The last day of the year and the Boy has celebrated by sleeping from 6 p.m. last night to past 9 this morning. Everything is covered with a fresh blanket of white snow, and later tonight Monstro and I are dining at Circa, assuming his sore throat doesn't interfere with our plans.

Happy Old Year! Gotta make some black-eyed peas tonight!

Monstro and I watched Superbad on DVD from Netflix last night. We both were looking forward to it, but I was disappointed.

"It's what Judd Apatow does," I said. "Knocked Up was funny for the first ten minutes and then it, uh, wasnt." The "Munich=Jewish action heroes" bar conversation is the funniest part of that movie, before even Seth Rogan meets Kathryn Hegguhlll (that's how I pronounce her last name; want to fight about it?).

In the now-trademark Apatowesque style, Superbad's opening Cera/Hill conversation is great, and when Seth (love that Rogen named the main character after himself; writer's privilege!) goes off on his teacher about cooking Tiramisu, it's hilarious AND there's a deleted scene in the extras where the teacher gives it right back to him, BUT, overall, the film was floppy and bland.

It's too bad, because I've long held forth that Michael Cera is the best actor on Arrested Development, and Jonah Hill was great in The 40-Year Old Virgin as the weird kid who tried to buy the goldfish boots. Instead of evolving their characters, though, it lapsed into challenge-response. The movie was so focused on the external that their internal relationships imploded and the comedy faded away, poof.

The minor narrative was about the disconcertingly street-unsavvy, dumbass geekguy who gets a fake ID with one name that says he's 25. He separates from the duo and immediately bangs into two cops; cops who are at first stupid, then get stupid drunk for the rest of the movie. Are stupid drunk cops funny? Scary, sure. But funny?

Scary don't jibe with the funny. Now, the Grotesque and comedy, duh, of course. (Hey Harvey! I miss you!)

scary + funny = creepy


The Cable Guy creepy. Yick.

So, where's Motormouth's breakout comedy screenplay? Place your bets! Or comment. You know. Whichever.

And, hey, Kath-er-ine, Happy Basel New Year! Your life is amazing. I can't imagine what your passport looks like.

That was the name of my church's written-and-directed-by-Motormouth Christmas pageant this year. We were supposed to have it on the third week of Advent but got snowed out, so we did it on the 23rd. Amazing that none of the kids were on family trips, though one girl couldn't participate due to her grandma's quick, untimely death. The kid I picked for the lead usually does four things at a time but was settled and funny before the congregation, and all the parishioners responded well to him, so that was great. I had to push a bunch of parents taking pictures out of my way whilst directing on-the-spot; t'was not my finest moment but also not Kevin pushing a four-year-old out of the way for first dibs at the merry-go-round. (Kevin was 35 at the time.)

Anyway, I don't know if it's going to encourage anyone to set a New Year's Resolution to raise money to send animals to other parts of the world, but here's hoping.

Monstro got the game Bioshock for Christmas and now his room sounds like a locked psych ward during an all-points fire drill. Lots of screaming and gunshots. I'm sticking to Friends. Mini-marathon tonight!

Does this exist? Because I would totally buy it. My only bread-repurposing tips are French toast, croutons, and this tomato-bread salad. I'm afraid the baguettes in question are beyond even that.

Christmas was lovely. I think it's probably our last commercial-free Christmas for many years, which made it all the sweeter. Thirty-six hours later and there's still a present under our tree for our little guy. It's amusing to note that it's the same gift that he never got to on his birthday, so we just held it over to Christmas. Maybe he'll unwrap it on Valentine's Day? Time will tell.

Monstro gave me a necklace with a working compass pendant that I'd seen in a catalog, plus an extraordinary edition of Blake's The Divine Comedy -- not only are the reproductions gorgeous, but all notes and captions are printed in English, Français, and Deutsch.

But I've got to admit, the Monstro present I was most excited about is the Viking Press hardcover of Finnegans Wake. I'm swooning over it every time I think of it. It's so wonderful. And so is Monstro, my sweet husband!

So I did the bulk of the shopping for Christmas dinner this morning, and I bought pretty cool gifts for everyone except Amber, who I'll owe a pretty necklace to, and most of my gifts are wrapped, and DH finished grading his Comp students, and only has the Holocaust class to go, which is stupendous.

We talked about movies to add to our Netflix, and now, based on my interest in "Superbad" and "Red Dawn", they recommend we also queue Beerfest, Heartbreak Ridge, and Road House. Happily, we're getting the last three DVDs of Veronica Mars tomorrow. Monstro used to hate the theme song but I've brought him to the other side of it. Now we gyrate wildly to it. Dandy Warhols is just a gyrate kind of band.

I got a *really* good idea last night for a series of ten one-act plays with an at-once common and over-the-moon denominator. I told it to DH and he liked it, too, and immediately saw the potential in it. Best thing is, I already have the first play in the cycle: it's Bible Study. Anyone want to play Guess the Denominator?

Oh, and before I go to cook chicken for from-scratch enchiladas and get up my kid (too late, my mom just did it), the Comtesse posted the best blog post I've seen this year, and the year's almost over and everything! Motormouth says, "Check it out."

Maybe next year.

Just two more days until I learn Lindsay Lohan's Birkin's fate vis a vis the Humana Festival of New American Plays, the Heideman Award, and much more. The past three nights have held dreams about being chosen for Humana -- really freakin' excellent dreams, I must say -- but I've just found out that there are 74 other finalists, so I'm optimistic but not holding my breath. Just being a finalist from 1200+ scripts means I'm in at least the top 6.25 percent of 10-minute playwrights, right? Right? And just two more nights of dreams until I learn whether I'll get to go to Louisville this spring.

Really, Monday can't come quick enough.

Here we go:

Jack begins the show by saying he thinks he has a "skin staph infection." Ruh-roh. Particularly because his HIV+ status makes this a bigger deal than it would be for others.

The models come out: they're fatties-no-more in their pre-weight-loss fave outfits. The challenge: transform the outfit by midnight tonight, with $10 to spend at Mood.

Steven's model is wearing a wedding dress. Did I mention that the challenge is to transform the outfit into an everyday look? He's kerphucked. Kevin and Elise are very excited to design for "real women." If I were Steven, I'd spend the cash on a whole lotta Rit.

Sweet P is very concerned about Jack and seems to be turning into the Den Mother. Sweet.

Jack talks to his doctor, then Tim Gunn, then the group. He's decided to leave. It speaks volumes about what we've learned about the HIV virus that both Kit and Christian immediately go to him and give him a big hug. So does Victorya.

Commercial Break.

OMG Ricky's navel is pierced.

OMG Chris is back! The workroom casts off its pallor and comes alive. Everyone is jubliant. Everyone is less so when they learn that Chris can stay through the night if he wants.

Steven's model looks like Elvira in the dress he's cooking up for her. He's using, like, NONE of the wedding dress.

Tim admits he's made a lot of bad decisions at 3 AM, and then admits he's such an "old fart" that he didn't even think about the sexual undertone of that comment.

Everyone but Chris leaves at midnight.

Commercial Break.

Day of Elimination. Kevin, Jillian, Ricky, and Christian are confident with a capital con. Kevin pitches in to help Steven, and so does Victorya, but Steven still ends up gluing the hem of the dress. Double ruh-roh.

Ricky gives the guest judge a "how you doing?" The judge looks surprised and says "good."

Heidi looks like she was styled by Janis the Muppet.

Best IMO: Kevin and Christian. The judges fawn over Jillian's dress but to me it looks shlumpy.
Worst IMO: Chris, Steven, Rami (Rami's outfits flatter neither butt nor boobs)

Steven's look is deemed "a French maid at a funeral," while Kors reminds Chris that "cliches are there for a reason."

In: Jillian
Winner: Christian
In: Kevin
In: Chris (!)
In: Elisa
Out: Steven

Next week: are we going to the circus? Tune in and find out!

Been a while, I know, but things have been a bit busier than usual, what with Monstro finishing up his marathon of a semester and my mom arriving in town (which is such a blessing I can hardly express how ecstatic I am about it). Our little guy is becoming quite the chattering little mynah bird, so I find myself having to bite my tongue a lot more while driving around greater western Massachusetts. ("Son of a ... gun!")

Little guy is finally starting to say "Mommy" and "Daddy" rather than "Mama" and "Dada," which warms our hearts to no end. Today he tried to say "school bus" but it ended up sounding like "poop butt," which I assure you is not something he picked up from my typical while-driving vocabulary.

I've come up with three more restaurants for the book and so it's actually done now, and in less than a week I'll find out whether "Lindsay Lohan's Birkin" will be featured at the upcoming Humana Festival of New American Plays, which really would be too good to be true. I had a dream the other night that it was indeed chosen and man, that was a stupendously awesome dream. Of course, now that I've dreamed it, it probably won't happen. Oh well, at least I got to dream about it.

Then again, as I was reminded during my deposition, when I was in high school I'd often dream about the things that would happen in the days to come, so, we'll see. In the meanwhile, it's pretty hard to type with all my fingers crossed. Oh, and I have our church's Christmas Pageant (written and directed by moi) to get through this Sunday, so you'd think that would help to keep my mind off things. Naaah...

Welcome to week four (uh, three -- I missed last week) of my Project Runway liveblog. I missed the first ...   more »

It's been such a good-news/bad-news rollercoaster the past 24 hours:

Good: Mom's coming to visit for Christmas
Bad: Dad had to have his dog put to sleep (donations here, please)
Bad: The boy woke up at 6:30 this morning
Good: Monstro's sister is engaged

That's all I can take for one day-unit. Good night!

Y'all have got to go play this "guess-the-number" game: http://www.quizyourprofile.com/guessyournumber.php

Holy frak, do we have us some snow here. The intrepid administrators at UMass-Amherst don't believe it's enough to close the school. Probably because their gold-plated heated toilet seats are still toasty to the touch. Monstro has to go out driving in this in the next half-hour. I suggested he tell the leader of his practicum that he can't get out of the driveway (which, half an hour from now, might be more truth than falsehood) -- he'll be taking our AWD car rather than the Saturn because the Saturn's tires are pretty much burned through. Not much else going on. I'm reading a decent book -- Haven Kimmel's newest novel -- but I wish she'd hurry up and finish her memoir cycle because that stuff is effing great.