Tick Tock--and Augusten

I haven't been writing in here much because I'm distracted waiting to hear about something that I can't write about yet. And no, I'm not pregnant so don't go thinking it's that.

Oh, and sadly, it's not a 6-figure (or any figure) book deal either.

In an attempt to distract myself I checked Augusten's website to see when he's coming to DC and THANK GOD it's changed from May 19 to May 20. May 19 is Mimi's birthday and I don't think 12 year old girls react too well to their moms having to take a pass on birthday dinner to go to meet Augusten. Maybe I could have convinced her that she, too, wanted to go meet him; Matthew was listening to Magical Thinking with me in the car and was riveted to the story about Augusten being in a Tang commercial when he was a kid. It's a given that she'll be her snarky self anyway, so no matter what we do it will be met with attitude anyway. Remember Wednesday Adams? That stone faced look and constant world-weary attitude? Yeah, that's Mimi.

Anyway, it looks like he's coming May 20th instead so all is right in the world. Here is an article about him and his new book in the New York Times.

In the meantime, I just ordered 4 books he recommends highly in his blog:

A Girl Named Zippy and She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel.

Split: A Memoir of Divorce by Suzanne Finnamore

The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation by Elizabeth Berg

Sadly the black vs white dance off didn't happen because Matthew refuses to go into Blockbuster. He has an irrational fear of seeing "Chuckie"--that goofy red-haired doll in Child's Play. Crazy. Anyway, I think I'll have to order the movies from Netflix because the chances of getting him inside Blockbuster are slim to none. All thanks to Mimi once--like 4 years ago--helpfully pointing out the cover of that particular DVD which features, even on the spine, Chuckie's face.

Mimi herself used to have a mortal fear of Chuckie, too, but I think she's over it now. Her current fears/obsessions are staph infections and, she announced today, brown recluse spider bites. Go figure. Oh, and thanks YouTube for providing fodder for her irrational fears.

Lately I've come to the conclusion that Mimi is actually Wednesday Adams' doppelganger--at least in terms of personality. While other girls are happily playing Club Penguin or some virtual pony game, Mimi is inexplicably googling stuff like "staff infections" and "brown recluse bites." Warm and fuzzy she is not, but she is oddly entertaining.

Speaking of entertaining, Patrick and I went to see Untraceable today and it ROCKED. I swear it was as good as The Silence of the Lambs. I gave it a straight up 10, but Patrick gave it only a 7--one point off because of a scene portraying something disgustingly cruel to animals (it was gross and sad) and the other two points off for Diane Lane's character doing something stupid at the end. I wasn't really expecting much because Yahoo gave it a C- but I definitely give it an A.

I thought it was very well done and very suspenseful. It does make you think about the whole social media fixation and how small it makes the world seem--or at least it makes me think about it. I won't give away the whole plot, but part of it is that a killer runs streaming video of his victim's deaths and the pace of the torture is dependent on the number of visitors to the site. Just like reality, it goes viral and the number of hits skyrocket--as does the speed with which the victims die.

Anyway, first Mimi, then Patrick and now Matthew are all over me like flies on $hit so I better go put them to bed (except for Patrick).