Shockingly, Efron Worship

Today I got home and Forgetting Sarah Marshall was on, so I tuned in and had a pleasurable experience remembering how great that movie is. But much more importantly, after Sarah Marshall was 17 Again. I wasn't PLANNING on watching it, but... did it anyway. And I must say, I was EXCEPTIONALLY impressed with Zac Efron! YES! I'm a bit shocked too.

The thing is, when I watch a movie in which two people play the same character, I am consistently disappointed with how poorly the two actors match. For instance, in The Notebook, James Garner and Ryan Gosling are NOT playing the same character! Maybe it's just me (doubt it), but whenever I watch such movies, I imagine the other actor saying the lines that the actor on screen is saying. Go ahead and try it with The Notebook. They are different people!! Same goes for Big, 13 Going on 30, Freaky Friday. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button actually did a pretty good job... in my opinion. Not that I don't love some of these movies. I really do. The Notebook fully included! But it bothers me. THE POINT IS, Efron did an AMAZING job speaking and acting and doing the facial expressions JUST like Matthew Perry. Probably the best such performance I've ever seen. I think Efron really studied. SOOO impressed.

The other day in class, someone mentioned that he thought Efron was the next DiCaprio in that he gets a lot of shit now for being a HUGE teen idol, but he will come through and end up being a pretty great actor. I was accepting of this theory's merit, but not entirely convinced. I am several steps closer to adopting this concept permanently, now.

Other highlights: Excessive Hunter Parrish (Silas in Weeds). Margaret Cho cameo. ... That's it. I'm not saying the movie was life changing, but I did get a kick out of it.

(no segue)

Today at CBS, I was doing as I always do and singing to myself whilst making copies. Obviously not loudly, but the machines are so loud and in a completely closed room. In addition, I obviously practiced this several times to make sure I could not be heard. Unfortunately, my experiments seem to have gone awry because today the secretary walked in on me and wanted to know if I was singing, which I obviously admitted to. So for the rest of the day, she asked me to sing tunes and she asked whether or not I was going to do musical theater here. I was embarrassed as well as flattered. But more importantly, I can never sing and copy at the same time again! Lame. Quite lame.

In an entirely separate experience, one of the actors is crazy crazy attractive. He's attractive on the show, but when he looks at you and smiles... it's a knee weakening situation. Objectively. I'm not trying to be weird about my job. ANYWAY, I've talked to him a few times, but not at length, and once he introduced himself to me when I was with a tour because he thought I was a fan. Awkward. ANYWAY, it is safe to say he doesn't know who I am, which is regular and absolutely fine.

But TODAY I ended up taking the elevator with him. And there was another girl in the elevator, but he only talked to me, confirming that he knows I work with Y&R, which was awesome. While reflecting on this fact, I had two minor failures. 1. I failed at listening to what he said, which goes hand in hand with my failure to be charming and winning. 2. I failed at pressing my floor button in the elevator.

Now obviously this isn't that big of a deal. Trying to protect my image, I got off the elevator on the wrong floor pretending that this was my goal destination. But you know what? HE forgot to press his button too! But he stayed in the elevator and went right back up. I took the stairs and had to walk awkwardly behind him down the hall. And he DID turn around. And I DID look down and pretend I didn't notice-- the socially accurate response. I know that wasn't the best story, but I certainly enjoyed myself. Not to mention, it was a catalyst to some very pleasurable day dreams that I had for the rest of the afternoon.

Also, I am officially feeling mild anxiety about finding an apartment. Not because I've been trying and failing. I'm just marking the moment when I am officially thinking about it several times a day and not coincidentally getting a mild stomach ache while doing so.

Last thing, but my blood is THIN now. I entirely blame my brain for choosing to let go of it's inner warmth policy. California is such a bad influence on my experiments with brain encouragement. Lame.

A Little Bit of Life, A Lot of Movies

I cannot be certain about this, but I'm pretty sure I'm slipping into a Jim Morrison obsession. Now, obviously I have frequent obsession false alarms. However, I watched the second half of The Doors with my roommate and nearly died of intrigue. Then I bought five songs, which I have been listening to during all of my spare time. Plus I have been thinking about him non-stop. And at the very least, even if I don't become obsessed, I'm going to have to read a biography. Too interesting. Crazy interesting. Obviously I will also have to watch the first half of this movie as well.

Based on my almost zero-informed opinion, I kind of think this photo shoot, and maybe this picture alone, embodies his story. If you look at a lot of other pictures, he seems kind and gentle. But in this photo shoot, his eyes are so scary and his face is so chiseled and he looks like a god. A god of crazy. In a really intoxicating way.

(I can't even talk about the picture without using words that I imagine EVERYONE uses for him.)

Also, I don't want to seem stupid, but even though I've heard The Doors before, I had never connected the music with the band in my head. When I was watching the movie, I noticed that the music sounded like... somewhat strange 60s soft dance music, which was disconcerting. I ALWAYS thought Jim Morrison was early to mid 70s, presumably because that's what he looks like. However, I guess they are a mid to late 60s band.

I just need to know more about this, that's all.

ANYWAY

I am a TINY bit lamenting that I don't get to see Havertown in the spring. It really is super quaint.

(non-segue)

My oldest friend (in terms of amount of time I've known him, not his actual age), Cassidy, is in LA with his girlfriend this week. We decided we would go to the beach, which was great since I was just there.

Unfortunately the LA Marathon was happening on Sunday. And what is really stupid is that I KNEW it was happening and very briefly looked to see if going to the Santa Monica pier would be a good idea. Unfortunately, I have no sense of maps. In addition, I FORMALLY had no fear of being patient in traffic and thus I didn't really worry about having to sit through a little extra traffic.

Combined, those personality traits caused me to drive for 2 hours to a place that my GPS told me would take 15 minutes! And even worse was that when I arrived, most of the streets were shut down because it seems the marathon ended there! And since Cassidy and his girlfriend had to be somewhere later, we determined that parking would be completely impossible and that we should meet another time. So without getting out of the car, I turned around and drove ANOTHER 1.5 hours home. And that is essentially how I spent the WHOLE Sunday.

Luckily, I had charged my ipod recently and decided to spend a lot of that time catching up on This American Life, my favorite radio show (/only one I listen to). It was pretty heavenly. Thus, I consider Sunday to have been an exercise in the least energy efficient way to listen to This American Life. Problem solved.

Present Pictures is getting much more intense, in a good way though. Today I had a list of approximately a jillion things to do and I'm almost positive I didn't get to any of them. There were constantly more pressing matters. I came home pooped.

Speaking of which, I am now addicted to The Young and the Restless. Who could have seen that coming? Sometimes my supervisor tells me that I can go and sit in on the shoot for a while, but more often than not, I just continue to write the synopses because I NEED to know what is going to happen next. I read like... 2.5 Y&R scripts a day now.

I watched Grosse Point Blank and High Fidelity with my roommate Diane. I never really underestimate my love of Grosse Point Blank, but I still enjoy surges of appreciation when I watch High Fidelity. I LOVE that movie! Even though John Cusack always does pretty much the same character, he does it SO WELL! And in High Fidelity... I don't think ANYONE could have done better than Cusack. Great film!

I also watched two work films, which I both enjoyed and felt good about since it was an accomplishment. However, I got two more yesterday. I think the cycle is unending. And I am pretty pleased about that honestly.

Movies and a Beach Trip

This week was my spring break, which just means that I didn't have to go to class after work... so it wasn't like... a HUUGE break feeling. But it was still pretty amazing and I watched about a jillion movies. However, now that movies are a huge HUGE part of my life, I've categorized them into movies that are good to be watching, and movies that are... not a WASTE of time (because I don't believe in wasted time), but... a little stupid to watch given the circumstances. Here are my levels from best movies to watch with my time to... least important movies to watch.

Level 1: Movies to watch for work. Definitely should be watching.

Level 2: Movies I got from netflix in DVD form. I am paying for this service, and thus want to be able to return the movies as quickly as possible.

Level 3: Movies on netflix that I watch on demand. Again, I'm paying for the service so I might as well use it as much as possible.

Level 4: Movies on tv-- either on demand or on broadcast. There is not too much reason to watch these.

Level 5: Movies on tv that I DON'T EVEN LIKE but watch anyway.

Level 6: Movies online. I just shouldn't be doing that at all.

This week I watched:

-1 movie for work (can't say what it's called though. Sorry)

-3 DVDs from netflix. (500) Days of Summer, Soapdish, and Funny People.

-3.5 netflix on demand. Another Country, And Now for Something Completely Different, Gossip and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (only 45 minutes).

-.5 movies on tv. I watched half of Erin Brockovich. That movie is SO GOOD!

-1 movie on tv that I don't even like. Must Love Dogs. I can't believe I did that.

-1 movie online. Waking Life. I just needed it right then.

The other level would be movies in theater, which would be level 1b. That's pretty important because there is a time constraint. I didn't do that this week though. That is a lot of time on below level 3 movies though. I should work on that.

(I would give a brief about the movies like I used to, but no one would read it and I don't feel like it)

Today I went to the beach with Diane and there was so much fog!/smog!

All I could think of are those shows you watch where they told everyone that DDT was fine and when helicopters would spray it on the crops and houses, all the children would dance in it because it smelled nice. Then they would get cancer. I just kept thinking of how people in LA 30 years from now will be like "yeah and we just went to the beach and laid in the smog and they said it was fine."

The other things the smog looked like:

-A dream sequence.

-People coming out of the rubble of some disaster... but being surprisingly nonchalant about it.

The point is that I was super creeped out, a feeling aided by things like this.

But we also saw what looked like a huge adult playground with adult monkey bars that big muscle-y men were using!

It was enormous! And then we saw a sign that said it was Muscle Beach... which makes sense.

Then we walked on the pier and got funnel cake, which was important. And then we watched these hip-hop dancers. That was actually pretty awkward because they only performed for like... 5 minutes and then they started harassing us to give them money for a REALLY long time. And every time someone gave them a five, they went on and on about it. I was going to give them the $3 in my pocket, but then I got too uncomfortable thinking they were going to single me out. They also made like... a BILLION jokes about white people, which was just kind of lame. I don't care about a few, but it was everything they said. We ended up leaving before the finale.

Also, we saw the ferris wheel, which bummed me out and you can see why:

I've just never seen an ad on a ferris wheel. It just seemed like a bastardization of a child's dreams.

Then we went home, and as I was the passenger I decided it was a good time to take a picture of LA traffic.

It was a good day.

Three more things:

1. I finally saw Drew Carey in the hall! I hear him all the time doing The Price Is Right, but the other day he came in the hall to check out a car that they were putting out as a prize on the show.

2. I'm getting an email address for Present Pictures! AWESOME!

3. We went to a Mexican restaurant that Diane found a while ago and we had the BEST burrito. It was from a place called Casa Blanca Cafe. Almost definitely the best one I've had so far!

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Sad news, ya'll. I am no longer the Blythe you have grown to know and love because...

I HAVE A FARMER'S TAN!

And only on ONE arm!

That's right. One of my arms is SIGNIFICANTLY darker than my other one because of all of the driving. Recently I've been fist bumping myself (... ... ...) and pretending that my left, tan arm is the fun, up for anything Blythe and the right, pale arm is nerdy, indoors Blythe.

But really, if seven months ago I saw a picture of my current arms and was asked to identify them, I would NOT believe they were mine. Likely I would guess some farmer with a propensity for road trips.

A Wee Anecdote

I walked outside the other day and was overwhelmed by the smell of lilacs. I enjoyed it at first, but upon searching around and seeing no lilacs, I got worried that I was being olfactor-ily poisoned. But then I remembered that my life ISN'T The Wizard of Oz, got in my car, and went home.

I Can Just Sense the Liberals in the Air

BRILLIANT, albeit exhausting, weekend and beginning of week.

So I made the journey to San Francisco to see Caroline (and Olivia and Steph!)! I was SUPER excited for the 6 hour drive. And this tale doesn't end badly because it was GLORIOUS! Although perhaps I could have been better about choosing the playlist. I ended up recycling the list from the trip from PA to LA, which in retrospect was a little too spread out and designed for long-lasting moods... I could have used an abridged version. But really it was just fine.

Also, my ipod car charger broke (not surprising since I couldn't have spent more than $4 on it), but FORTUNATELY it broke on Thursday, so I was fully charged and prepared for Saturday.

So I set off at 9am-ish, stopped at target for some foods and another unrelated errand, and took off. I LOVE my GPS for many reasons, but on this trip I especially loved the estimated time of arrival because I kept making it smaller and smaller! I just loved the thought of me "making time." Ahh the little things.

I arrived at around 4pm, although I wasn't supposed to meet Caroline until 7pm. I really did feel kind of bad that I just intruded on her second day home, although she assured me that it wasn't annoying. I bet it was a LITTLE annoying... and not because she wasn't happy to see me, but... well you know how exhausting guests can be.

ANYWAY, I decided to poke around the city for a bit, and ended up going to the only place I really knew of in San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge. Which I (in my mind) hilariously discovered by typing it into my GPS. Of course, the GPS wanted to take me ON the bridge, but fortunately I found a tourist area right before the bridge to stop and make some bragging phone calls. Although to be fair, there isn't much to brag about when it comes to a bridge... In fact, I spent a lot of my phone time (it was really one one call...) bragging about the prevalence of humming birds. That was unexpected.

Here it is:

It's important to note that I was not disappointed on the hill-front. I went up this hill and almost shot myself in the face. Not because I'm afraid of heights, but because I'm afraid of stopping on hills in my car. Nay. I'm afraid of hitting the gas on my car if it's stopped on a hill. I just roll back and then screech up again! I think I'm dying every time. And this one hill that the GPS took me on was ENORMOUS! Just like that hill that Christina Applegate and Cameron Diaz dance up in The Sweetest Thing. And it had like... 4 stops. After I was finished with the bridge, the GPS tried to get me up that hill again. I could not be fooled though, and simply refused to turn onto a street with an incline of more than 30 degrees. GPS did a lot of recalculating that day.

After that, I called Caroline and we ended up meeting up before 7pm. We went to Berkeley and got some EXCEPTIONALLY good pizza at a place called The Cheese Board. It was so neat because they only make one type of pizza every day. They have this HUGE line down the street waiting for the pizza, but it goes so fast because you basically just say if you want a slice or a box or several boxes... and everything is basically already done. Then people sit on the grassy median on the street and eat the pizza. VERY cool. And DELICIOUS!

Afterwards we picked up Steph and Olivia from the airport. We toured San Francisco a bit, heartily singing the Full House theme song. Then we went back to Caroline's home, chatted with her mom for a bit, and went to bed. I was about to pass out at 1am. I did get my own bed though, and Caroline sleeps in a bed that's either a full size or a queen so... that was lovely.

The next day I left at about 9:15am to make it for brunch at Elena's.

Oh my god! This was the most elaborate brunch I have ever had in my life! Here is what I can remember:

-Crepes: This includes strawberries, mango, blueberries, raspberries, possibly pear?, homemade lemon... curd? homemade jam, some sort of spread cheese (I don't remember because I didn't get a chance to sample that part).

-Bacon, both turkey and pig.

-Sausage

-Potatoes

-Artichoke and egg frittatas. When Elena told her mom how much I love avocados, her mom got me an avocado to eat with the frittatas!

-Coffee cake.

And everything was on such nice china! And she made coffee for everyone and she made tea for herself and me. And we had juice! I forgot to ask about it but it was delicious! I was so pleased! And I loved her parents so much, although I pretty much already knew I would because of the tales I've heard. By the way, Elena's mother refused to let us help her clean because the dishes were heirlooms and she finds it pleasurable to be with them! I want to be a woman that enjoys being with her china.

After breakfast, we went out to Berkeley to go visit the street venders that sell on the weekends. I probably wouldn't have gotten anything, but how great are these earrings!

I love trees!

(If you're interested, the artist has a line called Salma's Treasures and she said she does free shipping.)

After that, I had a chili dog at a place called Top Dog, which was great because I had been mysteriously craving a chili dog for about a week. Then we loitered around Elena's neighborhood for a while. We actually got super immersed in these parents and young young children playing wiffle ball at the park. It was actually a LITTLE creepy of us. We also saw some cute pictures of Elena when she was a baby. And then I took off.

I got back home around midnight and I'm pretty sure I immediately fell asleep. Honestly, I'm sorry to report that I've been pretty tired since the trip. Although not in a bad way. PLUUUUS today I took a long lunch and ate with Corina and Ari at the Farmer's Market! And TOMORROW I'm hanging out with Julia, for which I am puh-umped!! The rest of the week is going to be quality.

Here are some more miscellaneous pieces of information:

1. Reinstated my netflix. I decided to put forth the $50 I earned at Present Pictures towards this cause.

2. Here is the dog that I get to hang out with at the office!! His name is Clyde!

3. I got a 14/24 on my Oscar picks this year! I'm a LITTLE sad that I missed the Oscars both in town and on broadcast. However... not THAT sad. I wanted to see my friends more. Although if this were last year... might've been a different story. Oh Slumdog Millionaire...

I can't even believe it's only 10:20pm and I'm about to die. How did I get so tired!?

Inspired by a Cupcake

In true procrastinating form, I'm going to blog before homework-ing (which is a real sin because the amount of homework I have is MINISCULE compared to normal... although to be fair, three days a week I get out of class at 10pm, so I basically only have Wednesday).

First of all, I had the BEST CUPCAKE EVER the other day! And honestly, I regularly like cupcakes aesthetically, but don't often LOVE to eat them. Not this one, baby. It was from a place called Sprinkles and it was a chocolate peanut butter cupcake. The real miracle was that it has this peanut butter frosting that called to mind the delicious dollop of sweet peanut butter that the Cheesecake Factory puts on that peanut butter chocolate cheesecake. The very cheesecake made me swiftly forget my former aversion to the treat (I had a cheesecake vomiting incident as a child...).

Not only that, but the ladies at Present Pictures took me to lunch (YES!) and we had Vietnamese, which was also quite pleasurable. Tuesday was just a lucky food day.

In other news, I'm going up to San Francisco this weekend to hang out with Caroline and then I'm going to scoot over to Berkeley (really Albany) to hang out with Matt and Elena. And Julia, Corina, and Ari are all going to be in town next week!! I'm SOOO HAPPY!! Also, I'm pretty excited for the drive. On my last drives, I was prevented from singing, either because of health issues or because of the presence of passengers. I gave myself a little preview of my fun times by singing nearly the entire soundtrack to The Nightmare Before Christmas in the parking lot before entering the apartment today. I LOVE that soundtrack. The more I think about that movie, the more fantastic I think it is. What a GREAT concept! And how lucky that they were able to use claymation. I wonder how often a claymation script gets picked up. Rarely, I venture to guess.

I had a sad AND cool incident today at The Young and the Restless (two separate incidents). Unfortunately, I don't think I can talk about them in a public forum... so... you can just know that the sad thing isn't DEVASTATING (at least not on a real huge level) and the cool thing isn't going to make my entire life (although it was pretty cool). I realize this is just an annoying paragraph, but at some point I'm going to look back and I'LL remember the sad and cool thing.

But yeah... sorry about this paragraph.

I'm nearly finished rewatching Friends. I can't believe I did that again... but I just get sucked in. That show is SO GOOD! Friends and Harry Potter. I just can't get enough.

LOVE having the new clothes. Although I've noticed that more than half of my shoes are brown... as are a good number of my pants and shirts. I'm just loving the brown right now, apparently. It reminds me of high school when I suddenly realized that half of what I owned was Superfresh green. Sad day...

I bought a 2-liter of Coke the other day and it tastes like death. The unfortunate part is that I continue to drink it because apparently my mentality is better to have bad Coke than no Coke at all. Lame. Although I have been drinking it slower, so it could be a blessing in disguise.

Okay, I'm ready to work now (/watch more Friends and then cry over the work I have to do).