Always Anna

For the past six months or so, some of my friends have been harassing me about my internet habits.  Not about being online too much (only my boyfriend thinks that!), but about not being in the right places.  Specifically… I’m not on MySpace.

Apparently refusing to join MySpace is sacriligious among fellow internet lovers.  But I just don’t have the time or energy to do ANOTHER online activity that requires a level of commitment.  I mean, I have this blog.  I’m already on Friendster, which is how I keep in touch with my high school friends.  I email obsessively.  Do I really need to be on MySpace?  Apparently so.

I just don’t know – is MySpace really worth the effort?   

But you know what sucks more than being sick?

Being sick on a weekend.  A weekend when you had big plans to go snowboarding for the first time all season.  On the only weekend that has had good conditions so far this winter.  Instead of carving up a mountain in Maine (or, more accurately, falling over repeatedly as I tried to remember how to turn), I spent the weekend chugging VitaminWater and EmergenC as if my life depended on it and watching a ridiculous amount of movies.

Stupid, congested, achy head.

For some reason, I’ve really gotten into this year’s Winter Olympics.  It’s bizarre – I’ve never been that interested in any Olympics before.  Sure, I’ve watched a few random events – other skating events in Winter, a few swimming or gymnastics events in the Summer.  But they’ve just always seemed so… well… dull.  Definitely not the kind of thing that I would actually work my schedule around.

But this year… WOW.  This year has been completely different.

I was obsessed with the women’s halfpipe (American women rocked that party!) and snowboardcross events (even though I’m still cranky at Lindsay for losing that gold by showboating).  And I’ve been raving about snowboardcross in general – what an awesome event to add!  Totally a fan.  After making fun of ice dancing, I became obsessed with Belbin and Agosto – so much fire and attitude from that pair!  And women’s figure skating… amazing.  I may not like the diva attitudes I see when I read their interviews, but I love love love their artistry and attitude on the ice.  And Emily Hughes is just the sweetest thing since cotton candy – I hope to see more of her.

Of course, now that they’re wrapping up the events, I look forward to the return of my regularly scheduled programming.  But I think I’ll be watching the Olympics again.

Every once in a while, someone comes along that inspires you to be a better person.  Someone that makes you want to fight harder for the things you believe in.  Someone that not only talks the talk, but can walk the walk. 

I have been lucky enough to befriend quite a few of these people, and I really do believe that they have made me into a stronger, more well-rounded person.  Okay, okay, I’m getting cheesy.  But bear with me.

I’m sure that, like me, many of you were horrified by the devastation that Hurricane Katrina wrought.  I’m sure many of you, like me, have devoured news stories about the aftermath, donated money, and complained about the ridiculous response (or lack thereof).  And I’m sure that, like me, that’s as much as you were willing or able to do. 

But then there are people like my friends Dan and Cori.  People who are sacrificing their time and their salaries to do more.  A little over two weeks ago, my friend Dan took a month-long leave of absence from work (unfortunately unpaid, but I still love BU for allowing their employees to do things like this without sacrificing their job) to go down to Mississippi and help with the rebuilding effort.  Last Friday, Cori went down to join him (again, thanks to her organization for allowing her to take a combination of vacation and “volunteer” time without sacrificing her job).  And, glory be, Cori is going to track her experiences on her new blog!  I’d like to take credit for the blogging part, even though I had nothing to do with her decision, because I’m the only geeky blogger she’s friends with (that I know of).

Anyways, they have made me think about the importance of contributing time and energy into the things you believe in.  So look out Boston – I’m looking for somewhere to volunteer!

Since I’m still obsessed, I decided to migrate to my own site & server.  Woohoo!

I’ve been importing and formatting and obsessing all weekend – hope you enjoy the new site!!!

A special thanks to Dashiell and JWardell for helping me out with this project!

Talk to you later, alligators!

This morning, I hauled my cookies out of bed a whole hour early, showered, dressed, and hopped on the T. What could possibly make me get up that early? Well, it’s a good thing you’ve asked, my friends. Today was the one day of the year that women could get a designer wedding gown, normally priced between $800 and $4,000, for only $250. That’s right. Today was the infamous Filene’s Basement Bridal Event (the FBBE).

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have NO interest in getting married (or a wedding dress) at this point in my life. But after hearing so many stories about the chaos that is the FBBE, I had to see it first hand – supposedly fights break out as women stampede in to get the best dresses! Women trampled in Downtown Crossing! Since the Basement is right on my way to work, I just hopped off my regular train a couple stops early, stopped by Starbucks to grab a delicious chai latte, and strolled over.

The doors were scheduled to open at 8, and I got there around 7:40 – I wanted to check out the line, see what was going on, and watch the mad dash in when the doors opened. I had perfect timing.

When I got there, the line was literally wrapped around the building, stretching from the main entrance, down the entire length of the building, around the corner, and all the way down the second side. There had to be at least 1500 people there – mostly women, but I saw a few (most likely gay) men. And they were hilarious. Groups of girls had matching shirts, hats, crazy headbands – a few groups of women even had matching bouquets on their heads. I assume this display was to help them find each other in the crowd – from what I understand, as soon as the doors open, the women stampede in, grab as many dresses as they can, and then start stripping in the corners to try on their stash.

I talked to one of the brides-to-be, “Pink Hat,” who shared her tips with me. Pink Hat had six similarly pink-hatted friends with her – “One is to help me dress, two are to stand guard over the pile of dresses, two are to keep scouting for other dresses we can trade for, and one is to rebag the dresses when I’m done.” She went on to tell me that after the stampede in, everyone grabs as many dresses as they can; the size and style don’t matter because the rejects will be traded with other dress hoarders until the brides find the dress they want. After taking pictures of the pink hatted crew for them, I asked them how long they’d been there. “Oh, we got here at 6 am.” I looked at the number of people in front of them – at least 150. “Are you serious?” I asked. “When did the line start?” Pink Hat replied, “Must have started at 5 am. This event is NOT for the weak. Serious shoppers ONLY.”

I wandered away, wondering what on earth compelled people to stand in line, in the cold, for three hours to get a dress. But then I remembered the savings – I guess saving $3500 would be worth a little discomfort. I checked the clock – 7:50. Just then, a Filene’s employee came out with a megaphone, to announce that the doors would open in 5 minutes. “The doors will open in 5 minutes, and we will start escorting you into the store! This is NOT the start of the sale. We will NOT be taking you to the dresses yet! If you push, shove, or otherwise get violent, we will immediately EJECT you from the store!”

Schweet. This was totally what I wanted to see. I hurried to the front of the line so I could get a good view of the mad dash.

Sadly, no one got trampled. I did hear a woman yell, “If you GET in my way, I’ll SO kick your *ss!” And I got to see about 50 women at the front yell at one woman who was trying to cut the line. But the “mad dash” in was actually fairly organized. Boo.

Still I’m very pleased I got to witness the craziness – it totally got my day off to a good start.

Of course, then Poop announced his impending retirement, which totally killed my buzz.

So, I’m now the official movie reviwer for The Better Drink. While I think this will be a lot of fun, I can’t help but be a little worried.

Why?

Because I’m the perfect audience for just about EVERY movie out there. For the most part, I see a preview and immediately want to see the movie. With very few exceptions, my worst insult to a movie is to say, “It was okay.” What can I say? I’m a Californian – we LOVE the movies.

But I’m trying to be objective people. So go read my review of The New World (which I wrote a while ago, but forgot to pimp out over here).

Yes, my friends and I are SUPER mature. But we were dedicated to meeting our goal of using every single letter in the Scrabble bag to create the dirtiest of all dirty scrabble boards. We had to invent a new term to do that (lazyjon = a guy who hires a hooker and then makes her do all the work). But we prevailed.

All hail the champions.

Okay, okay, I get it. The guy lied. He totally, completely, unapologetically lied to everyone. And after finally reading the book, I’ve formed an opinion.

For the most part, I don’t care. Blah blah blah honesty blah blah blah misleading readers blah blah blah pants are on fire. I just don’t care. Because, even knowing it was, at best, half-truth, I still found the book ridiculously entertaining. And disturbing. He made some really good points about addiction in general, and I loved the insight about AA being another form of addiction (although it clearly works for a lot of people, which I respect). I liked his writing style, and the way he organized his story. I liked the lack of punctuation and capitalization. And I liked the content of the story.

There was only one thing that bothered me.

Frey brought up, time and time again, how important the truth is. How truth is the only thing that matters. I noticed it for the first time on page 95 of the “memoir”; the importance of the truth is stressed again on pages 107 & 108, 178, 180, and 201. And I’m sure I missed some. The quote that struck me the most was on page 178, where Frey wrote, “That this man is standing in front of me and everyone else in theis room lying to us is heresy. The truth is all that matters. This is is f*cking heresy.” And that is Frey’s problem. The truth is no longer what he wanted it to be – he is no longer just an addict that overcame his vice and wrote a kick*ss book. Now the truth is that he stretched the truth to tell a better story, all the while claiming that it was the truth. So, by his own logic, Frey’s entire book is heresy. We shouldn’t stand for it, right?

And that just comes back to what’s important to the individual reader. To me, Frey is a hypocrite, nothing more, nothing less. For me, it doesn’t matter that he stretched the truth to tell a better story – I like the story as is. I don’t need to like an author to like their work – if that were true there would be no classics left for me to read. Yes, future printings should have author’s and publisher’s notes as disclaimers. Maybe it shouldn’t be sold as a memoir. But the book is still really good. I’m not sorry I read it, and I’d recommend it to others.