puppy diddle

i cried over dog pee last night.

zack and i had just gotten home, both from wonderful weekends in different places. we had missed each other, but i was moving quickly toward my sunday night freak out, where i realize what i didn't get done that weekend and how much lies ahead on monday morning.

and our adorable, energetic, frenetic five month old puppy (see above) had, quite predictably, lost control of his inordinately large bladder during the four hours we left him at home alone and peed on the kitchen floor.

it's a lovely kitchen floor--spanish tile, raised, so that anytime you spill a glass of water, it forms little rivulets that run like streams down the grout to the back door. no big deal when it's water, but extraordinarily tricky when it's smelly puppy urine.

and i saw it, and zack didn't, and he thought he had already cleaned everything up. he was proud, glad that artie had stuck to his little pee pad. but he hadn't, and i pointed that out with just a little bit of i-can't-believe-you-didn't-see-that-this-is-somehow-your-fault in my voice. and that's when i started to tear up. the hot and stinging tears of frustration, of disappointment in yourself and exhaustion and a five month old puppy and GOOD GOD, how will you ever be able to have a child if a dog drives you to tears?

but, there they were, sliding down my face and collecting underneath my chin, and then after awhile they dripped off and i was there, with my tears and the smell of diluted bleach and the dog trying to lick my toes, and then all of a sudden it was our house, a very very very fine house, and the dog pee was gone but it would come again. you know? it always comes. it's always something. but it's our house, and life is easier with you. someone cleans the dog piddle, and someone cries, and then the next day it's someone elses turn to cry while the other one cleans the piddle.

do not rent me anything.

otherwise, this happens.

i had no idea that DEBT COLLECTORS came after you for overdue library books. i thought that librarians just glared at you a little more harshly, or you would drive an extra ten miles to the branch library out of sheer embarrassment, or you would get a medal one day for returning your books after they were 60 years overdue and everyone had a good laugh and your integrity was remarked upon.

nope.

i think i have some kind of gene that precludes my ever returning a book or dvd on time. honestly. would that hold up in court? otherwise, i'm takin' it on the lam!

'heartbreakingly succinct'

. . . this was probably the best description i have heard of the oscars in my extensive online debriefing.

it was an okay ceremony. nothing about it was superlative. where were the bjorks, in their dead swan dresses? the nicole kidmans in their chartreuse dior? the fact that they cut out the 'best song' live performances was compensated for in time and pain by the interpretive dances for best score and the glossy recaps of the TEN best picture nominees. alec baldwin and (especially) steve martin were great, but they got such little screen time that it almost didn't matter.

in a word: meh.

Of course, i don't really mean that, because i LOVE the oscars and couldn't sleep the night before they were on and i totally have letdown symptoms today. it just wasn't a lively ceremony. gabourey sidibe was the only person there who acted totally excited to be there and not movie-star smug.

the real disappointment for me, thought, comes in the fashion. let's be honest, zoe saldana's dress was a lavendar nightmare, but at least she took a risk! in the words of my good friend rachel, when something is boring, it is BO-RING. and the dresses this year were just that.

nevertheless, i will not refrain from commenting, judging, and generally playing joan rivers. let's get started.

PENELOPE CRUZ

so, so, super classy.

it looks like it's the color of every red wine ever made. also, 'burgundy' would work. i love the diagonal ruching, the asymmetrical top, the length, how it probably swished when she walked by you. . . . it's the perfect "i'm nominated and i know i won't win but i am classier than anyone else here and i am dating javier bardem so bite me" dress. and really, what more could a girl want? she looks incredible.








DIANE KRUGER





i just do. not. understand.

she is gorgeous. really, SO pretty. and i do love black-and-white dresses. and the accordion pleating at the bottom, and then WHAT THE HELL is going on in the middle? and more importantly, WHY is it going on? what a totally awesome dress it would have been belted ONCE, right around the middle. i'm not picky. waist, hips, under the hips for the mermaid look, above the waist for the empire . . . but it's like Karl Lagerfeld ran out of fabric, threw up his bejeweled hands and covered up the middle of the dress with his goddaughter;s christening dress.




FAITH HILL





i hoped against hope that she had learned from the 'my-little-pony-rainbow-mermaid' dress a few years ago. should have known that she doesn't seem to learn from her mistakes, though.

the 'bra' here looks like it was an afterthought, picked up from the dumpster outside catwoman's house and more than a little too narrow for comfort. and the rest of it . . . honestly, it just makes me think of my grandma's old nightgowns, the ones that my sister and cousin and i would pose in and clip in the back because there was too much lace, except more revealing and less flattering.

also, it's just boring to wear black to the oscars. even this black. and she's so pretty . . .





CAMERON DIAZ


wow.


SERIOUSLY. wow! cameron, almost reliably, shows up to shows like these looking like she walked straight off the treadmill and slathered on some bright red lipstick. her dress choices aren't awful, on average, but this oscar de la renta is heads and shoulders above A) most of her past choices and B) most of the other dresses at the oscars on sunday.

i hate myself for saying this, but she is reminiscent of grace kelly. in looks alone.







KATE WINSLET




mallory said on sunday night that kate looked better as a brunette. while i initially disagreed, i'm coming around right now . . .

however, that is neither here nor there. because, look! kate winslet managed to wear THE MOST BORING THING EVER to the oscars! as another apt blogger pointed out, helen mirren or meryl streep could have worn this down the red carpet and gotten nothing but respect. the point being that, last time i checked, kate winslet is not sixty years old and NO ONE SHOULD EVER SHOP AT CHICO'S, where i believe all of this came from. chico's probably custom-made it for her. it feels kind of sad - have fun with it, kate! you are impossibly beautiful! and these are the oscars!

also, the skirt looked a little bit like harem pants sometimes.




SANDRA BULLOCK

first of all, let's address the fact that sandy dressed LIKE an oscar and she WON an oscar. i don't think it was a coincidence. i think when they academy saw her, and realized how good her dress would look on that stage with the little man next to it, and saw meryl, whose dress was reminiscent of celine dion's backwards pantsuit, they just called an audible. they crossed out meryl's name (don't worry, it's happened like 14 times) and gave it to sandra, in all her raven-haired, red-lipped, sparkly golden glory.

really. she looks fantastic. she makes some bad decisions at times - remember the purple dress at the golden globes this year? - but she is so beautiful, and radiant, and for the combination of perfect hair and makeup and OMG that dress, i think she officially wins best-dressed at the 2010 oscars. not counting my new best friend, gabby sidibe. but seriously. just look at her! how could you not?




ZOE SALDANA

. . .

good
good
good
cute
nice
huh?
hmmm
okay,
i could
get used
to . . .
WHAT
THE
HELL?

seriously. what the hell. this dress starts off well. golden, sparkly, warm - follows the motif of the best dresses of the whole night. and then it ends like a bad joke! or like an explosion of paper mache! lots of purple sponges! a parade float, toilet paper, loads of tiny shih tzus dyed all shades of purple? a royal pinata? help me out here, you guys.

for this awful thing, zoe receives the FIRST ANNUAL "Oh, honey, no," award. as i don't know her personally, i will not hand it to her, but if i were to, please picture me shaking my head disapprovingly and clucking as i did.

okay, i'm kind of wiped. there are so many still to talk about! but for now, i will leave you with this CRAZY recap from the lady who kanye'd that other guy:


BURKETT: What happened was the director and I had a bad difference over the direction of the film that resulted in a lawsuit that has settled amicably out of court. But there have been all these events around the Oscars, and I wasn't invited to any of them. And he's not speaking to me. So we weren't even able to discuss ahead of the time who would be the one person allowed to speak if we won. And then, as I'm sure you saw, when we won, he raced up there to accept the award. And his mother took her cane and blocked me. So I couldn't get up there very fast.

CHARLIZE

oh my gosh, you guys. i can't believe i was totally ready to go without even talking about this one!!!


Two things:

1) Her hair that way? Kind of makes her look like Kate Gosselein.

2) Boob rosettes.

I mean, REALLY? What did she think, that differently-colored fabric on her boobs, in the shape of little roses, wouldn't make people be like, whoa, charlize! your boobs! because that didn't work. she has rosettes. on her boobs.

finally, this dress (minus the b.r.s) looks a lot like my prom dress senior year of high school, long sash in back and all. and while that was a beautiful dress, i was seventeen years old and living in hoffman estates, il. you can do better, sweetie.

your life

Your life is made up of so many elevator rides; so many full moons and half-eaten cups of frozen yogurt and solitary drives in the car.

For your hands are small and there is a limit to what you can do. You have the beauty of your life already in you, it is what pumps your heart.

Your days are numbered as surely as the hairs on your head, and you will one day cry yourself to sleep for the last time, the very last time. Until then you will go on eating Indian food and pretending to like certain television shows and thinking thoughts and fighting or not.

It is your life, and it is not about passion, though that is important; and it is not about adventure, though god knows that's important too. Don't ask what it is about, at least not until you've lived it. Then you may ask, then you will know, but for now, your hands are small.

would you believe?

i was originally going to write about 1939, the golden year of american cinema; stagecoach, gone with the wind, wizard of oz, mr. smith goes to washington, etc. etc. but my internet sleuthing led me to the conclusion that i would way rather talk about CRAZY people who have won oscars in the past!
do you remember that BARBRA STREISAND won an oscar? and that this is what she looked like doing it?









OR, okay, OR, we have Cher.

who, somehow when accepting the oscar for her role in Moonstruck, remembered most of her outfit but FORGOT HER HEADDRESS. don't know how you forget a headpiece the size of a baby blue whale - wouldn't you think you'd notice that 300 pounds were lifted from your head? - but maybe it fell off when she took a bow and then ripped off nine-tenths of her dress to reveal a lovely, if long, shrug.




marisa tomei, of course, upset expectations when she took home the oscar for 'my cousin vinny.' so much so that there remains speculation that jack palance read the wrong name when he was announcing the winner. but, she's not so much crazy, you know?

off to class now. more tomorrow, we're at four days people!

in the spirit of the oscars . . .

which are SIX DAYS AWAY . . . I would like to share with you my first official 2010 pre-Oscar post.

(for those of you who don't know, dear readers, that the Oscars are the event of the year in my family of origin, consider yourselves warned. it is a battle TO THE DEATH each year, mostly involving myself and my father, who has run an ABL ["Anyone But Laura"] campaign for the last six years running. each year, we all vote in every Oscar category. the winner receives compensation in the form of 80 american dollars, give or take, and pride to carry in her heart for the rest of the year. i claimed the title for five years running, but have had a bumpy road of late, due to the entrance of Zack into the kitty, the surprise late entry of Mallory in 2007, and the vehemence with which the pater familias has been running his little campaign. am not too worried about 2010, although the jump to ten best picture nominees has thrown me for a bit of a loop.)

I digress . . .

To kick off OSCAR WEEK 2010 (think Kitty yelling "Spring Break!" in Arrested Development), I would like to begin with the five worst-dressed Oscar nominees of all time. By 'all time,' naturally, I mean searchable on the dubya dubya dubya.


Gwenyth Paltrow, 2002, Alexander McQueen

First of all, RIP AMcQ.
Second of all, sometimes I look at this dress and think, it's not so bad. The braid looks kind of Swedish milkmaid cute. And that's when I know I haven't gotten enough sleep lately, and probably have scurvy. Skeletal hemorrhaging always messes with my sense of right and wrong. This. is. awful. The weird, nipple-baring ruched top. Her hair, which is a color that doesn't really exist in nature. The fact that the top of the dress has a hue barely discernible from her own flesh. I don't even want to start on why she felt like she had to wear that stupid necklace. Really.




Demi Moore, 1989, biker shorts and bustier, plus hip-enhancing cape (her own design)



Huh.

MAYBE, she rode her bike to the Kodak Theater, got the front-train stuck in the gears, got so frustrated that she tore it off, then walked down the red carpet saying "TAA DAA! Someday, I will be married to a man who is eleven right now!"

Huh.




Tilda Swinton in the Lanvin trashbag, 2008


She scares me. Even more than her heartless and robotic lawyer in Michael Clayton. At least she wore mascara for that role! She looks like a life-sucking fetus, and I do not care what you say, this is not avant-garde or edgy, it is scaaaary. Rated NC-17. She's like the ghost of Mister Burns in that Simpsons episodes where he became radioactive and wandered the forests of Springfield. BUT SHE'S REAL!!!









Phillip Seymour Hoffman, 2009, ?

You've decided to wear a skullcap. To the Oscars. How do you go about selecting juuuuuust the right one? Will any old beanie do? Do you have to make sure it doesn't have any logos on it, or you'll have to put black tape over them like on The Real World? Do you pull a hat out of your closet? Do you go shopping? Do you send your stylist out to Burberry to choose a wool-lined cashmere number that is measured to fit your bulbous head, and yours alone?

These are questions you should NEVER have to ask yourself. When in doubt, look at Phillip Seymour. Then do the exact opposite of him. Voila! No more worst-dressed lists for you.

the fifth . . . i might have to resort to microfiche or something, because i'd really like to include someone from back in the day. let's just say, buster keaton, 1956. i bet bette davis wore some pretty big dresses when she ruled the roost.
i would say Bjork in the swan, but this one is too obvious. I'd be disgusted with myself for being so unoriginal.

Cher would get an honorable mention, maybe, but she is Cher after all. So whatever it is, on her, it looks totally normal and it would be weeeird if she wore some classy Marchesa frock. Let's hope Bob Mackie lasts as long as she does. And then some, because who would Cher in her casket be without a feathered headdress?

any thoughts on your fifth man/woman? hopefully. i want to hear. but please remember, if you will, the i was the earth's only fan of jennifer hudson's bolero back in 2008, so no ragging there.

see you tomorrow for more oscar madness - the best week of the year.