insomnia haiku

Possible Choices, Potential Costumes

My friend Jason (hi, Jason!) has invited me to a Halloween in party in which you have to dress as something that has the same initials you do.

I have spent a good amount of time contemplating this, mostly with the help of Nomi and Matt. Excluding the personal computer and political correctness (too obvious), some of the less far-fetched options have included, but were not limited to:

poker chip
playing card
Petula Clark
pink Cadillac
pink carnation
Parmesan cheese
pool cue
Prince Charles
Ping-Pong champion
pencil cup
petty cash
potato chip
private club
peach cobbler
phone cord
probable cause

Some of those don't really lend themselves to outfits. But you get the point. In the end, I think I've decided to go as either primary colors (blue jeans, yellow shirt, red scarf) or a police car (black and white clothes, red cap). What would you go as?

p.s. Thought of two more: popular culture and presidential candidate. If anyone wants to vote on what I should actually go as, feel free.

And why didn't he SuperSize it?

A couple of Sundays ago, I got a call from Citibank's fraud prevention division (or whatever it's called) saying they'd spotted a suspicious-looking charge. It was valid, though; I'd used my debit card at my eye doctor's office to pay for new contact lenses. I told the nice man on the phone that, and he said it looked as though there'd been a "test charge," which was the reason it had come up as suspicious. Fair 'nuff. At the office, the secretary had had some trouble running the card the first time, so that made sense.

Two days later, I happened to look at my account information online, and I noticed that the balance was much lower than it'd been when I withdrew money on Saturday. I looked at the account details. Immediately after the contact lens transaction there were four unfamiliar charges, all made in Maryland. One was for $734.99, one for $419.99, one for $471.98, and one for a whopping $4.92, made at a McDonald's in Elkridge, Maryland.

The big charges are bad enough to deal with, and disturbing because I still have my card—so someone must've stolen my number and made a card out of it. (I don't suspect the secretary, who's been working at that doctor's office forever. I'm guessing that maybe she did make a faulty charge, and then didn't shred the receipt, and someone fetched it out of the trash. But that's just a guess.) I am obsessed, however, with the $4.92 McDonald's charge. Why was it necessary for this person to charge a meal at McDonald's? If you'd just scored a free, stolen credit card, wouldn't you want to, I dunno, save it for purchases that are really worthwhile? Did he (let's just assume, for simplicity's sake, that it was a guy) not have five bucks handy? In the midst of spending like crazy on PlayStations and leather pants, did he suddenly get seized by a debilitating craving for the kind of refreshment that only McDonald's can provide? And the most important question of all: What did he buy?

Here in New York, you can't get a Value Meal for less than five or six bucks. I don't know about Maryland, though. So ... maybe the two-cheeseburger meal? Or a Big Mac and fries? Quarter Pounder and a sundae? Chicken McNuggets and a Coke? Were the fries fresh? What kind of sauce did he get? Did he eat there, or order to go?

If anyone out there is anywhere near Maryland, please do me a favor. Look up the prices at any McDonald's (preferably the one in Elkridge), and if you can figure out exactly what the bandit might have ordered—sales tax included—I will buy you something. Let's say a meal at McDonald's. Anything under $4.92, baby. Cuz that's how the big spenders roll.

I don't have time to think up a clever title

Box office post is up. It's been up for six hours and it's only gotten one comment, which makes me think that no one's going to the movies this weekend. Either that or my post was really, really boring.

More this weekend.

That's it, I'm moving

If you are one those people who brags about how far below market rate their rent is—and I will sheepishly admit that I am one of those people; it's like when you buy something on sale and then whenever anyone compliments you on it you have this compulsion to tell them how cheap it was—then this site may prove humbling. I entered my rent into it and was told that I pay just near the median rent for my neighborhood. Is not! It can't be! I'm only staying here because I thought I was getting such a great deal!

Of course, the sample size is ridiculously low, and the numbers in the graph seem a little off. But what interests me most is that someone a few blocks away from me is paying $2,600 for a two-bedroom. There. I feel better.

In actuality, I can't stand Robin Williams

My box office prediction on the "other" blog is up. Here you go. And now I know all about John Cena. The things you learn.

More later. Swamped.

It's the boots. It's always the boots.

File this one under Random Things That Unexpectedly Make Me Happy for About Five Minutes:

It was 11:30 pm (tonight), after another rollicking, dishy Girls' Night Out. I had just come off the train in Brooklyn and was standing outside the subway station with Nomi, talking about nothing in particular before we said our goodbyes. Then a woman, rushing past us on her way into the station, paused ever so slightly and glanced at me and said, "You look really cute." (For the record, I was wearing black knee-high boots, a black skirt just above the knee, a brown sweater, and a brown jacket. Hair in a ponytail.) I'd never seen this woman before. She wasn't hitting on me, I don't think; just passing on by. I stared at her. She laughed and said, "I'm sorry, I know that was random, I just wanted to tell you that."

I didn't know what to say. She was already walking down the stairs into the station. "It's the boots," I called after her retreating back.

Half a block later, heading home, I put in my iPod headphones. The song that started playing was the Go-Gos' "Head Over Heels," and the one after that was Rick Springfield's "Jesse's Girl." It hadn't been the best of days, but for whatever reason—for the entirety of my seven-minute walk home—I couldn't stop smiling. Because I needed that.

Scorsese scores

Review Haiku: The Departed
Best since 'Goodfellas'
Marty friggin' rocked my world.
Give him the Oscar.

Note: Most of you have read this already, but if you haven't, here is a little more about what I thought of the movie (basically the exact same thing I just said, using many of the same words, but longer). I was totally wrong in my box-office prediction, and I'm glad. The Departed is tied for my favorite movie of the year with two other movies: Little Miss Sunshine (which you all know about, and thanks to the IH readers who told me they saw it and loved it despite my lunatic ravings; you warm my little heart) and Pan's Labyrinth, which comes out in December and which you will all be hearing plenty about soon. At any rate, The Departed will win the Oscar for Best Picture, and if there is any justice in the world, Scorsese will finally win for Best Director. You heard it here first. Well, maybe not first, but you heard it here, anyway.

Obi-Wan, even wiser (or stupider)

I really should not find this funny, yet inexplicably, I do.

Because the Force is strong in my pants.

Mark Foley's AIM interview

I wasn't going to post this because I assumed people had seen it already, but then I went to dinner tonight and no one there had seen it, so I'm going to post it, and how's that for a circular sentence?

Not much backstory needed here. Florida Congressman Mark Foley (R) resigned this weekend after it was revealed that he'd engaged in inappropriate IM exchanges with teenage pages. But the New York Times, having this byzantine "all the news that's fit to print which doesn't include anything vulgar" policy, wouldn't print the IMs that actually got him to resign. So of course, I had to look it up.

Even the website for ABC News, which first broke the story, wouldn't quote the IMs outright. This made me even more curious, of course, because deep down I guess I'm some sort of perv. (Oh, come on. You were curious, too.) But I dug around and found them, and here they are. You have to click on the link that says "Warning: sexually explicit language," natch. But even if you think you've heard it all, the IMs are truly appalling. This is a grown man, not only a public servant but a federally elected Congressman, telling a teenage boy that he ... oh, I can't even say it. (I couldn't believe that my dinner companions, who included my former boss and a bestselling author, kept insisting that I quote the IMs to them. And this was at a fancy restaurant. Please! There were waiters present!)

Anyway, enjoy. Or ... something. I suppose it's almost comforting that in this day and age, I'm still capable of being disgusted by a politician's behavior.

p.s. Almost as disturbing are the comments from people saying that a) the boy was flirting back, and therefore was somehow asking for it, and b) the whole thing was morally wrong not because Foley was a Congressman preying on a teenager, but because he's gay. Classy.