Stephanie Gayle

I had a bad day yesterday. A very bad day. Someday I'll tell you why it was bad but not today. Today I'm going to tell you how to survive a very bad day. These tools may help you in the event of a painful breakup, unexpected baldness, or post-apocalyptic survival in which you discover your only companion for the rest of your days is David Spade.

When life hands you lemons, add these to the mix:

Pandas. No matter how bad the day, knowing that evolution gave you pandas to enjoy makes the world a slightly less hellish place.

Bret and Jemaine will make you laugh through those tears! Especially if you listen to "I'm not crying" in which Bret sings, "I'm not crying. I've just been cutting onions. I'm making a lasagna...for one." It's the delivery. Genius.

Rereading old books you adored as a kid. My pick was Beverly Cleary's Fifteen. Holy Moses, how I loved that book and pitied poor Jane because I thought her last name, Purdy, was awful. And the clothes that she hated (Peter Pan collars?) sounded so fascinating! Plus, this book totally prepared me for Macbeth, with a Birnham Woods advancing reference when Jane brings her too big bouquet to Stan at the hospital post-appendix operation. Though I hate the new cover they gave the book. The cover pictured is the one I had. Now it's an illustration of a milkshake. Feh.

I must give props to the ladies at Jezebel for turning me on to revisiting old books. They have a feature called
"Fine Lines" penned by Lizzie Skurnick that revisits classics such as Then Again Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume. The book that taught me about puberty in teenage boys. (Man did I feel badly for boys after this--wet dreams? Uncontrollable boners? Eww!)

Rosie's Bakery. When life is bad, cupcakes are good. Hell, when life is good cupcakes are good. Mine had bits of Heath bar atop the chocolate frosting. Yum.

South Park. If laughter is the best medicine, then these guys dosed me. The episode I watched featured a boxing match between Jesus and Satan. Good stuff.

I hope all of you are having fanfreakingtastic days and don't need any of the above-listed tools to keep you from drinking liquor. I mean more liquor. I mean...enjoy!

Posted by Stephanie at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I like movies, but I've noticed that I don't go to the movie theater all that often for a variety of reasons. I have a Netflix account, I'm fussy about seating, I hate the ads they show before movies (what, the $8.00 soda isn't generating enough revenue for you?) and I find most movies to be really ill-timed to accommodate dinner and a film but this is mostly because if I go longer than 3 hours without food I become very cranky (and candy isn't really food, not in the context of this argument anyway).

When I lived in New York I went to the movies a lot more often. In part because they got all the movies (even the incredibly obscure ones) and in part because it was an experience. Some of my fondest movie memories are not of watching good movies but of watching bad or really bad movies during which the audience 'interacted' with the film. For example, I saw Scream 2 in a theater (I know, I know) and when the creepy skull-mask man called the freaked out girl a woman in the audience yelled, "Star 69 his ass!" which made most of us laugh and then say, "Yes, why doesn't she *69 him?" Lake Placid and Deep Blue Sea were both made better by the lively audiences I saw them with, though I confess I actually enjoyed both films. They were over-the-top campy and Deep Blue Sea had LL Cool J (recipe for success!) but the one film no audience could make bearable was Battlefield Earth. Oy freaking vey. I remember the only person enjoying that film was the guy seated at the end of the row drinking from a brown paper bag. He thought it was hilarious. He laughed and laughed. I groaned and left.

What was my point? Oh, yes. I miss audience participation at movies. People in Boston tend to be quieter. They applaud less (the very handsome boyfriend doesn't understand applauding at movies as it's not live--but then neither are televised sports events and you don't see people grasping that the referee can't hear them and their considered opinion on where he can stick his whistle). They yell rarely. Although, I do remember at the Brattle Theater's showing of The Goonies recently, there was a lot of hooting and clapping. It's as if we can behave that way about movies we remember from our youth because we have permission to be nine years old again.

Posted by Stephanie at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just took a peek at my favorite source of weather information: wunderground, to see what tomorrow has in store for me. I like to set out the clothes I intend to wear to work tomorrow on my chair the night before. This happens about 30 percent of the time. I said I like to do it; I didn't say my attempts ever make it past the thinking stage. Anyhoo, I see that tomorrow is forecast to be cooler than today (wunderground is always anxious to tell you whether tomorrow will be hotter, cooler or nearly the same as yesterday--would that all parts of my days could be this predictable). It's going to keep getting cooler until Saturday when the predicted high temperature is 37 degrees. A number, that, when I first saw it, made me exclaim, "Now that's what I'm talking about!" It's sad what will excite me in the dead of January in New England. As for tomorrow's outfit I'm thinking pants and a sweater, just as I've been thinking every day since November began (except for that freaky warm stretch around Thanksgiving when I might have worn a long sleeved shirt instead of a sweater).

Hey, Global Warming, want to help a sister out? Yes, yes, I know you'll want something in return, like the sustainability of my planet. You're so greedy that way.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The very handsome boyfriend and I recently traveled...to Connecticut. We visited the Mystic Aquarium where we saw lots of things including the inside of a beluga whale's mouth. I have to say, I found the arrangement of its teeth surprising: two vertical, parallel rows. We also visited the Submarine Museum. Oh boy. Was the very handsome boyfriend excited about going inside a submarine! Though he later admitted, "I forget I get claustrophobic until I'm inside a small, cramped space." The thing I love about submarines is how they maximize space, which, I believe, is the very thing I would hate about a submarine were I ever forced to live in one. I mean, six bunks in a space smaller than most closets? No thanks.

But perhaps the most amazing thing to happen during our trip was at the least expected place: Saks Fifth Avenue Outlet. While I was browsing the dress rack I found it: the red silk Marc Jacobs dress I had been coveting for over a year. Periodically I would look online to see if it had been discounted by 90 percent. Sadly, that never happened. But here was the dress. Before me! In my size! Deeply discounted (though not by 90 percent). I grabbed it and ran to the boyfriend, exclaiming, "Jesus is real!"

Here's a picture of said Jesus-is-real-proof dress.

The very handsome boyfriend, once he got over the fact that I'd been stalking a dress online for over a year, agreed that this was exciting. He shooed me toward the fitting room where I discovered that the dress of my dreams didn't flatter me. It made my breasts look like pudding, and while I like pudding I don't want to resemble it. Then I had a time getting the fitted dress back over said breasts. Not fun. So then I decided that if Jesus is real he's got a mean streak or a funny sense of humor. Either way, I no longer need to stalk that dress. Thanks Connecticut!

Posted by Stephanie at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently I had occasion to borrow and read a little book called The Battle of Dunbar, published in 1900. The book's prose wasn't particularly engaging, but its construction was of interest. You could feel the typed letters with your fingers and the pages smelled a little moldy but the best part came when I reached the middle of the book and discovered unopened pages. This means that the edges of some pages were sealed together and hadn't been cut. I had to open them using a sharp implement (though I've just discovered you're supposed to use a playing card and run it along the inside of the pages. Oops.) If you'll recall, in The Great Gatsby, Nick discovers Gatsby hasn't read any of the books he owns, because none of the pages have been cut. So what my discovery indicated was that in over one hundred years no one had read this entire book (and it was by no means long--40 pages perhaps). It felt awesome to be the first person to separate those pages and see those words. And this is why I'm a writer: because I adore book moments like these.

Posted by Stephanie at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was watching a few YouTube videos recently featuring folks I like (including YA author Maureen Johnson) who spoke about five things that are unique or less well about themselves. And I'm too damn lazy to think of a good topic for today's blog, so I'm going to steal the topic.

1. For someone who injures herself routinely, I have a real lack of broken bones. In fact, I think the only thing I've "broken" was my little toe, two years ago. I stubbed it on a coffee table. When the doctor looked at my foot, he said, "Coffee table?" before I'd said anything. He explained, "About ninety percent of these injuries wouldn't exist if we didn't own coffee tables." So, in the interests of saving you, my readers, I share this. Avoid coffee tables! They just want to break your feet.

2. I used to have a sizable gap between my front teeth. A little less than say Lauren Hutton, but sizable. My dentist told me throughout childhood that when I was a teenager my wisdom teeth would show up and push my front teeth together. So I waited and waited and waited. Nothing. My wisdom teeth didn't show up in my teens or my early twenties. Finally, at age twenty-five they were erupting and I looked in the mirror and realized my gap was almost gone! It was sort of freaky, to have something there no longer be there. Now I have no gap at all. And I can get food stuck in my front teeth, which still fells really novel and annoying.

3. I didn't have many young girls in my neighborhood so I grew up playing with boys, boys who had no qualms about tackling girls during football games. As a result, I learned to throw a mean spiral curve and I thought girls who thought boys "played rough" were sissies.

4. For many years I wanted to be an astronomer. I watched stars at night and learned the constellations names. I knew a girl who went to Space Camp the summer after sixth grade. I was so jealous. Space Camp! I got worried about my astronomy prospects when I began failing Calculus, so I stopped saying I was going to be an astronomer or thinking I would be one. I still try to catch the Perseid meteor showers each summer, but it's tough living in a light polluted city.

5. When I was young I didn't believe adults when they'd say things like "It's safer to be inside a car during a lightning storm" or "You create more heat waving a fan in front of yourself than you would if you'd just sit still" (an old teachers' standby). Because I felt safer inside my house, and I felt cooler with a little breeze on my face. So you know what? While technically I concede their points, I'm still standing by my arguments. Aren't safety and coolness perceived anyway (or can be)? Yup. Still arguing.

Posted by Stephanie at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dear Shape Magazine,

In this month's issue of Shape you solicited reader feedback. Well, here it is!
One of your tips on how to look your best was: Botox before wrinkles! You say that if we, your readers, start injecting Botulinium Toxin into our face before wrinkles begin we can stop them. See, injecting Botox makes your face freeze, for all intents and purposes. You can't smile or frown. Therefore, you're preventing wrinkles with facial paralysis. Only, see, here's the thing. I LIKE smiling. I even like frowning. I appreciate that people around me can interpret my facial expression as an indicator to my mood. I don't like the idea of not being able to move my muscles.

Also, I have some startling information for you. Whether your face is smooth as Silly Putty or wrinkled like a Shar-Pei, you are still going to age and die. Really. You can have a face that looks twenty years younger than your age but that will not save you. Nothing will. Just thought you should know.

Also? I am frowning at you right NOW. Can you see it? Good.

Stephanie

Posted by Stephanie at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I hate plastic shopping bags every major supermarket and drugstore hands you. Hate them. Not just because they are environmental destroyers but because they suck. If they're weighted down with anything heavier than one pound they bite into your skin as you carry them so you have a red, angry groove on your hand when you get home. I try to bring a tote bag with me when I go shopping, but when I'm coming straight from work I don't have it on me and it doesn't pan out. Until now!!!

Introducing, Envirosax!!!

My bag looks a bit like this, but is not this one. I couldn't find a picture of mine. This tote is awesome because if you're not using it you can fold it up into a wee bundle the size of, um...a pack of smokes? Yeah, about that size. And unfolded it holds some serious goods. I carried groceries,a magazine, and a book home in it last night. Plus the bag itself is so lightweight that it doesn't add to the weight of your good. Unlike my beautiful red leather bag.

I love it, but man alive will this bag misalign your shoulders after heavy usage. (It would probably help if I carried less junk, but that's another issue for another day.)

Anyway, the point is when you're not using the Envirosax you can carry with you: in a pocket, in another bag, in the crotch of your pants if you like to stuff and I'm not saying you do.Then when you need said bag you unfurl it like a banner to your environmental righteousness and use! Chicks love that. I swear. Just don't let them see you reaching into your pants to retrieve it.

Posted by Stephanie at 09:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have the best idea for a new sports team. It all started when I first ran across the name Mehitable. Not a name you see often these days, but it enjoyed use, if not popularity, several centuries ago. I am crazy for it. Ma-hit-able. Awesome. So. The idea is this: start a WNBA franchise called the Formidable Mehitables. Our logo will be the woodcut profile of a seventeenth century woman. I can envision our championship banners now.

Any investors?

Posted by Stephanie at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When my former roommate Sara tried to sell me and Tracey on HBO's program, "The Wire" we both thought she sounded very passionate about how great it was. And how did we react? We shrugged and went, "eh." Then I read an article on David Simon, the show's creator, in The New Yorker and I was sold. (Article here). So I began watching. At approximately the same time, lacking benefit of that New Yorker article, Tracey also began watching the series (we have an odd form of ESP that largely manifests itself with each of us buying the same household products at exactly the same time). Anyhoo, we both love it and owe Sara a big, "You told us so."

Tracey has sped ahead of me. She's watching season four and I just finished season two. So she has to be careful not to spoil things for me. Besides, most of our conversation dwells on 1.The hotness of Detective Jimmy McNulty and 2. The hotness of Detective--wait, did I mention that? Actually, once we get past that we talk about why we like characters who are psychopathic killers, unrepentent drug dealers, and alcoholic self-destructive cops (not just because they're hot). Making characters sympathetic despite horrible traits/actions is no mean feat, but The Wire makes it look effortless.

The show has amazing writing and of course that's what gets me. Every time. But it also has great actors and a twisty turvy story line that you can't help wanting to follow around the next corner and the next until you realize you've watched five episodes in a row. Oops.

This year's season of the Wire is to be the last. I'm in early mourning. Smart television is so rare.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last night I dreamt that I was reading an email from my agent and editor. The gist was this, "Your new book is terrible." I still remember certain phrases of the nightmare email including, "you made a horrible decision to continue on this path" and "fair to middling at best." Um. Ouch. I think my anxiety is showing.

While my writing process has sometimes interfered with my sleeping (sometimes my characters don't understand my need for sleep and they'd much rather I think about them ALL the time and sometimes my idiot brain obliges and that prompts my very tired body to threaten my brain with divorce, or whatever the alternative is--decapitation?) I've never before had nightmares about the publishing/critical reception. Worries? Aplenty! Concerns? Barrels of them! But nightmares? No. Not until last night.

I hope this was an isolated incident.

Posted by Stephanie at 07:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)