January 2012
51 posts
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I Think I Need to Say Goodbye for a (Short) While
I didn’t know I was going to be writing any of this. I was sitting on a blank text post, waiting to write something, when I found myself typing the title. And it feels right.
I got into tumblr in July of 2010 and while I’ve warned of fewer posts over vacations, I’ve never made the choice to leave it. The idea was too absurd. I like to write, a lot, badly, about myself, and...
Body Slam
Someone used this expression to talk about Blitzer not letting Gingrich get away with his attacking the media lines. My dad used to body slam me. I didn’t start with that sentence because it sounds like I was abused as a child in a really bizarre way. No, he’d pick me up, spin me around, and then throw me down on the bed. It was like I was doing belly flop, but instead of a painful...
WE ARE A REAL SCHOOL →
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In Great News from Last Night: Whitney and Chelsea...
Happy Hour indeed bitches. Happy hour indeed. Drinks on the Human Beings, eh?
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“Australian transport minister Anthony “Albo” Albanese is finding that out the...”
– This is a surprisingly apt summary of a movie I used to adore and now go “eh” about.
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Day 17 - And We're Back
Banneker Day 9
Good lord, I’ve only been there 9 days? Wild. Well, as you might have surmised, I’m back to interning, and it only took me a week! I was selfish, I didn’t go my first week back. I always amaze the smug, self assured version of myself when things don’t go exactly according to plan and I end up having so much more work to do than I’d planned.
But...
In Which Laura Talks About the Nominees
I’ve got things that need to be said. Concise things.
Best picture
“War Horse” - Haven’t seen it, don’t want to till I’ve seen the play, and once I’ve seen the play I’m sure this won’t be able to top it.
“The Artist” - Brilliant. Daring. Yet we do move on from certain styles. We progress. We become better. Why not credit these other films? Ah...
Lost in Translation is the kind of movie that, whenever I think about it, I simultaneously want to run it on loop for the rest of my life and never watch it again. That’s the trouble with something perfect, I suppose.
Whenever someone's being a real asshole, I find it...
What Home Should Be (Materially)
I moved four times last year. I’ll move three or four times this year. Living in so many relatively similar places allowed me to pick out what really matters in life. Materially, anyway. So without further ado, a list of things I’ll likely require before I can go from calling a place “wherever the hell I live” to “home.”
First, and this is the key, I want...
Dear Mrs. My Mom,
School is great. I am learning politics a lot. Please send protein bars.
See you at break!
Laura
Unoriginal
“This movie leans heavy on the back-of-the-head follow-shot, which has become an indie cliché.” - Noel Murray, A.V. Club review of Sundace, Day 2
Huh. I admitted upfront that my “masterpiece” of Intro to Digital Media Production, my Video #3, my Final Project, was heavily influenced by a number of indie films. I knew I couldn’t make a blockbuster and I knew I liked...
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“You know, I’m gonna go. I don’t want to miss the news.”
– Starburns
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I'm Going to Like Creative Writing
I’ve never read much Hemingway. For some reason he was shunted out of high school english books, and Hemingway is so intimidating to me that I wasn’t about to start reading his stuff until I was required to.
For our second class we were asked to read three short stories (what a better way to spend a Friday morning than waking up, showering, and sitting down to read the greats?)....
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The Firm kept falling, its 0.9 adults 18-49...
So, this thing is going to get pulled, right? Right? I mean it’s not fun rooting against a show I have no personal beef with (I’m not going to watch it by I’m not repulsed by it) but, come on. Let’s have Thursday night be Thursday Night comedy done right again.
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Little 801 Things: Swapping Starches
True friendship is when you accidentally walk off with your friend’s bread, but your friend says you can keep it.
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At this point we should all care much more about...
In its second week on Wednesday, Whitney plunged 20% vs. last week to a series low 1.6 adults 18-49 rating.. Are You There, Chelsea? had a 1.8 adults 18-49 rating down 22% vs. a 2.3 rating last week.
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First Impressions
Every time the semester starts I have the highest of hopes for all my classes. Here is what was supposed to be a quick run down of my five classes. Spoilers, I’m pleased as punch.
Research Methods
This class sounds useful but dry as dust, and no one would take it if it wasn’t required as a part of the SMPA core. It’s important to know but not fun to learn about. Thankfully I think I...
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I'd rather be writing: College and the Individual →
mhelenad:
I can’t imagine the excitement you guys must be feeling right now: MARY HAS A NEW POST (you guys as in Laura and Jessica). I’m quite sporadic about my blogging, and I apologize. I was really busy last semester and I was just plain lazy over Christmas break. Too lazy to formulate thoughts into…
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“You turn into a guest again on your last day.”
– Mom
“You know women don’t give a damn about your awards show if they their wear...”
The Iranian director of A Separation is totally wearing a Darkest Timeline goatee.
6 Months Late
So funny story - my mom found my fourteen tickets to Harry Potter 7 Part 2 in the couch today. And I found a stack of my old photos, the picture of Joel McHale that I cut out of a magazine which was supposed to be permanently affixed to the wall, and my damn wand. It’s like a treasure trove of my childhood STASHED AWAY BY MY SISTER.
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How Not to Take a Compliment
Anyone: Wow you look nice!
Me: Good.
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“She wants you to leave.”
– Jane translating my look for mom.
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Well this Friday the 13th was far less interesting than the last one.
June gets the worst pictures on calendars but the best lines in lyrics.
Spring Chicken
I like being youngest. Younger. Young. It gives me a sense of security. When I’m surrounded by people who are older than me, even slightly, it makes me feel like someone else is in charge, someone else is responsible, and I don’t have to worry about putting the weight of the world on my shoulders.
Some day that’ll change. The people I spend time with will expand to include...
#LauraIsGeorgeNow
Kramer: You're wasting your life.
George: I am not. What you call wasting, I call living. I'm living my life.
Kramer: OK, like what? No, tell me. Do you have a job?
George: No.
Kramer: You got money?
George: No.
Kramer: Do you have a woman?
George: No.
Kramer: Do you have any prospects?
George: No.
Kramer: You got anything on the horizon?
George: Uh, no.
Kramer: Do you have any action at all?
George: No.
Kramer: Do you have any conceivable reason for even getting up in the morning?
George: I like to get the Daily News.
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Once You Go Big Black Glasses...
My mom was cleaning up and left my old glasses out for me to put away. My eyes haven’t really changed that much from sixth grade when I got my first set till now, which means my prescription and my lenses have changed hardly at all, but I’ve gone through five frames because insurance lets me.
The first two were wire and as round as I could get them. I was trying to be Harry Potter....
Next Chapter
My mom and I went back to our favorite little independent bookshop a few days ago. I decided to pick up The Hunger Games for my last week in town and we were both keen on getting back to the place. I’ve been gone and it’s far away now that my mom’s moved, so it’d been a long time since either of us had been there.
It felt open and emptier. None of the staff we knew were...
Lobster Claws
There’s a picture of Jane and me that mom loves. Jane and I both hate it. Before we were going out to dinner mom was trying to take a picture of us. I wasn’t keen on it, Jane was, and Jane knows exactly what to do when I’m being sulky about taking a picture. She pinches me right in the side in a technique I’ve dubbed “lobster claws.” The camera goes off,...
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What a damn shame. I’ve got a two and a half hour class on Wednesday nights which means I miss all of NBC’s “Happy Hour.”
What this really means is that whenever I’m pissed about being in class that late, I’ll think to myself, “hey, at least you’re not watching Happy Hour.”
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My Top Grown Up Movies
Up In the Air
Lost In Translation
Sideways
Garden State
I’ve seen Up In the Air the most times out of these guys and I think it’s the snappiest. Sideways is the funniest. Garden State I’m still working out. I like Lost in Translation the most right now, because that’s the one I relate to the most right now.
It’s the ones you relate to that punch you in the...
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“Maybe you should become a prostitute. Then all of your problems would be...”
– On my lack of income and love life.
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How to be a badass when responding to small talk
Josh: How's it going?
Bruno: I don't care.
NBC Top Priority
Make it 1997 again through science or magic.
The End of the World
2012’s here and I’m looking forward to it with all the hope and optimism that January affords. I’m expecting great things of myself and it’s all so that at 11:50 on December 31st I won’t be feeling wracked with disappointment in those last 10 minutes of the year. But there’s that thing about 2012. The Mayan, ancient history, we’re all going to be dead...
“If we weren’t such good friends I think that I’d hate you,
If we...”
– Fuck Was I by Jenny Owens Young
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Lazy Shows
My big problem with shows like Whitney and Are You There Chelsea? is not that they’re bad quality. There are plenty of bad quality shows out there (thought not so many on NBC, which is why it stings that they pick up pilots like these and Outsourced).
They’re lazy and it shows. The jokes aren’t funny, the production doesn’t look good, and ultimately you can just feel...
I Called it Upper School
I had a dream where I talked to some obscure kid a few years younger than me. I don’t know his name. It took me a while to pick out his face this morning. He had black hair, pale skin, a pointed face, and droopy eyes. I really couldn’t tell you how old he is or anything about him. I can’t imagine how my subconscious picked him out of everyone.
I saw him at the airport. He...
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Day Time Television
BARTLET: I don't understand. Don't any of these characters have jobs?
CHARLIE: I don't know, Mr. President. I think one of them is a surgeon.
BARTLET: They seem to have a lot of free time in the middle of the day. And that woman's changed her clothes for quite a lot in one afternoon.
Famous Amos
In the Ramona books, every other Friday Mr. Quimby would have his pay day, and he would bring a treat home for the girls (books, a stack of coloring paper, fresh crayons, gummy bears). These things are small in retrospect, but reading their stories and growing up with the Quimby girls, I was just as thrilled by the idea of these presents as they were.
Once in a while I’d ask when...
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