Miss Peach

It's been called to my attention that my comments aren't working. Thank God, because let me tell you, I was starting to wonder if I had done something to offend everyone. I was afraid you all had gotten together and decided to boycott posting comments. Or that I had just said things that were so boring, no one could even muster up a, "hey, um, what a post!" It was lonely over here!

I'm planning to ad Haloscan back in to remedy, and hopefully soon. So, uh, if you've got anything you HAVE to tell me, email me. Because I'm sure you're just burning up with a need to contact me. Especially since I declared Meredith Baxter Birney to be royalty and all.

An admission: I love Lifetime television. My roomate and I knew living together would work out when we sheepishly admitted this to the other. (One of the joys of sharing an apartment with her is the lack of judgment when I suggest seeing what's on Lifetime.) We actually gave blogging a try as a team a few years ago and called the blog “Apartment 3A: Where everyday is just another Lifetime movie”. The idea was to recap Lifetime movies and also just generally blog, and let me tell you—recapping is an art best left to the professionals. Also, she wasn't so much into the blogging thing, and we just never got it going. But it was a fun concept. We titled every post after a Lifetime movie, and wondering, “Do I want to call this post ‘Armed and Innocent’ or ‘Victim of the Night’?” is much more fun than you think it’s going to be.

I have no idea why I like Lifetime movies. I know they’re awful, have bad film quality, make little sense, and are mind-numbingly stupid most of the time. But there’s nothing better than, say, a Tiffani Amber Thiessen marathon on Sunday after a late night out on Saturday. Truly. I defy you to show me something I like better.

Also, I love the ridiculousness of them. I mean, come on—as if Gerald McRaney could ever in real life bag a young, pre-Melrose Place Josie Bissett! And the titles kill me. I still laugh out loud when I remember the night Darren, making fun of me and my love of the station, imitated what a meeting to determing the titles might sound like:

Supervisor: “OK, so what’s this one about?”
Assistant: “Well, there’s a girl, and she’s fifteen, and she gets pregnant.”
S: “OK, call it ‘Fifteen and Pregnant’*. Next?”
A: “Jean Smart’s younger lookalike plays a single mom, who gets involved with a man** and her daughter catches them having sex, and…”
S: “Let’s go with ‘Sex and the Single Mom.’ Next?”

Now that I'm admitting to my ultimate guilty pleasure (and I hope you don't lose too my respect for me here), I thought I'd share the wealth of knowledge I've accrued through years of regularly tuning into Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network. Since I'll be on hiatus until next week when I'm back from stuffing myself with turkey, I thought, well, what about an early Friday Five?

Top Five Lessons I’ve Learned from Lifetime Television (which can totally happen because these are based on TRUE STORIES, people. True. Stories.)

1: If your boyfriend wants to marry you, but he’s already married, that's a bad sign. If he then decides you should secretly marry while he finds a way to drive his wife to divorce him, and then uses a fake name to put on the marriage license because, you know, polygamy is illegal? Probably not a keeper.

2: Don’t let your neighbor fix up your house before you move in. He will install hidden cameras in the bathroom and bedroom and then watch you get out of the shower naked and do things with your husband that should really be kept between man and wife. Incidentally, there STILL isn’t a law against this, do you even believe it??? After all her crusading too.

3: If you have a very mysterious ailment, that leaves you ill, weak, and with some freaky rash that kind of resembles what I imagine one’s skin would look like just before the thing in The Grudge and The Grudge Two promos pops out, and the entire medical community in your city is unable to diagnose it, something peculiar is up. If you then divorce your husband and he remarries and then his new wife gets it? It’s probably a tip off that he’s sociopath and is poisoning you both. With Selenium. And he’s been buying old radios and scraping the old selenium off the batteries or whatever. So, I’m extrapolating here, but I’d just steer clear of any guys with a penchant for old radios. Just in case. Can’t ever be too careful. (In this particular movie, the first wife was played by Marg Helgenberger, and all I could think of was how her characters get totally screwed by outside parties in movies! Erin Brokovich, anyone? Also, her ex was played by John Ritter which, well, bad casting. He is Jack, and he can never be evil. Only a little too goofy for his own good.)

4: It’s totally possible for an older, widowed, bookshop-owning woman*** to fall in love with a semi-retarded gardener who ends every sentence with “that’s for sure,” and for them to get married. In order for them to fall in love, she needs to teach him to read of course, and everyone will just overlook the fact that she is OLD ENOUGH TO BE HIS MOTHER and also? That her developmentally delayed lover's dad totally had the hots for her for a while and hit on her at least once, which, ew.

5: If a child in the neighborhood goes missing and winds up dead, it’s always the cute, boyish, overly helpful soccer coach next door, and not the ex-con down the block. How many times do you people need to see this played out on the Lifetime Movie Network before you figure it out? It is always who you least suspect. Always.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

*Incidentally, the 15-year old was played by a young Kirsten Dunst.
**Played by Jake from Melrose Place! Lifetime is where all the formerly hot, now C-list stars of defunct Aaron Spelling series go to die.
***Played by Meredith Baxter-Birney, who is and always will be like royalty to me.

NOTE: This post will conclude all football talk on this blog for this calendar year, and unless a rematch takes place on 1/1/2007, until next year this time.

What happens when I trash-talk?

I get my comeuppance.

Michigan lost by a mere three points, and it was slightly crushing to watch it unfold. Again, I’m not a huge football fan, but I learned enough about the game in high school and college to be able to slip back into talking about it like I actually know what is happening on the field. (Dig a little about things like, oh, what team is ranked #3 in the country, and you’ll find I’m useless). So with my limited knowledge of the game, my feeling is that the officials called a 1st down for TOSU that was not legit—with the naked eye it was pretty clear to me that they didn’t make the yardage. And then they took away a Michigan touchdown for holding, which was wholly legitimate. But I think we got a little, teensy-weensy bit robbed on that 1st down, which led to TOSU scoring, and set us further back.

Regardless, we needed to win, and we didn’t. TOSU outplayed us. Here’s to a rematch on New Year’s Day, when we will (hopefully) crush TOSU once and for all. In a Bowl Game. For the title of BCS Champions. May it shake out to be a rematch!

Since I keep noting that I’m not an actual football fan, it probably seems strange that I get all hyped up about one specific game. Sure, it’s a huge, storied rivalry, but we have huge rivalries with Notre Dame, Michigan State, and Penn State, too, and I don’t really care about those. Why do I care so much about the TOSU game?

Because my pride rides on it.

Years ago, my uncle struck a bet with me, since he (and most of my family) are big TOSU fans. (They can’t help it—they’re from Ohio. And you know what they say about not being able to pick your family.) The terms are this: if Michigan wins, they have to wear a Michigan jersey/hat/etc to Thanksgiving dinner. If Michigan loses, yours truly is bedecked in TOSU paraphenalia.

It’s been a long few years since Michigan last won.

In 2004, I was forced to wear a shirt with Calvin peeing that said in big block letters ANN ARBOR WAS A WHORE and a necklace made of Buckeyes. Luckily, my cousin had just learned to read and started sounding out the shirt (“Annnn Arrrboooor was a wh…”) when I whipped that sucker off, as I had no desire to explain to a six-year-old what a whore was.

Last year, my uncle somehow found a Brutus the Buckeye coon hat. I spent dinner sweating in a furry Buckeye hat that Daniel Boone might have worn, were he a TOSU fan in the age of synthetic materials. That was coupled with a t-shirt that read WOLVERINE TASTES LIKE CHICKEN. For Christmas, I received a lovely frame with a photo of my uncle and me, wearing the hat and shirt.

This year, it’s been suggested that a full-on Brutus the Buckeye ensemble will surface. And by full-on, I mean something akin to what the Brutus mascot wears at the games. If it were any other member of my family threatening this, I’d laugh and consider it a mere joke. But my uncle—well, he’s a little nuts, in a hilarious and extremely loveable way, and I really wouldn’t put it past him. As a friend who has met him a few times said when I told her this year’s proposed ensemble: “The thing is that with Uncle Miss Peach, he could very well have a full Brutus the Buckeye costume ready for you, and tell you to suit up come dinnertime. In fact, I think you’re screwed.”

So this Thursday, I will once again be at the mercy of TOSU fans. The good news is, a cousin on their side of the family bet them that Texas would beat TOSU, and they didn’t, so for once I won’t be the only one at the table. Misery does love company. And wine. Lots of wine.

Late-breaking news, on the eve of the rivalry that rules my year (if it can even be said that a college football rivalry can rule anything in my world, given I’m really not THAT big a sports fan):

Bo Schembechler, Football Great of Michigan, Dies

Rest in peace, Bo. You were a true legend, and garnered deep-seated respect even from a student like me, who made it to most games at some point during the game most seasons during her tenure at the school. (In other words, I’m a bit of a Michigan football fan, but in that I love the school, not the game itself.)

May we, ahem, kick some ass tomorrow—and do it in a sportsmanly, classy way, to pay proper tribute to your legacy.

Which brings me to my Friday Five:

Five Reason Michigan is Better Than The Ohio State University:

1: We are the University of Michigan, a name which befits the inclusion of the ‘the’ at the beginning. There is no earthly reason for OSU to insist upon being called THE Ohio State University. It makes them sound douchey. Which, come to think of it, they are.

2: We’re smarter, when you look at admission standards, school rankings, success of graduates and whatnot. TOSU is a good school, don’t get me wrong. But Michigan is better. (I asked my roommate, who went to Ohio University, whether she applied to TOSU, and she snorted with what I’d describe as a note of disdain. I asked why, and she said, “I went to OU. If you can go to OU, you don’t apply/go to TOSU.”)

3: Not only are we smarter, but we’re just as good at sports. And our stadium is better than theirs. It’s called the big house and is the largest sports facility in the United States. So, um, there. (If I was saying this right now, I’d probably stick out my tongue and make a blowing noise.)

4: We’re pretty civil. I have never heard that a memo like this has had to be sent to TOSU students heading to Ann Arbor for a game. I could be mistaken, but I somehow doubt that.

5: Further to number 4: We don’t feel the need to make up t-shirts that say things like “Ann Arbor was a whore” and “Muck Fichigan” and “Michigan Sucks”. (And check this out.) Do you know what people say about fans who wear those kind of shirts? Inferiority Complex. (The most slanderous t-shirt I saw in a U of M store? “Harvard: The Michigan of the East”. Note that I’m not saying we’re cooler.)

So, in conclusion: Hail to the Victors, the Ohio State University, and Go Blue.

Have you heard? Election day is tomorrow. Control of the Senate and Congress may be up for grabs. Will Harold Ford prevail in Tennessee? Has Angelides truly run a piss-poor campaign that will lose him the gubernatorial election in California, as my mother claims? (Actually, yes, we really don’t need to wait to find out on that score I don’t think.) Will it be Kean or Menedez in New Jersey? Will Allen’s racist slip-up cost him, or will it be Webb’s salacious literary turns that decide the future senator of Virginia? And, please, someone, tell me! What will all of this spell for 2008?

I’m dead positive we won’t have to wait for long for all the annoying pundits (I’m looking at you, Mary Matalin and James Carville) to weigh in on all of this and more.

Anyway, yes, election day, and time for me to vote, even if the New York elections are pretty much a foregone conclusion. It’s my duty as a citizen, and I like to follow politics here and there. Also, it’s really fun to pull the lever thingies on the positively ancient machines here in New York. I like to think of it as just a little extra weight training for my morning, really, given they're practically rusted shut.

When looking up my polling place today, it occurred to me that I didn’t even know who was running against Spitzer for Governor. I decided it was time to study up. (The Republican candidate is someone named John Faso, and I legitimately have no idea who he is. Though the Green Party candidate is Malachy McCourt which, come to think of it, I did hear about, and hey! He’s an author and he's Irish! Rock on! And, erm yes, I know I said I follow politics, but I meant on a more national level. Or something.)

Anyway, as I scrolled through everyone running, I decided I needed to brush up on what the party abbreviations meant since I had no earthly idea what NCR or RVC or FDM stood for. There was a handy index of 2006 Party Abbreviations, so I took a look. And, wow. I never knew there were so many choices. They don’t call this the land of the free for nothing, let me tell you. I read on.

So, you’ve got your Republicans, Democrats, Independents, blah blah blah. Then it got interesting. Working Families? Huh. Didn’t know about them. I suppose it’s a worthy cause, to be for working families, but I don’t know—maybe it’s a euphamism for something else. Which could also easily go for the North Country Reform party or the Rising Voices Coalitions. What does that even mean, Rising Voices Coalition? Then there’s the Right to Life, Socialist Workers, and both the School Tax Relief and Taxpayer Relief parties. I get the first two and, eh, not really my thing; I’d need to research what exactly the “relief” would be comprised of in the third and fourth.

On to the totally ambiguous titles: Unity, Freedom, Growth, and Integrity parties. Well, doggone! I’m for all of those things. But I suspect that there’s more to these than meets the eye. So, I don’t know. I’m wasn’t ready to change my alliances just yet.

But then—then it got specific. And I have to tell you—I started to think about things in a new way. The name, well, the name was so clear; the mission, stated! There was no confusion whatsoever, and that clarity—well, it spoke to me, in a way no other party’s name ever has or could. It seized me, people, and I thought, yes! You are right! I agree! Frankly, I couldn’t agree more! Why, I complain about this at LEAST once a week! So, yes, count me in!

Bottom line: I’ve been successfully recruited. To the RENT IS TOO HIGH party.

God, I love this city sometimes.