dodgeball last night was amazing again...i didn't play as well as i did on sunday, but moving up to the more competitive, intermediate league was the best decision we ever made. you're no longer thrown in there with the n00bs who don't know what the rules are and argue every call. it feels way more relaxed and everyone is competitive, but also not as prone to freaking out...it's like everyone is confident that we all know our shiz and are just in to play and have fun (mostly, some of the teams are still prep school f**ks but at least we - hopefully - won't be getting into fights with them). after the game i finally put to rest my inexplicable craving for a whopper that's been plaguing me for a couple of weeks now...i spent like $20 at burger king last night...lol! in my defense, i got some stuff for the dotytron as well. then we took our loot to my boyfriend's house and hung out for a bit and then i came home and gabbed with the dotytron and half-heartedly watched last week's "top chef"
my teammates were feeling pretty creaky and sore after two nights in a row...i was feeling pretty good. yesterday right after the game i came home and did about 45 minutes of yoga and then took a hot shower which pretty much set me right again.
oh! N on my team got me the most improbably generous and thoughtful xmas presents. it was completely unexpected! so sweet! the thing is...he's baha'i! they don't even do xmas! but he's totally the sentimental type to love it and it was very cute. he got me an apron and this "hello, cupcake!" book which is loaded with tonnes of fun decorating ideas for cupcakes. AND HE ALSO GOT STUFF FOR THE DOTYTRON! he got the dotytron a little notebook shaped like a nintendo controller AND a flask! it was very sweet and too too much but N is such a gentle little soul that i felt churlish protesting how obviously too much it all was. he's earned himself unlimited good will from casa lagerfeld and dotytron."top chef" this season BLOWS. you'd think that finally landing in new york (previous iterations have been in l.a., san francisco, miami, chicago) would make the producers
work their butts off trying to find the best chefs for the season to be held in what is commonly regarded as north american food mecca. but no! they went the counterintuitive route of picking the most boring, untalented shoemakers i've ever seen either in a kitchen OR on a reality television series! it's so disappointing! most of them can't cook their way out of a paper bag. maybe 2 of them are only semi-decent and would have been DEMOLISHED by contestants in previous years. add to that...they're all COMPLETELY without personality! meek, simpering, uncreative. you have a few who think they're the best (jaime, you pugnacious, cocky little twerp - a top chef in my books is capable of cooking more than soups and coming up with the less than inspired pairing of fennel and orange) but who would have been taken out early in the game in season 3 or 4 and the rest seem terrified about being there and can't offer any more assurances to the viewing public other than passive, generic, half-hearted defenses of, "i know i can do better than this."
it's appalling. especially for a dedicated "top chef" supporter like myself. AND they put on this new judge, this british guy who's the WORST! so twee! so smug and full of himself because of his ability to put together sentences like, "that dish was like the tom cruise cameo in 'tropic thunder' - the supporting character upstaged the main." first of all - that's not a witticism or a particularly clever or descriptive or evocative metaphor. second of all, YOU CLEARLY HAVEN'T SEEN TROPIC THUNDER BECAUSE THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED, NUMB NUTS! tom cruise doesn't upstage my beloved rdj! or ben stiller! new judge is a total potser.
the long and short of it is: i'm obviously still going to doggedly watch, but without a lot of the must-see enthusiasm that used to accompany my relationship with the series.
i finished reading e. lockhart's "fly on the wall." my fave YA author, sarah dessen, gave e. lockhart daps on her blog so i thought i'd branch out beyond my beloved dessen. it was really good! a fast, quick read - it's about a girl, gretchen yee, who goes to an arts school in manhattan and has the usual teen baggage (self-conscious, not very cool, aloof, persecuted by teachers, nearly-friendless, awkward around boys) and makes the fateful wish that she could be a fly on the wall of the boy's locker room, and has the wish granted. the story makes reference to kafka's metamorphosis and has a number of human, relatable, realistic touches that keeps the protagonist from veering too far into twee teenagedom (she's really into spiderman, loves comics, collects toys by kid robot.) like all YA fiction to which i am drawn, lockhart manages to pull me back into that world of being that girl. that girl who didn't know what to do with myself, my hair, my clothes, my friends, my boyfriends, my sexuality. dessen's books tend to focus more on the romance part of things and the world is depicted in a way that's both real and idealized, the girls are mostly "good" girls finding their way after a bit of a shake-up in their lives. her books are also almost all populated by white girls who are at least middle, if not upper middle class. lockhart seems to be a little punchier and kickier...her world is a little more messy and undone and urban, with a cast of characters that spans the spectrum of identities, without seeming forced or affirmative action about it. i like them both! i've ordered more of her books from the library - we'll see how the rest of them are, but i'd recommend "fly on the wall."
tonight for dinner the dotytron made a sausage, kale, and lentil pasta which we had with caesar salad. he made it while i barked directions at him while doing yoga. regular yoga makes you feel SO EFFIN' GOOD! the rest of the night is going to be spent reading, knitting, and battlestar galactica watchin'
fin.
