It was my name first.

As if having a name as common as Katie Parry wasn't bad enough, someone had to come along and sing a song about kissing a girl and liking it. Katy Perry: no dankes.

Now let me just say that I like my name. I often introduce myself with both first and last name - which often gets me the stink eye from strangers. My friends frequently call me by both. Katie Parry just has a nice ring to it. So yes, yes I do like my name. Aside from the fact that my parents decided to change the common spelling of Katherine to the less "Polish" sounding K-a-t-h-r-i-n-e a couple of weeks after taking me home from the hospital. Aside from the fact that it comes up on every single spell check ever (and as we all know, I love me some spell checks). Or the fact that it's been spelled incorrectly on my credit cards, report cards, cards I get in the mail. Or that of the 100ish seniors in my high school graduating class, there were four chicks named Katie.

And, oh, the fact that I've never, ever heard of another Kathrine until last summer when a nurse at the doctor's office told me her daughter's name was spelled the same way. Um yeah, they didn't know how to spell Katherine when they immigrated to the U.S. and only later discovered that "Kathrine" was...well...not the right way.

So, fine - if my first name has always been the boring bottom half of the cake, then my last name is for sure the delicious vanilla icing with sprinkles. Or, to put it another way (sorry, sweets are always on my mind) - I love, love, LOVE my last name. It's silly, yes. But true. Even though people consistently spell the latter half of my moniker incorrectly, I always take pride in saying, "Parry, p-A-r-r-y" - so much cooler than Perry! And there's a far more magnificent definition for the A vs. the E - I mean, "fermented drink usually made with pears" - really? Who's ever heard of that. On the other hand...

parry: [par-ee], -ried, -rying, noun, plural -ries.–verb (used with object)
1. to ward off (a thrust, stroke, weapon, etc.), as in fencing; avert
2. to turn aside; evade or dodge: to parry an embarrassing question.

So much better!

But to be fair, dictionary aside, let's put it to a for reals test. Katy Perry vs. Katie Parry. Lay it all on the line. Who would win? Based on my extremely complicated scoring system, let's see:

• Super cute outfits (for the most part), +75
• A few hit songs, +125
• One horrific Grammy performance, -100
• The inability to come up with an original song title (this one's for you, Jill Sobule), -65

TOTAL: 35
VS.

• I am bigger and would kick ass in a cat fight, +25
• I cannot sing for the life of me...unless I am karaoke-ing in K-town and I've had a few bottles of that disgusting green alcohol (what is that stuff, anyway??), -50
• When I was in ninth grade I briefly dated someone with the last name Perry, -100 (I know, I know. But I swear we weren't related!)
• It was my name first, +35, AND mine has a way more spectacular spelling, +500

TOTAL: 410
Looks like it's 35 vs. 410. So I guess I have to say sorry, Katy, I win.

My relationship with Katy Perry is fairly hot and cold - no pun intended. I do like some of her songs I suppose. They're catchy. And I obvi love cherry Chap Stick. However, I do NOT like my middle-aged coworkers saying "Oh, Katie Parry, did you kiss a girl?" Or people approaching my parents, asking them if it was me on the radio. I'm sick of friends (who will remain anonymous) writing on my Facebook wall:


Have you kissed any girls lately??
March 2 at 3:56pm



And above all else, I'm sick of people not believing me when I introduce myself as Katie Parry. Goddamn you Katy Perry! It was my name first! And again, lest anyone forgets, the spelling of mine is infinitesimally better! So please, go change yours!!! And people, leave me alone!!

(If you have any doubt in your mind that I should not have won the Katy Perry vs. Katie Parry contest, please - watch this:


...that's what I thought). I rest my case.

i before e except after...wait whaaaat?

Dear friends and strangers. You know who you are. You who always fail to put the “i” in the middle of definitely and instead put an “a”. You who fail to recognize the apostrophe in words like you’re and instead say your, thereby changing the connotation entirely. Ah hem, American Eagle:

(Dummies!)

To you I say: Come ON!

My very good friend – who shares my loathing of people who misspell simple things like, well, "misspell" - how embarrassing! – came up with a nickname for us: Grammar Police. We are warriors of the word. We, too, sat through Mrs. Smith’s middle school lectures on homophones and conjunctions, on the usage of singular vs. plural, and the simple rule of i before e except after c. So why, my fellow mid-20ers, WHY have you not retained these rules?

Fine. I’m a self-proclaimed grammar snob. It’s my numero uno pet peeve. But it’s a pretty benign one on the pet-peeve-spectrum. There are so many tools, you grammar offenders, at your disposal nowadays. You can be über conscientious with the simple click of a button. For starters, http://www.dictionary.com/. How novel! Email providers offer spell check. There are innumerable books and websites (ever heard of a little site called Google?) on the subject.

To plug one we publish (because really how can I not...you should go buy it, it's pretty great - http://www.amazon.com/before-except-after-Parkinson-Judy/dp/0762109173/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1238423072&sr=11-1ie=UTF8&qid=1238423072&sr=11-1) .

Now I know I'm not perfect. Far from it. I've had the Grammar Police take me to the smack down hotel a few times in the not-so-distant past. I like me some abbreviations, some inventions, some slang, some swears. There are probably mistakes in this here blog. But when technology has made things so goddamn easy for us, how can I not judge you for spelling something wrong? All you need to do is click that little check mark at the top of the screen. So easy!

No dankes! No dankes people who say too instead of to, than instead of then, your instead of you’re! In the whiny voice of Charlotte à la "Set the date! Set the date!" I shall impart these three little gems of wordly wisdom to you: Check the spelling! CHECK THE SPELLING!

Above all else, if there is one thing that I can drill into your brain that Mrs. Smith failed to, it is this: You have to be in it to win it. If you take nothing else from reading this blog while you should be doing your work, it is that you WILL LEARN HOW TO SPELL DEFINITELY. To spell definitely you must be in it, as in definitely. There are no a's in this fine word and never, ever will be. No, most definitely not. Not ever. So stop trying to put them there!

Really, there is nothing worse than poor grammar. I find this perfectly succinct:

So my parting words to you, dear friends and strangers, are simply:

Check the spelling! Check the spelling!

Cacophonous Kiddies

Yes. It is 3:10am. Indeed it is. And I am on Blogger.

Why, you might ask? No. No, it's not because I'm just so excited about today's blog that I couldn't sleep. I'm not that devoted.

It's because apparently I missed the memo that TODAY is in fact Mardi Gras, not February 24th like I had originally thought.

Either that or those spoiled NYU kiddies are just soooo excited they graduated, they felt the need to wake up the entire neighborhood.

After a lovely evening of $6.50 pitchers, beirut, and bcq's (buffalo chicken quesadillas...if you haven't tried, you haven't lived...and I don't think we can be friends anymore), I fell blissfully, tipsily asleep with my window open, a lovely breeze ruffling my shades. It was Friday, I'd had a delish din, and all was right with the world.

Insert record screeching sound effect.
WTFFFFFs, yo! Why oh why do people think it's OK to blaaaaast ridiculous music, shout, blast RIDICULOUS music, and shout??? It's a weeknight, ya brats. I've contemplated, in no particular order: screaming out the window for them to shut up (but I know from experience that this will rile them up even more); marching out there and yelling at them (but I'm far to passive for a confrontation such as that); calling the police (aren't there laws against noise?); having another beer (to ease me back into dreams of bcq's); closing the window (but the air is so nice!); taking some sort of sleeping aid (but I don't want to be groggy in the am!). 

Ugh, carefree little chillens. I hate you and your lack of responsibility, your jaunty jovialness, your sickening sunniness. But most of all, I envy your ability to get perfectly sauced on a Thursday night, party in the street, and wake up the entire neighborhood. 

I'm taking a Melatonin, shutting the window, and turning on my AC. I have to go to work in the morning. Night, ya jerks!
 

Sheet-Induced Chagrin

I find that changing my bed sheets is numero uno amongst deplorable household (or apartmenthold) chores. It’s the WORST. When I was a youngin', I used to wet the bed – wamp wamp – and my poor mother would have to come in and change my sheets in the middle of the night. Sorry Trissi! I think that would be probably be my worst nightmare. Karma better not be a bitch, yo.

Later on, when I was at an age when I thought chores were cool and was jealous of my friends who were forced to do them (I, a brat, had none), one of my buddies showed me how to do “hospital corners” on the top sheet while tucking it in. I seriously thought it was the coolest thing ever!

Ah, to be young again. To have someone make my bed for me. To think that folding the corners of sheets under in triangles was cool! Now I dread the loathsome two-week-time-to-change-the-sheets mark about as much as I enjoy New York in the rain.
It’s just so...so awful! It’s time consuming, there’s a ton of up/down/up/down, so much smoothing and tugging and pulling and straightening. I never know which way the bottom sheet needs to go on and when I put the short side on the long side, I have to start all over again. And of course my bed skirt always gets stuck and tucks in with the top sheet. And the pillowcases! I either have really fat, fluffy pillows, or extremely miniature pillowcases. It’s always a pushing, shoving all-out battle!

I will say that thankfully, in my current apartment, two sides of the bed are exposed. In my last abode, there was only ONE side exposed. That was a ridiculous nightmare I never wish to relive.

Then you have the quilt. Again, I am always perplexed and positively befuddled. It never looks as right as it did when I took it off. Ever! And of course, in my infinite obsessive-compulsive-perfectionism, it takes me ten minutes to fold over the top flap of the quilt so it looks just right. It never does!

Why can't there be a better way. Seriously? Because really there is nothing better than freshly changed, super soft, ridiculously cozy sheets.

Ah, to say - "Mom, I wet the bed!" and have brand new sheets, abracadabra.

Wampity!

Insomniarama

It’s quite unfortunate that this country, this city, is full of workaholics. Seriously. I mean, we got cannoli and paella from those most languorous nations of Italy and Spain – why oh WHY didn’t their soft spots for siestas melt into this pot that is NYC as well?

We live in The City That Never Sleeps. What an excellent connotation. Ha. Perhaps that’s why, since moving here, I’ve joined the ranks of insomniac denizens.

And I haaaaaaaaaate it.

Sleeping is, apparently, very hard work. It’s takes a knack, a talent – and I seem to have lost all capacity for being “good” at it.

You name it, I’ve tried it – Simply Sleep, Tylenol PM, Melatonin, Ambien. I’ve guzzled NyQuil, and popped Benadryl. I’ve misted my pillows and my face with “Tranquil” spray. Rubbed my temples with “Relax”.

I’ve tried all the teabags. I’ve lit candles and listened to instrumental music. I have a sleep mask. I “changed my routine” so I no longer read in bed. I don’t drink caffeine past 11am. I’ve even tried Trazodone.
And yet…slumber evades me.
I don’t know WHAT my problemo is. It’s kind of a joke, actually. There I lie in my cozy, ridiculously comfortable bed. And my mind hums not with dreams, but with thoughts of how funny it is that I can’t fall asleep.

I do have noble intentions. I don’t automatically resort to the pill – I try to resist the temptation of immediately popping one before I slip between the sheets. Especially since I read on the Melatones (as my co Jeffery and I so fondly call it) label that you should only take for the tabs for two months, with a week off. I was up to EIGHT per night – this has since dwindled down to one or two. But I’ve been taking them for two YEARS, not months!!

Shit yo!

No wonder why my brain is turning to mush. Why I can never think of what exactly is is that I want to say. That I am drowsy every single day, dizzy and forgetful, clumsy and off-balance. That I see things floating around in my vision that aren’t really there.

Umm…can we say s-c-a-r-y?

I recently read “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez (a positively gorgeous book, I HIGHLY recommend). At one point, the town of Macondo (in which the novel takes place), is plagued by insomnia. The inhabitants, delirious and forgetful with lack of sleep, begin to label everything.

However, even with pieces of paper saying what everything is, the residents start to dread the day when the labels will have no meaning because they themselves will have forgotten how to read!

I sympathize with those lovely fictional residents of Macondo. Only I live in the very real city of New York.

And there aren’t any gypsies coming along to cure us NYCers of that most loathsome malady, insomnia.

Boo hoo.

Facebook Follies: The IS Factor

Now I know I done talked smack about status updates before. But I find that, in recent weeks, I’ve been haunted by The IS Factor.

IS has been creeping onto my homepage far too frequently…and it’s driving me bonkers.

Oh, the inanity, the inanity!

I don’t get it.

Do you people think you're witty? Original? Inventive? Ingenious? Let me break it to you, “friends”: You’re not. You are not the first, nor will you be the last (unfortunately) to post “is” as a status update.

Buddies, buddies. You ain’t Plato. Or Aristotle. Or Socrates. Or even Descartes. Your philosophical endeavors are embarrassing. They don’t even toe the line of mediocrity. They’re not entertaining in the least.

If you have nothing better to say than “is”, then please…say nothing at all. A status update is not, in fact, necessary. Especially not five times a day. Especially, ESPECIALLY when you have nothing more sprightly to say than “is”.

Now don’t be all, “Oh, woe is me, I thought I was being so clever!” I know it’s not your fault. It’s Mark Zuckerberg and his social-status-updating-invention’s fault.

Prior to the stupid “What’s on your mind?” (w-o-y-m) box, there was a status update box. Unfortunately for those members who belonged to Facebook pre-w-o-y-m, the word “is” was included within the confines of that text box.

Now, since there is no “is”, people feel disoriented. They are discombobulated. Positively perplexed, yo! These peeps are so unbelievably vapid they’re reverting back to the comfort that was Old Facebook.

Sad face.

If they’re not employing the “is” faux pas singularly, then they’re using “is” as part of a solecistic status update.

The two-word openers of some of my recent, cringe-inducing faves:

Laura Sacajawea* is wishes…

Tom Tom Piperson* is slept…

Chris McCreeperson* is needs…

Let’s not confuse our tenses here, people. Or our verbs. Or anything else pertaining to grammar. Adding “is” is NOT necessary. Laura, you can wishes without the “is”. Tom Tom you can slept late without the “is”. And Chris, you can just needs! No need for the “is”!!

Yes, it’s entertaining to see how easily this small verb confuses the masses. But it’s also a little gag generating.

Come on! Exclude the “is” if it’s not necessary!

And please, for the love of ice cream cones. Please don’t play philosopher-for-a-day and put “is” as your w-o-y-m update. You’re not being existential. You’re simply being inept.

* Names have obviously been changed. I don’t want to hurt any of my friends’ feelings!

Panhandler Protest

New York panhandlers are to the subways and streets as rats and water bugs are to the sewers.

They’re everywhere.

Don’t get me wrong - I am a compassionate person. I do feel sorry for homeless people. (Sure, I feel even sorrier for their poor pooches.) But no, I’m not a completely coldhearted snake when it comes to those sad, unfortunate folks.

My problemo with panhandlers is that most of the time, they are sporting leather shoes and semi-decent clothes. They don’t appear genuinely homeless. In my NYC experience, I find that for-reals homeless people are those who don’t, in fact, beg for money.

Which is even more depressing and messed up.

Yesterday, I attended a publishing seminar at Random House in midtown. Which means I had to - gasp - take the train. During rush hour. Like a real commuter (said in Pinocchio voice).

Lordy, lordy. I haven’t had to do that in almost two and a half years - and let me tell you, I am NOT looking forward to the day when I must twice daily ride trains that are positively busting at the seams with grumpy commuters. No. Thank. You.

What I found most alarming about this commute, though, was the fact that there was a panhandler on the train. A train so crowded, so not-an-inch-of-space packed, it reminisced visions of fruit flies attacking a rotten banana. And we were the fruit flies. Gross.

Horrid. Horrific. Horrifying. The panhandler (and the commute itself).

Really people, come on. If you’re gonna beg for money, talk about how you’re “sick” (they always sound fine to me - I don’t buy a put-on sniffle), how you got no where to sleep, nothing to eat, that you just got laid off - don’t - I repeat do not attempt it at rush hour.

Dum. Mies.

Even I know not to bother people first thing in the morning. Well alright, I am one of those people that does.not.want.to.be.bothered. Fine. But we’re at our most irritable, most irate. No one wants to be going to work! So hell NO are we gonna be willing to yank out our wallets and throw a few bucks at you.

Same goes for the post-workday commute.

Thankfully, we smartypants NYCers have an excuse. Those geniuses over at Apple invented the lovely, magnificent iPod. I find this to be the perfect antidote to panhandlers. When the headphones are on, my ears - hence my being - is shut down to anything but my bee-bopping tunes.

Including la roar de handler, “Please, every penny matters [yeah right], GOD BLESS YOU!” Seriously. Shut. Up.

I promise I am not as bitchy as I seem. If someone is playing a saxophone, or there is a group of exceptional Doo-Wop singers, (noooooo thanks garbage pail drums, or horrific synthesized keyboards, and a HUGE hell no to 80s karaoke-machine-singalongs), and they are actually good, I have been known to offer up a dolla or two.

And I have, on more than one occasion, given my food to homeless people. One in particular on 3rd Street.

I’ve even bought candy from little kids “fundraising” (who knows if they’re really raising money for something other than themselves).

So no, I’m not heartless. But I find it extremely, extremely difficult to feel any sort of sympathy for these pseudo-spongers, these faux-hobos that play the part of the panhandler to make some moolah, then go home to their nice, warm, regular ole apartamento.

I want to smack their stupid money jugs to the floor.

Buddy!!!! You’re obviously not homeless. You’re obviously perfectly capable of getting a job. So stop being such a parasite!

It just really, really, really irks the shit out of me. I’m on a panhandler protest yo.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

It was a dark and stormy night.

OK fine, maybe not so much. But it was cold and rainy. Hi fall, hi. So not happy to see you again.

Nevertheless, I had my A/C on. Still. Yeah, yeah – waste of electricity galore. I know. But I can’t sleep without some sort of distracting white noise. And my little GE does its job to a T.

Well, until last night that is.

I’d gotten home from volunteering around 9:30. There was lots of heavy lifting, banned-books-scavenger-hunting, sweeping, and shelving. Needless to say I was fairly keyed up.

I took a warm shower. Painted my nails. Dipped into the latest 1,000-pager I was reading. Tried to avoid all unnecessary stimulation of the senses – i.e. Gossip Girl. All to no avail.

Of course I failed to notice it until I was tucked in, lights out. Then, like a celebrity on a New York City street, it jarringly appeared as if from thin air.

Bang.rattle.pow. 70 seconds later. Bang.rattle.pow. 83 seconds later. Bang.rattle.pow. 45 seconds. Bang.rattle.pow. And so on.

Alright so maybe it didn’t really sound exactly like bang.rattle.pow. But it was a definite thump. Smack. Boom. And I was definitely piss(sssssssssss)ed the pow off.

As if I don’t have enough trouble sleeping already, no. No, no. My scary mansion of an apartamento deemed it hilarious to add more fuel to the bump-in-the-night fire.

I slammed the wall. Rustled the cords under my bed. Rocked my mattress. Where was it coming from? I turned on the light, went into the living room. Hit that wall. Hard. The corner, it was coming from the corner. I jumped up and down on the floor.

I returned my cozy queen-sized nest, triumphantly assured that my jaunt had undoubtedly jostled and freed whatever was making that most disruptive noise.

Alas, wary as ever of things that go bump, I couldn’t help but listen. Wait for it. Expect it. My senses were piqued. The longer the unwanted knock-knock-knocking was kept at bay, the more confident I was it had desisted – like a battle against the hiccups

Wrong.

Three more hours I lay in wait. Sleep evaded me. I popped a melatonin. And another. I tried to ignore the thump. But the more I ignored it, the more my ears focused. The more they honed in and waited for the bang. I stomped out of bed and retraced my thump-obliterating steps, increasing my efforts tenfold.

Seriously though, what is up with that shit? Why do we always focus on the things me most want to not focus on? It’s so unfair.

My delirious, sleepy, zombified mind resolved my apartment was haunted. No, there was a living, breathing Sloth tied up in the basement. No, a bomb – I was going to be blown to smithereens in the matter of minutes. No, wait…wait…

The sounds intensified. Louder, heavier – did my bed just move? What the what??

2:30 am. Just when I stopped fretting over what the mysterious noise was, when I stopped being outrageously and disproportionately pissed about the banging that was keeping me awake, I miraculously drifted off.

Only to be awoken three hours later by a cacophony on both sides of the wall.

It sounded horrific. Like a demonic ghoul bashing (and I mean bashing) a one-ton pipe organ with wooden bats. There was hissing, spitting, clanking, clanging, clattering, clinking, shaking, POUNDING. What was happening? Had Armageddon arrived two years early?

Oh no.

My stupid, stupid hot-water radiators were coming alive, readying themselves for the winter ahead, and making it very well known.

Guess it’s time for the A/C to be put to bed. Along with my dreary, dead-tired self.

ALL Highways are Hell

Where oh where does time go?

I can’t believe my 16th birthday was that long ago. Poof! Like that.




But even before I had my license, before I had my permit, my mom let me drive us all over. Sometimes as far as New Milford, forty-five minutes from my house.

I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I felt so badass, so grownup, so responsible.

Now I can’t believe that sixteen-years-olds are allowed to drive. They’re babies. I’d sooner let them have a beer than get behind a two-ton vehicle.

Whoever picked 16 as the magical driving age musta been smoking a doobie.

Driving is pretty much the scariest thing in the world.

Well, let me rephrase. If you are no longer a “driver”, then driving is a fright-fest shitshow.

I’m not talking about traversing back roads around my country home. I thoroughly enjoy zooming round those parts. Especially in the jeep (sans top, obvi).

Oh no. I’m talking highways. Mass Pike, Interstate 84, getting lost in downtown Hartford horrifying.

I think most people who have driven with me would agree that I’m a good driver. Sure, there were those two horrible weeks in my driving career - speeding ticket, flat tire, forgetting to put my car in park then watching it crash the gas grill into the garage door, hitting a parked car in my high school parking lot.

But other than that, I have a fairly impeccable record. I'm cautious. To this day, Fred Schopp makes fun of me for the time (eight years ago) that I set my cruise control to 65 mph on the way to Cape Cod. Hey, it was shortly after another speeding ticket.

But there arises un poquito problema when one does not drive often and the occasion - or shall I say necessity - to do so presents itself.

There were three such occasions this summer and they all started with a Cape and ended with a Cod (with a Rhode Island in between).

Now, in no way am I complaining. I am such a lucky girl to have three different houses to visit on the Cape. But driving there is bollocks.

I’m more scared of driving than I am of walking home at 4am in New York City. It’s petrifying! There’s so many things that can go wrong. And it’s almost certain death if there’s an accident.

Maybe that’s why I’m so afraid every time I step into a car - as a driver or a passenger. Maybe that’s what ten more years of life have taught me - how pathetically mortal we are. How, with the typing of a text or the tuning of a radio, our life can be snatched from us.

My last trip to the Cape was especially scary...for many reasons. On the way there it was dark, late, there was traffic, I was tired. Though I could not see my hands, they were, undoubtedly, white from my death-grip on the wheel.

10 and 2 boys and girls, 10 and 2.

Then Tom Tom messed with my head on the way home and got us lost in Hartford - I hate you Tom Tom. You’re such a dummy.

Cars are very, very dangerous things. Convenient, yes. But at what cost? Motor vehicle accidents are one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. - and we’re a country full of traffic lights and stop signs and speed limits and laws.
Unlike, say, Sicily - where I very much feared for my life every time I got near a car (they don’t really have rules).

I’ve always scoffed at New Yorkers and their sans-drivers-license-ness but I’m sure the day will come when I must return to suburbia.

And I ain’t looking forward to it - to having a constant vise grip on the steering wheel, to roads filled with crazy drivers, to the necessity of speeding along on highways.

Oh yes. I assure you, I will be dragging my anxiety-ridden body in reluctant retreat to the burbs. My head will be down and my heart heavy with the knowledge that I will, once again, have to drive.

Lost in Transition

My, my how taciturn I’ve been with my blogging! Especially after all that “back with a vengeance” preaching.

But you see, there simply isn’t enough time in the day! I could rattle off a list of excuses a mile long - pretty much all pertaining to work, work, work (which is a good thing, I suppose) - but I feel bad for being blogless! Sowweeeeee.

Anywho, back to bitching.

I work in book publishing. I like books. Scratch that, I love books (as evidenced here).

I love everything about them. The font, the way they smell, the crispness of the pages, the prettiness of the package, the first letter of the first word of each new chapters and how it varies book to book, the story, the emotions they make me feel.

If you know me, you know this.

If you know this about me, chances are you also know that I hate when an utterly awesome book transitions into a positively heinous mess of a movie.

Why, why, why do those dummies (dummies!) in Hollywood feel the need to shred a beloved book to pieces? To commercialize the shit out of it? To mainstream it beyond recognition?

I really don’t get it.

Do they feel they need to dumb it down, tone it down, tame it to a tolerably tepid paste so that Middle Americans can digest it? Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m a bit snobbish cause I hail from Connecticut and now I hail taxis in Manhattan. But it takes a lil extra summn summn to impress me.

Let’s start with dialogue. Why the hell did Julia have to serve up an extra stinky platter of brie in Eat, Pray, Love? Why did the director think it was OK to take a true life goddess divine (in my opinion) and make her a stoopid mere mortal?

Rachel McAdams is one of my faves but she could NOT carry off Clare Abshire, the illustrious love interest of a time traveler (SHE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE RED HAIR!!!! Blasphemy.)

Any and all Nicolas Sparks. Travesty. Travesty! (Though I must except The Notebook. Even in my cynical heart of hearts, I hearted that one.)

Dearest Mr. Hanks - I loved you as Forrest. Loathed you as Robert Langdon.

Love in the Time of Cholera really just pissssssssed me off.

I seriously don’t understand the logic behind turning certain books into movies. He’s Just Not That Into You . (Yes, that period is meant to be read aloud.)

They couldn’t even get it right back in the day when Hollywood was a tad more noble and a bit less greedy - War and Peace? Snooze-fest. The Grapes of Wrath? Less than great. The Fountainhead. Phooey. For Whom the Bell Tolls oh.my.god. Awful!

I think there should be a stipulation when transitioning from page to screen. The integrity of the book must be kept intact.

Also, important plot lines (they didn’t even mention the fact that Miss Gilbert was sent traveling with a book in mind...and as much as I enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the ending was all wrong! Lisbeth is supposed to fall in hate with Blomkvist at the end!! RUINED!)

(They’re not all bad. There’s the few redeemers. Of course I can’t think of any at the moment. So maybe that means there ain’t. Can you think of any?)

Alas, the big fat cherry on the big fattening sundae, the sloppiest slap in the face ever is Atlas Shrugged. I thought Angelina would be the perfect Dagny. And now - because the slow poke dummies were going to lose book rights - it’s going to star all unknowns and be directed by someone who’s resume is topped with One Tree Hill.

Oh Hollywood. I suppose it’s just my naiveté peeking through. It is all about the Benjamin's after all. They could care less about being faithful to the plot. They are not upright citizens! All they see is dollar $ign$.

But hey, if these paltry, pale imitations of the real thing, the written word, actually sell books, then I suppose I’ve gotta suck it up. And avoid the theater like Coney Island on a Saturday.