SmartWool™ socks. No, this is not a paid product placement. (I wish. Are you reading this, manufacturers of SmartWool™? I CAN BE BOUGHT.) I don't know how they do it, but the folks who make these take wool — a fiber that normally makes me want to claw my skin off — and turn it into the softest, warmest socks imaginable. Also, they are pretty. And machine washable and dryable. Hey, January? My toes are ready for you.

6. My Queens throw pillow. Suck it, Brooklyn.

The biggest lies on television

2010-11-16T21:51:00.001-05:00

1. America's "Funniest" Home Videos

2. Dancing with the "Stars"

3. CSI: "NY" (more like CSI: L.A. Soundstage)

4. America's Next "Top" Model

5. "M"TV

Things I have to let go

2010-11-02T18:53:00.005-04:00

The older I get, the more I realize my chances of being named King of the World are slim. So perhaps it's time to abandon my control-freak ways and accept the things that bug the living crap out of me. Some highlights from that long, long list:

1. Annoying cell phone conversations. I can give all the dirty looks I want: people are never going to stop yapping about their health problems and hookups on the street, on the bus, in the restroom, on the treadmill at the gym... The New Me is going to embrace their candor and possibly offer advice. You know, as a public service.

2. The spelling of Caesar salad on menus. I could travel the country with a tanker truck full of Wite-Out® and still not be able to fix all the Ceasars and Cesars. Go ahead, diner owners. Spell it however you like. I'm done.

3. Bad perfume. The supremely irritating Andy Rooney once said that the closer a person smells to nothing, the better. As much as it pains me to admit it, I agree with the dude. But short of yet another edict from Bloomberg's hyperactive Department of Health, people wearing godawful scents are gonna sit next to me on the subway and in movie theaters. I'll just have to keep popping Advils for the headaches. (What, you thought it was easy being me?)

4. Meanness on Internet message boards. I used to think people were basically good. Then I started reading the comments on Yahoo! News stories. Give someone a computer and a little anonymity and... wow. Just wow. (And don't even get me started on the grammar.) Yahoo, of course, is on the mild end of things: how decent folks can spend time on the really nasty sites is beyond me.

5. My gut. True confession: I've had a bit of a potbelly since 8th grade. I'm now in just about the best shape of my adult life and still the gut remains. It's going nowhere unless I start a strict regimen of Pilates and Abs of Steel. And that, my friends, is Not Gonna Happen. Hey, that's why they make control-top tights.

Cities I would move to if I ever left New York

2010-09-19T13:36:00.002-04:00

Every once in a while, Mr. SZ and I ponder what life would be like if we left the Big Apple. (Not that we ever call it that. Really, who does?) It all sounds great until we realize that pizza everywhere else kinda sucks. So we'll probably live here forever. But if we did decide to bolt, here are the places where we think we could thrive.

1. Chicago

Pros: interesting architecture; public transportation; great museums; lake — big lake

Cons: it reaches absolute zero there in January; accent is sort of irritating; I don't like deep-dish pizza

2. Portland, OR

Pros: great beer; cool light rail system; natural beauty

Cons: panhandling punk teens; endless gray days; on the wrong ocean

3. Amsterdam

Pros: livable scale; beautiful canals; tolerance

Cons: I'd feel like a near midget among the Dutch; the language sounds uncomfortably like gargling

3. Toronto

Pros: universal health care; good refuge if I don't like the next president

Cons: I went there a couple of times in the 1980s and can't remember if I actually liked it

4. Burlington, VT

Pros: college town; near mountains; Vermont is cool

Cons: low population density; fear of being resented as a carpetbagging New Yorker; mud season

5. Madison, WI

Pros: college town; nice lakes; liberal vibe; relatives live there

Cons: I'm pretty sure winter there starts in September

6. Northampton, MA

Pros: hip town; lots of culture; not too far from Boston or New York

Cons: too darn small; chance of running into Kim and Thurston after I dissed their band

Places I've never been but would consider living in

2010-09-17T18:01:00.001-04:00

1. Copenhagen. It looks gorgeous in photos and the Danes seem like pretty cool folks. I bet they would accommodate me by always speaking English.

2. Athens, GA. I have a bit of a phobia about the South, but this seems like a pocket of hipness. I'm a sucker for college towns, and any place that spawned R.E.M. and the B-52s is good enough for me.

3. Boulder, CO. My sister (who has actually been there) pointed out that Boulder consistently gets named the Best City Ever in magazine articles. Don't take her word for it, though -- the Convention and Visitors' Bureau has the proof. It's arty, it's green, it's got mountains... yeah, I think I wanna live in Boulder.

4. Davis, CA. When I was a kid I always thought I'd live in California when I grew up. (My grandparents and aunt and uncle all moved there so I guess I thought it was what one did.) Southern California is a non-starter for me, but I'm intrigued by the northern part of the state. Again, I like college towns, and this one is appealing because everyone there rides bikes. Not that I've owned a bike in 15 years, but the hippie in me thinks it's the best mode of transportation.

5. Portsmouth, NH. Let's face it: the thought of living more than six hours away from New York kind of freaks me out. I need to know I'm within a day's drive of decent bagels. New England always sounded like a reasonable alternative, and Portsmouth seems like a decent small city with an interesting harbor and some nice old buildings. Plus, I liked Joe Coomer's book Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God, which was set on a houseboat in Portsmouth. (Houseboats are also cool. Not that I've ever lived on one.)

Names for future pets

2010-08-14T12:25:00.011-04:00

Ed. note: I covered Pnin the Cat's eyes as I wrote this, so please get off the phone with the ASPCA, won't you?

1. Mr. (or Mrs.) Something. I'm not sure what last name I'd choose, but the notion of giving a pet a title is really cute. I might steal my pal Alaster's idea of naming a dog Miss Judy, or the lovely Meister's pick of Mr. Bones. Hope that's OK.

King Buzzo

2. King Buzzo. This is the name of the leader of the Melvins, a band I don't particularly like. But really, how great of a moniker is King Buzzo? He's got amazing hair, too.

3. Beavis. I would probably crack up every time I called this pet's name. (Heh-heh, I said crack.)

Marty Markowitz

4. Marty Markowitz. I'm not sure where I stand on his politics — I live in Queens, yo — but the Brooklyn Borough President has an awesome name. Also, I like those "Leaving Brooklyn: Oy Vey!" signs he put up on the highways.

5. Bill Murray. Because the man is a genius.

Alternatives to counting sheep

2010-05-15T07:41:00.004-04:00

Before you start worrying about your poor blogger, let me say this: I normally sleep very well. So well, in fact, that I'm practically narcoleptic (see the list of Movies I have slept through, which I'm afraid has grown longer since I wrote it). But every once in a while I find myself staring up at the bedroom ceiling, obsessing over some moronic thing and trying to convince my brain to shut the hell up. That's when I bust out my favorite go-to-sleep techniques. Try 'em: they're cheaper than Ambien and won't make you scarf down the contents of your refrigerator.

1. Naming all the states in alphabetical order. I usually forget one of the M states. There are just too freakin' many of those; one of them's gotta go. Maybe Maryland.

2. Making a list of songs with names in the title (also in alphabetical order). "Alison," "Beth," "Sweet Caroline..." This can, however, cause some wretched tune to get stuck in your head the next day. I warn against picking "Help Me, Rhonda" for R.

3. Counting back from 100. It's actually not just counting: you have to imagine yourself writing each number on a chalkboard and then erasing it. I learned this one as a kid from a book called How to Make Your Dreams Work for You. For the record, I have never been able to Make My Dreams Work for Me. (Tragic, I know.)

4. Telling myself the plot of a movie or a book. Babe (yeah, the g.d. talking pig movie) is a standby. I usually don't get too far past the point where Farmer Hoggett wins the little dude at the fair.

5. Doing multiplication tables. The problem with this? It makes me realize I suck at arithmetic. Once I get past the fives I really have to work at it.

Things I actually don't mind

2010-05-09T18:09:00.009-04:00

OK, I admit it: I'm a crank. All kinds of stuff bugs the living crap out of me: whistling, loud talkers, Seann William Scott... There are, however, some things that annoy other people that really don't irritate me at all. Allow me to pat myself on my curmudgeonly back.

1. Subway preachers. I kind of enjoy being stuck in a train car with these people, because they're often West Indian women with really nice accents. Sure, they tell me I'm bound for eternal damnation, but they sound so cool when they do it.

2. Nails on a chalkboard. That sound that can make a whole classroom full of fourth graders cower under their desks? No effect on me. (Styrofoam packing noodles rubbed on bus windows, however...)

3. Waking up before 7 am on a weekend. In college, I rarely dragged my butt out of bed before noon on a Sunday. (Granted, I rarely went to sleep before 2 am.) Now, if I sleep past 9 I feel somehow cheated. Few things make me happier than getting up early, beating the crowds at the bagel store and feeling the day stretch out wide ahead of me.

4. Lousy weather. Heat wave? Cold snap? Hail the size of Nerf basketballs? Bring it. As they say in Minnesota (where I occasionally pretend I am from), there's no such thing as bad weather — only bad clothes. Plus, blizzards, downpours and the like make staying indoors acceptable, and I'll take any excuse to indulge my agoraphobic tendencies.

5. Longwinded old people. If you want to spend 40 minutes rambling on about something that happened to you in 1935, I'm your audience.

Things I would like to print on cards to hand out

2010-05-03T20:30:00.004-04:00

Ah, rudeness: you can't live in the big city without slamming up against it. If I had any guts whatsoever, I'd confront the impolite people around me and make them see the error of their ways. But since I don't, I'm left to fantasize about handing them little cards that express my dismay. Por ejemplo:

The funniest books I've ever read

2010-04-22T19:22:00.006-04:00

1. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Age 13-3/4, by Sue Townsend

Who's the bigger loser: the clueless Adrian Mole or the middle-aged woman who wheezes with laughter every time she reads his journal? But really, it's hilarious, as evidenced by this entry from Friday, January 23:

That is the last time I go to a disco. Everybody there was a punk except me and Rick Lemon, the youth leader. Nigel was showing off all night. He ended up putting a safety pin through his ear. My father had to take him to the hospital in our car. Nigel's parents haven't got a car because his father's got a steel plate in his head and his mother is only four feet eleven inches tall. It's not surprising Nigel has turned out bad really, with a maniac and a midget for parents.

2. Barrel Fever, by David Sedaris

Not my favorite Sedaris book on the whole, but "The SantaLand Diaries" makes it a must for this list. It's an absolutely brilliant account of the author's Christmastime stint as Crumpet the Elf at Macy's. I read it every December and laugh my fool head off.

Interpreters for the deaf came and taught us to sign "MERRY CHRISTMAS! I AM SANTA'S HELPER." They told us to speak as we sign and to use bold, clear voices and bright facial expressions. They taught us to say "YOU ARE A VERY PRETTY BOY/GIRL! I LOVE YOU! DO YOU WANT A SURPRISE?"

My sister Amy lives above a deaf girl and has learned quite a bit of sign language. She taught some to me and so now I am able to say, "SANTA HAS A TUMOR IN HIS HEAD THE SIZE OF AN OLIVE. MAYBE IT WILL GO AWAY TOMORROW BUT I DON'T THINK SO."

3. High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby

Perhaps more bittersweet than amusing, but so much of it makes me chuckle (and cringe) in recognition. I love that crap.

[B]y moving to London I had made it easier to be liked by girls. At home, most people had known me... when I was little, and consequently I'd always had the uncomfortable feeling that my boyhood was about to be exposed.... There were pictures all over my parents' house of me with big ears and disastrous clothes, sitting on tractors, clapping with glee as miniature trains drew into miniature stations; and though later on, distressingly, girlfriends found these pictures cute, it all seemed too close for comfort then.

4. A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson

OK, I really wanted to include an excerpt about Bryson's kooky friend Katz, who loves Little Debbie snack cakes and tries to hike the Appalachian Trail with his gear in a newspaper delivery bag. But I don't actually own the book, and I didn't feel like schlepping up to the fifth floor of the Mid-Manhattan Library to get it, so I'm giving you the funniest bit I could find on the Internet. And you will like it.

My first inkling of just how daunting [hiking the Appalachian Trail] was to be came when I went to our local outfitters, the Dartmouth Co-Op, to purchase equipment. My son had just gotten an afterschool job there, so I was under strict instructions of good behavior. Specifically, I was not to say or do anything stupid, try on anything that would expose my stomach, say, "Are you sh*tting me?" when informed of the price of a product, be conspicuously inattentive when a sales assistant was explaining the correct maintenance or aftercare of a product, and above all don anything inappropriate, like a woman's ski hat, in an attempt to amuse.

5. Empire Falls, by Richard Russo

Oh, how I love this book. Sure, parts of it break my heart, but it's damn funny too. This is mostly thanks to Max Roby, a cranky old dude who, Russo writes, lives "comfortably within the confines of a two-word philosophy": "So what?" A sample:

Miles studied his father, whose stubble had a strange orange tint. "Your beard's full of food. Cheetos?"
"So what?"

Right on, Max.

Things that almost invariably make me laugh

2010-04-17T19:09:00.000-04:00

1. Chucky from the Child's Play movies. I've never actually seen the films and I doubt I ever will. Still, I've been laughing about this evil doll since I read a Roger Ebert review that said, "Chucky is one mean SOB." Maybe it's the "SOB" part that I really find amusing. The name Chucky is pretty funny too.

2. Owen Wilson. His movies are usually not very good but there's something about his demeanor that cracks me up.

3. Typos on menus. I like when things come with potatoe.

4. Tracy Morgan. I'm sort of worried, however, that he is the guy he plays on 30 Rock.

5. Mr. SZ. At least once a week he comes out with something that makes me chuckle for days, if not months or even years. And his jokes are rarely at anyone else's expense, which makes them even cooler.

6. Thinking about Shirley from What's Happenin'. Oh, all right. Thinking about Raj, Dee, Dwayne and of course Rerun makes me laugh, too.

7. That "I like to move it, move it" song.

Famous people I have wanted to be

2010-03-20T09:26:00.005-04:00

1. Molly Ringwald. I could never understand why her character in Pretty in Pink was such an outcast: she was so freakin' cool. And yes, she was the reason I hennaed my hair in high school (though I can't hold her responsible for the Ronald McDonald-esque outcome).

2. Chrissie Hynde. In 10th grade I thought she was the epitome of hip; I even wrote an essay about how she was my hero. Now I think she's kind of a mean lady who should probably do something different with her hair after 30-odd years of having the same 'do.

3. Amy Carter. We were both 8 when her family moved to the White House, which I thought was fantastic. Being the first daughter made her the coolest kid in America, and who wouldn't envy that? I'm pretty sure I tried to become her penpal but it never panned out. I hope there are little girls today who want to emulate Sasha and Malia.

4. Debbie Harry. She was punk and pretty. I'm a huge Blondie fan to this day.

Foods I could eat to the point of physical discomfort

2010-03-13T14:38:00.012-05:00

1. Girl Scouts Thin Mints™. Don't let the cute green uniforms fool you: those kids are pushing pure eeeevil. I shudder at the memory of eating half a box in one sitting (but still marvel that I was able to stop at half). The peanut butter ones are diabolical as well.

2. Hummus and pita chips. They're from the Mediterranean so they've got to be good for you, right?

3. Chocolate-covered pretzels. Salt, sugar, fat and crunch: there's really nothing missing from this equation.

4. Guacamole. Not only is it delicious, it's fun to say, especially as part of the expression "Holy guacamole!" (Don't worry, I don't use that a lot.)

5. Hob-Nobs. The reason I gained 15 pounds when I lived in London. (OK, the Guinness didn't help.) My local grocery store sells them but I've so far managed to avoid their siren call. To those who are hearing about these insanely great cookies for the first time, I apologize in advance.

6. Movie theater popcorn. To my credit, I avoid the "butter" topping.

For Mr. SZ – with love and squalor

2010-02-12T19:58:00.022-05:00

The man I like to call Dr. Science is not one for romance. In fact, when he sees this list he might well roll his eyes. Tough: in honor of Valentine's Day, here's a short-distance dedication to the best guy I know.

1. "You're the Top," Ella Fitzgerald. It's not easy to pick a wedding song when at least one of the parties involved shudders at any sort of sentimentality. That's where the genius of Cole Porter comes in. How awesome was it to have our first dance to "You're an O'Neill drama, you're Whistler's mama, you're camembert?" Very.

2. "Did I Tell You," Yo La Tengo. When you're dating a grad student, you spend a lot of time waiting for him to come home from the lab. As the song goes, my brain was impatient but my heart was still willing to wait. (Say it with me, people: "Aw!")

3. "You're So Great," Blur. Again, no sappiness here. It's a song about being sad, drunk and poorly, about a sky that's mud and grey, about dogs digging up the ground... and about feeling the light when you tell me it's OK.

4. "The First Day of My Life," Bright Eyes. "I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you" kinda says it all.

My favorite things about Christmas

2009-12-19T08:17:00.014-05:00

1. Linus's retelling of Jesus's birth in A Charlie Brown Christmas. I love the way that kid talks. Also, "sore afraid" is an expression worth reviving.

2. Christmas carols in a minor key. Bring on the "What Child is This?", "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "We Three Kings." The more lugubrious, the better.

3. Advent calendars. I have fond memories of opening the "24" window well before the big day and making desperate attempts to seal it shut again. We never got the kind with the candy in it, but I wish we had; I would have pulled a Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa by eating all the chocolate and replacing it with aspirin and candy corn.

4. Alternative Christmas songs. I'm a sucker for the Waitresses' "Christmas Wrapping," the Raveonette's "Christmas Song" and my new fave, "Joseph, Who Understood" by the New Pornographers.

5. Watching kids open presents. Allow your blogger to get a little corny. (It's Christmas, for God's sake.) Having nieces and nephews around adds a whole new dimension to the holiday. They're just so into it.

6. David Sedaris's Santaland Diaries. It ain't Christmas until Crumpet sings "Away in a Manger" all Billie Holiday-like.

Foods I prefer raw to cooked (and vice versa)

2009-10-31T08:49:00.006-04:00

1. Oysters: RAW. I suspect I like the cocktail sauce and the exciting risk of food poisoning better than the actual mollusks.

2. Clams: COOKED. Surprise! Yes, I like my oysters raw, but clams on the half shell taste, to me, like the bottom feeders they are. Go figure.

3. Carrots: RAW. Cooked ones remind me of TV dinners. Raw ones are fun to eat 'cause they make a lot of noise.

4. Mushrooms: COOKED. Raw mushrooms are things I pick out of a salad. Cooked ones are my pizza topping of choice.

5. Monterey Jack: COOKED. If cheese were available in a permanently molten state, the world would be a better place.

Movie titles that make me laugh

2009-10-09T11:09:00.006-04:00

Ed. note: I have no desire to see any of these, er, films, but I'm glad they were made because their titles amuse me. Don't get me started on funny porn movie names (though I will say that Regarding Hiney is a personal fave.)

1. Ernest Scared Stupid

2. Dude, Where's My Car? They're planning a sequel called Seriously Dude, Where's My Car?, which makes me very happy indeed.

3. Dr. Giggles. Extra bonus points for the tagline: "The doctor is out... of his mind!"

4. Harold and Kumar Go to Guantanamo Bay

5. Bride of Chucky. Everything about Chucky makes me laugh, especially Roger Ebert's description of him: "Chucky is one mean S.O.B."

6. Joe Dirt

10 inspirational songs from the '80s that are not terrifying

2009-10-08T22:44:00.002-04:00

A beloved relative recently posted a link on Facebook to a list of the 10 Most Terrifyingly Inspirational '80s Songs. After I managed to extract "Jukebox Hero" from my brain, I decided I needed to ~~rip it off~~ make a list of my own. Indulge me while I revisit my lost youth.

1. "I Will Dare," The Replacements. "Call me on Thursday, if you will/Call me on Wednesday, better still." There's just something so hopeful about that.

2. "Blister in the Sun," Violent Femmes. OK, so the lyrics aren't exactly uplifting (I'd prefer not to think about how exactly Gordon Gano stained his sheets), but that jaunty little intro gives me a rush every time.

3. "It's the End of the World as We Know (and I Feel Fine)," R.E.M. Unlike many of my peers, I never managed or even attempted to learn all the words. Still, I love shouting, "Leonard Bernstein!" And really, who doesn't?

4. "Tally Ho," The Clean. Nothing like a little Farfisa to boost one's mood.

5. "Breathless," X. I love when Jerry Lee Lewis sings it too, but that wasn't in the '80s. Plus, his version doesn't have Exene.

6. "Tony's Theme," The Pixies. It's a song about a superhero named Tony... and it's called "Tony's Theme!" How great is that? Plus, I like chanting, "To-ny! To-ny!" Sub in any other two-syllable name and sing it to a friend. You'll thank me later.

7. "Teen Age Riot," Sonic Youth. Yeah, yeah, I know I said I don't like them. Except for this one song. Which just happens to be perfect.

8. "Ask," The Smiths. Because it's always good to remember that shyness, while nice, can stop you from doing all the things in life you'd like to.

9. "London Girl," The Pogues. "The sound of your voice wherever I may be/Changes everything and then the world's all right with me." We should all be so lucky.

10. "I Will Follow," U2. It's almost too obvious to put these guys on a list of inspirational songs. So I'm gonna.

Actors I'd like to see more of

2009-09-12T11:03:00.003-04:00

1. Rachel Dratch. Seriously, what the hell happened here? No SNL, no 30 Rock... will someone please hire this woman? She's hilarious and beyond brave in her willingness to play unattractive characters. Also, I saw her do a live sketch comedy show with Tina Fey before they were stars (ooh, look at me) and it was genius.

2. Luis Guzman. Even thinking about this guy makes me smile. I like the way he talks and that crease above his nose. I guess he gets a lot of parts but damn it, he deserves better than voice work in Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

3. Amy Ryan. After seeing her in The Wire and The Office, I'm convinced she can do anything. Something in her manner makes her instantly sympathetic.

4. Charles Grodin. As regular readers know, I'm a huge fan of the excellent big-screen comedy Clifford. Also, since Grodin was the first celebrity I ever interviewed in my brief but wondrous career as an entertainment journalist, I've got a soft spot for him. He should get more cranky old man roles. Hey, I'd watch.

5. Andre Braugher. Where's this guy been? He was brilliant on Homicide but I don't think he's gotten a great gig since. I like his voice and the way his teeth are a little too big for his mouth, kinda like Michelle Obama's.

Nicknames I have bestowed on unwitting recipients

2009-08-22T15:19:00.003-04:00

Full disclosure: some of these names might have been thought up by my friends and/or Mr. SZ. But since I can't remember the exact provenance, I'm taking all the credit. So there.

1. Mr. Grease. Sobriquet given to my drivers ed teacher due to the astonishing amount of product he used on his hair.

2. Flock of Seagulls Dude. This was a kid in the aforementioned drivers ed class who had an alarmingly blond, feathered 'do. By the looks of him he was probably more into Dokken than the "I Ran" gang. No matter.

3. Colin Farrell Lite. A former boss. Why? Because he looked sorta like Colin Farrell. Duh.

4. Bitchcuit (pronounced bitch-kit). Mr. SZ and I gave this name to one of our neighbors, the owner of a very nice dog named Biscuit. This lady lived next door to us for two years and never said so much as hello. As soon as we moved to a different apartment, however, she started being really friendly. Too late: she's Bitchcuit for life.

5. Farm. This one is slightly regrettable, as it was applied to a girl at camp who wore her hair in cornrows. But they really did make her head look like a farm.

Things I don't like in clothing

2009-08-01T08:31:00.013-04:00

I've recently dropped a few pounds (yay, me!), which has had the interesting side effect of forcing me to buy new clothes. Let me tell you, people: there's some scary stuff in stores today. Here are the things that bug me most.

1. Gold buttons. These are tacky on anything, but especially on pants. On jackets they make the wearer look like Michael Jackson (may he rest in peace).

2. Big buttons. When I rule the world, no button will be larger than three-quarters of an inch in diameter. Those two-inchers they use to be "decorative"? Don't get me started.

3. Logos. Ralph Lauren is the worst about this. That little polo player is offensive enough, but I really hate how he puts those RL crests on everything from T-shirts to nightgowns. Get over yourself, Ralphie. If your name was still Lifshitz you'd be singin' a different tune.

4. Pants with no pockets. I know it's been said before, but they'd never leave these off men's trousers.

5. Fake pockets. Why bother?

6. Waists that go above the navel. Mom Jeans make me cringe most of all.

7. Anything with ruffles.

Books I have no recollection of reading

2009-07-03T08:07:00.001-04:00

Since 2002, I've kept a list of all the books I read. It turns out that "read" does not correspond to "remember." Here are the books that I've evidently read in the past seven years, but have absolutely no memory of having done so. Anyone know if they're any good?

1. The Bone House, Betsy Tobin.

2. When the Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka. I'm pretty sure this had to do with Japanese internment camps. Other than that: nada.

3. Bedlam Burning, Geoff Nicholson.

4. Through the Safety Net, Charles Baxter.

5. With Your Crooked Heart, Helen Dunmore.

6. How to be Lost, Amanda Eyre Ward. This might have been about a family of some sort.

My favorite cringe-inducing entertainment

2009-06-13T10:54:00.012-04:00

Ed. note: H/t to Entertainment Weekly, whose 17 most awkward moments in TV history inspired this list.

1. The King of Comedy. You've got to love a film in which the normally appalling Jerry Lewis is the least mortifying thing. When Rupert Pupkin takes Rita to Jerry Langford's house in Connecticut, pretending (or maybe even believing) that Jerry has invited them? Brrrr.

2. Curb Your Enthusiasm. I can't watch this without screaming, "No, Larry David! Stop!" But he never stops.

3. Freaks & Geeks. If you haven't seen this program, I urge you to buy the DVDs: 19 episodes of cringe-worthy perfection. Think dysfunctional family dinners, unrequited crushes, and a guy with an acoustic guitar singing a song called "Lady L." Genius!

4. Taxi Driver. De Niro excels at playing guys who just don't get it. When he tries to take Cybill Shepherd to a porno movie on their first date, explaining that "a lot of couples" go to see them... I have to watch this from behind my fingers.

5. The Office. We're talking about the U.K. one here (though I like the American version, too, except for the way over-the-top Michael Scott). Ricky Gervais's foray into motivational speaking makes me wince even now:

6. Extras. Gervais again, brilliant as a more self-aware loser. Favorite moment: David Bowie's serenade.

Movies I wish I'd never seen

2009-05-16T09:11:00.001-04:00

1. Seven. I'm not saying it's a bad film. It's just that I could not be alone for a week after I saw it. Years later, the thought of it still freaks me out, especially the "lust" murder. Yeesh.

2. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. One could argue that I knew what I was getting into based on the title.

3. Natural Born Killers. One of my friends described the experience of watching this as "like having a chisel slowly pounded into your head for two hours." Yup. Plus, Rodney Dangerfield was in it.

4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Before I saw this film, I was a big fan of that little wizard and his pals. It may sound weird, but the movie was so faithful to the novel that it drove me nuts. Maybe it took away my ability to imagine the characters and settings in the stories. Whatever — I haven't seen any of the other movies or read a Potter book since. Tragic, I tell you.

Clothing I don't understand

2009-05-02T15:25:00.008-04:00

1. Down vests. If it's cold enough to wear something down-filled, don't you think sleeves are necessary, too?

2. Sleeveless turtlenecks. Again: cold enough for a turtleneck, cold enough for sleeves.

3. Low-hanging jeans. How can it possibly be comfortable to have the crotch of your pants at your knees?

4. Warm-weather scarves. Because nothing says summer like wrapping a six-foot piece of cloth around your neck.

5. Stiletto heels. Seriously, who thought it was a good idea to make women balance on 4-inch spikes?

6. Thongs. Ow.

Age-inappropriate things I have done

2009-04-21T20:13:00.002-04:00

1. Read Helter Skelter at age 7. I remember my older cousin looking at me with her mouth open when I described the Tate-LaBianca murders. Some people are so sensitive. (Full disclosure: I actually only read the 40-page photo section in the middle. That was, however, enough to get the gist.)

2. Listened to Allan Sherman in second grade. Really, what kind of 8-year-old cracks up over lines like, "My Zelda, she took the money and ran with the tailor?" (Besides my pal Alaster and me, that is.)

3. Stayed in B&Bs in my twenties. By doing so I brought the average age of guests down to 60.

4. Read the Twilight books at 40. Young adult novels are great. You don't need to look up any of the words.

5. Watched CBS Sunday Morning at my (ahem) current age. This is truly an excellent news magazine, with compelling stories each week about art, trends and interesting people. But seeing as Van Morrison is among the youngest musicians they've profiled, I don't think I'm in the target demographic. Plus, all the commercials are for things like Metamucil.

Movies everyone liked except me

2009-04-11T09:42:00.001-04:00

1. The Hours. Sweet Jesus, did I hate this movie. Its title is appropriate, as it went on and on and on... I love Meryl Streep as much as (actually, more than) anyone, but I wanted to punch her in the face when she was flitting around worrying about the flowers for her stupid party. Oscar nomination, Schmoscar nomination: I'm sorry I ever saw this film.

2. Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Sure, Matthew Broderick is charming, but otherwise it's a mess. That scene where Cameron freaks out in the pool is downright creepy. So is Mia Sara (whatever happened to her, anyway?).

3. Gladiator. I've posted about this before: slept through it 'cause I was so bored.

4. Knocked Up. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Judd Apatow has been going steadily downhill since the brilliant Freaks & Geeks. Apparently Seth Rogen and his stoner friends are supposed to be entertaining, but c'mon, jokes about giving your friends pink eye by farting on their pillows? Really? Maybe I'm just getting old.

5. American Pie. This one annoys me. So many people whose opinions I respect told me I would like it. "It's not like Porky's," they assured me. "The women in it are empowered." That's open to debate, but the fact remains: it was crude and did not amuse me. Plus, I don't want to see that beady-eyed Seann William Scott in anything again ever.

Movies I only pretend to have seen

2009-04-04T15:39:00.002-04:00

1. Jaws. Oh, sure, I talk a big game, chuckling when someone says, "Smile, you son of a bitch!" and nodding knowingly over references to "You're gonna need a bigger boat." I've even sung the theme song on the beach and in swimming pools on numerous occasions. But I've never actually watched the film. Does it count if I feel like I have?

2. Citizen Kane. I can tell you this: Rosebud is a sled. I also know that Endora from Bewitched is in it. And I will say with authority that it's one of the finest pictures ever made. Seen it, though? Nope. Not the whole thing, anyway.

3. Dirty Dancing. Gosh, wasn't it great when Patrick Swayze said, "No one puts Baby in a corner?" Or so I've heard.

4. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I'm pretty sure I once asked someone, "Remember that scene in Close Encounters where Richard Dreyfuss builds a mini-Devil's Tower out of mashed potatoes?" Which is really bogus of me because again: never seen it.

5. Dr. Strangelove. Peter Sellers gives one his finest performances in this black-comedy masterpiece. (Like I would know.)

6. Dog Day Afternoon. Another one I've somehow missed. I like chanting, "Attica! Attica!", though.

The last five books I've read

2009-03-28T08:41:00.010-04:00

1. In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson (hat tip to CC for letting me borrow it. I promise to give it back someday). Oh, how I love Bryson. He's hilarious and I always appreciate a truly funny book (but please, for the love of God, don't tell me to read A Confederacy of Dunces. I swear, anytime I ask people to recommend something funny to read, they always say, "How about A Conf—?" and I have to cut 'em off. Quite simply: hated it. Not that I read past the first few chapters, but I didn't need to).

Anyway, Bryson's account of his travels in Australia is both amusing and fascinating, with lots of "who knew?" moments. Consider this nugget, for example: "Eighty percent of all that lives in Australia, plant and animal, exists nowhere else." That, my friends, is what we call a Fun Fact.

As for humor, for some unknown reason I found myself wheezing with laughter over this line Bryson found scrawled in his notebook after a night of boozing in a Canberra pub: "'I tell you, Barry, he was farting sparks!'" Bryson explains, "I believe this was a colorful turn of Aussie phrase I overheard from the people at the next table rather than any actual manifestation of flatulence of an electrical nature. But I could be wrong. I'd had a few." (Hmmm, it seemed funnier the first time I read it. Maybe because I was on a plane and the air was thinner.)

2. My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult. The ending of this one sucked beyond belief. I'm gonna give it away so if you are planning to read the book — or see the upcoming film version starring Cameron Diaz — please skip down to item No. 3 on this list.

OK, now it's just us here, right? So check this out: the story revolves around a girl whose parents conceived her so she could be a blood donor to their cancer-stricken elder daughter. At age 13, the girl decides she doesn't want to give a kidney to her sister, so she sues for medical emancipation from her parents. There's this whole big stupid court case but in the end the girl gets into a car crash and winds up brain dead. At the hospital the doctor asks her parents, "Is organ donation something you'd like to consider?" That's right: after 400 pages of drama, the sister gets her kidney with a little help from her friend deus ex machina. If that's not the mother of all cop-out endings, I don't know what is.

Even before the lame ending this book got on my nerves. For one thing, each section is written in the voice of a different character, but they all sound pretty much the same, from the 13-year-old to the lawyer who has a service dog because he's epileptic (whoops, that's another spoiler. Sorry!). And most irritating of all, every chapter ends with some attempt at profundity. For example (and please note that there's a typo in this sentence; blame the author, not me): "When I look up at the girl who works the Laundromat is standing over me, with her lip ring and blue streaked dreadlocks. 'You need change?' she asks. To tell you the truth, I'm afraid to hear my own answer." Oooh! (That was the 13-year-old talking, by the way.)

3. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. My book club read this and I'm quite pleased we did. I hadn't read it since high school, when "read" was a relative term — usually I just skimmed. Not surprisingly for a classic, it's excellent. Most everyone in it is loathsome, but I loved the images of ritzy Long Island parties on hot summer nights: "The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names." Pretty much perfect and best of all, it's short. (I like short books.)

4. Changing Places, David Lodge. Enormously entertaining tale of two 1960s college professors — one from a Berkeley-esque school in the U.S. and the other from a university in the U.K. Midlands — who switch jobs for a semester. It's politically incorrect — the American professor, Morris Zapp, is a bit of a pig — but that's part of its charm. I particularly liked the accounts of student unrest at both campuses, told through a series of news reports. Lodge is one clever dude.

5. Deaf Sentence, David Lodge. Yep, that's right — two Lodges in a row. Sue me: I like the guy. The book is much better than its awful pun-ny title would suggest. It's about a retired linguistics professor who, while struggling with hearing loss and the declining health of his father, gets involved with a grad student who is writing her dissertation about suicide notes. I realize this doesn't sound like big fun, but Lodge is such a fantastic writer that I really enjoyed it. It falls apart at the end — jeez, doesn't anyone know how to finish a story anymore? — but up until the last couple of chapters it's a gem.

Now let's see your lists. Recommendations for funny books (that were not written by John Kennedy Toole) are particularly welcome.

The best pizza in New York, by borough

2009-03-21T21:27:00.015-04:00

I admit it: I am a sucker for thin-crust, brick-oven pizza. I've rarely encountered a pie of this variety that I didn't like. Still, there is a hierarchy, and after more than 18 years of living in New York, I'm finally ready to announce it. Today, March 21, 2009, I ate pizza in the Bronx, thereby completing my quest to have excellent slices in all five boroughs. (Joanne, if you are reading this, I swear it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. We will be back and we will take your family with us.) So here it is: SZ's definitive list of the best pizza in New York (and thus the world. Save your breath, Chicago).

1. The Bronx: Zero Otto Nove. It took three trains and a bus to get there, but for that pie — a melt-in-your-mouth crust topped with buffalo mozzarella, porcini mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and just a hint of gorgonzola — I would do it all again. Maybe even tomorrow.

2. Brooklyn: Franny's. OK, I'll give up my Queens defensiveness: Brooklyn is by far the coolest outer borough. So it's no surprise that it has the best pizza in New York. This one was a tough call. Grimaldi's is worth the painfully long wait and DiFara made me want to consume eight slices on my own. (If you haven't been there, hurry up and go before the old man, um, retires.) But Franny's clam pizza made me see God. I could probably eat this every day for the rest of my life and be happy.

3. Manhattan. Li'l Frankies. This joint never comes up when people discuss the pantheon of New York pizzerias (Lombardi's, Patsy's, John's, yada yada), yet it's always packed and the pies are never less than excellent. If the Pugliese (marinara, mozzarella, caramelized onions, cacio cavello and oregano) is the special, consider it your lucky day. Plus, they have good beer on tap and they're usually playing interesting music via East Village Radio. An aside: don't be fooled by the snobbery that is Una Pizza Napoletana. If they won't give me toppings, I don't wanna be there.

4. Queens: Nick's. The pride of my home borough. Just typing the name makes me think of basil so fresh they must grow it in the kitchen. They don't actually have a brick oven, but it's in that genre if you know what I'm sayin'. Honorable mention: Sac's Place, which gets extra points for using fresh mozzarella and being within spitting distance of my apartment. (Not that I've ever actually tried spitting at it. That would be gross.)

5. Staten Island: Joe and Pat's. I'm proud to say that of my three trips to Satan, er, Staten Island in the past decade, two were motivated entirely by pizza. Joe and Pat's wins hands down; Denino's was more memorable for the fried calamari. I like fried stuff as much as anyone but dammit, I didn't take the ferry to eat squid.

Songs I used to think were deep

2009-02-21T08:50:00.001-05:00

Ed. note: though I might be making fun of them now, these songs really did help me when I was a mixed-up kid. So thank you, Geddy Lee et al.

1. "Subdivisions," Rush. "Be cool or be cast out." Dude, this was SO TRUE. I guess high school was like that even in Canada.

2. "Grand Illusion," Styx. "So if you think your life is complete confusion/'Cause your neighbor's got it made/Just remember that it's a grand illusion/Deep inside we're all the same." Damn straight.

3. "All You Need is Love," the Beatles. "There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be/It's easy." Huh. That's still kind of nice to think about, actually.

4. "Dust in the Wind," Kansas. How did a song this bleak get to be a hit? My guess: the smokin' violin solos.

5. "Fly Like an Eagle," the Steve Miller Band. "House the people livin' in the street/Oh, oh, there's a solution." I'm gonna send these lyrics to Mayor Bloomberg. That should fix everything.

Pet peeves du jour

2009-02-15T11:28:00.007-05:00

1. The use of cell phones in the office bathroom. Few things disturb me more than hearing someone yammer in the stall next to mine. Really, are your conservations so important they can't wait three minutes? Whenever I encounter a stall-talker I flush the toilet as forcefully as I can in the hopes the person on the other end will hear it and know how disgusting her friend is. That'll teach 'em.

2. Talking in movie theaters. This practice has pushed me perilously close to homicide. Everyone I know professes to hate when people carry on conversations during a film; why, then, do so many do it? Do they honestly think their whispers (or worse) are inaudible to all but their moviegoing companions? Four words: shut the hell up. I didn't pay $11.50 to hear your commentary.

3. "Backslash." Specifically, when someone is giving you a URL and he says, "It's www dot whatever dot com BACKSLASH whatever." Let's get it straight:

This is a backslash: \

This is a regular slash: /

If you type \ in a URL you will get an error message. Learn it. Know it. Live it.

4. My neighbors' dog. The little dude barks all day long. Wanna know why? HIS OWNERS KEEP HIM IN A CRATE. Which I suppose makes them, not the dog, the real pet peeve.

5. Melisma. If you are blissfully unfamiliar with this vocal technique, here's how the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines it: "a passage of several notes sung to one syllable of text." A prime example: Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," in which the diva takes approximately 47 minutes to belt out the title phrase. For the love of God, make this stop.

Songs I like that have the word "crazy" in the title

2009-02-13T20:11:00.001-05:00

Ed. note: It occurred to me recently that I like a lot of songs with the word "crazy" in the title, with the notable exception of the limp Madonna ballad "Crazy for You." Here are a few of my favorites.

1. "Crazy," Gnarls Barkley. Perhaps because it's the most recent, this tops my list of "crazy" songs. (Literally.) It always makes me smile when it comes up on my iPod. Plus, the name Gnarls Barkley greatly amuses me.

2. "Let's Go Crazy," Prince. Man, I love Prince. So tiny, so talented.

3. "Let's Go Crazy," The Clash. Not my favorite Clash song -- that would be "Guns of Brixton" -- but still quite festive.

4. "Crazy Train," Ozzy Osbourne. Most of my memories of the burnouts who sat at the back of my schoolbus are not pleasant. I did, however, enjoy hearing the immortal line "I'm going off the rails on a crazy train" blasting out of their boomboxes at 7 am each day. I also really like the part where Ozzy goes, "Ai - ai - ai," followed by that rattlesnake sound.

5. "Crazy," Seal. A tad overproduced, maybe, but Seal is one smooth operator. What's more, he's married to Heidi Klum, who just happens to host what is inarguably one of the finest programs on television today: Project Runway.

6. "Crazy," Willie Nelson. Patsy Cline's version might be the definitive one, but I have a weakness for Willie's. He's just so dang relaxed. Wonder why.

P.S. Does the word "crazy" look really funny now or is it just me?

Popular things I hope never to do

2009-01-31T21:51:00.004-05:00

1. Go to Vegas. The sheer faux-ness of it freaks me out. I have enough trouble with the surreality of Los Angeles; Vegas might just push me over the edge. I wouldn't mind visiting for a couple of hours, but considering it's 2,000 miles away, that hardly seems practical. Plus, I'm not a fan of losing money. Or buffets.

2. Watch According to Jim. I guess this counts as popular, seeing as it's been on the air since about 1956. There are a few sitcoms that are (I'm pretty sure) like this: Yes, Dear is another one. Who exactly watches these programs and why?

3. Move to the suburbs. I have actually woken up in the middle of the night gripped by the fear that someone will make me buy a house in New Jersey. Or Long Island (no offense). I grew up in what was pretty much suburbia and it was fine, but as a grown-up? I would never stop feeling like a misfit. That said -- I do enjoy those big supermarkets.

4. Read The Da Vinci Code. It just seems annoying. Plus, one of my dearest friends grudgingly read it and thought it stunk. That's enough for me.

My current celebrity crushes

2009-01-17T10:49:00.009-05:00

Ed. note: before posting this list, I assured Mr. SZ that unless a) he gets hit by a bus and b) I magically transform into Angelina Jolie and c) any or all of the people mentioned below suddenly become romantically unattached, he really has nothing to worry about.

1. Jon Hamm. Why wasn't this guy famous before Mad Men? Don Draper is dreamy, even with all that Brylcreem.

2. Stephen Merchant. An unlikely pick, I know. Is it the coke-bottle glasses? The awful turtlenecks he wore on Extras? The bordering-on-freakishness height? I'm gonna go with the madcap hilarity and British accent.

3. Johnny Depp. I even thought he was kinda hot as Willy Wonka. Should I seek help?

4. Barack Obama. It's quite weird to feel attracted to the soon-to-be leader of the free world. Stranger still: smoking would fall somewhere between food poisoning and genocide on a list of Things I Hate, yet I find it kind of sexy that he smokes. And oddest of all: I agree with my pal Schnormal, who says, "I have a crush on the whole family."

5. Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. Guy's got a face like a frying pan, but he's proof that anyone who picks up a guitar boosts his sex appeal by a factor of five. Plus, I once saw him play an entire show in his jammies. That's so cool.

6. This American Life host Ira Glass. Hmmm, a smart guy with nerdy glasses. Wonder why I'd dig that.

Indications that I am through being cool

2008-12-08T21:02:00.011-05:00

Ed. note: A tip of the hat to the eternally swingin' Mr. Snevets for the inspiration.

Believe it or not, I used to be kind of... hip. I mean, I did college radio back when it meant something. I had six piercings in my ears (the 1987 equivalent of a tramp stamp). I went to illegal loft parties, wrote for an indie music zine in London and lived in Park Slope when it was still sort of edgy. Now, however, as I slide into my fifth decade on the planet, I've become decidedly — OK, let's just admit it — lame. The evidence:

1. I no longer pretend to like Sonic Youth. Sure, I've seen them half a dozen times, and in college I had a gigantic Sister poster above my dorm-room twin bed. But you know what? They're incredibly self-indulgent and I don't care for Kim's voice.

2. I use a 27-year-old musical group as a benchmark for what's cool. Mr. SZ suggests band-of-the-moment Animal Collective might be a better indicator of hipness. "You'd definitely hate them," he assures me.

3. I will go to shows only on weekends and/or if there's a place to sit. No more Tuesday night gigs at Irving Plaza for me. I'm too short to see the stage and I hate feeling exhausted the next day. Also: I use earplugs.

4. I wore pearls to work today. Really. I thought they looked good.

5. I have admitted in a public forum that I like ABBA. (More than once, evidently.)

6. I crochet. I knit, too, but crocheting sounds more wack.

7. I continue to use slang terms from the 1980s (like "wack"). When I want to be more trendy I say things like "bling" and "getting up in my grill."

8. I have no desire to live in — or really, even go to — Williamsburg.

9. I referenced a 1981 Devo song in the title of this post.

Movies I have slept through

2008-11-10T21:19:00.008-05:00

If I may brag, I am an excellent napper. In fact, I'm practically narcoleptic, and really, how cool is that? Unfortunately, the urge to snooze occasionally strikes in the movie theater, after I've forked over $11.50 to be entertained. Here are some of the movies I've "watched" through closed eyelids:

1. Gladiator. Yeah, I know what you're thinking: "You fell asleep during an action flick (of sorts)?" Damn right I did. And even better -- I deliberately dozed off because the movie was so freakin' boring. I figured, correctly, that it would be over faster if I took a nap.

2. Man on Wire. OK, this one is a little weird, because I was actually tense the whole time. Even though I knew Philippe Petit was gonna make it across that tightrope between the Twin Towers, I still had sweaty palms. Maybe I fell asleep as a defense mechanism. That, or the fact that a lot of it was in black and white... with subtitles.

3. The Triplets of Belleville. In my defense, I saw this on New Year's Day after having had very little sleep. As I recall, it was a very enjoyable nap.

4. The Winslow Boy. I think I fell asleep even before the opening credits of this film. Anyone know what it was about?

5. Vertigo. Luckily, I'd seen this one a few times before at home, because I slept through at least 20 minutes of important plot development.

My favorite fake curse words

2008-10-30T19:15:00.003-04:00

1. Freakin'. Yeah, you already knew this one because I use it in every freakin' blog post. I much prefer it to frickin'. Friggin' is too dirty for me.

2. Dang. This word really captures a sense of astonishment. Say it with me: "Dang!" Try bobbing your head from side to side as you do. Wasn't that fun?

3. Shoot. In the edited-for-TV version of The Blues Brothers, Aretha Franklin's character says, "SHEE-oot," drawing it out as one would the word it replaced. Mr. SZ and I have been saying it to each other for months and cracking ourselves up every single time. Ah, it's good to be easily amused.

4. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. OK, I don't actually use this phrase myself, but I have vivid memories of my mom saying it when I was a kid -- usually over something I did. Apparently it doesn't count as taking the Lord's name in vain if you add his parents to the end. (For more blasphemy, please see one of my favorite lists ever.)

5. A-hole. Tom Cruise called Guido the Killer Pimp this in Risky Business. I've enjoyed using it ever since.

As a special added bonus, here's my least favorite fake curse:

Oh my heck. Seriously, WTF? I first heard this come out of the mouth of a Mormon Survivor contestant. Is it an LDS thing? No one says, "Oh my hell" (at least, not around me), so what's with the "heck?"

Special Guest Blog: My most uncomfortable, inappropriate or otherwise ill-advised Halloween costumes.

2008-10-28T20:24:00.005-04:00

Ed. note: today's special holiday-themed post comes from the lovely Meaghan, who produces the excellent blog Mama's Cup.

1. Tinkerbell. I was 4 years old. A day or two before Halloween, I was brutalized at my nursery school (this is the subject for another blog -- suffice it to say that some kids bullied me and I ended up with a broken wrist). Upon returning home with a heavy, plaster cast on my arm, I proceeded to try to saw it off with a butter knife, while I emoted intensely. "I can NOT be Tinkerbell with THIS on my wrist," I believe is what I am still quoted as saying. Upon inspection of photos from this particularly nightmarish Halloween, my brother recently commented that my plastic Tinkerbell sweat mask was actually a bit garish. So much so, that he felt it resembled something more like a "Kabuki Tinkerbell."

2. A Saudi. This has to be the most inappropriate costume I've ever worn. Yes, I dressed as a "Saudi," though I don't think I looked even half as convincing as Peter O'Toole. I had a pillow case on my head, secured by one of my mom's jazzercise headbands. I wore bright yellow, mirrored sunglasses, a bathrobe (I'm not kidding) and drew on a mustache with my mom's eyeliner. Somehow, I'd really like to blame the whole affair on my mother. My mother or Susanna Hoffs, because this was 1986 and "Walk Like an Egyptian" was all over MTV. In my defense, I didn't know it was offensive.

3. A mime. This WAS my mom's idea, that much I know for sure. I was 10 years old and she had me doing that "walking against the wind" shtick. I will not do this to my child.

4. Cleopatra, mummified. This was an awesome costume. I liked it so much I did it twice. It was, however, extremely uncomfortable. From the neck up, I did traditional Cleopatra (black wig, heavy eye make up, gold snake on my head). From the neck down, I wrapped myself in gauze. A lot of gauze. I bought medical gauze in bulk, dyed it with tea in my kitchen sink and wound it around and around and around my body. The effect at the beginning of the night was pretty awesome. By the end of the evening, however, both times that I wore it, I ended up needing to borrow someone's coat because I was unraveling at an alarming rate. Going to the bathroom was also a chore in this get up. I covered some white spandex shorts with gauze to facilitate using the facilities, but pulling the spandex down contributed to my overall unraveling, so both times I ended up standing around trying to "hold it."

5. The gold chick in Goldfinger. This was certainly ill-advised. I don't have any earthly idea what prompted me to do this. I was probably trying to impress a guy. I wore a gold bikini and painted myself gold. I found this spray at a Halloween store. On the box, in English, it said it was for hair. But in French, it said for hair or skin. So I bought a bunch and covered myself. It smelled so bad; I had to air out my dorm room for days. It was also quite possibly toxic. I spent the better part of the evening sick and in the shower, trying to get the gold paint off. (The sickness might have been exacerbated by the fact that I spent the first part of the evening at a college kegger.)

Things that continue to baffle me, Part Deux

2008-10-25T07:58:00.002-04:00

1. Napoleon Dynamite (sorry, Andy). I laughed only at the tater tots scene, and that's because tater tots are inherently hilarious. People tell me it's this generation's Sixteen Candles, but dammit, for all its political incorrectness, Sixteen Candles was actually funny. I've also heard that I have to watch Napoleon multiple times to appreciate it (life's too short); that I should get high and watch it (why not just rent Nice Dreams?); and that I should watch it with someone who loves it (sadly, not many of my friends are 15 years old).

2. The purported hotness of Brad Pitt. Angelina, I totally get. But Brad? Sure, I loved him in Twelve Monkeys, but I never found him particularly attractive.

3. Dancing with the Stars. Why is this show a hit? It's creepy. I turned it on once and saw Marie Osmond dressed up like some sort of demented doll. I hope one day I will be able to stop shuddering.

4. The accolades for The Kite Runner. "You've got to read this book," everyone told me. So I did. I hate to sound unsympathetic to the Afghan people, but the plot was almost as contrived as an episode of Scooby-Doo. (Let me know if you want spoilers; I'll happily e-mail 'em to you.)

5. Superheroes. Maybe it's a boy thing. I just don't understand why they all have to get their own movies.

Special Guest Blog: Movies I have inexplicably seen more than 10 times

2008-10-19T13:44:00.001-04:00

Ed note: here's a very special guest blog from your friend and mine, Reyna.

There are movies that I have seen two or three or even five times, but more than 10 deserves its own category.

1. Grease. Now if you’ve seen this movie once, you’ve probably seen it more than 10 times. I once estimated that I saw it about 20 times actually. No need to explain why. This is the only movie that I saw in a theater and then left, only to turn right back around and see it again.

2. When Harry Met Sally… This definitely falls into the inexplicable category. It’s not a great movie, in fact it might be called annoying at best (and I always cringe during that deli scene) and in many ways it’s also alarmingly dated. But. If it is on anywhere I cannot help watching the whole thing. Billy Crystal should be awful in this movie, but he’s not so bad. Still, I can offer no real explanation.

3. A Clockwork Orange. I will never forget the first time I discovered this video hidden in the top drawer of my parents’ dresser. The minute I heard that haunting music and Malcolm McDowell’s voice, I was hooked. The fact that it is chock full of violence and rape makes it perhaps a questionable choice for a 16-year-old, but damn, it’s a good movie.

4. Rude Boy. What’s not to like about a quasi-documentary of the Clash? Except that it has no real story and is mostly concert footage. But if you’re a girl of a certain age there is nothing better than a young Joe Strummer. Sigh.

5. The Big Chill. Again, I can’t explain. It’s pretty dated and implausible in parts and yet, it’s kind of funny and likeable too. Can I help it that I bought the soundtrack too?

6. Harold and Maude. The plot – a love story between a 20-year-old boy and an 80-year-old woman – sounds perhaps unappealing, but this movie is nothing less than perfect. Though it is so much a product of its time (early 70s), there is nothing at all dated about it. I first saw this movie in the tenth grade in my friend Hilary’s dining room and it damn near changed my life. If you know any tenth graders, please direct them to this movie.

Reasons to be cheerful

2008-10-14T21:03:00.002-04:00

1. NPR. When the news of the day is grim, it's nice to have it delivered by Carl Kasell. I'm totally addicted to this stuff. I've been known to hum the All Things Considered theme around the house, and the words "From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air" give me a shiver every time. Also, I have a crush on Ira Glass. (Don't tell anyone.)

2. Public libraries. Why buy books when you can get 'em for free?

3. Pizza. It's the main reason I continue to live in New York. Add Grimaldi's anchovy pie to my list of death-row meals.

4. Dogs. Whenever I feel really bummed, I visualize a bunch of puppies running around. Try it sometime.

5. 30 Rock. It's coming back on Oct. 30, baby! To quote the great Tracy Jordan, I love this show so much I want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

Songs that make me cringe

2008-10-08T21:17:00.002-04:00

1. "Come Together." "Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease?" Um, disgusting. I could do without the "joo-joo eyeball" and "toe jam football," too, whatever those are. Can we blame this one on Yoko? I think we can.

2. "Mony Mony." The song itself is inoffensive, but when I hear it I can't help picturing a bunch of drunk college guys yelling... oh, you know what they yell.

3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" / "I Want Your Sex." I'm pretty sure these songs use the word "sex" inappropriately.

4. "Woolly Bully." I like novelty songs as much as anyone (OK, possibly more than anyone), but this one is just dumb. Runner-up in this category: "Yummy Yummy Yummy."

5. "Radio Ga Ga." I hate baby talk.

6. "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'." Many Journey songs are embarrassing. This is the most mortifying of all.

Girl things I am bad at

2008-10-04T08:03:00.007-04:00

Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy being a girl. Well, most of the time. But I really suck at some of the things that seem to be instinctive to the rest of my gender. Such as:

1. Doing my hair. No matter how hard I try, the right side always ends up in this ridiculous Batgirl-esque flip. It wouldn't be so bad if both sides did this, but no.

2. Painting my nails. I am physically incapable of doing this. I either end up with a gloppy mess or I miss covering half the nail. Luckily the nice Korean ladies up the street charge, like, $20 for a mani-pedi. Which I get only in the summer when my toes will be on display.

3. Carrying a purse. When I hear women say things like, "Oh, no! I left my wallet in my other purse," I'm baffled. I own exactly one bag (and I call it just that: a bag. Purse is a word I don't care for). It's starting to fall apart; when that happens, I'll buy another one and use it until it disintegrates.

4. Walking in heels. I want to wear pretty shoes. I really do. But if the heel is higher than two inches, I might as well be attempting to walk on stilts. So I stick with flats, wedges or chunky heels. Maybe it's part of being a librarian.

5. Accessorizing. I've worn the same earrings every day for a year. I think that says it all.

The soundtrack of my life

2008-09-23T09:07:00.000-04:00

If I'd ever actually read Proust, I'd describe these as Proustian flashbacks. Here's a list of certain songs that, whenever I hear them, take me back to a point in my life when they were playing.

1. "Blister in the Sun," Violent Femmes. I'm dancing in a dorm room in my freshman year. (Given the amount of grain alcohol I'd consumed, I technically should not be able to remember this.)

2. "Electric Avenue," Eddy Grant. I'm throwing up after riding the Caterpillar at Rye Playland.

3. "There is a Light That Never Goes Out," The Smiths. I'm 18 and driving home from a kiddie new-wave club in Connecticut in my brother's powder blue Chevette. Good times.

4. "Waterloo Sunset," The Kinks. I'm wearing a Walkman, standing on a bridge and staring at the dirty old river in... Binghamton. (Drama queen!)

5. "Do You Realize?," Flaming Lips. I'm looking at the most amazing sunset ever in Montana, feeling vindicated for a map-reading error that took us two hours out of our way.

6. "You're So Great," Blur. I'm flying Virgin Atlantic to London, thinking that this song describes the man I just married. Except for maybe the "sad, drunk and poorly" part.

Special Guest Blog: Signs of likely douchebaggery

2008-09-20T06:47:00.000-04:00

Ed. note: today's extra-special guest blogger is Mr. Snevets.

1. Oakley sunglasses (or any orange-tinted sunglasses)

2. Sleeveless shirts

3. Ponytails on pattern-bald men

4. One- to two-inch "ponytails" on any man

5. Ford Mustangs

6. Any window decal with Calvin peeing on something

7. Bluetooth earpieces

8. Referring to elderly women as '"Miss" or "young lady." Nobody's fooled by this level of condescension.

My favorite words, by part of speech

2008-09-15T21:24:00.005-04:00

Ed. note: this posting is brought to you by Schoolhouse Rock, without which I would not know my parts of speech. Or how a bill becomes a law. Or the preamble to the Constitution.

1. Adverb: "actually." I use this one a lot, perhaps inappropriately. (Hey, there's another adverb!) Actually, I also like "exactly."

2. Interjection: "yikes!" Though I'm not above dropping an F-bomb when it's really necessary.

3. Adjective: "cool." If I were a teacher, the kids in my class would keep a tally of how many times I use this word, much as my friends and I kept track of how often my 6th grade math teacher said, "Uh."

4. Conjunction: "or." I like having options.

5. Noun: "beets." As I've said, I just like the way it sounds. And beets are so weird.

6. Pronoun: "me." Of course.

7. Preposition: "beyond." The possibilities are endless.

8. Verb... OK, this is getting dumb.

Things that bug me at the gym

2008-09-11T21:29:00.004-04:00

1. Men who grunt while lifting weights. Or when they're not lifting weights. Seriously. Just stop with the grunting already.

2. People who talk on their cell phones while doing cardio. Admittedly, cell phones bother me everywhere. It's probably time to concede defeat.

3. The thought of contracting a drug-resistant staph infection from unclean equipment.

4. People who talk and/or giggle during yoga. Take a step aerobics class, why don't ya?

5. That lady with The Worst Bangs in the World. OK, I realize this is peculiar to my gym (God, I hope so). But every time I go to work out I see this woman who wears her bangs in a tight curl on her forehead, a la Peggy from Mad Men (see photo, left). I am both fascinated and repulsed by this hairdo. I mean, has no one told her how weird it looks? Doesn't she have family or friends to set her straight? Is the curl covering up some strange scar? Does she only wear it that way at the gym, or is it an everyday kinda thing? I keep hoping one day she'll get a makeover, but she's been rockin' the Bad Bangs look for at least two years (and presumably much longer). It's infuriating.

Things I like that I used to hate

2008-09-06T14:04:00.010-04:00

1. Various dairy products. Time was, you couldn't get me near sour cream, cream cheese, gorgonzola or yogurt. Now I love them all, and I've got the elevated LDLs to prove it.

2. The word "hottie." I don't necessarily like this word; I just find it useful on occasion. It is not, however, acceptable to have it printed across the seat of one's exercise pants. I am not making this up: a woman who stood in front of me at yoga one time had "HOTTIE" in big, sparkly letters on her butt. For some reason I found this distracting.

3. Asparagus. It's amazing how good vegetables can taste when they don't come out of a can.

4. Exercise. I barely broke a sweat until I was in my late 20s. In college, I remember mocking the women in my dorm for starting an aerobics class. (But c'mon, they were sorority chicks from Long Island. I had the right.) I'm not sure when the tide turned, but these days, if I don't get to the gym at least three times a week, I am a cranky mess. No, I don't have washboard abs, but I'd look a whole lot worse if I didn't work out at all.

5.The epithet "douche." For years I considered this word beyond vulgar. OK, it's still vulgar, but when used by people I like, it cracks me up. And let's face it, there are a lot of folks out there who deserve the name. I'm not a fan of "douchebag," however. It's somehow too graphic.

Disturbing behavior I have witnessed on the subway

2008-08-27T21:04:00.006-04:00

1. Nail clipping. I have seen this more times than I care to remember. The perp is invariably a male who has no qualms about flinging his shards around the car. Just thinking about the sound makes me shudder: click... click... click...

2. A guy throwing up. Oddly, this happened the day before St. Patrick's Day.

3. A woman using an eyelash curler. Lipstick, fine. Even mascara can be forgiven. But lady, you really ought to draw the line at using metal implements on your eyes on the N train. The word "gouge" comes to mind, and that's never a good thing.

4. People leaning against the center pole with one butt cheek on either side. (Hey, I warned you this list would be disturbing.) Not only is it repulsive, hogging the pole is just plain rude.

Special Guest Blog: Words I Don’t Care For

2008-08-14T22:39:00.003-04:00

Ed. note: this is the first in a series of guest blogs. Got an idea for one of your own? Send it to me and I'll make you famous. You probably know my e-mail address.

A Special Guest Blog by... Alyson!

1. Tender. This is the all-time #1 in my Words I Don’t Care for Hall of Fame. I have never liked this word. I even have a visceral reaction to it. If you’re ever around me when the word “tender” is uttered, you’ll notice my shoulders go back, as if I’m wincing. I can’t stand to hear Elvis’ “Love Me Tender.” I don’t like referring to money as “legal tender.” If you sprain your ankle and it’s swollen, don’t tell me it’s “tender.” I especially hate when people say the meat they’re eating is “tender.” Blech. Just say no to tender. Except bartenders. They’re OK in my book.

2. Juice. Don’t get me wrong – I like juice (although I’m not really a fan of prune), I just don’t like the word. I don’t know if it’s the combination of the “juh” and the “ooh” sounds or the fact that I mostly associate drinking juice with not feeling well. I’ll say “juice” but I won’t like to.

3.Travel-Related Nouns Made into Verbs, Specifically, Vacationed, Honeymooned and Cruised. Although I am a native English speaker and in fact, attended and graduated from an Ivy League ™ University, I never learned English grammar. There’s probably some grammar term that describes what I’m referring to, but I was never taught it. Anyway, this phenomenon drives me kuh-razy. I love to TAKE VACATIONS, although I have never BEEN ON A HONEYMOON or TAKEN A CRUISE*. I want to slap anyone I hear saying “Oh, we honeymooned in Bora Bora! We loved it!” (And not just because I am jealous they went to Bora Bora.) On the episode of “Golden Girls” when Blanche is contemplating getting engaged to a rich widower, he suggests some honeymoon options – Paris, visiting the Orient (hey guy, it’s called “Asia” now) or, he wonders, maybe she’d prefer to “cruise” the islands. Every time I see it, I want to throw my shoe at the TV. (For the record, Blanche turns him down. Not because he said “cruise the islands” but because she thought his young kids needed him more than she did.)

4. Tummy. Call it what it is – a belly. Ha! No, call it a stomach. Tummy and Belly just sound embarrassing. This is baby talk and it should be banned.

Honorable Mention:
Word I Used to Not Care For, But Have Made My Peace With:

Hoagie. Ah, the hoagie. The delicious hoagie. Where I grew up, this oversized delight of a sandwich was called a “wedge.” In other places, it’s commonly known as a “sub.” But in my dear Philadelphia, it’s a hoagie. For the first couple of years I lived in Philadelphia, I refused to utter the word “hoagie.” If I wanted one, I would refer to it as an “H” when I was with friends or somehow get my point across to the person taking my order without having to say “hoagie.” But eventually I was worn down. I lived across the street from the best hoagie place on campus (in my opinion) and since a really delicious Italian hoagie only cost $2.75 (1989 dollars), I went there a lot. Out of convenience, I started to say “hoagie” occasionally and I guess I just got used to it.

* This is a lie. I have been on a cruise, but I was 7 months old and don’t remember it.

The best songs with names in the title

2008-08-09T10:48:00.004-04:00

Ed. note: Hey, gang. Sorry for the long pause, but my life got pretty busy for a bit. Stay tuned for a special (and hilarious) guest posting in the next couple of days.

1. "Eleanor Put Your Boots On," Franz Ferdinand

Wow, this is a great tune: a paean to the Cyclone, the Statue of Liberty (known here as "the statue with the dictionary") and Greenpoint. People should start naming their kids (or at least pets) Eleanor because of this one.

2. "William, It Was Really Nothing," The Smiths

What exactly was William all worked up about? We may never know.

3. "Do You Remember Walter?," The Kinks

Gotta love a bittersweet look back at the friendships of youth. Plus, Walter is a funny name.

4. "Stephanie Says," The Velvet Underground

The Velvets were big ol' namedroppers, and I love them for it. "Candy Says" and "Lisa Says" are OK, too, but "Stephanie" wins 'cause it's alliterative.

Words that make me feel pretentious when I pronounce them correctly

2008-07-15T21:27:00.002-04:00

1. Endive. Seriously, I sometimes decline to order an endive salad because I feel like a jerk saying on-DEEVE instead of N-dive. And I like on-DEEVES, so this is a very sad situation.

2. Empire (as in empire-waisted dresses). Why it's pronounced ahm-PEER, I do not know. The truth is, I should not wear ahm-PEER waisted clothes because they make me look way preggers. On second thought: that could help me get a seat on the subway. Hmmmm...

3. Scorsese. I'm pretty sure it's pronounced skor-SEZ-ee. But everyone and his movie-loving brother says skor-SAY-zee, so that's how I'm gonna say it, too. Sorry, Marty.

4. Prix fixe. Rather than order the pree feex, I will sometimes say, "I'll have the special."

Observations after an afternoon spent picking up litter on the banks of the East River in Astoria

2008-07-13T10:47:00.010-04:00

On Saturday, Mr. SZ and I joined a few other ~~suckers~~ community-minded folks to pick up the mounds of trash that have accumulated on the shoreline at Astoria Park. Here are some lessons learned from filling about a dozen jumbo Hefty bags with other people's crap.

1. Poland Spring is evil.

2. People are disgusting.

3. As evidenced by the number of condoms, safe sex is alive and well in Queens.

Hellgate Bridge, Astoria Park (by me!)

4. Corona is the beer of choice for litterbugs.

5. People are pigs.

6. While they might make it easier to enjoy a fountain soda, drinking straws suck for the environment.

7. Plastic tampon applicators are evil.

8. People make very bad choices about how to dispose of their trash.

9. I love the sound of broken glass when I stomp through it in hiking boots. (No, really.)

10. It's probably more fun to pick up trash when it's not 85 degrees outside.

11. Styrofoam is evil.

12. If you come across bones on the banks of a river, it's best to assume they came from chickens.

Things that continue to baffle me

2008-07-09T10:27:00.001-04:00

Ed. note: this is likely to be the first in a long series of lists of things I just don't understand (despite the attempts of many to explain them to me).

1. The scoring system in tennis

2. International currency exchange rates

3. Trigonometry and what it's good for

4. How calls placed to my cell phone manage to find me

5. Airline ticket prices

6. Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank

Songs I like even though I know I shouldn't

2008-07-07T18:58:00.004-04:00

Disclaimer: I'm limiting this to songs from the past several years. If I included every mortifyingly cheesy AM radio hit from my youth, we'd be here all day.

1. "SexyBack," Justin Timberlake. The title makes me cringe. Plus, JT was a Mouseketeer, and I've never found him even remotely sexy. But damn, this song is catchy.

2. "Girlfriend," Avril Lavigne. "She's like so whatever / You could do so much better." Yes. Yes, I could.

3. "Cowboy," Kid Rock. Let me go on record: Kid Rock is a dirtbag of the highest order. That said, the line "I'm not straight outta Compton, I'm straight out the trailer" is freakin' genius.

4. "The Ketchup Song," Las Ketchup. I actually have this on my iPod. Sometimes it pops up when I'm using the elliptical machine at the gym, and it makes me surreptitiously dance. At least I think I'm being surreptitious. I'm not, like, rockin' out. Or am I? Maybe the people at the gym know me as the Old Lady Who Dances on the Elliptical. Uh oh.

5. "Beautiful," Christina Aguilera. This is the kind of song that would have spoken to me as a 12-year-old -- an age when my friends (yes, my friends) nicknamed me Emacia and Mommy Long Arms. As a grown-up, you'd think I'd be immune to the charms of a performer who wears whore makeup and spells the word "dirty" with two Rs. Not so.

The laziest list ever

2008-07-04T12:27:00.002-04:00

Here for your Independence Day entertainment is an unedited list of the last 10 songs played on my iPod:

1. Franz Ferdinand – You Could Have It So Much Better

2. The Flaming Lips – Kim's Watermelon Gun

3. Silver Jews – Smith & Jones Forever

4. Arcade Fire – Black Mirror

5. They Might Be Giants – Ana Ng

6. XTC – Senses Working Overtime

7. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

8. The Pogues – A Pair of Brown Eyes

9. The Clash – Hateful

10. De La Soul – The Magic Number

Places where I have upchucked in public

2008-07-03T00:40:00.004-04:00

1. Sunnyside, circa 1974. I'm not sure what it was about the home of Washington Irving that induced vomiting. Six-year-olds are probably just inclined to hurl.

2. Disneyland, 1976. I was sick during the entire trip to California, but I managed to dupe my mom into thinking I was well enough to visit the Magic Kingdom. I ended up puking into a garbage can near Cinderella's castle. After eating a hot dog. I still had a pretty good time.

3. Rye Playland, 1986. Turns out the Caterpillar was too much for me. But hey, I'm not alone: the ride attendant told me he spent a lot of time hosing down the platform.

4. London, 1990. The aftermath of an evening at Gordon's Wine Bar in Covent Garden. Turns out you shouldn't drink four glasses of plonk on an empty stomach. (Who knew?) My memories of this are understandably hazy, but I'm pretty sure I threw up on the tube. I definitely threw up on the walk home from the tube. I recall trying to speak in a British accent so people would think I was a stupid drunk English girl instead of a stupid drunk American one. How patriotic of me.

5. Brussels, 2004. If you really want the story, please see Item 2 on the list of my all-time worst vacations. Additional detail for the masochistic: I puked in the Place Royale outside the Museum of Modern Art. My passport should probably be revoked.

A six-course death row meal

2008-06-29T15:43:00.000-04:00

For someone whose worst brush with the law involved carrying an open container of Molson Ice on the rough streets of Avalon, New Jersey, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what my last meal would be in the unlikely event that I were sentenced to death. My biggest question: are there parameters for this? I'm going on the assumption that there's not some sort of list from which I must choose. Given that it's my final dinner, shouldn't I be able to get, well, whatever the hell I want? So here goes:

1. Every single g.d. thing on my list of What My Diet Would Consist of If Nutrition Were Not an Issue.

2. An entire Thanksgiving dinner. None of those good-for-you vegetables, though. Just give me the turkey, the stuffing, the cranberry sauce (both the jellied and the chunky-style), the mashed potatoes and the gravy. Oh, yes, the gravy. (Did I happen to mention gravy?) And pie, too.

3. A half-dozen biscuits from Popeye's. Screw that: make it a dozen.

4. The omakase from Nobu. Heavy on the toro, please.

5. Chicken tikka masala with rice and naan.

6. A black-and-white milkshake.

OK, now I don't know whether to feel hungry or hurl.

Movie lines frequently repeated in my house

2008-06-22T21:57:00.001-04:00

1. "The Donger need food." — Sixteen Candles. Uttered whenever the wife is hungry.

2. "You know, for kids." — The Hudsucker Proxy. Usually said apropos of nothing.

3. "One day a real rain is gonna come and wash all the scum off the streets." — Taxi Driver. Always said while walking to the subway when it's pouring. (OK, so technically it's repeated outside my house. Lighten up, man.)

4. "Feed me, Seymour!" — Little Shop of Horrors. Said when the cat is agitating for his twice-daily administration of canned food.

5. "I hate sports." — Ghost World. Delivered with a shrug, à la Steve Buscemi.

6. "What has it got in its pocketses?" — Lord of the Rings. See also: "Hobbitses is tricksy."

7. "Oh, Mylanta!" — The Ringer

My guilty pleasures

2008-06-18T22:40:00.003-04:00

1. Nanny 911 and Supernanny. Honestly, I don't seek this stuff out. But if I'm flipping channels and see some kid having a conniption, I can't help myself: I have to find out what the nanny's gonna do. Also, it makes me feel superior, knowing I would never be such a crappy parent. Uh-huh.

2. ABBA. "Can you hear the drums, Fernando?" Gives me goosebumps every time.

3. Cheez Wiz. Mmmm... salty orange goo. The thought of it on a Philly steak makes my mouth water.

4. LOLcats. I'm on ur Internets laffing at ur kittenz.

5. Any TV documentary about conjoined twins and/or the morbidly obese.

6. The movie Clifford. Martin Short plays the 10-year-old nephew of Charles Grodin. They even manage to make him look tiny. This, my friends, is comedy gold.

Advice I have taken, for better or worse

2008-06-16T21:51:00.003-04:00

1. Don't wear athletic shoes unless you're at the gym. This has helped me not look like a tourist in my own city.

2. The better the college you went to, the less makeup you wear. OK, this isn't actual advice, but it made me give up mascara for years in the hopes someone would think I went to Barnard.

3. Just because you have a crush on someone doesn't mean you have to act on it. Generally, if you give it a little time, you'll find out something disgusting about the person and you'll feel you've dodged a bullet. (Of course, as I have been happily married since before the turn of the century this advice is no longer relevant to me.)

4. If someone at work bugs you, walk by his desk, make cobra fangs out of your fingers and hiss. This works best if you only imagine doing it.

5. Stop smacking your lips when you eat. I had no idea I even did this. But I'm glad I don't do it anymore.

Dreams from my husband

2008-06-10T19:47:00.000-04:00

Normally, other people's dreams bore the crap outta me. My husband, however, has mastered the art of summing up his dreams in one sentence, and I find them enormously entertaining. Some of my favorites:

1. "I dreamed I was trying to play a didgeridoo."

2. "I dreamed Steve told me Brad was going to quit." *

3. "I dreamed a female hairdresser was going to give me a makeover."

4. "I dreamed I had something stuck in my teeth."

* Not their real names.

OK, I know I've opened a can o' worms by even mentioning dreams. If you feel compelled to describe your own nocturnal imaginings, for the love of God: keep it short.

Random things I like

2008-06-05T23:00:00.008-04:00

1. Kids who look like rodents

2. The smell of fabric softener emanating from laundry rooms

3. The Wisconsin state quarter

4. The word (but not the taste of) "beets"

5. Drinking beer near a body of water

6. Service monkeys

Things I don't like in restaurants

2008-05-31T07:58:00.003-04:00

1. Embarrassingly named dishes. My favorite neighborhood joint serves this amazing carrot appetizer. Sadly, on the original incarnation of the menu it was called... Bunny's Fever. (Shuddering.) I ordered it every time, but I really wished I could have just pointed and said, "I'll have, you know, that." Evidently the owners got tired of making their patrons cringe; on newer versions of the menu it's simply called carrot dip. Whew.

2. Wait staff who introduce themselves. "My name is Ted and I'll be your server tonight." Honestly, does anyone feel comfortable with this? I'm always nice to waiters and I tip very well, but dammit, I don't need to be on a first-name basis.

3. Baffling ingredients. For example: what the hell is a sunchoke? And is kokum jus supposed to sound appealing? Putting confusing things on the menu only invites more conversation with the waiter, and we've already established how I feel about that.

4. Foreign-language menus with no translations. See my previous complaint about having to converse with the waiter. I love all kinds of ethnic food, but I also like to know what I'm getting myself into. Of course, if I happen to be dining in a foreign country, non-English menus are OK. (Well, sort of.)

5. 200-item wine lists. Studies have shown that having too many choices freaks people out. And as someone who drinks mostly to achieve a fuzzy feeling, I can't say I require a selection of 15 different pinot noirs. Pick one wine from each of the really popular varietals (ooh, look at me, I used the word varietals), put 'em on the menu and be done with it.

The lamest movies I have seen in transit

2008-05-29T19:29:00.017-04:00

1. Ghost Dad (Peter Pan bus to Boston circa 1992). I had to IMDB this one to jog my memory about the plot. Evidently Bill Cosby plays a widower who dies in a taxi crash, but manages to watch over his kids as — you guessed it — a ghost dad! Orphaned children = laff riot! I can't remember if they all ate Jell-O pudding together. Probably.

2. The Mask (Peter Pan bus, destination unknown, circa 1995). Ever have a nightmare that you were trapped for hours in close quarters with Jim Carrey? Dude, I lived it.

3. Daddy Daycare (American Airlines flight to Salt Lake City, 2003). Admittedly, I watched this one without headphones. Still, I can say with absolute certainty that it sucked. I did, however, laugh at one scene where Jeff Garlin wore badly applied lipstick. No clue what that was about.

4. Alvin & the Chipmunks (Delta flight to St. Croix, 2008). I actually put on headphones for this, but I removed them once my ears started to bleed from the shrieking rodents. I'm not sure if Scientology requires penance, but if so, Jason Lee has about 50 kabillion Hail Xenus to say.

My all-time worst vacations

2008-05-19T21:23:00.001-04:00

1. North Adams, MA, 1981. My parents thought it would be big fun to take my sister (then 16) and me (13) with them when my dad took a summer class at North Adams State College. As you know, teens love vacationing in dying industrial towns. For years, my proclamation of "I hate the whole state of Massachusetts!" was a family joke. Ha freakin' ha. For the record, I now love Massachusetts. Even North Adams (well, Mass MoCA, at least).

2. Brussels, 2004. Prior to this misadventure, moules frites would have made the list of what my diet would consist of if nutrition were not an issue. Seriously, half the reason for my visit to Belgium was to eat mussels. It was all going swimmingly until a fateful lunch at the mollusk-shilling tourist trap Chez Leon. I knew something was slightly off with my meal. I did not, however, expect that a few hours later I would be lying on the floor of my hotel bathroom, praying for death. I've been off the mussels ever since. Even thinking about mussels makes me shudder. Please don't mention them around me. Thanks in advance.

3. Spain, 1988. A similar experience to Brussels, only this time caused by eating unwashed fruit in the nasty town of Malaga. Even worse, the evilness struck I was heading back to London by train. Perhaps they've improved since then, but the restrooms on Spanish trains in the 1980s made port-a-johns seem like the ladies' lounge at the Plaza. Please don't mention Spanish trains in my presence either. Mitigating factor: I dropped about 8 pounds in a week.

4. Camping in Lyme, CT, 1999. Oh, yes. Nothing like pitching your tent in the home of Lyme Disease. I spent the entire trip scrutinizing my ankles for ticks. The campground kinda sucked, too.

How about you? Any places to avoid?

Rock 'n' Roll Crushes: A Timeline

2008-05-18T09:18:00.001-04:00

Age 5: Elton John. My best friend and I fought over who would get to marry him. Kids are dopes. Admittedly, we were weirder than most.

Age 7: Davy Jones of the Monkees. He had a British accent and a shiny bowl haircut. I also liked the way he danced.

Age 8: Paul McCartney. Once I learned that the Beatles inspired the Monkees (gee, who knew?), Davy was out of the picture. It was all about Paul. I thought about proposing to him in a letter, but then I wised up: the guy was like 9,000 years older than me and plus, there was the whole Linda thing. So I wrote and asked him to adopt me instead. He never wrote back, the jerk.

Age 14: John Taylor of Duran Duran. Nick wore too much makeup; Simon, as the frontman, was too unattainable. I never liked drummers, so Roger was out, and honestly, I can't remember a damn thing about Andy. So John it was. He wore hats sometimes and that made him cuter still.

Age 24: Kurt Cobain. Nothing to be ashamed of here. Even dead, he's still hot.

Age 30: Tommy Lee. A brief aberration brought on by too many viewings of Motley Crue: Behind the Music.

My favorite list-themed works of pop culture

2008-05-16T20:23:00.013-04:00

Ed. note: It has come to my attention that I am totally ripping off a rather amusing blog called 5ives. Before Merlin sues my ass, I'm taking the bold step of scrapping the five-item policy. Sometimes I'll put six things on my list. Hell, maybe I'll go crazy and do seven. And if I'm feeling selfish one day, I might just keep it to three. How do you like them apples? (This is all so liberating.)

Now, on to the list.

1. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. In which our hero (who's actually a bit of dick) makes a list of his five most memorable break-ups and sets off to find out Whatever Happened To. Along the way, he shares several of his other top fives, from American films (No. 1: The Godfather) to Elvis Costello songs ("Alison") to Bands or Musicians Who Will Have to be Shot Come the Musical Revolution (interestingly, Simple Minds tops this one. Not sure why he's got a gripe with Simple Minds. Maybe it's a British thing).

2. Violent Femmes, "Kiss Off." Gordon Gano takes one, one, one 'cause she left him, and two, two, two for his family, and so on. He forgets what eight was for. That's so cool.

3. Amelie. The narrator lists each character's tiny likes and dislikes. En francais, no less. Among my favorites: "Philomene likes the sound of the cat's bowl on the tiles. The cat likes overhearing children's stories." Très cute.

4. The Book of Rock Lists. It's hard to overestimate the impact this had on me when I was a kid. It's where I learned Johnny Rotten's real name ("Famous Pseudonyms of the 1970s"), the identity of the Rolling Stones' "Angie" ("25 Songs About Real People") and that "Great Balls of Fire" might actually be, well, dirty ("Best Songs to Pass the Censor"). I read it so much that the cover fell off; I have it here now, yellowed masking tape and everything.

See? Only four. Ha!

Things of which I have an irrational fear

2008-05-15T11:58:00.016-04:00

1. Roller coasters. I'm the one who holds everyone's stuff when they go on the Cyclone.

2. Vampires. Dracula in particular. And -- OK, this is embarrassing -- the Count from Sesame Street. I had a nightmare about him once. Go ahead, laugh. Let's see how well you hold up when a Muppet tries to sink his felt fangs into your neck.

3. Merging. Yeah, yeah, I make a big deal about the environmental benefits of public transporation, but here's the real reason I hate cars: my driving sucks. Even thinking about how to speed onto a highway makes me queasy. Almost as scary: turning left at a four-way stop.

4. Going to jail. I'm such a freakin' goody-goody that this is highly unlikely, but there's always the chance I'll get framed. Extra bonus fear points for foreign prisons. For this, I blame Return to Paradise.

5. Stilts, and the people who walk on them. Seriously, WTF? It's just not necessary. In the Virgin Islands, there's a tradition of dressing up as Mocko Jumbies, which are essentially scary clowns on stilts. With all due respect to the culture, I can't begin to express the fundamental wrongness of this.

C'mon, chickens — what are you so afraid of?

Words or phrases I would (or do) feel stupid saying

2008-05-14T23:14:00.001-04:00

1. Da bomb. I recently told my husband the recycling container he installed under the sink was "da bomb." Which it is, but I'm still cringing that I described it as such.

2. Wonderful. It just sounds phony. One of my friends took an instant dislike to someone simply because she uttered the sentence, "Brooklyn is wonderful." I consider that a cautionary tale.

3. Fo' shizzle. I can't talk the Snoop talk. Some would argue that's a good thing.

4. Sweet (as in "awesome"). This one's dangerous. I started saying it to make fun of people who say it, but it's slowly creeping into my normal vocabulary. I must stop before I start pronouncing it "scha-WEET!," without irony.

5. Asshat. A little too high-concept for me. I'm more of a jackass girl.

And yours?

What my diet would consist of if nutrition were not an issue

2008-05-12T23:07:00.006-04:00

1. Cheez Doodles

2. Lobster rolls

3. Nathan's hot dogs (hold the kraut, for God's sake)

4. Coffee gelato

5. Movie theater popcorn

Songs so sad I can hardly stand to listen to them

2008-05-12T21:57:00.014-04:00

1. REM, "So. Central Rain." Yes, the lyrics are inscrutable. But the "I'm sorrrrry" chorus kinda says it all. As a matter of fact, about 75 percent of REM songs from the '80s are capable of making me teary. Damn you, Stipe.

2. Peter, Paul and Mary, "Leavin' on a Jet Plane." OK, so it's a freakin' Peter, Paul and Mary song written by John freakin' Denver. Shut up. It's sad. I played it on my final college radio show, days before I fled the country for what I hoped would be my fabulous life in London. A friend called in to say I was an insufferable sap. He wasn't wrong.

3. Bright Eyes, "The First Day of My Life." I have high hopes for the couple in this song. It's got something to do with the break in Conor Oberst's voice when he sings, "I would probably be hap-py." Still, the line "I'm glad I didn't die before I met you" just kills me.

4. Billy Bragg, "Tank Park Salute." I actually went through a list of Billy's songs to find one that still makes me sad. Now that I'm no longer a naive English major, lines like "The chain that fell off my bike last night is now wrapped 'round my heart" (from "The Only One") have started to bug me. So I'm going with Billy's tribute to his late dad. Yeah, that works.

5. The Beatles, "For No One." Best breakup song ever. That French horn solo gets me every time.

OK, what are yours? Kudos to the first person who gets me to sniffle.

A Five-Item Manifesto

2008-05-09T23:48:00.007-04:00

OK, it's my turn to litter the internets with random musings. So why a Li'l Blog of Lists, you ask? (Yeah, I heard you.) As I plan to do with all my posts, I'll list the top 5 reasons:

1. Long paragraphs scare me.

2. I don't have any kids so a momblog is out of the question.

3. It worked OK for Letterman.

4. Let's face it, lists are quick and I am lazy.

You know what? Four items are good for this intro. Let's get started.