But Call Me Betsy

What is this? A new BCS (or whatever channel this is) episode of The Bachelorette Tells Us All Stuff We Already Know! Luckily, I didn’t get home until late (such an industrious worker) and so missed the first half hour. I can’t say that I’ll write much about this particular episode because it’s just stupid recaps and hearing what Deeyawna has to say about the guys and why she sent the robot home and the Chi-town guy and the sweaty dude with his shirt unbuttoned to his navel, etc. Weird to think that last week at this time, I was at Rosemont, watching this with a few of my new bffs. And here I am, back in my life. Had trouble falling asleep last night in part b/c this girl next door kept yelling, then I woke up at 5:30 am. because I was afraid I’d oversleep. We’re getting an illustration of the lives of the six remaining guys. Jesse’s first. He’s a complete idiot. Please, please, please cut your hair and maybe put some powder on your nose and possibly stop wearing those circus tennis s...

Here's my state of mind for the last several days: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Z!Z!Z !Z!Z!Z!Z! What that represents is me being freaked out and running in five different directions for hours at a time and then falling into a coma-like sleep. My bff and former roommate/co-building manager/confidante/substitute sister, Jodie, came into town on Monday night from way far away in Idaho and we stayed up laughing until maybe 2 or 3 in the morning and then my alarm jerked me awake at 6:15 a.m. so I could begin a new phase of my professional life. Worked all day, returned home to see Jodie, went to dinner at this authentic Italian restaurant where all the waitresses called us "honey" and brought huge plates of pasta followed by a cannoli. Jodie paid, despite the fact that she had already brought me a birthday gift, an artfull...

For those of you who have been paying attention, today was to be the day that the mama kitty would go to the vet and have her reproductive organs removed so that she wouldn't continue to give us more and more kittens. This morning, Mr. D. and I attempted to get her from the big dog cage into the little cat cage. I did about five things wrong, beginning with freaking her out by putting the little cat cage inside the bigger one, thinking she would just run into the safety of the smaller one and I could shut it. Instead, she got out and jumped on the windowsill to wedge herself between the screen and the window. Mr. D, with towels swaddling his hands, tried to grab her, but it was like trying to catch hold of a live wire or a firecracker with claws and teeth. He got bit but soldiered on. She fought and flattened herself further against the screen, like, she appeared to change forms into something more like liquid than cat form. Finally, she pressed so hard against the screen that it p...

I am fortunate to live near a church whose bells peal once an hour. I seriously do like this sound, but the funny thing is that this particular church often seems to go above and beyond the number of bells required. I was walking home the other day around six p.m. and heard the bells, registered the sound absently, and then realized that it didn't stop after what would reasonably be six dongs. I started counting and reached nineteen before it finished. Other sounds on or near my street: 1. The previously mentioned, incessant ding-a-ling music from the ice cream truck. 2. My neighbors screaming at one another (this doesn't happen often; I called the police the last time they were arguing and nothing much happened. The cops did show up but they didn't stay long). 3. Mexican music at all hours. I can often only hear the repetitive bass sound. 4. The little kids riding their big wheels and bikes up and down the street and yelling and laughing. I like this sound too. 5. Pigeons ...

Remember that book by V.C. Andrews? She wrote these ghastly horror stories like that and My Sweet Audrina and If There Be Thorns (a sequel to FITA) and a bunch of other pulp-ish paperback novels that had those "reveal" covers...The book covers with the hole cut in the middle so you just see someone's face but then you open it up and an entire scene appears, often a family portrait where everyone looks like the undead, spooky and doused in velvet and lace. I didn't read too many of her books growing up, except for Flowers in the Attic. I remember being stunned and slightly titillated to read how the brother and sister end up having sex after having been trapped in the attic for five years. Of course, in this attic, they had things like a ballet bar and tights and leotards (hence, the inevitable seduction) and perhaps dollhouses and china tea sets; I can't remember now. I just remember that I felt slightly sick to my stomach while reading it (my first visceral reac...

Why is everyone so excited about this movie? I caught part of an old episode of Sex and the City the other night and was reminded how much I don't like any of the characters very much, especially Carrie Bradshaw with her fake coyness, expensive shoes, and not so interesting voice over narration . The show I saw was one where Carrie visits her Barishnikov in Paris and she's wearing this ridiculous dress and a tiny little straw hat perched jauntily on her intentionally messy curls. Mary Beth told me recently about a friend of hers who wrote a paper claiming Golden Girls was actually a more progressive, feminist television show than Sex and the City ever was. I don't remember anything in particular about GG , but I have to agree that SATC never struck me as particularly ground-breaking. And yet I confess the we watched it almost every week at Julie Vedder's , the only grad student we knew who had cable. Most of the shows center around the women lamenting the state of ...

Realized that it has been almost a week since I posted and I have no good excuses, except lots has been going on such as birthdays, reunions with high school friends, presents, cat-capturing, animal bites, parties, the usual. Here are just a brief list of 5 things from last week: 1. Got to see one of my bff's from high school last Wed., Jen, as she was in for an interview with Free People. She's a designer and does these awesome handbags and scarfs and shoes and displays for Anthropologie and has traveled all over the world and wears great clothes still. She always had good clothes and would sometimes let me borrow them, even though she's smaller than me and they often didn't fit right. I took her to Reading Terminal for lunch and then we walked to Rittenhouse Square and reminisced about high school and how dorky we were (but secretly, how we thought we were kind of cool). 2. The kittens have adjusted very well at Carrie and Padhraig's and now will frolic with you. ...

Hi, and welcome back to another season of bad reality TV, except this time, it's The Bachelorette...It's poor Dee-yawna, who was rejected by stupid, always-has-a-five-o'clock- shadow, jerk-off Brad Wormrat. She's telling us how her heart was broken and so was the heart of 'Merica. She is so excited that she gets to fuck someone over the same way that she was fucked over! She truly feels like the luckiest person in the world and she can't stop spinning and looking at herself in the mirror. She has been through so much in her short 26 years, like...I don't know what--having to fire her cliché coach? This time around, she's going to be the one who makes the decisions for herself for the fairy tale ending that we have all dreamed about since we first learned that we might be able to find love on a reality show. Oh, dear, I already hate every single one of these guys with their shirts off and one of them is actually shaving his chest!! They are all gross mach...

There is nothing sexier than a man dressed in 1970s clothing and wearing roller skates. If you don't believe me, check this hot video from Flight of the Conchords : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLJ5a6aJOb8 (courtesy of my good friend, Cecilia). In other news, I found out on Monday that I got a full scholarship to attend a writing retreat at Rosemont College , thanks to the generous women of Philadelphia Stories . They are paying for the tuition and for room and board, a bill of $900 that I could never afford on my own. This means that I get to spend an entire seven days in the wilderness of Rosemont and can also take yoga classes. If you feel generous, please give to Philadelphia Stories , as they truly do support the arts and me.

Have been exposed to a lot of art over the last few weeks--not on purpose; I just happen to have friends who know the scene. For instance, saw an outdoor photography show put together under Interstate 95 a couple of weekends ago. The photographer is named Zooey or Franny or something and LM doesn't like her because she finds her work to be exploitative. You might agree. Her subjects are primarily the poor people in Philadelphia and New Jersey; photos of drugged out fifteen year old boys sporting badly done ink tattoos and holding babies with dirty, sad faces, little girls with fat tummies filled with Ho-Ho's, Arctic Ice lemonade, and Wonder Bread, those same little girls all grown up with badly done roots, missing teeth, and black eyes, fat naked men lying on sheet-less, stained mattresses, and dozens of outdoor shots of the bleakest buildings and parking lots you've ever seen, crack vials strewn over used condoms over feces. Something like that. Then, last Friday, LM and I...

I can't believe it's only an hour long...I thought we would at least get a full two hours of awkward kissing. First date, Chelsea shows up to meet the parents, speaking in a monotone. Here's dad, Hello, mate! That's the brother, Simon, the dad wears a full white turtleneck. They're having crumpets. The brother is less attractive, much. She sounds like a cheerleader. She doesn't know what wellies are-oh, wait, yes, she does. I don't think I've ever seen Chelsea without a ponytail. Oh, dear, I hope she doesn't get too drunk. Chelsea is telling the mom that she's falling in love with him. I don't know that the mom wants to hear this. She's telling the mom that she really wants to give her son a blow job. London style. (Mr. D, our guest watcher, is wondering how scripted everything is. He does not believe that ABC doesn't set all this up. He also won't shut up and I have to keep going, Uh-huh, whenever he makes an observation). The mo...

Okay, no headache this morning so that's good. Could it be from having a slight cold or something too? I've diagnosed myself twenty different ways through the Internet. I may actually have a rare form of gender identity headache caused by being scratched by one of the feral kitties (watched ER last night for the first time in years and that was one of the side stories. Sort of). My life-style column article for Philadelphia Maven is out. If you want to read it, go here . It's not earth-shattering and there's a typo at the end that makes me crazy, but oh, well. I'm a columnist, people. Look out. I sent my other piece in this week and I want to work on one for July that's a modern day version of Dorothy Parker's "The Telephone Call." In the new version, she'd be wondering when he's going to email her back or IM or send a text message or respond to her request that they be facebook friends. All the many ways one can now be reached or ignored. ...

I really want to write a post about the fabulous Flight of the Conchords concert on Monday wherein Irina was so excited she kept clapping her hands and bouncing in her seat and wherein I still couldn't make up my mind which of the boys is cuter and I'd like to recount all of their witty quips, but I have seriously had a headache for a week, and it's not going away. I took several photos and none of them turned out and watching them was sort of like seeing them on a TV with bad reception. Couldn't see their expressions at all. They kept giving out their room number and hotel name (though I'm sure it wasn't really where they were staying) but Irina was like, well, maybe? I would've gone with you, Irina. The Hotel Sofitel near Rittenhouse. Room 901. The headache got worse last night and I've had it all day today. I went to the grocery store and took their blood pressure test and I guess it's b/c my blood pressure is high or my blood pressure is high bec...

Have not mentioned the litter of stray feral kitties in awhile, but they did return. The mama kitty decided they were best suited to live in the rough and tumble chaos of the abandoned yard next to mine. I woke up one day to discover that they had taken up residence there and have spent the last two weeks feeling like I should rescue them, but hesitating too, since they were still too young to separate from the mom. So, I checked every day, often more than once a day, to be sure they hadn't been slaughtered or fallen down into the cracks in the backyard or been otherwise hurt. And the nine year old who lives next door to me (Avis) has been pestering me to save them. She kept volunteering to climb over and save them, but I wasn't sure what that meant--what we would do with them if we had them, but not the mommy. Today, I was out with Carrie and Padhraig and Carrie seemed determined to rescue them too, so we climbed over into the adjacent back yard and I caught them, one by one...

Do you really think she'll pull through? Here is the winner of "The Biggest Flyers fan in South Philadelphia" contest. As I said in a previous post, it seems clear to me that no woman could live at this house. Later, we might learn that the owner is actually a lady. But I sincerely doubt it. On another subject, I had a conversation with this girl in my philosophy/pop culture class who has cerebral palsy. She gets around with a walker but if you were to just look at her sitting in her swivel chair in the classroom, you wouldn't necessarily know that she has a disability. She was telling me on Tuesday that she's had several people approach her on the streets and ask her if they can pray over her. She says, Sure. They lay their hands on her and pray for the Lord to heal her and, when they're done, they ask her if she feels better. She says, Well, I know I'm never going to walk again, but thank you. Hearing this made me realize that if I had a disability, I w...