Arianna Georgi

I’ve read Little Women pretty much every year since I was ten.  I love that book, and I love almost every version of the movie (the best being the 1949 one and the worst being the one with Katharine Hepburn because she is too old and pretty to be Jo).  I love how disgustingly good the whole March family is, giving their meager Christmas breakfast away after a few seconds of debate (I wouldn’t be so good- real butter?  F-that).  I love how superficial Amy is and the part where Jo cuts her hair.  I’m not so nuts about Beth, but I still cry when she dies (SPOILER ALERT).  The book is comfort food to me and every time I read it I am delighted in spite of knowing every plot turn.

Well, mostly delighted… there is one thing I just have a hard time getting past.  Every single time, I go into Little Women praying the relationship between Jo and Laurie will end up differently and she’ll choose him.  It makes no sense to me that she doesn’t.  He’s handsome, he rich, he thinks her creativity is awesome and he acts in her stupid attic plays.  He loves her for exactly who she is, but doesn’t she return the favor.  For whatever reason, Jo ends up running off to New York and getting married to an old guy with a whole litter of kids who acts all snobby about the fact that she writes ridiculous soap opera short stories.   Bad call.

This is not the only book or movie that irks me in this way.  When I was younger I used to wonder why the clever reporter couldn’t just choose the bad guy in whatever super hero movie I was watching.  Sure, he wants to destroy the earth or blow up the moon, but he also has an awesome evil lair, and he’s totally into you.  Do you really want to date a super hero anyway?  Not only do you have to spend all your time being good, but other women would hit on him constantly.

And consider the case of Reality Bites, one of the defining movies (and soundtracks), of my teenage years.  Why would you turn down handsome, successful Ben Stiller to be with sulky, “deep,” Ethan Hawke?  Ben Stiller wants to buy Laney things, take her to nice dinners, and make her silly documentary into a movie.  Ethan Hawke wants to get high and sings the Violent Femmes.  He makes fun of her dress.  He’s a jerk.

Tucked into all of this is the idea that these guys are better because they see our heroine for who she really is.  Laurie loves Jo, but he doesn’t push her to become the writer should go be.  Ben Stiller loves Laney, but he edits her movies into MTV style visual junk food.  I get it, but I’m not entirely convinced these other guys are so great either.  The Professor has never even met Jo’s family and that’s a pretty crucial part of who she is.  Ethan Hawke has sex with Laney and then freaks out (but later he wears a suit which presumably means he has grown up and won’t do that anymore).  Why can’t they just end up with the guy that loves them without all the work?  Why does Winona Ryder make such terrible choices in movies?

I will never stop rooting for Laurie and I’ll never stop being grossed out when Jo hooks up with the old guy.  As for Ben Stiller, if Laney doesn’t want him I am more than happy to take him for myself.

Tags: Movies, TV

A friend of mine recently introduced me to a show called American Pickers.  It’s basically the TV love child of Antiques Roadshow and Hoarders.  In it, two guys travel around looking for antiques (this is called picking) which they then buy from hillbillies and sell for what seems to be an average of about 50 dollar profit.  I am not sure how this financial model works for them, but apparently it does.

In every episode that I have seen, (three), this search leads the pickers to an old man’s house.  The old man’s house has about 15 outbuilding structures that are in varying states of decay.  If I came to this house, I would get the heck away from it since it is the sort of place I would assume I would be serial killed or captured and made to live in the basement as a pet for years by mutant mountain people.  And the only man looks like this:

It doesn’t matter which episode it is, because every single one features this old man.  Seriously.  I watched a marathon of this show on a plane, while I was working, and I thought I fell asleep for a while because this guy was in every episode.

The show basically glorifies hoarders by making them seem like super savvy collectors of junk.  The Pickers go nuts running around the barns, or water closets, or basements or whatever looking at pile and piles of creepy hoarder junk.  Then the following exchange inevitably occurs:

Picker: Do you have any interest in selling this (holds up rusty watering can)

Old Man Pictured Above: No, not that.  I’m not ready to part with that yet.

(Cut to picker talking to camera)

Picker: He has sooooooo much amazing stuff.  Hopefully one day he will sell that rusty watering can to me.

All over the country, hoarders are gleefully screaming “I told you so!” from between their 50 foot high piles of Life magazine and old milk cartons.  I actually think this might be part of an evil plot between A&E (Hoarders) and Lifetime (Pickers) to keep both supplied with show material.

The best thing to come out of me watching this show is that I now have a new and highly effective drinking game.  I had only heard the word “picker” a few times before in my life (garbage picker, etc) but that lifetime total tripled while I was watching this.  These two guys can not seem to stop saying it.

“This is a pickers playground!”

“That’s like a pickers dream come true!”

“The first rule of picking is blah blah.”

I think these guys sort of made this word up (History Channel Disagrees)- but either way they are doing an excellent job of branding it.  You should probably not play the game with hard alcohol.

Anyway, given a choice in bad reality TV, I will probably stick with Patty Stager, but I do appreciate why some people (probably old people) might enjoy American Pickers.  At the intersection of hoarding, home invasion, and antiques, everyone comes out a winner.

(American Pickers Airs On Lifetime and I Guess Also History Channel)

Tags: American Pickers, Lifetime TV for Women, TV

So I finally watched The Notebook, a movie I have had on my list for the last five years or so, mainly because it is constantly on Top 100 lists:

• Top 100 Chick Flicks
• Top 100 Movies to Make You Cry
• Top 100 Movies with an Office Supply in the Title
• Top 100 movies with Unrealistic Male Characters Women Compare Their Boyfriend To. 

Anyway, I have been wanting a good cry, and it seems unanimous that this is like the saddest movie of all time, and it was on demand, so I watched it.

My review in two words:  It sucks.  Here’s why:

1.  The dude is pretty much a creepy stalker

I know it’s supposed to be romantic, but in the first thirty minutes the guy:

• Stares creepily at the girl while she rides a merry-go-round
• Threatens to kill himself if the girl won’t go out with him
• Makes the girl lie down in the middle of the road in front of oncoming traffic

I am not a very romantic person myself, but I am pretty sure these things are huge red flags and not at all romantic.

2.  The Sex Scene SUCKS

You know what was sexy?  That time we had sex in a gross abandoned house and we just stared at each other and then took off our clothes with zero foreplay.  Oh, wait, that wasn’t sexy, that was just the sex scene in The Notebook.

3.  The actual notebook is not around that much and the guy should just buy a computer already

Enough said.

4.  And most importantly…The movie is NOT sad

Once upon a time two people feel madly in love with each other and then got married and lived together for like 30 years.  Seriously.  The only adversity they faced was super hot James Marsden and he was totally nice about the whole thing.  Boo-hoo.  Get over it people.

Anyway, I was utterly disappointed by how NOT SAD this movie was and I am now mad at every one of you who told me it was good.  Next time I want to cry I will watch Armageddon.

Tags: disappointment, Movies, The Notebook

Sometimes I feel like there is a giant anti-feminist conspiracy to make women look like idiots by simply taking the most idiotic women possible and the presenting them as representatives for us all on TV or magazine covers.  I would like to point to Flavor of Love, Rock of Love, The Hills, and pretty much any other show on MTV as evidence.  If there are aliens somewhere in space receiving our radio signals and desperately trying to decipher our culture, I am pretty sure that between these shows and Sarah Palin they are going to come to the conclusion that the majority of human females either spend most of their time in jacuzzis throwing drinks on each other and fighting over washed up rap/rock stars or mispronouncing the word nuclear and winking.  When they show up they may be shocked to discover some of do not have fake breasts and are able to name multiple national newspapers.If this is the case, The Lingerie Football League is doing a really great job, as is this piece/video art project I stumbled across on San Diego’s Union Tribune site:

http://www.video.signonsandiego.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=2310748&item_index=1&all=1&sort=NULL

Let’s ignore the obviously things that are wrong with this video, like the fact that trying out for the lingerie football league involves no actual football experience, the fact that one girl has no idea who a linebacker is and has never really watched football, and the creepy casting couch style comments of the lingerie football league’s founder.  Instead I would like to present as evidence to support my theory the girl who says her training involved “eating rice crackers” and definitely not drinking water (because water and sports absolutely DO NOT mix).  I would also like to note the girl who states that “the bigger the silicon is” the “better off they are.”  This video makes me incredibly sad (and not just because I don’t personally think I could make the lingerie team).   

Tags: aliens, Lingerie Football League, San Diego

 Last night, the Office episode focused on a baby shower that Michael threw for Jan.  While I love the Office, and uncomfortable humor is sort of their staple, last night’s episode made me particularly uncomfortable because it reminded me how extremely awkward I am around pregnant people.

In the last year, three of my close friends have all had babies and I think I handled it pretty well.  It’s largely because they all were totally cool about it.  Amy brought her sarcastic quips and trademark sense of humor to the situation (after a particularly funny Onion article she let me call the baby, “the parasite”), Ryan didn’t let the whole thing stop him from going to poker night (although to be fair he wasn’t the pregnant one), and Heather Ray let me take pictures of her balancing beers on her belly at my birthday party.    But they are some of my best friends.  With strangers or acquaintances I am still at a total loss. 

The small talk situations are what really get me.   For some reason, the only thing I can find to bring up to talk to them about is their pregnancy, but then once I do there’s really nowhere to go.  I have little to nothing in common with a pregnant person as I spend the majority of my time engaging in extreme physical activity and drinking, and they spend most of their time practicing breathing and avoiding caffeine (I think).   I either resort to asking really inane questions (“Ready to have that baby yet?”), or blurting out facts about other people I know who have had babies (“My Godson is a really big baby 95^th percentile” or “When my best friend was pregnant she said it was uncomfortable”).   Normally I am sort of in the clear anyway because in my experience most pregnant people love to talk about how pregnant they are and, to quote the “You’ll Do” video, basically “act as if they were the first pregnant people ever.”  But for those who are actually tired of talking about the whole thing and maybe even irritable because they are creating human life and I am asking them inane questions, the conversation trails off into silence.  At that point I stare at their belly and ask more questions/make statement, while they uncomfortably answer (“Yes I do get morning sickness, thanks for bringing that up”).

Anyway, hopefully I will get better at the whole thing some day, but for now if you are pregnant it may be best to avoid me until you can drink again.

The end result of the whole being pregnant thing: babies like my awesome Godson, who I am becoming slightly less awkward around.

Tags: Akwardness, Babies