Sunday was the 84th Academy Awards. I watched, as I always do. Every year I get further away from that starstruck girl who got fancied up on Oscar day, watched every moment of red carpet coverage, then pored over magazines collecting pictures for months after. I haven’t seen a movie in a theatre in a very long time. I watched the first 40 minutes of “The Help” with Odie one night, but we both got sleepy and decided to finish it another time. Then he got “Skyrim” for his birthday and “another time” never came. I read the book, so I felt no pressing need to find out what happened to adorable Emma Stone and her bad wig. She was precious at the Oscars. Not “Precious” based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire precious. Cute. Bubbly. Genuine. Her mouth does something weird I can’t quite put my finger on, though.
I wish I’d seen “The Artist,” but no one I know had the screener. Screeners are those DVDs that are mailed out to Academy members that we absolutely never borrow from people because it states very clearly on the packaging that you are not allowed to do that. So, if we allegedly were to ask a relative if he had a copy of “The Artist,” he most certainly did not lend it to someone who never gave it back.
Other than not seeing movies anymore, another sign that I am a middle-aged housewife is that I’m so over the old man, young woman thing. Stacy Keibler makes George Clooney look older, not studlier. I used to think he was debonaire. Now he just looks like thin Jack Nicholson (whom I have no doubt was at home, watching the Oscars with a paid escort on each arthritic knee). Keibler needs to stick to what she knows best: elves and cookies.
A recent episode of “30 Rock” had Alec Baldwin romantically interested in Mary Steenburgen, who is an age appropriate partner for him (she’s actually a few years older than he, but looks great). On the show, she was playing the mother of his love interest played by Elizabeth Banks. Banks is ten years older than the gal Baldwin is seeing in real life.
Angelina Jolie is quite a few years younger than Brad, but she’s so thin and haggard looking that the age difference does not show [leg thrust].
I have to talk about the leg. Jolie is an actress, and not only was the leg thrust weird and self-conscious, she flubbed her lines while reading the teleprompter. Isn’t that what she’s famous for? Reading lines into a camera? And spreading her legs? She managed to make both look completely unnatural.
The worst part is that she stole the moment away from who it belonged to. She was reading the Academy Award winner for Best Screenplay. Writers get little enough acknowledgement (unless they are young and good-looking: Diablo Cody, Kristin Wiig – or are actually actors: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck). Writers don’t deserve to have their moment stolen by Angelina Jolie’s praying mantis leg. I couldn’t have been more thrilled to see Jim Rash steal it back! Too bad that Hollywood politics had him claiming it was “an homage” to Jolie.
It was mockery. Pure, hilarious, mockery. Everyone from Rash himself to Ann Curry on “Today” was spewing that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” crap. Imitation is when I copy you because I admire you. For example, you wear a cute scarf, so I buy a similar one. Or I cut my hair like yours. That’s flattery.
This was not flattery. And it was fantastic.
Social media has changed the experience. All of the bitchy jokes I used to crack to my sister and friends while watching I can now Facebook and Tweet. If I tag the person I’m commenting about, it’s possible that s/he will see it. Thanks to this interconnectedness, we audience members are more a part of the Oscar magic than ever. Watching one of the montage interview segments on the show, instead of leaning over to Odie and saying “Look at how Xenu emulates a human being! So convincing!” I can tweet it right to Tom Cruise.
As the girls get older, I hope to share my love of movies with them. I remember seeing “The Empire Strikes Back” with my parents and catching their excitement for the sequel they’d up to then waited years to see. I learned to see movies as an event to enjoy and anticipate. The Oscars are our Superbowl. Viva now has a small library of films: “Finding Nemo”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “Ice Age”, “Despicable Me”, and “Winnie the Pooh.” I’m not sure if “Nemo” is my favorite because it’s the first one we really watched together or because it’s so well made. Probably both. We’re already making our own movie traditions together and I look forward to the day when we can sit side by side on the couch and watch the Oscars.
And tweet each other.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
Tuesday Potpourri
I’m just going to publish this. I’ve been too much in my own head lately. Hesitant. Self-doubting. Self-censoring. Worrying what this person and that person will think. Thinking too much about my audience and not enough about my voice.
Odie says I have to stop thinking about how to fill a niche and just write. And he’s right.
My blog. My thoughts.
And sometimes, it can’t all be perfect intro, body, and conclusion with a witty callback. If I hold myself to that standard every time, I’ll do what I’ve been doing the past few months. Procrastinating.
I’ve been Tweeting a lot, because it’s easy. If you are on Twitter, consider following me @MrsOdie2. I follow all my followers. Some of you are damn funny. I dislike people who only use Twitter for promotion. It’s boring. I like to go onto Twitter and chuckle at aphorisms, not find out where and when I can see, hear, read something funny or interesting you might someday say.
Jon Armstrong’s blog last week sent me to a land of ick. In his post “Firsts” http://blurbomat.com/2012/02/29/firsts/, he writes about his daughters’ first overnight at his new apartment. I remember my father’s first bachelor pad after the divorce. At first, he stayed with a friend. Someone who ironically my mother had an affair with and she later ended up marrying and divorcing. I don’t know if this was known to my father or not. The only thing he ever said about it is “There were no good guys in that story.” Fair enough. He ended up, or I should say started out, in a fully furnished, no-bedroom place in a shitty part of town. It had a rough textured, ugly plaid couch and a Murphy bed. I remember there being a mirror near the entry way, because his girlfriend would always come into the room, turn to the mirror and make sexy faces at herself, while making sure her paper-thin hair was covering her bulimia bald spot.
I was about 13. I didn’t want my parents apart. I didn’t know or care why they chose to be apart. I wanted my family. I needed my big sister to stop being angry and my little sister to stop being sad. And I needed to stop having to pretend that I was doing great and I was “fine with it.” It was exhausting. Pretending I didn’t give a shit for so long so that my parents wouldn’t feel like the divorce was destroying me eventually turned into a struggle to feel and empathize. I still have this struggle.
Dooce and Jon have to do what is right for them. I just wish that there was a way for them to get back together. I want for them what my parents were unable to give to me.
That being said, I’m glad my dad married his second wife. She is Family Jesus.
She came over this morning and helped get Viva ready for day care then drove her there. This way I can write during Pringles’ happy/easygoing part of the day. Or try to. She’s in the high chair right now. I’m trying “self-feeding” with her, but finding that she likes to have goo spooned into her yapper.
She’s fussing so much now, I have to continue this later. But I’m hitting “publish.” If I don’t, then I never will and I will get out of my flow. I have to keep publishing, even when I’m not crazy about the result. Thanks for your support.
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