Who gave the DVD players brains?

There's this fairly marvellous feature in my DVD player--it always begins where it left off. But when it leaves off on the main screen, it begins at the beginning of the previews. Who made this happen? Who's the genius of marketing and memory and many other things I can't begin to remember?

my life is REEEEEEEALLY exciting

I wish I'd been saving up millions of interesting things to say. But I haven't.

lately, I've been daydreaming and brainstorming about my linen closet, the presentation I'm supposed to give at the Pennsylvania Poets' society conference on May 2, the creative writing classes I'm supposed to teach this summer at Carlisle Arts Learning Center, how to fix my house, how to save money, and how to eat only the food that is required to sustain my life without feeling like I'm NOT indulging culinarily, being a FEMALE car salesperson, how to get employed from home without going in the toilet financially.

She&Him: Volume 1--that Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward thingy I alluded to in the last blog that I heard Teri Groce talking about--is fucking awesome. If you don't have it, get it.

Get The Shins (forever--they'll change your life, just ask Zack Braff)

Been watching a lot of Spongebob & Northern Exposure.

Spongebob is awesome. Everybody should have such a great attitude: I'm Ready!

Love,
-April

Should the blog have a particular topic?

I've been thinking. Maybe if I want my blog to serve a purpose, I should use it to do something that I HAVE THE TIME to do, instead of trying to think of it as writing practice and possible venue for the rougher draftings of the novel pages, short story tries, etc.

Wouldn't this blog be cool if it were devoted to reviewing movies? Kids' movies? Surf's Up was fantastic. It is satirizing this other movie that I didn't see. It's smart, funny and extremely well-casted.

I heard this thing on Fresh Air about Zooey Deschanel and how she's also a singer. If I'd seen Elf I would have already known that.

See how writing only about movies wouldn't work?

Then I thought I could spend a lot of time writing about Sales. But I don't know anything about Sales.

Food. But the Food network is already saying it. So is Epicurious.com, recipegoldmine.com, foodnetwork.com, marthastewart.com, et al.

So I will continue to write about whatever occurs to me.

And it will continue to be boring and vain sometimes.

And I will continue to feel conflict over the whole idea of blogging and whether or not I'm the kind of self-promoter who does it. I am. But I have guilt. Thanks Protestantism. I am so glad I was raised in your clutches.

I think I converted my brother to the Libertarian way of thinking this past week.

This boy I used to love asked me if I would vote for Obama. I said I would not. He said I should vote for Hillary because she is a girl (do you see why I no longer love him?).

Why doesn't Hillary have a last name? All the other candidates are known by their last names. Hillary is just Hillary. Is the notion that women will not always have the same last name so deeply ingrained? I don't have a last name at work. I only introduce myself as April, even though I love my last name.

Saving Grace

This show is totally boss.

Holly Hunter Rules, and what I really wanted to say is how much the first part of this episode made me want to take line dancing lessons. How much fun would that be?!

Anybody want to take them with me??

Damnit Jim!

1. I didn't even need to watch the show, "How to Look Good Naked," only see the ads to know that it isn't anything at all how I critiqued it.

2. I am a bad friend who is apparently incapable of making phone calls.

3. I still don't want to watch "How to Look Good Naked," but I somehow feel obligated to do so in order to engage intelligently on the matter for the sake of you, Jim, and for the sake of my devoted blog readers (you know who you are).

4. I have better things to use my marvelous brain on.

5. For example: ending sentences prepositions in: edit: "I have better things on which to sic my marvelous brain." Indeed. Occasion for much more interesting adjectives. Oooh goody.

6. Isn't that word, sic, interesting?

Look Good Naked

On the TV Guide Channel, I learn more about the ways in which I am horrified by current TV offerings than I learn about what I want to watch.

My least favorite listing is Look Good Naked. Presumably, this show has a how-to format. I would also suspect that its demographic is heterosexual females aged 18-25. I have this suspicion for a number of reasons. I suppose I could watch it and find out for sure, but I am fairly certain I would be disgusted. I would probably feel bad about myself. It would also take all the fun out of this blog post.

1. Men don't care how they look naked, their partners will usually accept them unconditionally.
2. If men do care how they look naked, they probably don't need any tips on the how to.
3. Fact: men have higher metabolism than women, their bodies are designed to retain less fat.
4. I like to hope that people of substance over the age of 25 have realized that looking good naked is at the bottom of the list of necessary attributes in a partner. Or, if it is important, it is less important than it was before the age of 25.
5. There are many, many more depictions of nude or nearly nude women across cultures and publications than there are depictions of nude or nearly nude men, which is how we can guess with fair certainty what exactly they mean by "good."

Here's how to look "good" naked if you are a normal heterosexual female ages 18-25.

1. do not, under any circumstances, have a baby.
2. always do it with the lights off.
3. if you must eat, eat only things that say protien, vegetbale, fruit or water on them. No more than 1 lb of food daily, fewer than 500 calories.
4. Drink lots and lots of black coffee.
5. Smoke 4 packs of cigarettes a day.
6. Never engage in activity that may cause bruises, if you do get bruises, you should do it in the basement with the lights off.
7. Wax everything, every 3 days.
8. Save your pennies for 2 words: Gastric Bypass.

Here's how to look "good" naked if you are a filthy rich heterosexual female ages 18-25.

1. Hire a personal trainer.
2. Hire Oprah's cook.

Here's how to look good naked if you are me,

1. be me
2. don't worry about it
3. have pride in your stretch marks and hips
4. eat well

But here's the thing.

Looking good naked is totally subjective.

The TV program Look Good Naked is one of the many symptoms of the ways in which we have committed, as Americans, to a particularly unhealthy desire for sameness, narrow ideas of attractiveness and resisting individual thought.