Mine Eyes Have Seen The Ugly Truth

Hello friends and people with even more time on their hands than me. Welcome to my musings.

Have you ever been in your apartment at night, not ready to sleep but not willing to put on pants and go outside? Have you ever craved popcorn for dinner and harbored a need to loudly groan at someone far more beautiful than yourself on a giant screen? Maybe you have, and maybe you decided to see a movie. And maybe, just maybe, you stupidly chose that movie to be a romantic comedy. There's a very good chance your name is Jessica and you just saw The Ugly Truth.

Jessica Weeps For Feminism; Wonders When Her Neuroses Will Be Found Charming By Generic Male Lead

A desperate need for a Diet Coke and a box of Buncha Crunch overrode my self-respect as a moviegoer last night as I agreed to go see what is quite possibly the least enjoyable movie of this century (on the serious, the Buncha Crunch was so worth it). Thinking to myself, But I like Katherine Heigl! Her name is like Alphabet Soup! And Gerard Butler is the least horrible part of P.S. I Love You! Maybe they'll redeem this steaming pile in the span of two hours , I sunk deeply into my reclining theater chair and watched the previews, which would be my last moment of enjoyment for the rest of the evening.

What followed was a display of hyperbolic misogyny with punchlines so predictable and trite that I pleaded with the usher to let me watch Dance Flick again instead. Seriously. A parade of ass-slapping and a Kevin Costner-caliber American accent from Gerard Butler made for a miserable two hours mostly viewed through my fingers as I covered my face in horror. If I could condense this movie into a much shorter and much more honest script it would go something like this:

Katherine Heigl (ABBY): I'm a beautiful and successful woman who enjoys my job and commands respect from my colleagues. But I'm in my mid-twenties and single, so I must be a miserable shrew with a hodgepodge of neuroses that drive otherwise reasonable men away.

E from Entourage (NONDESCRIPT MAN): We just met and you're overbearing and awful in a cartoonish way.

ABBY: Yes I am! Darn those charming neuroses!

Gerard Butler (MIKE) : Hi, I was hurt by women so that makes it OK to hate them and to go on television in order to encourage other men to resent an entire sex based on the fact that I am inadequate. SLUTS IN JELLO! WHOOOOH! ASS-SLAP!

ABBY: I hate you but am so desperate for a boyfriend at any cost that I will listen to your ridiculous, unrealistic, and completely degrading advice.

MIKE: Be a porn star and a virgin simultaneously.

NAMELESS MAN : Hey, I'm a doctor and I like beautiful women with insane personality discrepancies. Also, BOOBS!

ABBY: Hey, this guy that no one will ever remember likes me! You're a genius Mike! Also, you have a nephew so you're sensitive and I will quite obviously fall in love with you once I find out that you only hate women because really, we're all awful and hurt your feelings.

MIKE: I'M GOING TO KISS YOU!

ABBY: OK!

MIKE: You've hurt me by having a relationship with a man that I basically manipulated into liking you. I quit.

ABBY: You can't quit, we have to fight in this hot-air balloon on a television show that apparently has no censors nor standards.

MIKE: I love you!

ABBY: Why?

MIKE: No discernible reason!

ABBY: Well, even though you've told me that I'm horrible and not good enough in every possible way and basically destroyed my career with your sexist and unrealistic popularity and any normal person would actually loathe you, I LOVE YOU TOO!

THE. MISERABLE. END.

So, in summation: men are all horrible, stupid, mouth-breathing apes with no self control or intellectual pursuits beyond sex, and women are all neurotic shrewish prudes with no personal interests beyond marriage. Or they're sluts with a 3rd-grade reading level not worthy of any speaking roles.
Lesson learned.

Until next time, this has been "Why I Drink In The Morning" with your host, Jessica.

The Joys of Being Someone Who Always Seems Drunk

When you live in a place like Los Angeles, a wide and lonely place which stretches from landmark to landmark with forgotten fields and dusty gas stations, you start to forget how alluring it can be. You simply ignore the familiar shape of palm trees, and dismiss the constant sunshine as a familiar frivolity which grows tiresome around Thanksgiving. It is the right of the Angeleno to grow impervious to the city's charm but it is also her duty to periodically rediscover it.

The Whimsical Adventures of JB and Her Ragtag Gang

Though there are millions of things to do around Los Angeles, only foreigners to the city discover them as natives' sense of creativity quietly erodes with the unforgiving ebb and flow of time; so we go to bars and drink until we don't feel feelings anymore. This weekend, our first stop was to Father's Office as a motley gang of rascally ragamuffins, begging strangers to look past our tear-soaked eyes and dirty faces and buy us a drink. When that didn't work, we shunned them. It was a slow night, but within the first few hours I had become the recently separated lesser-half of a Siamese Twinset with a glass eye and only a third of our shared brain.
The total count of infuriated men who walked away shamefully as their Ed Hardy shirts shifted uncomfortably in the face of rejection came to nine. Nine poor souls were unfortunate enough to think that a group of social, fun-loving, and apparently drunk girls would be receptive to their advances.

Though each of them had their own distinguishing characteristics (a sad bearded fellow sitting at the bar since 5:00pm desperately calling out for a willing pair of breasts and fluttering eyelashes, or the drunk whose bloodshot eyes searched us for either a cigarette or a few kind words), none was more memorable than the Flirtatious Astronaut.

"You guysss workfur NASA?" he boldly put forth.
"You work for NASA?" Katie replied in earnest.
"Nnno. Do YOU workfur NASA? B'cuz...you could be the starrrs and I couldbe the Big Dippuurr."

Promptly, a Wall of Shun was presented and we politely asked our new friend to please adhere to it.

While in line for the bathroom, I sidled up to the DJ with the grace of a cat with three legs, and made a simple request for anything Michael Jackson. A knowing glance and a sincere nod gave the night a hopeful air. Three minutes later, PYT started to play and about 4 minutes after that, half the bar was crowded around the booth as a six-song tribute to Michael and his lesser brothers played. "Remember the Time" is particularly good. At one point, an imposing Redwood of a man approached me with the DJ's iPhone and asked me to look at the picture on it. There, a young Michael Jackson, age 13, sat next to another boy who was unmistakably the friendly DJ. I bowed at his feet, and after a rousing routine set to "The Way You Make Me Feel", I scampered off into the night as my gang and I hopped aboard a moving freight train toward a late night diner. The eggs were delicious and the company irreplaceable.

I Left My Heart In Santa Monica

Aside from a slight mental breakdown at a family celebration (which is the expected result of too much tequila, pulsing heat, and an entire family that doesn't take kindly to teasing about hardship) the hours of the weekend crawled along, sticky with sand and sunscreen and warm contentment. The sun shone on us for the next few days, and as the nights fluttered on with the impermanence of youth, we toasted to the fickle city that won our hearts with its fleeting romance and its tangerine sunsets which cool with the unforgiving nature of a lover who will forever elude your grasp. Los Angeles, I'm yours.

A Little Bit of Magic Goes A Long Way

It occurred to me today, as I counted down the hours before the Harry Potter premier, that it might be time I grow up.

Jessica Finally Gets Potter-Trained

When I was eleven, the Harry Potter series wasn't just about magic; it was magic. It gripped me with the force that Eloise once had but failed to do in my pre-teen-angst-ridden years, it challenged me in a way that few books ever would, and it gave to my aching adolescent romantic what only the Great Jane ever could and only years later. Hermione was my feminist hero, Ron was all my future idiot boyfriends, and Sirius Black was my as-of-yet unknown but inevitable sexy prison-escapee love affair (more on this as it develops).

The last book's release didn't draw me to a bookstore at midnight (simply because I ordered it months in advance) but it drew me inward for a week while I tripped across campus and narrowly dodged passing cars in an effort to never take my eyes off the page.
And then, like every good thing must, it ended.

Tonight I'll go to the midnight showing, outwardly calm but inwardly shitting myself with excitement; I'll drink a beer but not enough to dampen the effects of anticipation and adrenaline. I'll go, knowing that I am an adult with bills, a job, expenses, and endless romantic failures; I'll go in a grown-up and immediately whip out a magic marker to draw a lightening bolt on my head.

Are my years of maturation and painfully real experiences undone by my love for a fictional character that shouts words like "Expelliarmus!" and lusts after a girl named Cho Chang (on the serious, Chang needed the boot around book 4)? Perhaps. Do I have any less authority over the children with whom I will gladly argue over the function of a Horcrux? Considerably. Will I ever stop saying "Alas, earwax"? Probably not. One has very little in her intellectual corner when she secretly has a desperate wish to ride a Hippogriff.

Perhaps it's time to hang up my cloak and let go of my wand (eh? eh? See what I did there? Double entendre!) and finally let go of my adolescence with a quiet dignity and grace. Maybe it's time to leave the magic to those who really believe in it.

Fuck that, I got a movie to watch.