Tina's ProcrastiNation Palace

As you know, when I am frustrated with work, I have a few options at my disposal: a) I pretend I’m a camp counselor at a Special Olympics camp b) I pretend I’m a Buddhist monk and the people around me are a zen challenge 3) I read people.com to make myself feel better about the world.

If you go to Elle magazine this month, or elle.com, they post an interview with Natalie Portman. The interviewer was like “so ‘Boleyn Girl’ is about a tale about female ambition being punished” and Natalie was like “oh really? I thought it was a cautionary tale about capitalism and capitalist values.”

This girl is definitely more intelligent than the average Hollywood star. No wonder Julia Roberts and Jude Law were like “she’s so smart! Sometimes, when she talks, I don’t have any idea what she’s saying!” (Because why, they’re dumb as posts?)

Anyway, her acting does seem to be getting better (though whenever she cries, it makes me want to hurl, because it looks like fifth grade acting and it singularly ruined “Garden State” for me — and for the people in the theater around me, because I started yelling at the screen) and I just appreciate that she is bright, educated, and liberal (plus she sticks up for Hillary in her interview, which is very persuasive for me to become a fan). Kudos, young Natalie Portman.

Ed! My “cartwheels” entry got hijacked by some crazy amount of porn/real estate spam! Any advice? My tender eyes are so traumatized by this invasion…seriously, it’s kinda gross.

I’ve never been able to do a cartwheel. If I kept living in the boroughs of NY, this would’ve been okay, but as soon as we moved to suburban NJ, I was toast, man, b/c there’s actually room in the suburbs for kids to fly wildly across the room all topsy-turvy like that. It was very embarrassing in junior high school, when they did gymnastics for gym and we did somersaults (I was all over that) progressing to cartwheels, and the more I was expected to do it, the more I sucked. It was like the only gym unit girls were supposed to be better than boys at. Flag football was also not a strength.

They have instructions on how to do a cartwheel in this weeks TimeOut New York and it looks simple enough — just throw your whole body forward (yikes), so the next time I have an open space with no one looking, I’ll do it. Then I’ll have to call one of you afterwards to take me to the hospital.

Do you ever wake up and think, f* the job, i’m going to quit and write “Podiatrist! The Musical!” Just curious. Maybe I’m just too into my podiatrist b/c I got one of those foot lift thingies and they help….and these sorts of ideas that float in my brain uninvited might be why I haven’t hit it big as an artist…YEAH

I feel like I’ve been picking up on some serious anti-girl sentiments as of late.

Hillary
I don’t understand why co-workers think it’s okay to come into my office and tell me how much they hate Hillary Clinton. I don’t understand why the U.S. has yet to elect a female president, when other countries — countries that require women to wear veils for crying outloud — have had female leaders. What’s the deal, people?

I keep hearing about how Hillary is a polarizing figure–she’s too tough, too unlikeable, too emotional. I’m not saying she’s perfect, but I’m beginning to think some of the rabid reaction is just about the fact that she is a girl. As my friend Becca says, she’s stuck in the awful position of damned if you, damned if you don’t. Obama is alright — untested, for sure, but he’s young and he has not had to get through the bs discrimination that older folk have. And I just don’t know if I will see a girl president in my lifetime.

Maternity Leave Policies
The other thing that has been bugging me is maternity policies. Do you know in Europe, the governments sponsor one-year leaves for moms? In the U.S., the legal minimal requirement is three months of no-pay. I am particularly irked when my work place does the minimimum requirement when boy-heavy companies like financial investment firms offer and Vogue magazine’s give two months paid leave (and Vogue DEFINITELY hates women).

But beyond my particular office, American society as a whole does not impress me as a place that loves women. Why not assist rather than penalize women for the one thing they can do that men can’t? Is it not our societal duty to have children? Don’t we want a labor force to help fund Social Security (if it’s not entirely dismantled)? Don’t we want someone to push our wheelchairs and feed us gruel and wipe our mouths when we’re eighty? Hello????

I’m 35 and when I cross the street with my mom, she still clutches my elbow and firmly guides me across. Or when we’re in a car and we come to a stop, she strikes her arm in front of me, as if that’s going to help me fly through the windshield. When I was younger, that used to bug me and I found it, oh I don’t know, SMOTHERING, but now as an adult, on occasion swimming with piranhas at work, I think it’s rather nice that there’s someone in the world who is so protective of me. There’s no one else who’s going to think that way about you, you know? So I appreciate it. Unfortunately, when I expressed this to my mother, she thought I was being sarcastic and starting yelling. (Not at me, per se; she’s someone who just periodically has to yell during conversation b/c she just HAS to express her point of view. You know, she’ll yell stuff like “BUT YOU’RE SO FAT IN THE MOVIES!” to Paul Giamatti in the neighborhood. Thanks, Ma.) Ahh, sweet mother/daughter bonding. Shoutout to Mom thwarted.

I just read on Us Magazine’s web site (which, yes, it’s eating my brains and there is not much left) that Hilary Duff “is working on putting herself first.” On one hand, I can understand what that means. On the hand, you’re like a millionaire with a kabillion handbags. It kind of looks bad to say that, you feel me?

Just a PSA about Mom friends. I am a big fan of babies so I’m happy to see my Mom friends with their tiny nuggets, but what has never gotten easier for me is when they breastfeed in front of me and don’t cover up. Then I have to pretend the wallpaper is really interesting or whip my head 180 degrees away from the nursing scene, as if something really riveting is in the, I don’t know, the AIR. It’s like, I love you, but I don’t need to see your boobs, you know? Thank you.

Wow, so you know what’s not so good for insomnia? Watching a scary zombie movie right before you go to bed. Ahhhh!!! We popped in “28 Days Later” directed by the awesome Danny Boyle at like 10:30 last night, me figuring this will count as writing homework (I’m trying to write a zombie movie), and the flick was pretty darn good, but I forgot about how jittery scary movies make me. Like I got so scared, I had to leave the room a few times to just survive the film (and we live in a studio, you feel me?) When I was lying in bed, waiting for unconsciousness, I imagined zombies bursting through the front door, how much green tea I had been pounding all day to be functional, and I was WIDE AWAKE, people.

You know what’s even scarier? When you do massive f-ups, at work. Dude, I’m planning a goodbye party tonight for senior peep and just thirty minutes go, thought I had neglected to invite like ten key peeps — and I think my body dropped 30 degrees in temperature over the span of a minute. All the organs in my body are like “Retreat! Retreat! Unsafe zone!” as I go into nuclear reactor meltdown mode. Luckily, my brain operates without me at times and turns out, I was on top of the whole thing and invited people when I was…asleep — but don’t you hate that? Or do you not go through that b/c Darth Vader doesn’t work in your place of work and you’re like mentally healthy and never want to throw up?

This is why people shouldn’t entrust me with tasks. Do not allow me to babysit for you when I’m saying stuff like “my brain is like two eggs and a side of ham,” which I just sang to my husband this morning. Eeee gads. Right now, I’m reveling in the moment of not being in trouble. Ahhhhh!!!