June Round-Up - 2012

This Round-Up is a lie! A LIE!

Well, its date of publication is a lie. Coming back from vacation was a hard reality to face, and as such, I have fallen way behind on my bloggy duties. So, let's just pretend it's actually the end of July, and briefly look back at June, shall we?

Movies Seen: Twelve, with four in a theater. You can read my reviews of a two of those below:

Rock of Ages

Magic Mike

Books Read: Five.


Marilyn: Her Life In Her Own Words by Marilyn Monroe and George Barris

Would It Kill You To Stop Doing That by Henry Alford

Girl Walks Into a Bar... Rachel Dratch

No Cheating, No Dying by Elizabeth Weil


Religion For Atheists by Alain de Botton

Fancy Dinners Out: I took advantage of Dine About Town and had dinner at Forbes Island, (my second time there, and it's definitely worth it...if you're eating at a discount!) and the Burritt Room, (I like their curtained booths; food was OK).

There was also a Father's Day brunch at Town Hall, in which they sold out of the fried chicken--which is what my dad wanted to order--right before we got there. Doh!

Live Shows Seen: One. A live taping of a Kristen Schaal stand-up special for Comedy Central. We were seated in the second row on the right side of the stage, so when it's on, look for me!

Shoes Bought: Two pairs, though only one pair was kind of bought. My mother got a pair of these Chelsea Crew t-strap heels in a light pink, but they didn't fit, so I bought them off of her. And Michele gave me a pair of vintage white, black and gold stilettos, just like these, that didn't fit her....

May Round-Up - 2012

As June comes to a close, and July, with its accompanying vacation plans, comes into view, I look distractedly back at May...

Movies Seen: Twelve, with four in a theater. Some were also part of the San Francisco International Film Festival. You can read my reviews below. (I guess I liked Trishna the best out of the below.)

Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey

Trishna

Dark Shadows

What To Expect When You're Expecting

Men In Black III

None of the DVDs I watched are worth commenting one, either good or bad.

Books Read: Eleven, but to be fair, four of those were more volumes of The Walking Dead comic. The non comic books are below.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

Guts by Kristen Johnston

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Mid-Century By the Bay by Heather M. David

A Walk In the Woods by Bill Bryson

Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson

The Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson

So, after reading and absolutely loving Cheryl Strayed's Wild, I had a desire to keep going on a virtual hike, so I read Bill Bryson's A Walk In the Woods. That book was so fun, I just had to read more Bill Bryson, and while the two that followed weren't quite as good as Woods, I still thoroughly enjoyed them, and plan to read some more Bryson books in the future. (I love the library!)

Fancy Dinners Out: I forgot one fancy dinner in the last round-up, probably because it was at the end of April. Dinner at Harris'! Prime rib! Good!

This month there were four dinners. Kind of.

One dinner was at the Boxing Room, pre-ballet. It was good, but they don't have a full bar, and that's kind of a bummer for someone who doesn't drink beer, and steers clear of wine when possible. But still, the food was good. Normally I would have had their fried chicken, but I had had some Popeye's the night before, so went "healthy," having fish instead. I think it was trout, grilled. Tasty.

Two other dinners were really just happy hours at Bourbon Steak . They had a deal where you could get three burger sliders and a delicious special bourbon cocktail for 20 bucks. The burgers were huge, for sliders, and soooo syum.

Finally, (literally), there was tea at Crown & Crumpet. They're closing their Ghiradelli location, and hopefully moving somewhere downtown. I certainly prefer downtown to Ghiradelli, just because I find myself down there more, but I must admit they had quite a nice spot down in G Square. Too bad.

Live Shows Seen: One, Don Quixote at the San Francisco Ballet. Sadly, it was the last ballet of the season. I loved going this year, and hope to go again next year, even though none of their programs looks that exciting. Alas.

Shoes Bought: Four pairs! Two of those are vintage stilettos: this pair with orange and pink stripes, and this pair of blue patent leathers. The other two were some cheap H&M flats in blue suede and light pink satin.

April Round-Up - 2012

Once again, a new month has taken me completely by surprise, so this is going up on "May 31st," not May 31st...
Summer's almost here! Let's look back at spring.

Movies Seen: Nine, with four, (well, technically, three), in a theater.
The best movie of the month was definitely The Cabin In the Woods, something I liked so much, I actually paid money and went to see it again. You can read my review here.

The other two, which I also reviewed, were Lockout, and Darling Companion (which was a capsule review during the Film Festival.)

None of the DVD viewings were that memorable, though I have to say I was kind of astounded by how boring J. Edgar was.

Books Read: Five. Click through to read my brief reviews.

Charlotte au Chocolat by Charlotte Silver

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman

Women Then: Jerry Schatzberg 1954-1969 by Jerry Schatzberg

Drive by James Sallis

Mad Women by Jane Maas

Fancy Dinners Out: One, at Le Central. I ate snails.

Live Shows Seen: Three! One was the San Francisco Ballet's presentation of three short works by Balanchine. (The last piece, "The Four Temperaments," was the best, which is ironic because I tend to prefer story driven ballets.)

I also saw the play Maple & Vine at ACT. It was fun, and worth seeing because of the costumes, but I'm not sure I entirely got what the ultimate message was...

Lastly, I saw John C. Reilly's band, which played at Bimbo's. It was good, and he's got a good voice, but they chose to do a lot of down tempo folks songs and country covers, so it was kind of a snooze. Something I'd like to listen to at home, but not exactly a rousing show...

Shoes Bought: One pair: these patent leather pumps, which are a nice combination of comfort and dressiness, and pretty comfortable to boot, on sale at DSW.

Now Weight a Minute!

I, like many American women, hate the emphasis our culture places on youth and thinness. Of course I do. And yet, in the past year-and-a-half, I've lost over 50 pounds. So how do I reconcile those two things?

Well, because technically, I'm still overweight. According to BMI measurements, I'd need to lose another 10 pounds to be considered a "normal" weight, and that would be at the very top of that "normal" scale. And that's kind of bullshit.

I chose to lose weight because my blood pressure was high, I was getting frequent migraines, and most importantly to me--and probably most shallowly--I couldn't wear the clothes I wanted to because hardly anyone makes cute clothes for fat chicks.

So, I decided to do something about it. But I chose to do it in a way I felt I could handle: Slowly. My goal wasn't to lose 20 pounds in a month. My goal was to lose one pound a week--at the most--until I got to a point I could live with.

Someone I knew had downloaded and successfully used an iPhone app called Lose It!, and since it was free, it sounded like a good way to go. Basically, it's like Weight Watchers, but without the Points system. You are given a daily calorie budget, and you log your foods and your exercise, and try to stay at or below your given daily budget. Since I'm an anal person who loves lists and keeping track of stuff, I took to it easily. It became like a daily game.

And the great thing is, when you start off at as high a weight as I was at, you're actually able eat a lot of food at the beginning. And that was the key thing to me: I didn't want to do anything where I had to cut out certain kinds of foods completely, because that's just not something I can maintain. Instead, I wanted to eat whatever I wanted to eat, just less of it.

Also, when you go from doing no type of exercise to some kind of exercise every day, the pounds kind of drop off. At least at first. (I lost five pounds in the first week and a half.)

When most people ask me about losing weight, they remark that it must have been really hard, and the thing is, it really wasn't. But it didn't happen quickly; it took almost two years. And I think that's the key: When you allow the process to take some time, it becomes a habit, and becomes something that's easier to maintain.

I chose to stop ten pounds shy of my "healthy" weight because that's where my body wanted to stop. Losing more became way too much of a struggle, and I'm at a weight I can be happy with--even if it isn't what's considered an ideal weight by most. My blood pressure is down, and I don't get nearly as many headaches as I used to. And while I can't fit into every outfit I'd like to--the fashion industry is still bullshit on that front--I'm much happier with the clothing choices that are available to me now.

I basically wrote this as a reference for anyone who asks me how I did it. So, for those interested, here's a summation of what worked for me:

Keep track of calories: Once you become aware of how many calories are actually in the foods you eat every day, it can revolutionize the way you eat. It's all just math. (It helps to get a food scale, to weigh things like meat and cheese and figure out portion sizes.)

Try to do some kind of exercise every day: I bought a cheap home stepper machine, and tried to do that every day. At first, I could barely do 15 minutes on the thing; eventually I got up to 45 minutes at a time. The key? I could do it while watching TV. But I also just tried to walk more. I resolved to not wait for any Muni bus more than 10 minutes. If it was longer than that, I'd just start walking. (You'd be surprised how much faster than the bus your feet can be!)

Weigh Yourself a Lot: This seems to be controversial. A lot of people say not to do it more than once a week, because it can be frustrating. But weighing myself almost every day really helped me learn what did and did not work for me. For instance: On more than one occasion on weighing myself after I had gone way under my calorie allotment the day before, I had actually gained weight. Key takeaway: Starving yourself doesn't work.

Drink lots of water: Actually, this might be total bullshit. I don't know if it helps or not, but everyone seems to think this is a major factor, so might as well include it. If you're exercising more, you're probably going to want to drink more water anyway, so it's not exactly hard to do.

Keep some old fat pants: Not because you're ever going to wear them again, but because putting on a pair of your fat pants after you've lost weight and inches feels really, really great, and will mean more than any number on a scale ever will.

Nosy Nellie

So here's the story: I heard some yelling on the street and looked out the window to see a woman arguing with a cab driver. She seemed to be saying that he was lying about not taking Visa, when it states on the cab door that they do. I couldn't really make out what he was saying, but he was obviously denying that. She called him a "fucking liar" and started to walk away, when the cabbie got out of the cab to confront her.

A guy who was walking his dog came over and tried to get them both to calm down. He suggested the cab driver just move along, and the woman go home. At that point, someone drove up and honked for the cab to get out of the way. (He was blocking the entrance to an alley.)

So he drove up a few feet, put on his blinkers and got back out. At that point, the woman had gone inside her apartment, although I couldn't tell where that was (nor could he). He was kind of just standing on the corner looking dumbfounded when the guy with the dog came back over and started to talk to him.

He said he didn't know who the woman was, but he had come over previously because he was hoping to diffuse a situation before it blew up. And at that point in the conversation he offered the cabbie some money…And that's the part I got on the above video…

Personally, I think it was pretty great of the guy to pay the cabbie. I have a feeling the cabbie wasn't being totally honest about the Visa thing (cabbies are notoriously dickish when credit cards are involved, and will often lie about the "machine being broken" to avoid taking them), but that lady could have handled the situation a whole lot better...

Here's to the kindness of strangers.

Round-Up - March 2012

Movies Seen: Twelve, with two in a theater. I reviewed one of those, Silent House, for the Appeal, and the other one, The Hunger Games, I had to go and see after it opened, like an animal! That one I liked, for the most part, but I hated, hated, the way it was filmed. The first hour of the movie is filled with shaky camera work and rapid editing, when there is really no reason for it. I mean, during close-ups? And calm moments of conversation? Really?? It was so bad I almost wanted to leave. Eventually it calms down a bit, but I dread the second movie if it's going to be full of that crap.

Of the DVDs I watched, I really liked Young Adult a lot, and I think I liked Melancholia, though that one is a bit of a stumper...

Books Read: Six. Click through to read my brief reviews, where applicable.

Starter for Ten by David Nichols

Whateverland: Learning To Live Here by Alexis Stewart and Jennifer Koppelman Hutt

Zone One by Colin Whitehead

Left In the Dark by R.A. McBride

Bringing Adam Home by Les Standiford and Det. Sgt. Joe Matthews

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

Fancy Dinners Out: One fancy dinner, at Alfred's Steakhouse, which was great. I hadn't been to Alfred's since they moved from their former Broadway location, but the place where they are now looks like it's been theirs forever. It's the perfect old school steakhouse.

And while this dinner wasn't really fancy, it did feature a star: My friend and I basically had dinner with Lauren Hutton at Hunan Home's in Chinatown. Sure, she wasn't actually sitting with us, but she was in the restaurant, right across from us, so I think that counts, yes?

Live Shows Seen: None!

Shoes Bought: I don't think I bought any shoes in March, but I did remember I bought a pair in February that I forgot to list: these pink flats from Target, which I got for 50% off. A friend also gave me a couple of pairs of vintage heels that were too big for her. I've only got a picture of one of them right now, though. Glittery!

February Round-Up - 2012

Once again, the end of the month sneaked up on me. I can't believe it's already April!

Let's get on with it, before it's May.

Movies Seen: Nine, with one in a theater. That one was Safe House, and you can read my review of it here.

Of the DVDs I watched, the best two were documentaries, and they're both terrific. Being Elmo brought tears to my eyes about five minutes into it, and Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles is just fascinating, but is probably better if you don't really know much about it going in.

Being Elmo is going to be PBS this Thursday at 10 P.M. Watch it!

Books Read: Five. Click through to read my brief reviews.

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Shock Value by Jason Zinoman

Shockaholic by Carrie Fisher

Coffee at Luke's edited by Jennifer Crusie

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foe

Fancy Dinners Out: Two. I'd never been to Bar Agricole before, and it was very good, although I can't remember what I ate! I know I drank an Old Fashioned that had one gigantic ice cube in it. The restaurant itself has a lot of concrete and wood, which, yeah, I realize most buildings are made out of concrete and wood, but the decor of this one just seemed a little off to me. But they have a large outdoor dining area that could be nice on a warm day. It was the first time I'd been in that area of SoMa in many years, and I was surprised by how dead it seems. It used to be the center of San Francisco night life, and now it feels like a ghost town.

The other dinner was at the new version of Original Joe's, now in North Beach. It's a testament to the quality of the restaurant that even though the chicken parmigiana I ordered was partially raw, I'd still go back in a heartbeat...

Live Shows Seen: None!

Shoes Bought: Four pairs!  I got these Vince Camuto leopard pumps at Macy's for under 30 bucks.

These Lela Rose heels were only 19 bucks at Payless, and I also got a pair of silver flats there for about 10 bucks.

And finally, I scored the last pair of these super cheap green faux suede flats at H&M.

Bully For You

The above is a clip from the movie Bully, which opens this weekend, and which you might have heard about because of issues with the MPAA, and how they want to rate the movie R, because of swearing, thus making it harder for the kids who could benefit from the movie to actually see it. (For example: Most schools won't be able to show an R or unrated movie to an entire school without getting permission from each and every parent, and they'll likely see that as more bother than it's worth.)

The clip is actually edited down from how it appears in the movie, (I haven't seen the movie, but saw the extended clip on the "Anderson" show this week), and it's even more maddening in its entirety. That a teacher, (and actually, I think she's an assistant principal), would chastise a bullied kid for being rude to his bully is just...I don't even know what else to call it but totally fucked. (Rate THAT R!)

I don't know if I'll go see the movie, because the clips I saw on TV immediately made me cry. I tear up just thinking about them now. And it makes me glad I don't have kids, because having to deal with the heartbreak of having a bullied kid OR a kid who's a bully would just be too much to bear. And this is coming from someone who was both growing up.

The clip up there strikes a certain note with me because in grammar school, I was bullied by kids and a teacher. And in a way, the stuff with the teacher was worse.

The kid stuff started around the second grade. I don't know why I was singled out. Maybe it was my name; maybe it was because I was bigger than the other kids, who knows. (And while I was big, I would have been considered svelte next to kids the same age these days.) During that grade, a girl decided to get a bunch of her friends together and sing me a song about how none of them wanted to be my friend anymore. I believe it was to be sung to the tune of "Hello, Dolly," but the title was "Goodbye Rain," (clever!). Such an elaborate bit of bullying theater, and if it wasn't such a sick thing, I'd almost commend her for having such creativity at such a young age.

Fortunately, our teacher found out about it, (perhaps someone snitched), and she prevented it from happening. But she didn't prevent the girl from putting the lyrics to the song, all very nicely written out and decorated, in my backpack so I could discover it when I got home.

In another grade I had a "best" friend who would, purely based on her whims, decide day to day whether or not she was going to be nice to me, or, along with her friends, torture me. I never knew if a day was going to be a "Be Nice to Rain Day," or "We Hate Rain Day." On the Hate days, I would be hit, threatened with ass-kickings after school, taunted, or just given the complete silent treatment. Welcome to the birth of my neuroses!

Finally, I eventually got to a grade, fifth, where I didn't seem to have any active bullies, and in fact had a bunch of friends. Unfortunately, my teacher hated me. Now, I will admit I was a bit of a wise-ass and a know-it-all, and was probably annoying as hell. But she was an adult, and a teacher, and really should have been above bullying tactics. Tactics like the time there were class elections, and I was voted class president, but she decided to basically veto that vote, give that position to someone she liked, and demote me to "hall monitor," or some such bullshit.

Or the time the class put on a play, The Wizard of Oz, and we all auditioned, and I wanted to be the Cowardly Lion, and could imitate the crying Bert Lahr does in the movie to a T, but she gave the role to someone else, didn't give me a part at all, and made me a line prompter. Or some such bullshit.

Or the time she told the parents of one of my best friends that she shouldn't be allowed to hang out with me anymore because I was a "bad influence." I was NINE. The only thing I was influencing her on was to not like the teacher, which, can you blame me?

Or the time we were on a field trip, and we were all waiting for the bus, many of us students just kind of milling around the teacher, vying for her attention and approval, as young students are wont to do. And some kids were asking her if she thought they were smart enough to get into such and such a school, and she said to each of them, "Yes, oh yes, of course!" And when I asked her she said, "You? No way. Never."

Who do you go to when your teacher is bullying you? Back then, there was nothing I could do. I told my parents, and they had a teacher conference with her--as all parents did, at least once a year--but really, what were they going to say? I know my mom said she came out of the meeting wanting to stick an electrical plug into the teacher's nose, but, alas, she wasn't able to follow through on that.

When I finally got out of her hell class, and moved on to junior high, where it felt like a fresh start, and I could be whoever I wanted to be, well, I did what a lot of bullied kids do: I became a bully.

I was horrible. Just awful. I never hit anyone, or threatened them with violence, but I was a bitch, and cruel, and mean. I'm completely ashamed of it. That I eventually became good friends with most of the girls I bullied is testament to their being superior lifeforms, hands down.

A lot of people who come out of bullying say it made them better people, and who they are today; they came out of it stronger, and that most of the biggest successes in life are the people who were considered weirdos when they were kids.

But that can be minor consolation to a kid who's being bullied in the here and now. I wrote all this stuff down, and am sharing it, because I think it is always helpful to have stories about surviving bullying out there for anyone who might need it. And not to get all, "it gets better," but, it did. By the end of junior high, I was free from bullying--both of and by me. And by the time I got to high school, I didn't give a shit about anything anyone had to say about me, and as a result, no one really said anything about me. In retrospect, high school was a piece of cake, socially, though sometimes I wish my bullying years had been later in life, because I don't think it would have affected my core being as much as it did happening to me so young.

The presence of the Internet and social networking has added a whole new level to bullying, to the point where the only previous respite from school bullying--being able to go home and get the hell away from it, at least for the night--no longer exists.

But the Internet has its counter benefits. Kids can reach out to people who are feeling or felt just like they are, who can tell them that they are great people, and the bullies are complete and total assholes who are going to lose at life. At least kids can get some support outside of their family, because sometimes validation from complete strangers can mean a lot.

Who knows what would have happened if I had been able to post the lyrics to that stupid song on a Tumblr back in the day? And what kind of counteractive song readers might have been able to help me write? And what kind of courage that could have given me for the rest of my school days?

So if, for some completely bizarre reason, there's some bullied kid out there reading this, let me know.

And maybe we can write a song about it...

January Round-Up - 2012

Welcome to the first official round-up of 2012, happening on Leap Day no less. Does that make it more exciting?

Probably not.

But it does remind me, I never understood why the year with an extra day is called a "leap" year, when it seems to make more sense for common years to be called leap years because you are, essentially, leaping into March on years where there isn't a February 29th.

Right?

Whatever, let's look at January!


Movies Seen: Eight, with three in a theater. Getting off to a slow start this year...

The three theater movies started with a sing-along screening of West Side Story at the Castro, which was fun, but frankly, West Side Story isn't a very easy musical to sing along with!

The other two were The Iron Lady, which I didn't bother reviewing because not much could be said beyond, "Bad movie, but Streep was amazing," and Contraband, which I reviewed here.

Most of the DVDs I watched were lame, but I did enjoy Someone's Watching Me!, John Carpenter's 1978 made-for-TV movie starring Lauren Hutton. It's worth seeing because of her--she's just kind of a kooky character in it--and because, as far as TV movies go, it's above average.

Books Read: Four. Click through to read my (limited) thoughts on all.

Then Again by Diane Keaton.

The Hunger Games
Catching Fire
and
Mockingjay, all by Suzanne Collin.

Regarding that trilogy, man. It started out so good! And ended so bad! But I'm still totally excited to see the movie!

Fancy Dinners Out: Four, although two were technically lunch. The first of the lunches was at the Rotunda at Neiman Marcus, which I had never been to before, and would certainly go to again, if only for those popovers and strawberry butter.

I went to Disneyland for my birthday, and had what has now become a traditional steak dinner at Steakhouse 55 in the Disneyland hotel. Got the prix fixe. Delish.

On my actual birthday, I had dinner at La Traviata, per usual. Had pasta. Wish I had some right now.

And I ended the birthday month with another steak, this time lunch at the Leatherneck Steakhouse, which is in the Marines' Memorial building. It is pretty reasonably priced for what you get--which includes TRUFFLED TATER TOTS--and has a totally amazing view. I highly recommend it.

Live Shows Seen: None, but as I mentioned, I did go to Disneyland, which is basically a non-stop show.

Shoes Bought: Two pair, both metallic! The first are some goldish Old Navy flats that are kind of textured to look like lizard. Can't find a picture of them anywhere right now, though. The second are these silver American Rag pumps, which I snagged for under 30 bucks at Macy's.

SHOOP!

I'll admit, I was shocked to hear about the death of Whitney Houston. I can't say I was ever a big fan of her music, (just way too adult contemporary for my tastes), but there was no disputing she had an amazing voice that just puts other so-called divas to shame.

I was more a fan of Whitney Houston herself, in all her crazy glory. Of course, it was pretty obvious a lot of her kookiness came from her drug use, so it's probably in poor taste to find any of that funny now.

Except, I still do, and there's really no way I can curb that. So, I choose to remember her in the many ways she, and her influence, made me laugh.

Like this moment, where she's with Bobby B., and decides to try on some sunglasses.



Or here, where she's telling him, or maybe the cameraman, or maybe just the world, to kiss her ass.



I've also found myself mourning the (probable) loss of Maya Rudolph's Whitney impersonation, which never failed to crack me up. In a weird coincidence, Rudolph is set to host "Saturday Night Live" next week, and I am hoping they find a way to keep her impersonation alive.

Here are a few of the best of Rudolph's Whitney moments, collected so I can have a localized place to watch them over and over and over again, which I plan to do. A lot.


maya rudolph aka Whitney Houston by jenniesslave







Finally, I knew Rich Juzwiak would have something great to say about her, and I wasn't wrong. Check it out.