Onward and upward.

http://dlrandall.tumblr.com/

Come on, guys!

This blog could be all about how much I love my Michu.

"Danielle, are you alright?

Do you want a little yogurt?

Some seltzer?

Shot of Patron?"

I wish I could take direct credit for this.

Midday Instant Messenger Stream of Consciousness

My mother, whom I like to refer to as Mich or Michu or Moosh or Mumsy makes me laugh very hard a lot of the time. I like to think of her as a combination of Rush Limbaugh and the nun with the glasses from The Sound of Music all rolled up into a classic, chic, textbook example of a French Women Don't Get Fat prototype.

She sends me wonderful little boxes from home filled with tiny tubes of toothpaste and t-shirts from my high school theater productions and Boston Sunday Globe magazines so I can keep up with Tales from the City and see how my dad successfully completed the crossword puzzle. She also sends me place mats and little statues of saints and nips of Patron. She is very technologically savvy, although she does get a little paranoid about things like my siblings and I having alternate Facebook accounts (separate from the ones she's friends with) on which we are scandalous. She is also famous for her stream-of-consciousness instant messages and e-mails, one of which I received just now:

MOM: hi
ME: hi michu
MOM: i know you don't have a prius, but if you ever feel your car is racing out of control, PUT IT IN NEUTRAL
how's your day, i had to say an "Our Father" to calm me down today. [OMITTED] pissed me off but i felt better after my prayer.



I just love her.

What's important.

"The eye doctor I'm at right now has autographed head shots on the wall in lieu of diplomas. I feel like I'm getting an eye exam at Jerry's Deli." - Liz on Hollywood Medicine

My Mother in a Facebook Fandom Nutshell

Super.

You'd think that since I was born just three days after the 1986 Superbowl (Wikipedia informs me that this was Superbowl XX, wherein the mighty New England Patriots were defeated by the Chicago Bears) any Sleeping Beauty-esque fairies that were in the vicinity at the time would have given me the Gift Of Fully Understanding And Only Loving Football. Particularly since, due to my sizable birth weight (just under 10 lbs), curiously dark skin (which my mom and grandmother always recount, every January 29th: "...a full head of hair, and so dark skinned, you were darker than the black family's baby."), and my parents' indecision over what to name me, I was known throughout the hospital as The Refrigerator. That would be after this particular Patriot, whose name, Wikipedia is once again good enough to inform me, is actually William "The Refrigerator" Perry.



Deeply, deeply flattering. As the story goes, I believe we can credit Grandmaman for lighting the flame under my parents to get going and "give dat baby a name" other than one that is shared with that handsome fellow.

Anyway. Despite meeting all the prerequisites necessary for a lifetime of superfandom, I have missed the boat. I don't know how to play football. Or really watch it. However, I DO know that I love bandwagons and chicken wings. So as a result of those loves, hooray for Superbowl Sunday. But since the Tom Bradys are out for the season, I have the next few hours to decide whether to root for the Peyton Mannings or the New Orleanses.

The same guy.

Earlier today, the following question was posed to me by Catherine, an expert in celebrity doppelgangers.

Catherine: I have to get a new computer because I clicked on some celebrity look alike thing and it loaded viruses. Is Channing [Tatum] aware of the fact that he looks exactly like Josh Hartnett?

Which is an excellent point.

Why did Josh Hartnett change his name to Channing Tatum? I know LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN didn't go over as well as everyone might have hoped (I'd venture to guess that the reason for this is because it featured Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley as villains. No one can suspend their disbelief THAT much), but really? And Josh, just as a heads up, Channing Tatum isn't a name. It sounds like a law firm or MAYBE like you're taking attendance in a freshman seminar and looking for a girl named Channing, Tatum. When I saw Pearl Harbor in tenth grade, I loved it. I'm not afraid to admit it. And I still think you're very attractive. My straight brother does, too. In fact, he regularly calls me to check up on your career and well being. Why? I'm not sure. But people care for you. The real you. JOSH HARTNETT.

Spaaaaaaaaaaaa.

So I've never really been much of a spa girl. In fact, whenever I say it, I feel the need to draw out the 'a'. Spaaaa. Reaaaaally top draaaawer. I appreciate massages and skin care and the importance of having cuticles that are trimmed to reduce the urge to peel off layer after layer of my thumb skin. I get it, and I enjoy it, but at the same time, I feel a little awkward and bourgeoise about strangers exfoliating my face or painting my toes and my aversion to strangers touching me naked most definitely gets in the way of most professional massages. I'm not used to it. Growing up, my mom and I never did the thing that some women do where we go and sit in robes all day and take baths in tea. Though if we did, it'd probably be fish-out-of-water comedy hilarious. The closest I ever came to any of that was convincing my parents to let me sign up for a gym membership my junior year in high school. The closest I ever came to using that gym membership was running around a track and stomping on an elliptical machine with Liz every now and again, and we'd almost always close out our sessions with a trip to the local ice cream barn.

However, far be it for me to posses a gift certificate and not use it. After all, aside from my general dismissal of all things time consuming and high maintenance, the only thing that really keeps me from being a bourgeoise wench is general lack of funding. So when I was given a gift certificate to a spaaaa for my birthday recently, I decided to investigate. Get a load of this description:

Cross the threshold of SPAAAAA THAT SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS and be transported to a sprawling, sumptuous oasis where the ancient techniques of a world-class European spa blend with modern advances in health and science.

Slip out of the real world and lose yourself in a delicious, over-sized robe. Breathe in exotic scents. Sip cool drinks that echo with ethereal flavors. Surrender to the desire to indulge your body and delight your senses for an hour or two. Or spend the entire day.

A sprawling, sumptuous oasis? In West Hollywood? You don't say. And well, if it's European, you know it must be good. No one would ever brag about their American spa. There's nothing luxurious about America except, you know, freedom. And a delicious robe? Are we supposed to eat it? Nothing grates on my nerves quite like an inappropriate adjective, sarcastic or not. Robes are not delicious. Tater tots are not sexy. Robes can be fuzzy, they can be plush, they can be luxurious, but unless that robe is made out of Chipotle burritos, it is far from delicious. And I guess I'm going to have to find out what exotic scents I will be breathing and what ethereal flavors will enhance my echo-y beverages. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was headed to Narnia.

LOST.

Me: I thought my days of festively themed lunches were over in high school. Then I started working at Disney. Today is LOST day.
Liz: Did they make you wait in a bunch of different, random lines for food, only to not serve you anything at all?

And scene.

What

It is, is.

A crock.

Here's the magical, not so revolutionary thing about crock pots: you throw a bunch of crap in them, run away for a bunch of hours, and then come back to deliciousness. It's like stone soup. Kind of.

My problem is getting motivated to throw the crap in. And buy the crap. And look up recipes so I know what kind of crap to buy. One of the many stereotypical things I struggle with as a single girl in a major metropolitan area is how accessible take-out is. If I were the type to swing bats, I could demolish five or six restaurants in one swing without ever leaving my bed. And the last incident we had with this crock pot ended with what seemed like forty pounds of chili being chucked down and ultimately choking our wheezy garbage disposal. Chipotle does not result in a week of haphazardly self-plumbing a clogged sink and doing your dishes in the bathtub, that's for sure.

But the past five days of rain have put me in a mood for stew. Granted, I wake up today, Stew Day, and L.A. is back to normal with the blue sky and the sunshine and the crows blasting their sweet, sweet melodies with extra vigor. But still, it is January, and winter is a time for stew in other parts of the world.

I think I'll call this one boeuf bourguinon, in light of my recent random decision to be as Francais as possible at all times. I blame the rain, it's just so conducive to Edith Piaf and cafe lattes avec le pain au chocolat. Magnifique, non?

No Questions Asked.

Me: I want to call Leonardo DiCaprio tonight.
Catherine: Do it.
Me: He's working at that telethon [to benefit Haiti], in case you somehow didn't know. It makes it slightly less random.
Catherine: I would never find you saying you wanted to contact Leo random.


The closest I have come to this in the past is finding his e-mail address in my old boss's Rolodex. As I am a professional, I made a point to only remember that it's @aol.com. Who other than my mother still does that, Leo? I guess he really isn't looking to be taken seriously in people's inboxes, which I can respect. He doesn't have an agent either, the man lives outside the box. Since 1998, Leo has joined Julie Andrews and Steven Spielberg as one of the three (live) celebrities I am allowed to be flustered by in the event I ever actually meet/speak to them.

Clearly, my friends already know this.

Parental Guidance Suggested

These are my adorable grandparents. Their names are Grandpapa and Grandmaman. Grandpapa likes watching movies, Grandmaman does not, unless they are in French, somehow involve a French speaking country, feature someone she knows, or are written by a certain granddaughter's boss' fiance. Distance from the source does not matter, as long as there's no gratuitous, non French sex, action, or violence of any kind.

The following is a conversation between my mother and I, via IM, one fine Wednesday morning.

Mom: Is that bastard movie [read: Inglourious Basterds] ok for Grandmaman?
Me: Hell no. Are you kidding me?
Mom: Oh kay, we're off. Grandpapa is watching it, and I could tell things were going to get ugly.
Me: Yeah they scalp people in that movie.
It's about Nazis. But not ACTUAL Nazis, Quentin Tarantino Nazis
Mom: Oh gosh. Grandmaman says, "I hate dat, it's NOT-TING good about dat."

When I'm 24

I was teetering on the brink of panicking just a bit about entering what is really the last year of my "early twenties", when I realized how lovely and perfectly even a number twenty-four is. It's perfect. Two times twelve. I'm also pretty sure it's prime, but don't quote me on that. The point is, I love even numbers. I've loved them ever since my Algebra teacher turned my world upside down in middle school by trying to drive home the point that LETTERS played a role in MATH. Worlds collided and even numbers are obviously infinitely easier to divide. Even numbers and I really clicked there, despite the fact that so far, nothing I ever learned in a math classroom has proven to have resonated at all. Even numbers are good, odd numbers are bad. It just makes sense.

Upon quick recollection, I also realized that over the past ten years, I have reserved my poor choices to the odd ages almost exclusively. Age 15, I went to Catholic high school and learned the true meaning of wretched. Age 17, I "dated" a gnome. Age 19, I went to UMass and got a refresher course on that This Is The Meaning of Wretched course I took in high school. And so forth and so on, rest assured, 21 and 23 certainly did not disappoint. Granted, I'm sure I'm taking some liberties here, but fact is fact: that crap happened. Even ages rule, odd ages drool.

So bring it on, twenty-four. It's still pretty old, but I can deal. People who are twenty-four can still get away with things like theme parties where you dress up like a tramp from New Jersey; they just can't shotgun beers or pound shots of vodka quite like they could when they were twenty.

An Open Letter to the American Girl Company

Dear American Girl,

I would like to preface this letter by simply saying thank you. To quote the Facebook group that I have joined entitled "The American Girl Collection Significantly Influenced My Formative Years" would be an understatement. Between early 1990 (and yes, I'll admit it) 1998 or 1999, The American Girl Collection not only influenced my childhood, it prolonged it. Not only that, but my first five (in the order they were acquired): Samantha, Felicity, Kirsten, Molly, and Addy, gave me a sense of history and my first awareness that the world I lived in existed long before me or any of my contemporaries. I remember my parents and grandmother (one of your biggest supporters, both theoretical and financial, who would most definitely share my indigence over what is happening to this company) reading about how Nellie, Samantha's maid had to work in a factory where one of the other girls got her hair caught in a spool and subsequently had her scalp ripped off. And how Kirsten's best little Swedish friend Marta died of cholera on the trip from Sweden to America. And how Addy's slave driver forced her to eat worms off of a tobacco plant. And how Molly's dad couldn't even be with her for her birthday because he was off in Europe during World War II being a military doctor. (Thank God he came home in Changes For Molly, by the way. While everyone else was at the Christmas pageant and Molly was the only one home, due to a cold she caught while going outside with wet hair because of the pincurls her sister Jill taught her to do to make her hair curly for her role as Miss Victory. Gets me every time.) These are pretty hefty lessons for a four year old, but I could hack it. I'm sure you caught some flack from other parents though, which is why you now slap an 8+ label on your products. I'm sure you think I'm referencing these facts on Wikipedia or something, but I'm really not. This is one of the few topics I, as a lowly Hollywood assistant, am qualified to call myself an expert on. So, with all due respect and gratitude for what you've allowed me to have: Listen up.

I am a frequent visitor of the American Girl Place in Los Angeles, and one day I found myself waylayed there, yet again, revisiting my childhood only to find that Samantha was gone. Wiped out. Extinct as a triceratops, her merchandise and clothing uprooted and replaced by another Victorian girl, a little Jewish aspiring actress of Samantha's same social status (rich) who doesn't even not look like her (Samantha was prettier). This troubled me deeply, as Samantha the first in my collection, and as they say, you never forget your first _______. That said, I understand that perhaps a Jewish Girl was a necessity, to protect your company against the claims of anti-Semitism that people are ready and willing to throw around at the drop of a hat, and Rebecca is without a doubt a very pretty Girl with very nice hair, so I was ready to let that one slide. I accepted the fact that my poor, nearly bald Samantha was officially now a rare breed, and sacrifices sometimes must be made.

I accepted it, that is, until yesterday. Yesterday I ventured to the second floor of the Los Angeles American Girl place with a couple of my friends, only to find that Kirsten has been "archived" (read: wiped out). Not only that, but Molly and her merchandise do not even have their own room anymore. Molly, whose father was off fighting Nazis while she was rationing sugar and planting Victory carrots, is left with nothing but a display case in a hallway. I can't help but get the sense that the hallway is to the American Girl Place what Florida is to the United States: Death's waiting room. Forgive me if this is speaking out of school, but who is more "American" than Molly? KAYA?!

I don't even want to delve into the existence of Kaya. I'm sorry, a Native American/Feathers-Not-Dots Indian/whatever the PC term du jour is who sleeps in a tee pee and wears fringed animal pellets exclusively? What little girl wants that? How can you effectively integrate Kaya's world into the civilized worlds that the other Girls live in, the Girls who sleep in beds? Even Addy has a bed. It's made of sticks, but it's still a bed. I'm trying to picture this in my bedroom circa 1995, which had each Girl's bed and accouterments set up in various stations around the room, and a tee pee just doesn't make sense. I can't help but feel that this snafu is directly related to Pleasant Company's merger with Mattel in 1998, as Kaya was released shortly thereafter. This was a bit after my time, so I do not have a Kaya doll, nor have I read her stories, but I hope to God she didn't live anywhere near Amherst, Massachusetts.

I just really think there was a definite lack of resourcefulness on this one, American Girl. Kirsten, you know, the blonde, blue eyed Swede that you just snuffed out like a Saint Lucia candle, had a secret Indian friend in the woods. Remember Singing Bird? There's your Native American doll! Just introduce Singing Bird, Kirsten's companion, and you not only get to keep one of the most compelling stories on your slate, you get to keep your minority doll! The five people on Earth who want to dress a doll in variations of the same pellet ensembles would be satisfied, and Kirsten could keep on keeping on. Phasing out the white Girls is not the answer here. Would you ever "archive" Addy? I think not. I would never have expected affirmative action to trickle down so severely that it started to tamper with ACTUAL HISTORY, but here you have it. And you have the power to make it stop.

I'm not going to touch upon the debacle over the recent release of the "homeless" Girl, because I think you've learned your lesson there. I'd also like to reiterate that I currently love your store. It represents a lot to me, and I still get a little teary when I go in. I'm about to turn twenty four and am seriously considering celebrating at the little tea house you have, particularly since I noticed you serve champagne cocktails there, which I am a huge fan of. My mother mailed me my Felicity doll unexpectedly in a box one day, and after the initial shock of opening a box only to find a doll lying in it, I was only happy to see her. Your product has profoundly influenced me, and I urge you to take what I've said into consideration before you fully dilute your wonderful Collection simply for the sake of arbitrary political correctness.

Sincerely,

Danielle