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. . . .

Princess Chunk

So the purpose of today's post is twofold. Both purposes are to inform you, my public, of the things you need to know.

The first thing you need to know is that in a haze of loving mushiness and that weird feeling you get when you like somebody that you want to share everything with them, I granted Joe access to this blog. So he has read all my "mean" (he politely called me "snarky") posts AND all of my damn lovey-dovey posts about him, which thrilled him to no end. You, my public and loyal readers, should know this because he also read all of your snarky comments. Hahahaha. He knows we all suspect him of wanting to Mandalorian-marry me and that we've been plotting to get rid of his goatee for months. Anyway, I am not censoring myself for him and neither should you all. Hi Joe. Unfortunately, there's nothing to really write about on that front, so I'm back to commenting on pop culture crap.

Hence purpose number two, to educate in the ways of the pop culture feline. Anyone who has been to my house has met my cat Smokey, whom I describe to those to who haven't met him as being a "mutant," "pony," or "badger" because of his size. Smokey is a big dude. My coworker used to have a t-shirt that said "Big Dude" on it and I so wanted it to come in a feline size, but alas. Smokey is a fat cat, no doubt, but he also just has really big bones and a big build. He's exactly the way I like 'em: big, dumb and sweet (hi Joe!). Smokey weighs 16 pounds.

So on that note, please meet "Princess Chunk" (that's her above), a cat found wandering the streets of Southern New Jersey, and who is now in a shelter and in need of a home. Princess Chunk weighs 44 pounds. 44 pounds!! I'm not a mother or one of those women all into babies, but I'm pretty sure that's the size of like, what, a 2-year-old or some shit? People, this cat is huge. So huge, in fact, that she's the subject of even an Associated Press article. Apparently, the Guiness Book of World Records had the largest cat ever on record at 46 pounds, so Princess isn't doing too bad for herself.

I would also like to comment on the state of New Jersey, and how it is possible that a homeless cat could nonetheless inflate herself to 44 pounds eating your garbage. Your garbage, New Jersey! Your garbage, and, no doubt, your oversized pigeons and squirrels and maybe even small children. Who weigh less than this cat, or just don't have any fightin' skills yet. Which they get early in NJ. Especially Camden. Princess doesn't look like a Camden cat, though.

Lesson of the Day: I generally don't have anything against New Jersey per se, but I find it really amusing that this cat would be from there. Am I right? Would it be as funny if Princess was from New Mexico or something? I guess if she hailed from Alabama I would absolutely make fried chicken and Red State obesity jokes . . . but I'll take what I can get.

Say It Ain't So

What, you ask, would possess me to write two news-related blogs within an hour? Well the first was to illicit sympathetic comments to ease my overactive imagination. This, however, is pure rant:

Kyle MacLachlan is an actor known for many things, but he will always and forever remain in my head as FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks, and with whom I was madly in love.

So what news is it that prompts my rage? This little nugget of gold (excerpted from an article on Kyle's new baby): "The former Twin Peaks player returns to the big screen next month in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2".

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2?? Oh Kyle, for shame. That's worse than anything Nicholas Cage sold out for. Was there really no alternative? You've progressed from the minds of the small group of Peakers into those of the general public with your stints on "Sex and the City" and "Desperate Housewives," and even those transgressions I had trouble forgiving you for. Were no other directors knocking on your door? Was no other script appealing? Are you really just not getting hired for anything else despite your turn on exceedlingly popular and yet mind-numbing primetime TV? Agent Cooper would be ashamed. If, you know, he was real and all.

Lesson of the Day: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2???????

Is this my future??

Recent posts of mine have revealed (a) my boyfriend is/was/likes to talk about being a Dungeon Master (oh, it hurts even to write it); and (b) my lifelong self-concept of myself as a nerd has been bashed away by said stupid DM, who put the idea into my brain that I'm actually a geek, an idea reinforced by others who know me. I'm still coming to terms with this, as I can see the argument for my geekdom but am still stuck in a zone of denial and my own logic about the issue.

Alas, with such a confused state of mind, can you blame me for seeing the below "Odd News" story and having my first thought be that this could be in my future? Only far, far worse, as I like Star Wars. And of course this couple had to meet online. But my Comic-Con wedding would be Dungeons and Dragons-themed. Or Joe's other love, Robotech, some weird cartoon from the 80s that I don't even remember but contains the word "robot" in it, so is already pretty scary (for matrimonial purposes). I would appreciate it if my loyal audience would comment on this post, and if all comments had a format of something like, "No, don't worry, you're not that much of a geek and anyway you could beat up any guy who tried to force you into an comic-book/geek-themed wedding". Thank you for your compliance.

"The bride wore dart launchers at Comic-Con wedding":

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The bride and groom grasped one another's dart launcher-clad wrists and stared into each other's starry eyes. Fifty armour-clad guests, including several "Jedis" and a white caped "Elvis" in a rhinestone-studded ammo belt, stood reverently at attention. A couple of superheroes showed up late.

What better place to hold a "Star Wars" themed wedding than a green patch of grass just outside the famed Comic-Con convention where thousands of fans have congregated this week to revel in all manner of superhero and sci-fi lore?

Friday's wedding ceremony, based on the language, costume and lore of a fictional Mandalorian race in the "Star Wars" movies, was the brain child of Tenille Kuhlman, 30, and Thomas Kuhlman, 39, avid fans who decided that the convention was a perfect place to gather far-flung members of their close-knit "Star Wars" fan club to celebrate their special day.

The couple met online two years ago, said Tenille Kuhlman, who said she was at first was hesitant to embrace the Mandalorian lifestyle. "When I met him I knew what every Joe Blow knows about 'Star Wars.' It just sort of turned into life for us."

The guests -- in full regalia including helmets, boots and jet packs -- formed two lines and created a light sabre arch leading toward the altar. "I don't have my fake gun!" somebody shouted. "That's OK," said another guest. "This is a wedding ceremony. I left mine in the car." The bride and groom held their helmets in their hands, a solemn sign of Mandalorian respect. As they grasped wrists, Tom Hutchens, a 30-year-old IT professional and erstwhile Mandalorian preacher, began the ceremony. "Vodas," he said, using the Mandalorian word for "friends," "Outsiders, Jedis, everybody, welcome. This is a contract between two Mandalorians who made a journey and future together and bled together and will continue to bleed together until their last day," he said.

After reciting their vows in both Mandalorian and English translation, the jubilant crowd shouted: "Oya!" which in Mandalorian language means "celebration." "I now pronounce you Mandalorian husband and wife," Hutchens said.

Lesson of the Day: By far my favorite line from this article (which I edited above) is "but according to clan creed, Mandalorians don't make threats, they make promises." Hahahaha. Now how to work that into everyday speech . . .