Brenda rocked my world.

By now you all know my intense passion towards crappy, trashy television. I can't explain this. I'm a pretty intelligent girl. Why my brain feels the need to gravitate towards stupid people doing stupid things on stupid shows is an eternal enigma. I can't even tell you all the shows that are programmed to automatically record with my DVR. I can't tell you because they are too numerous to remember, and because despite my very no-holds-barred shamelessness about my life, some things are too embarrassing to reveal. Suffice it to say that I hold a place in my heart for Adrianne Curry and Christopher Knight (no doubt some, if not all, of you are like, "who??").

Perhaps it all started when I was a teen lump of clay, ready to be molded into whatever my master the TV wanted me to be. Apparently, the TV wanted to be one of those exceedingly well-rounded people who could carry on conversations about politics (go Barack!) AND Denise Richards. Because the first trashy show that I loved was Beverly Hills, 90210.

I still remember the summer of 1991. I was a fair child of 13, on my way to summer camp in Vermont. I remember the passionate, pleading converstation I had with my mother on the subject of the absolute need for her to tape (back in the VCR days) every single episode of 90210 that summer, or else I would be very upset. It's so funny to reflect on as a fair woman of 30.-- I can actually remember how desperate I was for her to remember to tape them, and how, excited as I was for camp, upset I was that I would be missing 90210 for so long.

This post was actually inspired by my blogging-colleague Copycat Emily's recent post on moving, as she lists "her life in moving boxes." Because the first thing it made me think of was this one episode of 90210 where Donna's all freaked out about this English class essay she has to write, an autobiography. But then they read them out loud in class, and nerd Andrea's literal, chronological listing of events in her life isn't so exciting. Donna, who has chosen to write her life out in terms of a chronology of all the shoes she has owned, therefore showing the evolution of not only her style but of herself, people, woos the class and the teacher.

Why do I remember the specifics of a meanlingless scene from a meaningless show, 17 years later? I do not know. But alas, I do. I also remember the white, skin-tight dress with weird holes/metal grommets all over it that Brenda wore in the pilot episode to go to some LA nightclub. I remember the episode where Donna gets like a 600 on her SATs, decides she's stupid (um. .. .), and drops all her friends to hang out with the "bad" kids (who are denoted as bad by their leather jackets and cigarette smoking). I remember Emily Valentine, a punkish girl who has a crush on Brandon, and so to get his attention, she burns down the stage of the school's talent show (but not before performing a rousing rendition of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" with Donna, Brenda, and Kelly as back-up). Also, I remember my undying love for Luke Perry, aka bad boy Dylan . . . I thought he was SO hot. He still is pretty hot, actually. And, to THIS DAY, there is a poster of Dylan/Luke hanging in the basement of my parents house, leftover from the early 90s.

Another thing you might all be wondering is, why am I wasting my time writing about 90210? The answer is twofold: I was reminded of my love for my original trashy TV due to Emily's blog, and then that reminded me that the CW's 90210 starts next week. 90210 is a newly imagined "re-creation" of sorts of the original show. I have absolutely no idea why I'm so excited for it, because there's really no guarantee, and even less hope, that it will be anything like the original show. It will probably end up being more like the crap that even I don't watch, like The Hills. I don't even watch Gossip Girl, despite that seeming like it's right up my alley and I've heard only great things about it. (Plus, I'm loving their current ad campaign, which is to show the characters in sexy postions with "negative" reviews of the show-- "mind-blowingly inappropriate"-- by insignificant reviewers-- the Parents' Television Council-- splashed across the posters.)

So, I give major kudos to the marketing people for the new 90210, who are going to manage to get at least one viewer based solely on the fact that they geniusly named the show after a classic, whether or not they live up to the namesake. Plus, they brought back Jenny Garth (Kelly) and Shannen Doherty (who's bitchy Brenda was the best thing going in the 90s), so that's too exciting for words, really.

Lesson of the day: I really need to get a life.

I can't decide how I feel about this.

Hello lovelies!! I have been on vacation for a bit and thus no new posts for your entertainment. For this I am truly, truly sorry. It almost ruined my vacation. Alas, during my daily review of the news, I came across some tidbits that I wanted to share. Rants and raves! Actually, one rave and one, hence the blog title, item that I can't decide if it deserves a rant or a rave.

Rave: To Hallmark. Because although they write some truly trashtacular crap in their greeting cards, and cost $4, they issued a press release recently announcing that they are starting a line of same-sex marriage greeting cards. Despite same-sex marriage being legal in only 2 states so far, I imagine there are a lot of people who have already felt the burning desire to send a congratulations via an over-priced greeting card. I know that I was bummed I couldn't say my congrats to Portia and Ellen in Hallmark-style. I'm being snarky here but I'm actually really proud of Hallmark. You go guys.

Also, I'm excited to send them for non-same-sex-marriage reasons. Jax can attest that for her engagement, I gave her a card whose cover featured a charming photo of two horses nuzzling. I gave a 50 year old man a card with N'Sync on it for his birthday. This is not because I'm making fun of either birthdays or engagements. On the contrary, I'm a big supporter of both. It's mainly because I tend to abhor greeting cards but find that sending a silly or completely inaproppriate one lessens the shame I feel in not just sitting down and creating my own witty card. And it makes me laugh. So. If any of you ladies out there receive a "congrats on marrying the woman of your dreams" card for your baby shower, well . . .

So the other, completely un-related news item comes to us from MSNBC, who report on an Italian priest organizing an online beauty pageant for nuns: Miss Sister 2008. His logic is to "give them [the nuns] more visibility within the Catholic Church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour." Also, "external beauty is gift from God, and we mustn't hide it."

Ha ha, I can barely keep from laughing over all the things I want to say about this. I mean, I really, really doubt that this is the kind of "visibility" nuns want, within or not within the Church. I also really doubt that they care whether people think of them as old and dour or as little sex kittens just covered-up all sexy like in those hot habits.

My gut reaction is to hate this and write some long-winded thing about misogyny and my hatred of beauty pageants for any reason. But if we're all being honest here, my agnostic and atheist self dislikes the Church more than Miss America, and I find some kind of hideous amusement in the idea of them debasing themselves so much in this manner. What's next? Holy water wet t-shirt contests?

So, rant or rave on this one, people? I rant because there won't be a "Mr. Friar 2008" pageant, and so (surprise, surprise) misogyny reigns on in the Catholic church. And I hate that nuns will be doing this. But I rave because . . . yeah, I just love it when the church looks stupid.

Lesson of the day: I will totally buy stock in Hallmark when they start producing "Congrats on your Miss Sister win!" cards. Ooh! Ooh! How about, "Thank you, Jesus! You make me want to bang my Sister!" cards?

My kind of sandwich.

So, it's Friday night. My boyfriend may or may not have mono, so my plans for the evening were derailed. I haven't had a night in to myself in a bit, so it was nice.

I ordered the Katherine Heigl classic 27 Dresses from Movies on Demand for my evening entertainment. One the one hand, I really just wanted to watch something funny and mindless, and it didn't disappoint. Moreover, I had read that it was filming in my hometown of Providence, RI, and I thought I could catch some glimpses of my beloved city. I couldn't, and the whole thing was set in Brooklyn, NY . . . This movie was actually much better than the trailers had led me to believe. Not that it was good, per se, but it surprised me. And it included this line:

sister: "You wouldn't hurt me. I'm your sister."

Katherine Heigl: "That was yesterday. Today you're just a bitch who broke my heart." Snap!!

Also, it featured a bar-top dance to Elton John's "Benny and the Jets." For real.

The real selling point of 27 Dresses, however, besides activating my wedding gene, was James Marsden. Aaaah, James Marsden, where have you been all my life? I first noticed you in last year's Hairspray, where you sang, danced, and battled racism your way into my heart. I think you've been in other stuff. I think you were Prince Charming in Enchanted, but I haven't seen that. But you are hot. You are Prince Charming.

James Marsden, I want to be in a sandwich with you and James Franco. James Franco, you won me over with your moody, tormented soul with dad issues in the Spiderman movies, and even though you were forced to act opposite that skank Kirsten Dunst, it was magic. I have no idea what else you've been in, but if we're being honest with each other, I don't like you for your acting skills.

James and James: you have the same first name, and you actually look a helluva lot like each other. But these are no deterrents. Let's make a sandwich, boys. You know you want to.

James Marsden above, James Franco on my right. Be still my beating heart.

Lesson of the day: I feel I should apologize to Joe, but I said I wasn't going to censor myself just cause he's reading the blog now. And my public has to know about my sandwich. And if you're nice to me, I could be persuaded to share . . .

My brush-- or sensuous feel-- with fame

A couple of you already know this story, but I was reminded of it again this morning thanks to a radio advertisement.

I went to college with a certain D-list actress by the name of Anna Chlumsky, who recently has done nothing, but who will forever remain in our hearts and minds as the ill-named Vada Sultenfuss of 1991's My Girl (and, of course, 1994's My Girl 2). Since I was a fair child of 13 when this movie came out, of course I saw it and loved it. If any of you hear or have heard me randomly spout, "he can't see without his glasses!", it's my small tribute to My Girl and MacCauley Caulkin's bee-induced demise. And, of course, to Anna's extra-dramatic delivery of this pivotal line (Caulkin is dead, already, see, so he doesn't need his glasses. But Vada is really upset about him being dead. They were friends.).

In any case, Anna was the only celebrity who deigned to study at my uber-nerdy school, so it was a really funny big deal when she was there. So imagine my excitement when we end up in Social Dance class together. The only other thing I remember about her from college is that she dated this Brazilian guy who always wore the tightest jeans possible. Luckily for me, he was not in our dance class.

So picture this: social dance class, nerd school. Dance lesson of the day: the tango. As usual, there were way too many girls in the class and not enough boys, so when we have to pair off to tango, I am paired with. . . Anna Chlumsky. I can barely suppress my giggles as "he can't see without his glasses!!" runs repeatedly through my head. We embrace as if at an 8th grade dance: arms straight out as we touch each other's hands and shoulders, both of us tense and straight. The un-sexiest tango ever. The tango is a fairly intimate dance to be doing with a complete stranger, same-sex or not, but we took discomfort to a new level.

The instructor, however, decides that Anna and I are not nearly intimate enough. He comes over, declares loudly that the tango is a dance of passion, and, with one hand on each of our backs, shoves us together. Now, Anna and I are about the same height, and we are both, um, rather well-endowed through the chesticle area. The result of the instructor's shove sends my boobs smack into Anna's boobs and vice versa. The resulting passionate embrace leaves our boobs lovingly smacked up against each other for the duration of our tango. Had this been a friend of mine, we would have laughed about it. This being a complete stranger-- and not, you know, within the confines of a swingers club-- we were mortified. And our boobs are big!! You couldn't ignore what was going on! If we were in Alabama, we would've been forced into marriage, the way we were touching each other. Anna and I both blushed and neither of us mentioned it as we tangoed our way to friendship. Indeed, Anna and I always said hi to each other after that, and even though we both knew it was because of the time our breasts spent nuzzling each other, we never talked about it.

I was reminded of this story this morning because I heard a movie trailer/advertisement on the radio, and Anna is in it. Not only that, but she's in it enough for the announcer to say "starring Anna Chlumsky" and the other people. I can't remember the name of the movie or even who else is in it, cause the minute I heard her name I was transported back to that romantic day in social dance class. And then came to work to blog about it, because really, who doesn't want to know about my mutual-boob-molestation with a where-are-they-now celebrity??

Lesson of the day: It will all pay off when those passes to the premiere come in the mail. It will aaaaaaaaall pay off.

Another post . . .

. . . about Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2?? What is wrong with me?

Before I discuss SotTP2, let me answer my own question, 'what is wrong with me?'. I do not know. But I fear that it has something to do with Joe. Not SotTP2 per se, but the nicer, more welcoming, less snarky Braids that you will see is in attendance after reading this post. I don't know why this is, because Joe thrives on his own snarkiness and encourages mine. But I'm not doing anything on purpose. The only reason I even suspect Joe/my relationship as causing some deep-seated changes in my personality is because of recent events:

Whenever my boss asks me how my weekend was or when I'm seeing Joe again, I answer with what I think are totally normal responses, such as "good!" or "tomorrow." These responses elicit hysterical laughter from my boss, who, when questioned about said laughter, reveals that I "grin" when I respond, and he then starts teasing me about being in love. Then today a co-worker, when she asked how things were going with Joe, said I was "glowing" when I responded. Then my friend called me "Mrs. Joe." How supremely irritating!! I am a fucking Federal agent. I am tough. I am tough as nails, and no emotion should be getting through this iron-clad exterior!!

And now I fear that it is worse than just exterior. . . I fear that I am softening, like soft-serve in the sun. Soon I will be nothing but a gooey puddle of sweet liquid on the sidewalk, at the mercy of dogs and children. I am melting into a shell of my former self, a shell of sweetness and goodness and pigtails and rosy cheeks. Please, I implore of you, my friends, save me from this tragedy. Make fun of me or something, do anything that requires sarcastic, tactless, and shameless Braids to react in kind. Please!

Because the latest manifestation of such sickening goodness is that, despite writing a classic-Braids post a mere 5 days ago about my distaste for the likes of SotTP2, I am now doing a slight re-consideration. For my darling sister, she of the "you should dump her, Joe" comment in the last post, forwarded me this article: http://jezebel.com/5031521/sisterhood-of-the-traveling-pants-2-isnt-amazing-but-you-should-see-it-anyway

As per the article, the movie contains some things close to my heart. As someone who has been in interracial relationships and who's group of closest friends looks like an old-skool Benetton ad, the fact that this movie contains two interracial love interest scenarios warms my soul. The real deepness of this is that race is not even mentioned about said scenarios. AND this movie is marketed towards tween girls. It reminds me of Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, which normally I would not use for comparison in a cinematic scholarly article such as this, but it was written by my college friend, so. Harold and Kumar were Korean (I think. Right? You all look alike) and Indian, and race is never even a thing in that movie. It's just like, why can't the two leads of a movie be minorities, and why can't that movie not be about why the two leads are minorities?

Further, as the article notes, the movie is directed by a woman, stars women, and is based on books written by a woman. I don't even need some ridiculous anecdote here to explain my joy with this one. Go ladies!

Lesson of the day: Perhaps with SotTP2 and other movies marketed towards the new generation, we will get closer to the singular-race and singular-gender (and that would be female) ideal that I dream about. Oh, the days when we can self-fertilize our eggs. . . .