OMG! The Return of the Wakefields!

I am endlessly fascinated by the reissuing of the Sweet Valley High books. They're back, and they're back with style. According to reputable sources, the twins now wear big name brands, text message their gossip, and are a size four instead of the old "perfect size six."

I would love to get my hands on a new and old copy and do a side by side comparison- it would be another excellent way to avoid writing my paper.

But without the old book or the press to guide me, I'm not sure that I'd actually note the changes. I read Sweet Valley High, but I wasn't devoted to it like The Babysitter's Club. It was just easily available.

Growing up my friend/neighbor's father bought her every and any book she wanted to read, a priviledge that made me twitch with envy. Any and every book. I begged my parents to offer me the same deal but they said, and rightly so, that my then early bibliophilia would put them out of house and home. My friend needed incentives to read. I did not. And the books she chose were The Babysitter's Club, followed by Sweet Valley High.

As they were there, I shrugged and read some of them. The only ones that stick with me today are the specials, such as the Wolfman trilogy, which I loved so much that I went out and bought my own copies (the very realistic installment where the Wakefield twins get summer internships in London and end up dating minor royalty and a werewolf- brilliant. If they'd all been like that, I would've been hooked). I related more to Elizabeth- the good and studious twin. I wonder if everyone did; to me, Jessica generally seemed very unlikeable.

The Sweet Valley books were not particularly well written, steeped in cliche, and, if I remember correctly, not very exciting (except the aforementioned specials). I can't think they'll be well-received in today's book market, with the Children's Literature Renaissance we are experiencing at the hands of such geniuses as JK Rowling, Rachel Cohn, David Leviathan, and Scott Westerfeld. Even Gossip Girl, arguably today's Sweet Valley High, is far racier and has a television show to accompany it. Why would anyone pick up a Sweet Valley High book when there are so many better alternatives for today's preteen?

Aural Tragedy

So, it's finally happened. The unused piercing on my left ear's cartiledge has closed up. It was a loving tribute to my late high school/early college years, and now it's gone.

Luckily, I still have my left ear second hole piercing from middle school and my right ear tragus piercing from post-college to chronicle my life.

Timeline of my Ear Piercings:
Recognition of Symbols of Beauty thru the Age of 13- After much begging and an arbitrary deadline, I am allowed to get my ears pierced once I turn 13.
Age 14, at the Beach- I beg for my second hole on my left ear, promising my father: "I will never get anything pierced again!" I also use the argument that we are at the beach and the salt water will heal my ear faster. I do not remember why I only wanted one hole. Either I thought it was 'cool beans' or I just wanted something to do with my earrings when I lost one. Maybe both.
Freshman Year of College: I get my cartiledge pierced. I am scolded for breaking my promise to my father but say, rightly so, that you can't expect fourteen year olds to make such promises, since they don't have a wide view of the world. Apparently in high school, I gained such perspective. Something happens to this hole, because...
Sophmore Year of College: I get my cartiledge repierced, along with a hole on the lowest point of my cartiledge on my right ear. I almost immediately regret this right ear cartiledge piercing, as I feel it should have been placed slightly higher.
Junior Year of College: I go to get my right ear cartiledge re-pierced in the location I want it. I get a tattoo instead. In my defense, I was having a very bad day.
One Year Out of College: I get my right tragus pierced on Sixth Street in Austin. I tell my mother when she picks me up from the airport. She renotices three weeks later and freaks out.

Sadly, I am now out of things I want to pierce, and so the timeline ends. Also, I will never be able to take my tragus piercing out (not that I currently want to), because I am deathly afraid that the earring back will fall into my ear and kill me.

Thoughts that keep me from paper writing...

1- Where were Princess Buttercup's parents? I mean, obviously she's not just the poor peasant girl the movie leads us to believe: she has a hot farm boy working for her. And yet, it appears that she lives in a barn with a woodstove. I'm not exactly sure what's going on here.

2- I used to watch a cartoon called 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes' when I was a kid. If you ask me, I can sing for you what I think is the opening line of the theme music, even though it doesn't really sound like music. What was this show about? I did some research on this highly scholastic site, and apparently it really was about killer tomatoes, and it was based on not one, but two movies from the seventies. How were the plots for multiple episodes squeezed out of that?

In a New York Minute...

I have had a fabulous day.

New Yorker Moment of the Day: Stopping on my way home from work to buy a day's wages worth of shoes.

Non- New Yorker Moment of the Day: Apologizing when I hit a woman with my bag as I was sitting down to lunch at Whole Foods. It was so Non-New York that she actually commented on it.

Other Fabulous Moments Du Jour:
- My first full day of work in NYC
- Getting Season 3 of Arrested Development on DVD
- Watching the Pilot of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (this show looks SO GOOD)
- Cooking and eating a FABULOUS curry.

How many more times can I say fabulous in this post?

In other news...

This weekend I saw The Illusionist. And it was fabulous (1). The whole movie is very pretty- much of it done in Sepia, with gentle, lovely accents. Jessica Biel actually managed to hold her own against actors such as Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti- this was surprising. The movie was different and interesting, though adult magic movies seem to be gaining popularity (I cannot WAIT for The Prestige, starring two BEAUTIFUL and fabulous (2) men- Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman).

Yesterday, I watched the entirety of The Flight of Dragons, one of my favorite movies from my childhood. If you were also a fan of this fabulous (3) movie, which is only available to buy on VHS for almost one hundred dollars, the whole thing is on YouTube now. So go for it. It is the best thing I have ever seen on YouTube (except for my sister's Harry Potter video, watch here). Like many kids' movies that I've rewatched recently (ex: The Last Unicorn), there is so much more to it than I knew at the time!

Also realized while watching The Last Unicorn with my roommates this weekend: Schmendrick (a word which means 'fool' in yiddish) the Magician was kind of the animated love of my life as a child. And he has a HUGE nose. Hence the fascination with large-nosed men in my 'adult' life.

FABULOUS (4).