I know people who look back at high school and wish they could go back. I know people who want to leave it in the past and never look back. And I know people who could really care less either way. I don’t really know where I fit in that, but I know that my high school – the second one, since I transferred halfway through – and a few of the teachers had enough of an impact in my life that I feel like I at least owed them a visit. So I did.

Now, let me explain something real quick to you guys; teenagers scare the living shit out of me. No, really, they do. After being teased and taunted for years, a group of teenagers giggling and laughing anywhere near me automatically puts me on edge. But I was willing to walk through the halls infested with these loud cockroaches to see my old teachers.

I went to a school with a mild crime problem, so of course there was a security van parked in front. When I passed by, the guy honked at me, and I groaned to myself. I really didn’t feel like dealing with security, but I turned and went over to the car. Turns out it was one of my favorite guards, and he greeted me pretty happily before I went in.

I made the rounds to my favorite teachers. Two of them – two of the most important to me – weren’t there, so the chances that I’ll go back to see them before the year is up are pretty high. I was surprised how everyone remembered me so well. Probably the funniest reoccurring question was, “Are you seriously a senior?” Three years didn’t really seem like a lot, but it was. The auditorium and the music wing were both redone, and all of the kids had LAPTOPS. At the risk of sounding like an old grump, when I went to school, we didn’t get laptops. We had to crowd around one of the four computers in the room and share. Dang nabbit. Read More »

I was the only roommate who had gone out that night, and there was evidence that I didn’t come home alone.

There had been a 4 AM pizza purchase, the only remnant being the box. Maybe a crumb or two. And my purse sitting next to the mess.

On weekends, the diet gets thrown aside and I accept that I am weak. I’m what is described in Mean Girls as one of the “girls who eat their feelings.” Unfortunately, with college, the feeling that got a significant amount of play was “tipsy”, and with said buzz came a slew of delicious calories I’d only remember halfway into the next day.

The biggest regret of the drinking was (almost always) what I’d eaten. I try to justify the binge eating by saying it’s a far better alternative to, say, waking up next to a random.

When I’m coming home from the bar, it’s as though any self control I’ve ever had is on vacation and any restaurant open after last call is a free-for-all. You come home, and you have just enough energy to stay up for a bit, long enough for a slice or an order of nachos. You wake up realizing that you’ve blown through your budget of saved calories and your skinny jeans are going to stay in their drawer a little longer than expected.

So to prevent post-bar disasters, here are a few tricks that can help keep you in check: Read More »

Stripped down to a blonde wig and sheer pink scarf, a (dubiously) newly sober Lindsay Lohan was tapped by Bert Stern to recreate “The Last Sitting”, which was Marilyn Monroe’s iconic final photo shoot.

Stern, the original photographer of the 1962 shoot, sought out Lohan because he wanted a “controversial” star for his recreation, yet the result couldn’t be further from the original work.

Nice try, Mr. Stern, but there really is no one in Hollywood that could have done this unnecessary reshoot justice. You can’t even compare the two women. The only good movie Linds has done since “The Parent Trap” was “Mean Girls” and that had a lot to do with the fact that Tina Fey wrote it.

I want to take it seriously because I take Marilyn Monroe seriously, but these new pictures are absolutely devoid of meaning. “The Last Sitting”, was shot six weeks before Monroe’s death and has become representative of her career; “in them, we see an actress whose comedic talents were overshadowed by her sex appeal, a woman who is cannily aware of her pinup status.”

With Lohan – all I see is a bad wig and breasts that shouldn’t sag that much on such a young girl.

Lohan’s poor imitation lacks authenticity. Stern might see parallels between his two subjects, but using Lohan just sullies the vulnerability and sex appeal depicted in Monroe’s film; Linds’ eyes are utterly expressionless. Read More »

I’ll never forget that fateful day in art class, senior year of high school. This (pardon me if I seem rash in this titling) bitch named Ashlee was in my class. She was cool in the sense of…not cool at all, with a god awful short haircut and horrible highlights and delusions that her Nike sneakers with Mudd flares threw her into some high fashion club.

She was also dating a guy–the quarterback (of course)–who had secretly had a crush on me (a fact I didn’t find out until college).

The quarterback and my sporadic and subtle flirting, combined with the fact that she hated me for not kissing her ass, lead to Ashlee on a mission to make me cry. And one day; it almost worked.

There was a spider in our classroom. Ashlee flipped out in the typical “popular” girl fashion (“oh my gawd, oh my gawd! Do something!“), and I told her to chill and went to pick it up to put it out the window. I squated down to let the spider walk onto a piece of paper and suddenly, there was her ugly grass stained Nike sneaker…smashing it on my hands. I wanted to cry but instead I stood up and said,

“God, you’re such a bitch.” Read More »

Jeff Robinov, the president of production at Warner Brothers studios, doesn’t think women are worth a dime.

“We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead” Robinov was quoted as saying this week, using two recent less-than-stellar female driven films (The Brave One, staring Jodie Foster, and The Invasion, starring Nicole Kidman) as evidence for his claims.

What. The. F*ck? Um, what year is this???

Robinov is just convinced the reason neither film did well with audiences is because a woman was in the lead.

Apparently, the options of bad writing, convoluted plots, and poorly conceived advertising are not viable, and the only way to make sure a movie of his never bombs again is to make sure the leads are always sans boobs and vagina.

Movies with male leads bomb all the time, but Robinov doesn’t care about that obvious fact, nor does he seem to remember the fantastic success of Mean Girls, The Devil Wears Prada, Erin Brockovich, or anything helmed by the Olsen Twins.

Do women often headline films by themselves? No. But it’s not because they don’t have the same drawing power as men, it’s because chauvinists like Robinov are given the ability to “no longer do movies” in which the star is a female. Read More »