Times I have felt like Liz Lemon

1. Liz Lemon, staunch new-wave feminist
Me, Jackie, friend of Jackie's, and a friend of Jackie's friend lounge in the living room of the apartment at school, nursing glasses of wines and engaging in girl talk. As opposed to dude talk, of which I am an active participant 95% of the time. In the case of the friend of friend and friend of friend of friend, this is a pre-party visit--the party theme is announced to be "CEOs and corporate hos" and the ladies are dressed accordingly. Flicker of Liz Lemon first appears when my thoughts to plunge in the direction of "Oh, that is so typical, with women relegated to the role of corporate 'ho'... oh what an idea for a party indeed, that is just--". No, Shan, stop being a Douglass woman for two seconds, and lay down four years' worth of gender theory weaponry down. I consider whether I would attend such a party and decide that I wouldn't, on principle. This realization should have been a warning sign.
Jackie's friend: "I just sent a picture of me to [insert boyfriend name] and said, 'if I were your secretary, would you do me?" Everyone is merrily appreciative of this comment, and before I realize what I'm saying I blurt, "or, you know, you could be like 'if I were your boss would you do me? ....AmIright?" They look at me as though they have never encountered someone so socially inept, and they simply have no words to capture their awe, and then I feel myself in the process of filling the silencio by mumblecoughing "..feminism?" I think things could only have been made worse had I tried to high-five myself afterward.

2. Liz Lemon, Inadvertent Racist
On the night before Halloween, for all the reasons you can guess, I was dressed in a banana costume. I will not put on airs and tell you that it was even an adult-sized banana costume, for no, indeed it was intended for both children and Shans alike. I could have done with a larger costume, but the miniature costume was a whole ten dollars cheaper, and what can I say, in this economy we can't all afford to be large fruits. At a bar I pull away from Jackie-as-not-quite-obvious-enough Ke$ha in order to commend these two guys on what were, by far, the most fabulous of costumes. I am talking about Will Smith as the Fresh Prince, and Carlton. Now, I love Will Smith. I can't, however, stand his progeny--Willow and Jaden just irk me. But that's because I hate most children who are pimped out to showbiz, and plus, I just like Will too much to accept little subpar imitations. Anyway, I see them and I beeline to talk to them. It goes like this--
"Oh my goodness I love the fresh prince"
"Mmhm" Will Smith responds. He appears disinterested, and barely capable of acknowledging my gushing.
"Those wayfarers are fantastic," I persist, because I am too big a fan of the Fresh Prince to do otherwise, and then turning to his friend "Will and Carlton, such a great idea..."
"I'm not Carlton."
"Come again?"
Carlton frowns down at me. My mind cannot compute.
"I'm Steve Jobs."
I look at his turtleneck. His glasses. Carlton didn't have glasses, did he? Actually, perhaps this guy does not look like Carlton at all.
Oh, no, no. What defense do I have? "I'm sorry but you were a black nerd standing next to Will Smith, I just didn't immediately think... that you were a recently deceased white man." No, that would not do. So obviously I just laughed and backed away swiftly.

3. Liz Lemon, ranting queen, staunchly pro-sock
I once went on a five minute rant about why anyone would elect to wear ankle socks in the winter, as I had just purchased crew socks and experienced some kind of sock euphoria/revelation. "You don't realize what you've been missing in ankle warmth until you wear this, I'm telling you"--and proceeding to tell you for five minutes more.

4. Liz Lemon, unkempt like harried mother of five, but is not actually mother
After a movie I went to the bathroom to whizz and discovered popcorn kernels had found their way into the leg of my pants. Which is just illogical.

when did tv get to be my life?

Thursday nights that don't include new episodes of 30 Rock, Community and The Big Bang Theory depress me in equal proportion to how perfectly happy I am when there are new episodes. |: NBC alone controls so much of my happiness that it could be unhealthy (cough, havealsobeenfollowingthebiggestloserreligiously, cough). And actually, that new show Perfect Couples isn't half-bad--I look forward to it, even. As far as The Office goes, I was following it for a time, but stopped quite a while ago, and although it irks me that Parks and Recreation follows the same mockumentary format, I will occasionally indulge. Oh lastly, my parents get a kick out of Outsourced, probably because the humor veers way toward the cheesy side of things, and my parents are like that (30 Rock is too quick and of-the-moment for them, so it goes right over their heads). They would find a show that pokes fun at Indian culture and mannerisms hilarious (and yet a couple weeks ago I had a bindi colored in with marker on my forehead, but let's ignore that).

The episode of 30 Rock last week was really not great, though (and I thought the episode wherein they finally got rid of Matt Damon's character was the worst it could get. Frown). I just wasn't feeling Liz's storyline with the babytalking comedienne, although Jack versus the 14 year old girl is pretty brill. But actually, after webbin' out a bit, I can more clearly see the point of the episode, or at least one of them. That is, sort of trying to address the issue of the lady comic--what the frack does it matter if she's funny, as long as she's gorgeous, right? Like the article on jezebel.com titled "The Daily Show's Woman Problem." Why, after going so long without a regular female correspondent, would they hire Olivia Munn of all people? Admittedly I like her on Perfect Couples. And theoretically I like to support my Eurasian sisters in the media (er, porn doesn't count). But I just don't know. I'm thinking of her on Attack of the Show and trying to recall if she was legitimately funny or funny for a girl hot enough to be on the cover of Maxim. Funny considering. Shrug.

If you're attractive you have a lot of advantages in life, that's just how it is. As annoying as that is, it would be less annoying if the injustice was perfectly the same for women as it is for men. But it isn't. Fact-o fact, uggo women have it way worse than men. A dude can be perfectly homely and successful in the media, like David Letterman, but if a woman is homely it's a first rate offense. Whaddup with that?

St. Valenpoop's

Wishing a happy Valentine's to happy couples and a tolerable one to everyone else!

Apart from a mysterious shooting pain in my left elbow right now, I'm doing not-so-bad. There are worse ways to spend V-Day than, um, at a Chevys with your parents and brother (I don't know why, but my parents like celebrating traditionally couple-y occasions, like V-Day and their anniversary, with their children). OK I know that sounds bad. But I do like going out to dinners, yes, even with my family, and besides, Chevys is delicious. I had fish tacos, still in keeping with my pesky pesce diet. And I had fried ice cream! Things aren't so bad!

But the highlight of my day might have been when I went for a quick run. A run in February! Who'd have thought. Indeed the weather today was unbelievably springlike, as if winter is cruelly trying to lure us into thinking it will be kind to us from here on out. What sheer baloney/malarkey/poppycock that is. Well anyway, I was wrapping up my run when I spotted an innocent pink carnation laying on the sidewalk in front of me. It was near the high school so someone must've dropped it on the way home. It goes without saying that I took it home. So now I'm a girl fat on fish tacos, whose night stand is housing a copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, on top of which there is a secondhand flower bequeathed to her by a sidewalk.

No big deal. And as Liz Lemon would say, it's not V-Day anyway--it's Anna Howard Shaw Day, people.

The flower really did make me happy. I'm all about my facebook statuses so I put "on my run just now i found an abandoned pink carnation laying on the sidewalk. shoutout to my secret admirer--the universe." It felt like the universe, despite all its senselessness and absurdity and cruelty, was trying to send me some (really lame) message. Maybe it was a reward for all the self-love and taking care of my health recently. Or maybe it was just subtle encouragement to a girl who never had those carnations sent to her in high school.

In fact, there was a really excellent online journal entry I wrote on Valentine's Day 2004, unfortunately long ago deleted, in which I describe "love and quiet giggles flickering across the room", or something like that, and (because flowers were passed out first period, in this case geometry class) how "finding the angle of hypotenuses (hypotenii?) couldn't heal the pain in my chest, and even if it could, I suck at math." It's so MELODRAMATIC, and actually, I was awesome at geometry so I don't know what I was going on about.

Valentine's Day can really suck. But it doesn't suck the most for people like me--it sucks for those going through painful breakups, or even still holding on to the residual pain of one. Or worse, it sucks for people like poor Liam Neeson, whose wife passed away at the age of 45. The love of your life is gone, but you still have to put up with this tiresome, obnoxiously saccharine pink-and-red holiday.

So while I can and have pulled a Bridget Jones before (in spirit, but not yet in spirits, i.e. drinking wine all by myself and singing "All By Myself") I know it's idiotic, too. After all, I'm young and my pathetic love life still holds potential, at least. I am both young and an incorrigible romantic whose heart is (embarrassingly) convinced that one day I'll be 1/2 of an annoyingly in-love couple, and I'll have lame Valentine's dates, and I'll buy right into this tiresome, obnoxiously saccharine holiday. For single people is this day all about being as bitter as the darkest of chocolates or is there a way to make it about hope? (Ugh, the question at the end makes me sound like a second-rate Carrie Bradshaw). Psh, in an hour this day will be old news anyway. But I am in the mood to watch Bridget Jones' Diary all of a sudden.

My vow to stop swearing? Also, WWTFD (what would Tina Fey do)

About a month late I have (in this state of idleness) come up with a few new year's resolutions of various levels of attainability and seriousness. Partly (mostly?) in order to... I don't know, give myself something to do. They came out to be:

1. go pescetarian (no meat except for seafood) for a week
2. stop swearing like such a g*ddamn sailor
3. drive more often and possibly LEARN TO DRIVE STICK SHIFT??
4. limit drinking to beer (I mean limit alcoholic drinking to beer. Not ALL drinking. That would be unwise, and, er achieve the opposite effect that I want)

The idea to try out a pescetarian diet came first, when I was at the tail end of my stay in LA, and then the others sort of came along after that. I guess the whole thing I'm trying for is to create a healthier body and mind. It's funny, though, all of these things... anyone who knows me well enough (ok, mostly the roommate Jackie again) would say that it'd be a joke to think I could do any of these things. BUT YOU UNDERESTIMATE MY WILLPOWER.

The pescetarian thing deserves a post of its own, but as far as the other stuff... okay. Swearing. I once described myself as "speaking as though I was raised by Kathy Griffin and Triumph the insult comic dog." That's just not the kind of image you want to project, generally. My brother gives me grief about it especially, citing the time we were eating at Wendy's when I said something proper ladies should not say and a little kid nearby repeated it. And then his mom smacked him :| I am a little uncertain as to the validity of this, but my bro swears it happened.

Aside from preventing future child abuse, I got to thinking about how my adaption of good, positive words and thoughts, not foul language, would be such a change for the better, not just for myself but for the people who surround me. Ugh, that sounds cheesy. But yeah, positive ...energy. And stuff. I don't know what I'm trying to say--it just feels right. But obviously I can make exceptions. For example, if a giant anvil falls out of the sky and onto my house. That's just f*cked up.

What really took me from "haaa, wouldn't it be funny and futile if I tried to stop cursing" to "maybe I'm serious about this" was the realization that my personal hero, (whose character on TV I strongly identify with/possibly am) Tina Fey, doesn't swear. She is clever, fantastic, successful and seriously funny without swearing. (Makes me think of Will Smith, WHOSE AWESOMENESS IS UNPARALLELED AND IRREFUTABLE, rapping without swearing.) As Jackie pointed out to me, part of what makes Tina funny is actually what she says in lieu of swears. "Nerds!" or "BLERG" or, the one I use way often, "What the WHAT?" The fact is, she is, well, wholesome. So if I aspire to be anything like her--and oh, I do--then I can go without f-bomb and co., can't I?

Except I'm not sure where to draw the line yet. Like "ass", is ass ok? I think the occasional ass will be ok. I mean, Conan regularly refers to himself as an ass (I base all my decisions off of Tina Fey and Conan O'Brien--you got me). "Shit" might be sketchy. I feel better about using "shite." Also I kind of really love the word "whore", but I should probably scale back on that one...

By the way my self-improvement kick has "Liz Lemon" painted all over it. She's all "I'm trying new things" and "One of my New Year’s resolutions is to say YES." She also does pretty much whatever Oprah tells her to do. Which is funny since it was watching the recent Oprah episode on veganism that inspired me to try out a diet change. Cough cough onceagaindon'tjudgeme cough.

I leave you with a prime example of why I feel I am Elizabeth Lemon