the slack daily

Rainy Tuesdays...

...call for Maria Bello casual.

 

Where I Invent the Mullet.

Slackmistress, circa 2004

 

I just looked at this photo of myself, pulled from the depths of a nearly-dead computer that was sent out to pasture, and thought I don't look half bad with short hair. Maybe I could keep the front short, and just grow out the back.

Then I realized I invented the mullet.

Amtrak Famous

One day, kid, one day they're gonna know who you are. One day they're gonna be screaming your name on the red carpet. One day your picture is gonna be in all the papers.

From Amtrak's in-train magazine, Arrive, July/August 2010 Issue.

(h/t Helen who was riding the rails and discovered this gem.)

Pick my Streamys Dress!

Last night, Valemont picked up two Streamys at the Craft Awards, for Best Mobile Experience & Best Interactive Experience. The whole Valemont world grew out of writer Christian Taylor & Electric Farm Entertainment Co-Founder Brent Friedman's brain, and to be invited to expand that world online was a huge honor. Making it happen was EFE Co-Founder Stan Rogow, Katrina Moran, Kelly Spencer, MTV, Verizon, and Fuel Industries (who built the ValemontU.com site) not to mention all of the players who participated along the way.

The evening was spent high on awards show fumes.

My face, almost as shiny as the Streamy itself!

Sunday is the Streamys main event, where Valemont is up for three more awards: Best Writing (Christian Taylor), Best Drama Series and Best Actor (Eric Balfour.) I'll be there to cheer us on, but I have a serious First World Dilemma. WHAT TO WEAR?

So I'm going to let you dress me. In the sense that I am going to let you pick my dress. I AM NOT ACTUALLY LETTING YOU PHYSICALLY DRESS ME. Pervs.

The nominees for Slackmistress' Streamy Dress are...

 

The Specials Dress, from Stop Staring!

 

The Gathered Ava Dress in red, also from Stop Staring!

The polls close Sunday at 11am. The polls close at 6pm, Saturday, April 10. I'll wear the losing dress to the Streamys launch party on Saturday. VOTE!

Where Am I?

I have been:

Meeting bloggers, dancing at weddings, hanging out with high school friends, consuming my body weight in beer with my husband (Red Hook's Double Black = the champagne of beers!), discovering wedding guests who read my blog (wait! You're the slackmistress!), getting attacked and bloodied by my one push up bra (R.I.P.) planning dog fairs, and oh yeah, writing about crap that women don't want for Valentine's Day at Pointless Banter.

(Some kirtsy or digg love on the Pointless Banter post would be uber-swell!)

I'm a Cheaterpants and I Don't Care...

There's this "25 Things About Me" meme that's been going around. What's weird is that the shorter lists don't get propagated as much as this one has. I think this is because we are all secretly narcissists looking for an excuse to tell our stories to the world.  However, I am not a secret narcissist. But I don't like when people tag because then I feel obligated and then it's like you're the Boss of Me but the check never arrives and I just feel stupid. Which I do for free on a daily basis.

Anyway, I posted this days ago on Facebook. But some of you aren't on Facebook. Or you're on Facebook, but you don't read notes. Or you're on Facebook, we're not friends, and you don't read notes. Or you're on Facebook, you actively hate me, we're not Facebook friends, and you don't read notes. I changed the rules because I'm a rule-changer. 

I tag no one.  Especially not Jessica.

Rules: Once you have been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. Supposed to is the key word here. Let's face it, folks. I can "tag" you. But I'm not the boss of you. You might be someone who rankles against the status quo. Or you might find the "you have been tagged" notification Chinese Water Torture.

I may choose 25 people to be tagged. Or I am not. I may not even make it to the end of this list. But at least you know that I cared enough to rewrite the rules.

If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you. Or because I hate you and want to drive you crazy.

If you can't figure out how to write a note, then write everything down by hand, put it in an envelope with a $20 and send it me. I'll post it for you.

1. My husband knows the name of all of the Golden Girls, and their husbands on the show. You'd think this was more about him than me, except that I married someone who knows the name of all of the Golden Girls, and their husbands on the show. This should clue you in to the sort of person I am.

2. I never imagined myself having kids. In Mrs. Wilgocki's class, we had that one assignment where we had to write our obituaries. Mine read "she will be mourned by her pets and her plants." Clearly only one of those is correct, because I can't keep plants alive.

3. Speaking of pets, I have had three pit bulls since I moved to California in 1994. Two of those dogs only had three legs. I love old dogs. I'll never intentionally own a puppy, or pay for a dog from a breeder. I am CrazyPants McGee about this part of my life - pit bulls and pet overpopulation, but I will not offer my opinion unless I'm asked. But if you ask...watch out.

4. I refuse to debate with anyone who doesn't have an open mind (which is why I won't debate the above.) I am stubborn but I am also totally willing to fess up to being an idiot.

5. I sometimes wish I didn't remember every mean word someone ever said in junior high and high school, but I carved out a but of a career on it, so it's okay. Also, it's been awesome reconnecting with people. Although there's a few out there...

6. I credit CJ Cregg's character on "The West Wing" for giving my father and I an actual relationship. My dad is awesome, but he didn't really talk about much besides sports with the guys. Our mutual obsession with CJ Cregg opened up a huge line of dialog that continues to this day. I ran into Alison Janney at the Whole Foods after the gym but I didn't want to say anything because I smelled like a sweaty sock.

7. I also met Billy Bob Thornton when I smelled like a sweaty sock - a Casting Director friend and I were walking one morning and went into the Coffee Bean. He was still with Angelina Jolie and the Golden Globes were that evening. I blurted out how I hated awards shows and he agreed and said they'd rather make out in the limo.

8. I swear I don't always smell like a sweaty sock.

9. I think my husband is one of the most talented writers I know, and he needs to have his memoir on the shelves, stat. He's also moronically funny. However, we are rated R, so we may not be appropriate for children under 17.

10. When I lost 60 pounds (diet and exercise, before you ask) back in early 2000ish (2001, 2002) I got really into weight training. I was doing a lot of Powerlifting training and wanted to compete. I got really sick (it took three years to diagnose me as hypothyroid, is it that difficult?) and left it all behind.

11. Lizzie McGuire was nominated for two Emmys for "Best Kids' Show." The scripts that were submitted both of those times were written by my brother and me.

12. In 6th grade, Jennie Woods unhooked my bra while we were sitting in the Hadley Jr. High Library for some sort of presentation. I told her I'd get even with her, and I did: I named a hated Lizzie McGuire character after her. HA-ha.

13. Sometimes when I run into a story roadblock, I look up Simpsons' episodes because they've done everything.

14. My husband kept saying we should get married from the second we started to date. We dated six weeks before I finally said yes. We married five months after that (May 10, 2007.)

15. I really miss writing on a staff of a TV show. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that, like every other job economy, times are REALLY lean right now.

16. I write every day.

17. I am working on: blogging at the slack daily, blogging at pointless banter, writing a comic book for a small UK company, creating a video game, writing a spec screenplay, rewriting a previous spec screenplay, shopping around my pilot, and outlining my novel. In the middle of this all, I try to pick up small writing gigs to pay the bills.

18. I ended up "the slackmistress" because my boyfriend in 1997 created a "personal web space" called "the slack" and called himself "the slackmaster." He wrote about what he had in his briefcase. I said unless there was a severed head in there, no one cared. He challenged me to write something so I did and called myself the slackmistress. We broke up shortly thereafter and he handed the site over to me. Twelve years later, here we are.

19. I have been told by previous representation that the Internet was "a waste of time."

20. I used to love to tell lies when I was a kid. I still lie as a joke to my husband, to see what I can pass by him. I told him that they threw the foreskin at a bris (and it was good luck to catch it), and that tug of war was used to settled land disputes in colonial america.

21. I am a terrible human being.

22. I get equal amounts of fan mail and hate mail, but I get a disproportionate amount of hate mail for the level of popularity my blog is at.

23. "Internet" and "real life" are basically the same thing to me. I've been blogging for twelve years. My husband found me through a comment I left on one of his friends' Flickr photos. He stalked me back to my blog. He emailed me and IMed and blogged about me. He proposed in the blog comments. Some of my best friends I've made through the Internet.

24. I didn't always like pink, but about six years ago, pink was suddenly my color. Sometimes I think driving a pink mini cooper makes me a total asshole. But I also think it makes me kind of awesome.

25. While a lot of the time I drink like a girl (kir royales, mimosas, champagne) I can also through down bourbon like a boy.

25.5. You should be terrified that I could probably list another 25. My ego has been unleashed to epic proportions, and it's ALL [insert name of people who tagged me here]'s FAULT.

Big love,
the slackmistress

Calendar Girl!

Will and I received our Hot Blogger Calendars in the mail yesterday!

(Taken at by Dan Spisak at The Hollywood)

Sarah and Jane interviewed each blogger, than then used our pull quotes. Mine features one of my all-time favorite stories about my time spent writing Lizzie McGuire.

It was 2000. In the previous year I had decided I was sick of being an assistant (my boss was awesome but you can only fetch lattes for so long), I had split up with the guy I was convinced I was going to marry (a near-miss, we would have killed each other and we're both happily married to other people).

I was also done with being the "fat funny sidekick"  and decided that I was going to lose the weight once and for all.

Flash forward to the Fall of 2000. I have dumped sixty pounds from my frame! I am writing on a show! I have been called hot! Life is good!

Until one day, when I'm standing in craft service, ignoring freshly-baked cookies and Fiddle Faddle and mac and cheese, opting for the ever-so-delicious lunch of dry tuna, straight from the can.

The answer to the question "What was your least hot moment?" is where our pull quote starts:

One of the dads of one of the 16-year-old teen extras came up to me one day and said "you know, you'd have a lot to teach a boy." 

The rest of the quote:

I didn't say anything, because I was thinking HE DID NOT JUST SAY THAT TO ME.  He then continued "you could be his Mrs. Robinson."  At that point, I didn't know whether to be more horrified that he had said that, or that he thought I was a Mrs. Robinson type.  I was only 28!

I've kept forty of those sixty pounds off.  And realized that the "fat funny sidekick" was the way people treated me because that's the way I treated myself.

Funny how that works.

The Hot Blogger Calendar is available for sale through my website - just click on the link on the upper right. If you order from my site, I receive $2 per sale and those proceeds with go to Bill Foundation, the dog rescue I work with. So ogle hot bloggers (Will appears in the men's calendar) and help the doggies. You can't lose.

Citizens Against Inaccurate IDs. (CAII!!!!!!!!!!)

According to Jenny the Bloggess, today is Blog Action Day.   Jenny's tackled the issue of Amputee Porn For All, and I don't think I can add more to her well-reasoned argument except to say that my husband has long been a proponent of porn for the less fortunate. 

But today, I'm going to take my own stand, and start my own coalition.  It's called Citizens Against Inaccurate IDs.  Or CAII!!!!!!!!!!!! for short.  Because that's what Ninjas sound like before they rend the flesh from your bones.  (Those are Ninjas, right?)

I recently had the misfortune of having to renew my Driver's License at the DMV. The last time I had to do this it was 2002; my body was about 30 pounds thinner and my bank account was 30 pounds heavier.  I thought that life didn't get better than that.  Until I stood in line waiting to get my picture taken. 

A Mentally Retarded Gentleman struck up a conversation with me.  I'm always thankful when people start conversations with me in public, as I have a tendency to talk to myself, forgetting that I'm not at home in an oversized t-shirt and a pair of torn panties tippy-tapping at the keyboard talking out character voices and plot points while silently wondering where that last pair of sweatpants went. (Answer: they disintegrated.) 

But here I was out in public at the DMV, although still sans pants (I was wearing a skirt as I had already ventured out, so I might as well make a day of it.)  In fact, I was wearing a skirt, a pair of motorcycle boots, and my bright green Lucky Charms "Magically Delicious" t-shirt and someone thought I looked pleasant enough to talk to.  I turned and smiled and he told me that he was here to get his ID taken.  I responded that I was here to get my Drivers' License photo.  We crept up, person by person, toward the front.

Right before I was called forward to get my photo taken, the my Partner in DMV Conversation Crime looked me up and down and said

I bet you are Magically Delicious.

And then he smiled.

I blinked once, twice, and realized I had just gotten sexually harassed by a Mentally Retarded Guy.

My license came out looking like this:

Last week, I went to the DMV.  Yesterday, I got this in the mail:

You know what's wrong with this picture?

It's better than I look on a daily basis.

When I get pulled over, stuffed in my too-tight coffee-stained jeans 'cause I'm too poor and stubborn to buy new ones, a faded and ripped Aqua Teen Hunger Force T-shirt, my greasy hair piled on top of my head and my glasses askew from hitting myself in the eye with the straw from my iced coffee, I'm going to be arrested for stealing that nice Nina Bargiel's pink Mini Cooper and Driver's License.  As I'm hauled off to LA County Women's Correctional Facility, I will scream wildly but I'm the slackmistress! and people will shake their heads sadly and murmur that woman would never get hit on by a Mentally Retarded Gentleman.

When I get out of prison, I will end up having to do fake Amputee Porn to pay my bills.  Thankfully, Jenny's got me covered.

...

When it comes to global poverty - a subject that I know little about (not because I don't care, mind you, but because I prefer to work on issues closer to home where I can see my direct influence, because I am selfish and petty and oh yeah, I like dogs) one of my favorite organizations is Heifer International.   Find out what they do here.  Around the holidays, I have been known for getting people cows and pigs and sheep because honestly, a water buffalo is way more awesome and how many soap-filled gift baskets can one person get?

Champagne Cyborg.

From the sound of it, there were more than a few bloggers who weren't feeling too swell after our outing at the Hotel Fig on Thursday night.

I was not one of them.

I woke up Friday morning a little dehydrated, declared that we needed some sort of greasy breakfast concoction (which ended up being a breakfast sandwich from Starbucks) and then we were on the road to Vegas.  Which leads me to believe one of two things:

1. Champagne runs through my veins.

photo by Dan Spisak

2. I should probably take a break from treating alcohol as a food group.

Photo by Summer.

Speaking of photos...

Will and I are going to be in need of someone of the somewhat professional or fabulous amateur variety to take our photos for the Hot Blogger Calendar.  What's the upside?  You get to meet us!  Wait, that might be a downside.  Mmmkay, you get your photo, avec credit of course, in a calendar that's been burning up the blogosphere. 

It's not a couples' photo (nor is it a naked one, although I'm only speaking for me) but I've got an idea for a similar theme (Detectives, anyone?)  I've got more information, but that can be discussed via email (see that link up on the left that says "email me?" Click that.)  We need it done in the next 4-5 weeks, so time is most definitely not on our side.

If you're a stylist or a makeup or hair person and are dying to practice on someone, we could use one of those, too.  Although the only thing we've got to offer is our undying love and gratitude, and that's about as useful to you as a government bailout.

What a Difference Having Your Jaw Sawed Off Your Head and Bionically Reattached Makes.

And don't forget:

Will has the details and the FAQ here.