Hooray for Westwood

The other night I got to attend the premiere for the new Zac Efron movie, Charlie St. Cloud, you guys. If you know me at all, you would know I was pretty excited as soon as I saw the poster, way back when, because I love boys with good hair who gaze:

Hey, actually, guys, can we talk for a minute about how the new Google image search sucks? I had to find this image myself. It never would actually display an image of the poster of a movie that’s about to come out. WHAT THE HELL.

Anyway, I have lived in L.A. for awhile so I have worked a couple premieres before and even attended one (randomly, Juno, and all I really remember is my friend talked about wanting to kiss Ellen Page while we were standing very closely to her, oops, and that I was really sad Allison Janney wasn’t at the party), but I must say this was the most insane thing I’ve ever been to.

Why?

Uhhh. This is why:

APPARENTLY SOME PEOPLE REALLY LIKE ZAC EFRON.

I mean. I think he’s dreamy and all. I think his hair is epic. (HIS HAIR IS EPIC.) But, dude. We were still driving to the valet, and with our windows up we could hear the screaming.

Holy crap. The screaming! It was like Beatlemania. Or some kind of deadly outbreak. Just. Decibel-splitting levels of lust and crazy.

I had to cross the red carpet to get inside the theatre, and I mentally thanked the blockades for existing and took out my camera to document the hoards of fans held back by said oh-yes-I-love-that-you’re-here blockades.

An unidentifiable girl yelled out: “How did YOU get a ticket???”

The question could be interpreted in a number of ways. Perhaps she asked everyone how they got a ticket to the premiere! Perhaps she thought I looked super unimportant! Perhaps she thought, how did that purple-striped-hair freak lady get in when I am but trapped beyond these horrible gates?

The crowd looked kind of threatening:

So instead of pondering the question or coming up with an answer, I retreated inside very, very quickly, and drank a free Diet Coke.

My favorite moment of the night was, obviously, being yelled at on the red carpet. This was my second-favorite moment:

We were waiting in line for the bathroom once we got to the afterparty. There is a tiny commotion of sound, and then I hear the voice of a dude I think I know. But it is not a dude I know! It is Zac Efron, who has just exited the men’s room. (Stars! They’re just like us!) All the girls behind us in line are little (hey, what did you do when you were twelve, guys? for me it was NOT “attend premiere afterparties”) and they are FREAKING OUT. FREAKING OUT!

Two speak to him. He is so nice to them! What a class act. They get back into line. They are so weak after this encounter they must face the wall and lean on it for support. The first exclaims, “OH MY GOD I SPOKE TO HIM HE SPOKE TO ME OHHHHH MY GOD” and I’m not gonna lie, if He Of Epic Hair ever spoke to me I might have this reaction too, at least internally.

Her friend shrieks in horror! “HE’S STILL STANDING RIGHT THERE! HE CAN HEAR YOU RIGHT NOW!!!!!!”

I have never heard such an amazing unique mix of love, lust, and fear distilled into two short statements in my life.

My Fictional Boyfriends – Cheating Round!

Why on earth would I write up an epic ode to Michael Moscovitz WHO IS SO SWOONWORTHY AND AWESOME AND OMFG MICHAEL IF YOU WERE REAL…., when my favorite site, Forever YA, already has done so? So just go read it, and know how devoted I am to his dreaminess.

Anthology Interview

There’s an interview with me up at the lovely Sarah Skilton’s blog. I discuss submitting a proposal, writing the essay, and working with an editor on revisions. Go read!

Book Bash – Tonight!!

Come one, come all! 7:30pm at Skylight Books on Vermont in Los Feliz! I’m wearing my zombie stompers so you know it will be a good time.

Also I might start a brawl with Cecil Castellucci over superfluous letters.

My Fictional Boyfriends – Round Two

A continuing series of utmost importance and solemnity in a time of great uncertainty and fear.

My next fictional boyfriend is my newest of the bunch. Unlike the first two, he’s currently age-appropriate, but that does not detract from his dreaminess. Ladies and gents, I present to you the case of Will Gardner.

OK, to be fair, I have a weakness for Josh Charles characters apparently (watch out for a future round, plus there’s Bryan in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, who is a catch despite his paper hat). But, oh! Will Gardner, Will Gardner. (I can’t stop making this joke, sorry.) Why do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. You look pretty dashing in a suit, but you in casual clothes is so amazing that Entertainment Weekly has devoted blog coverage to the phenomenon.
2. You have, on occasion, expressed attraction to inked ladies.
3. You are unapologetically ambitious and accomplished, but you’re not afraid of ladies who are too. SWOON. OUR POWERS COMBINED COULD RULE ALL, WILL, DON’T YOU SEE? YOU ARE A TOP LAWYER AND I, ummm, well, I’m unapologetically a lot of things. Just saying. I have tattoos!
4. Oh man, when right off the bat Cary got all uppity about all his frigging billable hours, Will laid in a super amazing passive aggressive insult to put him in his place, and while I don’t approve of, well, passive-aggression OR putting people in their places IN GENERAL, at this point in the series Cary was a snot who deserved it for his smugness. (Of course I came around to (mostly) love Cary too; he would be my office flirtation while I was waiting for Will to get over a certain someone or to notice my ambition BECAUSE I’M REALLY GOOD AT BEING SUBTLE.)

Oh god I am so off-topic I am not even sure what the eff I was talking about.

Ohhh right. Back to business. I think this material is sufficient evidence. In closing… I am too legally-unaware to push this lawyer metaphor any further than its current half-assed state. So here’s a picture of Will Gardner in casual clothes:

You’re welcome.

My Fictional Boyfriends – Round One

I started thinking about fictional boyfriends because all the lovely ladies at my new office are deep head-over-heels crazypants in love with… Edward Cullen.

Now, look, you guys. I (sometimes) think Robert Pattinson is pretty hot:

…but Edward would be a terrible boyfriend! He can’t even enjoy a good meal with you (unless you’re into biting fresh bunnies or something)! I’m a foodie, so what the eff would we do on dates if we can’t enjoy food together and we can’t get it on? Also he tells you what you can and can’t do! He watches you sleep, which would be a total dealbreaker for me:

…and not just because I’m a snorer and I prefer the boys not to get a whiff of that right out of the gate.

The same ladies mocked me for my High School Musical calendar, but lemme tell you something: Troy Bolton is a way better fictional boyfriend.

Firstly, let’s just get this out of the way: not only is his hair just as dreamy, IT’S ACTUALLY FRESHLY-WASHED. You just know it smells like conditioner and freshly-applied product, not freshly-eaten animals and forest twigs and cold marble. Because, you know, speaking of that, also HIS SKIN WOULDN’T FEEL LIKE COLD MARBLE.

Also: he is a good dancer, he respects musical theatre, and he’ll prioritize your college/career plans ahead of his own when necessary. OK, he’s not perfect. Sometimes he gets a little caught up in his fancy-pants friends and Italian shoes, and he eschews washing certain garments to bring luck to his basketball team, but he’ll dance it out and make amends. This is not a boy tethered too tightly to gender norms.

Next up, because I suppose I should try to balance out my TV and movie refs with LITERATURE, is If I Stay’s (and Where She Went’s!!) Adam. Ag, Adam. You’re dreamy too, and even though I assume you have spectacular emo hair and a punk rock DIY touring sched, I bet it’s relatively clean and fantastic-smelling.

But, YES, he’s a musician! But even though he’s rock ‘n roll, he’s gonna respect my dorky tastes too, as evidenced by just how much (HOW MUCH!) he got out of that Yo Yo Ma concert. Right? Oh, yes. Boys who are passionate about things – and by “things” I don’t mean “how your blood smells” – are boys I can get behind. And, um, other prepositional phrases.

Which leads me to my last point about Adam, which is that he doesn’t care about not besmirching your precious virtue or whatever. BESMIRCHING BE DAMNED. VIRTUE BE DAMNED. PRECIOUSNESS BE DAMNED. Swooooooon.

This concludes Round One of My Fictional Boyfriends. Stay tuned; there are more in store.

The Lit Thing: Book Bash – June 16!

Gentle readers, I will be appearing at The Lit Thing: Book Bash at Skylight Books this Wednesday, June 16, at 7:30p.m. to rant or rave about my favorite or most-hated book. Be sure to attend if you want to find out which it is!

Back in Business

Last week while trying to upgrade WordPress, my site totally brooooke. This was bad news. The good news is, obviously, it has been fixed, and I can post yet again.

Of course, now that I can, I have nothing to say.

Oh, I did hang out at the Playboy Mansion last night. I wore a fancy dress and looked at spider monkeys. And, no, that’s not a euphemism.

For comparing/contrasting purposes, I’d like you to know that tonight I’m hanging out with my cat on the couch, writing, reading a trashy novel, drinking beer, talking to web site hosting support, watching Doctor Who, and baking cookies from pre-made dough.

Cats, Inc.

Anyone who reads this blog or my Twitter knows I have the weirdest and most awesome cats. I mean, come on!

The Doctor!!

Scoutie!!

Anyways, the awesome rescue organization I adopted my kitties through, Cats, Inc., now has a Facebook page, so if you’re in the Los Angeles area and looking for your own kitty — or from anywhere with too much money in your wallet and want to donate some — I urge you to check them out. I don’t know if you’ve ever dealt with any rescue organizations – but some of them are a little… overzealous. My brother was adopted, and I swear there was less drama in that than some of these places require. But there’s none of that with Cats, Inc. The rescuers are all kind, non-drama people, and kitties who’ve been abandoned get plenty of love and attention, so despite rough starts in life, my kitties were totally affectionate and trusting. I mean, as much as cats ever trust people.

(Oh, and these photos were taken by the divine Brandi Ediss. Brandi’s a Chicago-based photographer who mostly photographs adorable kids, but does great pet shots as well.)

Per Your Suggestions

I didn’t know what to blog about, so I did what any normal person does: I asked my Facebook friends.

Sara R. asked me to talk about–well, Sara R.’s was complicated. I’ll quote her:

Gummi bears. Gummi worms. Gummi sharks. The variety of animals that are in gummi form. A ploy by PETA to infiltrate our youngsters with subliminal save-the-animals messages? Or just coincidentally shaped candy snacks?

Well, Sara R., that is a very strange request. Actually, there is generally gelatin in gummi animals, and therefore they cannot be eaten by vegans! But they can probably be eaten by vegetarians. Back when I was a vegetarian I didn’t pay attention to gelatin rules, honestly. Probably because I found out while nomming on Altoids, and I didn’t want to give up the Altoids.

Trish asked me to talk about boys. Here’s a line a boy used on me a couple weeks ago:

Your eyes are beautiful. What color are they?

And then today the UPS guy tried to hit on me using this:

What’s your last name? Spalding? That is a BEAUTIFUL last name.

NO IT’S NOT. IT IS A NORMAL LAST NAME FROM ENGLAND THAT EVERYONE MISSPELLS BECAUSE THE GERMAN VERSION IS WAY MORE POPULAR DUDE. That is a TERRIBLE line.

Dudes, just be normal. Please!

Anji wants me to talk about mix tapes. Oh gosh. MIX TAPES. I wish people still made them. I remember this boy and I used to mail each other mix tapes and it was so magical. I had crazy feelings of love for that boy, and I am pretty sure a big chunk of that was the joy of the mix tape in my car stereo, the thrill of seeing his handwritten track list, the knowledge that it must have taken him hours to do this, just for me. That boy broke the heck out of my heart but years later I remember the mix tapes most of all.

Brent wants me to talk about writers block. I think Brent is just being a smart ass. That’s OK, I will still indulge you, Brent. I haven’t had actual writers block in a long time, because I truly think a big part of writing is just sitting down and doing it. And if you do that often enough, it’s habit, and you’ll keep going. But I get blocked for other reasons. Like, with my book out on submission right now, it’s so hard to give Current Project the love and care it deserves, because I’m all Stresso McGee over Formerly Current Project. But, alas, I must force myself to forge onward.

One thing that really helped me was an idea brought up by my lovely friend Siobhan in this post about not breaking the chain. Listen, I know that she’s quoting Seinfeld, but she’s a much cooler person than him, so I’m crediting her. Fair? Fair.

Michael Q. asked me to talk about fainting goats. I thought this was some kind of euphemism but apparently this is a breed of domestic goat! Thank you, Wikipedia. There is even an International Fainting Goat Association. WHO KNEW. NOT ME. Thanks for the education, Mike Q.!

Dan wants me to talk about Jason Robert Brown. I’m sad that Songs for a New World seems to have lost its hold over me now that I’m ancient. There’s something about that album that, for the most part seems so rooted in your late teens and twenties. Which, really, is awesome, because I’m not sure there are that many musicals that are so specific to that point of young adulthood. Also I’m really mad I was too busy last year to catch Parade while it was at the Ahmanson.

Jennifer M. wants me to talk about literary mashups. Gosh, at first they seemed so freaking exciting. When Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came out, I thought that was basically the most awesome idea ever. But I’m growing weary. Already it seems less exciting. However, I do love that people are playing with literature to make new media. Sometimes people get so focused on new technology that literature gets overlooked as something vital to our future, and it’s healthy to remember how much power it can still hold, especially in new forms.

Pearl and Brian H. want me to talk about post-apocalyptic polar bears. I must admit that this is a subject that has never crossed my mind. So here is a picture of one:

That was fun! Next time I’m out of blogging ideas I will do this again.

Now it’s time to get coffee and go to the library.