Cha-cha-changes!

I've now added the handy title bar to my blog so that all of these can be named. In addition, I've added the ability for people to comment anonymously- you don't have to register with blogger. So comment away!

Shakira- My Girl Crush

Make fun of me if you will, my girl crush is Shakira. She has been my girl crush since somewhere around 2001 when I caught her on the Latin Grammy’s singing Ojos Asi. Mostly because, after years of unofficial “practice”, I still look like an a-hole trying to recreate her hip moves. Anyone who may know Shakira’s Spanish songs know she is an incredibly talented song writer, her English songs don’t show it as much, but trust me she is awesome. And that hair….so jealous. If I could trade places with anyone in the world, it would be her.

Bye Bye Lisa, Don’t Let the Door Hit you in the @$$ On the Way Out

My dislike of Lisa Tucker was not a secret. Her and her weird skinny jeans tonight…I’m not sorry to see her go. Is anyone else freaked out by her freak-like optimism? I mean she’s only 16 and she’s smiling as she gets kicked off. At 16, I was a raging lunatic in the emotions department. I would have lost it long ago if I knew that America hated me for three weeks in a row and I was dying a slow death in the entertainment business in front of tens of millions. I would have punched Paula Abdul in the face, and peaced out with the quickness somewhere in the middle of week two.

Unan1mous

God this show is so AWESOME!! It’s so weird and awesome at the same time I can hardly contain my excitement about it and it’s only week two. It’s gets freakier by the moment, outcasts have to wear special uniforms, everyone make freaky faces and gets unnaturally hostile toward one another in a matter of seconds. LOVE IT! Thank you to one DS who turned me onto this AMAZINGLY SICK show! If you’ve not watched it, stay up the extra half hour after Idol and allow yourself to get sucked in. You won’t regret it!

Bathing Suit Season- Earlier Than Expected

It’s a well-known fact; I struggle with the work/life balance. Something about the last few years has turned me into a slightly anal, slightly compulsive, semi-high strung worker bee. What’s worse is that I don’t like being that way, I just can’t help myself. And then you meet my dad, who works insane hours, brings the job home with him, picks up his phone on vacation, and you know why! Along with the ghetto booty, it’s apparently the ONE other thing I inherited. Why not the green eyes? WHYYY?

Anywho, that’s why I try to fill my weekends with as much fun as possible so that on Monday’s I know that something good awaits me.

This weekend was one of those! From Friday Night NCAA to Sunday night Sopranos with a little gym, Florida Gators, Connecticut and Coldplay mixed the middle, it was such an awesome weekend. And I have five straight action-packed weekends ahead, culminating in a May 3 trip to Aruba!

That’s right bitches, almost one year to the day when I was SUPPOSED to go to Aruba, now I am! That’s the good news. The bad news is that means I’m going to have to be in a bathing suit almost two months earlier than originally planned. Which means I need to detox and cut down on portion control…oh say by about 100%. Winter wreaks havoc on the waistline. Coffee for breakfast, smoothies for dinner and a small lunch in between is probably the only way I can be in fighting shape for a bathing suit in four weeks. I never thought I’d have to go on a crash diet, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And although I’m back in the gym, it’s going to take more than 30 minutes of cardio a day to get back those six-pack abs (the ones I lost around age nine.)

The Sopranos

I can’t say enough about this show! It appears my friend’s prediction was correct, at least in my eyes. Tony’s dream was his descent into the afterlife, presumably hell. The fire on the horizon, Tony B. waiting at the gates, his mom already inside…all the signs are there. But then Meadow’s voice calls him back. I just thought it was so masterfully done…the juxtaposition of the action and the power struggle next to this symbolic, hard-to-follow dream sequence. Loved it!!!! I saved it on my new TiVo so I can watch it again and again!

Getting Busy Again

The first quarter funk is over, and I couldn’t be happier. I didn’t travel, I didn’t go out, I basically had no fun whatsoever. F* that bitches. It’s a new quarter, it’s a new era.

From now until May I am traveling every weekend. On the lineup? Connecticut, Philadelphia, Boston and South Florida, once again. If Annette’s birthday party remains May 5, then I will stay in New York and be the high-scorer on the Ari Gold Bowling Team we are currently forming. (My T-shirt will feature the broccoli line I love so much.) If it does not, I’m jetting to Aruba with my colleague because she has a free hotel room. Chances are, Aruba will remain a pipe dream. I could have gotten there last year, had a couple not fell off our cruise ship forcing the boat to turn around. Looks like I’m foiled again. DAMN YOU ARUBA!

Then in July I’m spending two weeks in the Southwest. Supposedly it’s like the vortex of the universe out there, you get real calm and zen-like. By that time, that feeling will be much-needed, so I’m really looking forward to that.

Anyways, I’m breaking out. I’ve also been drinking inordinate amounts of coffee lately, perhaps that is why I’m so ready to take on the world.

Alcohol

This morning the first thing I thought of is I can’t wait to go out tonight and drink and have fun. I am pretty sure this is normal for my age, but lately, with the insane amounts of people I have learned are getting married and/or having children (seems to be one or the other right now) I’m wondering when exactly it’s going to be un-cool to think this way. Words cannot express how terrified I am that one day I turn around and all my friends are married with kids and I’m still like woo hoo when does the drinking and dancing begin!! And they’re all like Lia, we can’t do that anymore, and I’m the only single one, with no one to go out with, forced to try and find love on match.com and if I’m really serious, eHarmony.

Since “settling down” is not currently a term in my vocabulary I’m afraid this day is already starting to dawn. I see it already- co-workers my age getting engaged, getting married. If I leave New York, this will be even worse. New York is an adult playland, where there are no children and most people seem to be relatively single. If you leave this magical place, you must enter suburbia where the opposite is true. Since my countdown has started, and my “relationship” is weird at best at the moment, what the hell will I do if it doesn’t work out? Stuck in a world of married couples and perpetual summer? Ok perpetual summer is fine….but all my friends in relationships is not. Up here I have a network of single girls I call on each and every day. Down in Florida, not so. It’s like an effing nightmare waiting to unfold.

But back to my original point, which was alcohol, and now reading the above, isn’t it ever so obvious that I need a drink to calm the F* down? I can’t wait until 5:30.

Diane Sawyer and I- BFF

So…yesterday we received the always amazing news that our clients (not magically, through hard work and lots of hustling by our team) was chosen to appear on Good Morning America. I leapt at the opportunity to see how morning show segments are produced and put together, so I hauled my ass out of bed at 4 a.m. to get over to the Good Morning America studios in Times Square. I must admit, it felt pretty good to be inside the warm studio, sipping my coffee, watching the producers scurry around, while the mere civilians and spring break kids outside watched jealously,and coldly, on.

After a great placement for our client, my supervisor and I were hobnobbing with producers when DIANE SAWYER goes to get on the elevator. Now, Diane Sawyer is a freaking legend. She’s not my favorite news anchor (I heart you Ann Curry!) but she is my second favorite. Not only is she a brilliant journalist, but she’s SO cool! For Christsake’s her husband is Mike Nichols! I was totally awestruck. Picture me, in my thrift store (but totally awesome!) skirt, and Payless round-toe ballet flats, doing my best to play adult, while F-ING DIANE SAWYER in her impeccably tailored, perfectly white pantsuit stands beside me patiently waiting for the elevator.

I had to say something.

My mind searched and finally, I said, “I like your shoes.”

I LIKE YOUR SHOES? Not, “Hey Diane, thank you for advancing feminism.” “Thank you, Diane, for making it easier for women in the workplace.” Not, “Great coverage of the tsunami last December, Diane.” Not, “Your husband F*ing rocks!!” No, no. "I like your shoes," is what came out of my mouth.

However, she actually said, “Thank you, I appreciate that!”

And I was like, “Yes, well they are really cool.” Which was true. They were pretty cool.

And then my supervisor does what I’m supposed to do and asks if she would like to test our product at home…and she said yes, she thinks her husband will like it. And with that she got on the elevator, telling us her assistant’s name (which she could not remember) and the doors close.

I was so goddamn excited it was all I could do not to turn around and be like “DID YOU SEE THAT BITCHES? DID YOU SEE ME TALKING TO DIANE SAWYER?? HHAHAHAHAH!”

Although this job is 99% hard work, frustration, long hours and horrible pay, at least in the end that remaining 1% manages to be somewhat fun and glamorous. I can now put Diane on my list of “celebrities I have actually talked to” as entry #2 under Serena Altschul. It's not the best list ever, but it's certainly getting there.

I’ve Been Feeling Uninspired and Tired

Maybe it’s the 12-hour workdays I’ve had. Maybe it’s the fact I completely stopped going to the gym altogether. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had a fun night out with the girls in NYC since I don’t know when. Maybe it’s because I have a quasi-boyfriend who may or may not heart me. It’s no matter. When the inspiration leaves, it leaves. And there’s no telling when it will come back until one day, it just appears again.

So…that’s that. Now we’re back on track and ready to write. Ready to try and get the book in motion, ready to try and combat the fatigue that being burnt out at work brings on.

I popped down to Florida for the weekend for a bit of R&R. For all those that I didn’t call, I’m sorry. I only had a few days to see family and then it was back on the plane to cold NYC. I had a great time. St. Patrick’s Day was a blast, I had all-you-can-eat crab legs on another day, took a nice long drive down by the beach on another, and actually got to the beach on another. It was all the things I love about Florida – the sun, the cheap cost of drinking, my family, the sand. It went by way too quickly, but for three days it was enough.

The Sopranos

So I thought I’d share a really interesting theory that I heard about the second episode of the Sopranos. The theory is that Tony’s dream is actually his descent into hell. The flashes of light is heaven far away. I think that this theory requires some fleshing out, but some things about it do make sense. For example, the voices on the phone of Tony’s wife and kids – aren’t Carmella or Meadow. Now I’m not sure what that has to do with the fact that Tony’s descending into Hell now that I’ve actually written it down, but I just like the idea.

My idea was that Tony is actually dreaming what could have been if he didn’t go into the Mob. Carmella wouldn’t have married him, he’d be some type of salesman but he wouldn’t necessarily be a good person. He’d still do bad things (cheat on his wife, credit card fraud), but it wouldn’t be murder or racketeering or extortion, etc.

Either way, the Sopranos is the best show on television, and possibly the best show ever. It’s done in two episodes what most series can’t accomplish in ten years – spark conversation from the streets to the water cooler, make people think, make people question major issues around right versus wrong, good versus bad, all while making people laugh – “Hey Van Helsing – let’s go!”