I wrote a book. A legit book. That you can, like, own. And read.

OK, so first, here's a picture of me relaxin' with a bunny. 

And second, I wrote a book. It's called Did I Do That? and it looks like this...

Part of the reason why I wasn't really blogging last year was because I was busy writing this book. It's about your favorite decade: the '90s! And if you have money you can buy it and read it and love it and then years and years from now be buried with it or pass it down to your great-grandchildren as a family heirloom (or "earloom," which is what I used to think people were saying when they said "heirloom").

One page of the book looks like this...

Another page looks like this...

And the book comes with an Urkel T-shirt transfer.

I don't want to hype it too much because I'm a humble person but it's the best book you'll ever read. Seriously, though, it's fun and if you like this blog then I'm sure you'll be into it. 

Click HERE if you're in a book-buying mood. But if you're broke, no hard feelings. I totally understand.

On a more sentimental note, it was through this blog that I found my writing voice and it was your thoughtful/hilarious/supportive comments that really gave me the confidence to continue to develop that voice. So, you, person reading this right now, played a huge role in the creation of this book. Thank you! 

How to Replicate the "Julia Stiles Cardigan Head Wrap" Look from 'Save the Last Dance'

There's a scene in Save the Last Dance where Kerry Washington's industrious character takes Julia Stiles from corny to fly just by tying a GAP cardigan sweater around her head--it's cinema's quickest and most successful makeover. 

A month ago, I decided to stop straightening my hair (at least for a little while). The decision is both a response to the sorry state of my coif (split ends, dryness, breakage, etc.) and Justin Timberlake's recent renunciation of his curly hair--while JT may have abandoned his brethren and sisthren for the carefree life of the straight-haired, I stand in solidarity with the curly-haired. For me, one consequence of this lifestyle change is that styling my hair has become pretty time consuming. Looking for a fast, easy way to deal with this, I remembered Save the Last Dance and the cardigan head wrap. After practicing the technique a couple of times, I finally got it down. Here's a simple "how to" guide.

Drape a cardigan over your head. (I used a thin sweater but if it's cold outside you might want one made of thicker material--lambswool, mohair, et al.). Swirl the the loose fabric around your head.

And voilá! Not only is this a simple solution to your hair woes, you'll now be able to blend in with the crowd at the urban dance club of your choice.

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Pete & Pete/Blog Reunion

Me, here, typing and you, there, reading—it’s like a reunion! Anyway, it’s great to see you again. You look amazing! Are you married? How many kids do you have now? Seen any interesting Boy Meets World re-runs lately?

Aaaaahh…it’s exciting to see each other again, right? But let’s just calm ourselves for a moment—we’ll have plenty of time to catch up and high-five later.

Speaking of reunions, though, I went to an Adventures of Pete and Pete reunion in San Francisco in January. It was the culmination of so many years of fandom for me and obviously awesome because of that, but the whole thing was so incredible that my boyfriend, who had never seen an episode of the erstwhile Nickelodeon kids show before that night, loved it.

Instead of a Q&A session, the cast (Artie, both Petes, and Endless Mike) did a reading of a few of the episodes. The dude from Polaris (the band that performed the opening theme “Hey Sandy” as well as the closing theme “Waiting for October”) provided musical accompaniment/big hair.

Mike Maronna (Pete the Elder) and Danny Tamberelli (Pete the Younger) seemed like buddies, which I—a person who likes to think that the actors on all my favorite shows are BFFs in real life and have ice cream socials on the weekends—really appreciated.

 They called two audience members on stage and let them read the roles of Mr. Tastee and Ellen (Alison Fanelli, who was Ellen on the show, is a doctor now and was prob like operating on brains so she couldn’t come).

I was super surprised to see Rick Gomez (who is on Justified, which I LOVE!). I’m probably going to name my first-born, second-born, and third-born sons Endless Mike. Yeah, Endless Mike or Rick Gomez. Haven't decided yet.

Toby Huss told this long-winded story about how he came up with the Artie character—something about sex and some woman he was about to sex up and role-play, I don’t know. It made me uncomfortable.

The biggest surprise of the night was that Colin Hanks, Doug Benson, James Urbaniak, and Paget Brewster showed up (if you don't know who any of these people are, you don't watch enough television...STOP READING SO MANY BOOKS/HAVING AN ACTIVE AND REWARDING SOCIAL LIFE, YOU NERD!) and joined the reading. (This reunion was part of SF Sketchfest, so there were a lot of actors in the city.)

And just when I thought that the night couldn’t be any better, I ate a really good cheeseburger.  

Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Society, I Call This Post, "The Tale of Me Writing about 'Are You Afraid of the Dark?'"

Back in 1991, if you watched Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark?, which aired at the witchiest hour of the day (10PM!), after having read a Goosebumps book, you were basically going to die--the human heart can only handle so much unadulterated spookiness.

The intro alone was so horrifying that I don't think anyone would have judged you if you'd decided to go to sleep before the episode even began.


The one thing scarier than ghosts, demons, monsters, and serial killers is an off-centered, attic-dwelling hobo clown. 

The Midnight Society, a super exclusive group of Canadian youths whose parents obviously didn't give a shit about their kids' welfare, met up in the dark woods (at midnight, naturally), sat around a bonfire, and took turns telling chilling tales. The storyteller would sit in a stone chair constructed by ancient Canadian druids...

...but the kids would never just launch into their tales from there, they'd tease them out a little, preface them with some pithy observation about the human condition. Something like "sometimes things look one way, but they're really another. But are they really that way? Or still, yet another way? How many ways can things be?" And then everyone would demonstrate how thought provoking that preamble had been by exchanging stunned looks.

After the group's minds were blown by this introduction, the person sitting in the stone chair would take the bag of "Midnight Dust," say, "Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story 'The Tale of the Spooky Something or Other,'" and then throw dust onto the bonfire, stoking the flames. At the end of the night, they'd put out the bonfire because they were responsible scary storytellers.

Meet the Midnight Society
Members of the group would come and go, their departures usually explained away by Gary, the mature leader, saying, "so-and-so's family moved away" and never "so-and-so has entered puberty and has decided to start making out with people instead of frittering away his/her teen years telling scary stories."

One time it looked like they were all about to get wasted.

But then, that didn't happen.

M. Night Shyamalan isn't afraid of the dark
According to something I read on an IMDB message board (so, a super trustworthy source) the idea for The Sixth Sense was lifted from an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? called "The Tale of the Dreamgirl." (In case you don't live in the world and don't know how The Sixth Sense ends, beware, spoilers follow.)

In the episode, a guy sees a hot girl in his dreams and he tells his sister about it because they apparently have the kind of relationship where it's cool to talk about nocturnal emissions. The sister finds an old newspaper clipping that sheds some light on dream girl's identity.

Before the dude can get too excited, his sister, who likes to dole out information in juicy slivers, unfolds the top portion of the newspaper article.

Dream girl is dead! Later, brother and sister visit Donna Maitland's grave where they discover that half of the grave stone is not-at-all strategically covered in leaves.

They clean off the leaves because they're bored or whatever...

Bah! John Angelli is the brother's name. He's dead too!

The sister begins to unfurl her handy newspaper clipping once again and...

yup! Confirmation! He's been dead the whole time.

You can watch Are You Afraid of the Dark? right now!
Like, a year ago, people were trying to sell the first season DVD on Amazon for more money than a human could ever even have: $219.99.

But now you can download episodes on iTunes at an affordable price, giving you the opportunity to track the transformation of Gary's bangs over the years...

and to see what Jay Baruchel looked like when he was tiny.

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You can watch the Ryan Gosling episode here: The Tale of Station 109.1. But you'd better hurry up before Viacom has it removed!