Ca-cawwwwww

I saw "Black Swan" last night with my cousins.

I was stressed out for like, 3 hours after seeing it. I wasn't scared at all during the movie, I was just seriously stressed out. I think the perfectionist in me was especially terrified, as the picking at skin around fingernails is maybe something I do--what if it's a gateway behavior?! What if I turn into a psychologically tortured, cake-refusing, infantilized, barfing, skin-scratching prima ballerina?! It could happen. It's a fine line between functioning perfectionism and psycho, you guys.

Coraggio

Teammates, I was super coraggiosa last night. I went to an Italian language conversation group for the first time. It was scary and fantastico! It's led by an old Neapolitan broad named Lucia who has the big hair, flowy dark clothes, and kick ass jewelry that many Italian women of 50+ years rock like its their uniform.

There were mostly olds in attendance; a 50-ish woman who bitched about health care in English (but who did speak good Italian), and a similarly aged man who knew like, 10 words and 2 verbs, and literally got up to leave the group because he was getting a phone call from his mamma. BUT there was also a 70-ish year old man and his wifey who were bona fide Italiani. They were super duper. Amazing clothes, funny, lots of attitude, gave me life advice, encouraged me to try a very detailed recipe for some sort of pesto, told me I was young and adorable...Does it get much better than that? I want to adopt them!

Speaking of people I want to join my family...

My favorite group member: 30-ish hottie who is a farmer (Christmas trees). He told me in Italian how he helps build sets for his little town's high school theater program and that he is good with his hands. MARRY ME. We talked in Italian for like, 30 minutes, which is longer than I can usually hold a conversation with a male in English. We totally bonded. I will be attending this gruppo again, if you had any doubt.

But srsly, I'm pretty proud of myself for going, because it's scary to A) go into a totally unknown situation by yourself, and B) speak a foreign language with strangers. I'm a much more adventurous and brave person when I travel, and I felt like last night was something I'd be bold enough to do as a traveler, but not in my regular life; it felt good to push myself toward the fearlessness that I know I'm capable of having. I like my TravelLara persona. And within 2 minutes of joining the group I realized that I've missed speaking Italian and using the part of my brain that retains fabulous words such as calcolatrice (calculator), amaca (hammock), and pouf imbottito (bean bag chair).

Lucia told me to come back again, and she also encouraged me to come to a different Italian language group that meets at some lady's house. They serve food in that group, so I'm already warming to the idea of attending.

Things that Scare Me

I have a long list of things that scare me. I am a fretter, as LSem likes to remind me. However, I think that I am justified* in this fear, which is somewhere around Orange as a Threat Level.

Justin Timberlake Hair Watch-Threat

I'm very concerned that his hair is sliding dangerously back into BoyBand Territory. What will I do if he degenerates into his 19 year old self? Who else will I google during mindless internet

browsing (especially now that Luke Wilson has become sort of schlubby. Have you seen those AT&T ads lately?)?

Anyway, here are 2 photos that represent Mr. JT at his pinnacle of hotness:

#1

#2

And here is the style he is currently rocking:

Now, a lot about this look is GREAT. Glasses, checkered dress shirt, pocket square, well-tailored suit, scruff, and he appears to be holding something that he read/is reading, and anything that points to literacy in a man is always a plus in my book.

However, that hair is dangerously close to this look,

For God's sake, Justin, fight the fro! Fight it with all your little boyband heart!

*see what I did there with that pun? pretty good, right?

Things I Like #11

Scary (but kinda corny) Shit

Unemployment has made me a fan of Discovery Channel's A Haunting. If you've never seen it, and you've prolly not as it's on at 11am-3pm MTWTHF, it's a show that re-enacts TRUE HAUNTINGS. Usually they're American, but sometimes they jump the pond and do haunted british pubs and manor houses and Shakespearean theaters (bad accents abound).

Sometimes the re-enactments are so bad that you don't believe that the stories are real. Sometimes you REALLY believe the stories. Especially when they turn out to be NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED AS TRUE, and validated by major motion picture companies producing the stories as full length feature films. Such is the case with,

A HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Haunting_in_Connecticut#Specials
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haunting_in_Connecticut

Scary shit incidents:
house used to be a mortuary where the mortician conducted rituals with their dead bodies. fuck.

mom mops floor, mop water turns into blood.

cancer-fighting teenage son becomes possessed by the spirits of the dead people who were mutilated by the mortician.

family members don't believe him because they think he's hallucinating off his cancer drugs.

family members do believe him when they start to see a man in a pin striped suit lurking in their rooms. AGHHH. This part isn't shown in the legit movie, but according to wikipedia, is what happened in real life and is what is depicted in the Discovery Channel episode. So naturally this is the version I choose to believe.

other really gross stuff involving decaying flesh and voodoo.

Please watch these so you can freak the geek out with me when I recount the story to you on some night that I get too drunk. Because you know NoPants and I will get vodka-ed up and blerg on and on about episodes of A Haunting, and then you'll just feel awkward without your own A Haunting episode to describe. So really I'm posting these for your own sake and cultural adeptity (adeptness?).

More Good Blogs

I like arts and crafts as much as the next person (as long as the next person isn't NoPants, who likes them a lot). So I'll admit to browsing Etsy from time to time, and usually liking what I see. However, there are those times that you come accross something truly bizarr-o on Etsy. Such as a Vampire-printed reusable menstrual pad***. Ew. I'm sorry I even typed that, but the reading public must be warned.

This website gathers together the best of the worst, and it's name, http://www.regretsy.com/, really says it all. To give you an idea of the weird crafty people who exist in the world, here is a list of some of Regretsy's item categories:
Dead Things
Michael Jackson
Penises
Pet Humiliation
Self-Gratification
Twilight
Vaginas

Go check it out, if only so that I'm not alone in my horrible nightmares of this: http://www.regretsy.com/2009/10/05/fish-and-foul/ Dear Sweet Baby Jesus. No. No. No.
***And this:
http://www.regretsy.com/2009/10/20/the-curse/ (I warned you).

TGIF

Yes, even when you're unemployed you Thank God It's Friday. On Fridays I feel less guilty about taking a two hour nap, reading a good book in bed, browsing Perez, eating Taquitos, watching Ellen, etc. Not that the above isn't my daily routine, but I just feel less Catholic guilt when I indulge on a Friday than on, say, a Tuesday. Today I can excuse my laziness in the afternoon (see entire contents of list above) with the accomplishment of waking up at 8am and going to the gym by 9:30. However, gym-going, despite its good intentions, backfired. I was waylayed by a group of hideous Seattle Academy middle schoolers while I waited to cross Madison. While wearing ballet flats, skinny jeans, Urban tee shirts, and raybans, these twelve year olds stared me down as I sweated in my ratty gym clothes. I was seriously getting the Evil Eye from these kiddies. I'm pretty sure they were thinking "Why is this old woman standing near us? I hope her bad clothes won't rub off on us". It's a little intimidating to be hardcore judged by half a dozen sixth grade girls, let me tell you. As nostalgic as I am about September and the start of school, I am mighty glad to not be starting my sixth grade year. Shit. Them beezies are scary.

To summarize: it was no way to start my precious Friday. I'm gonna need a drank tonight. Then maybe I'll be able to shake off their stares. Maybe.