My pathetic reality.

The truly pathetic part is that my graduate stipend doesn’t even meet the average amount listed below.

From the always entertaining/depressing PhDcomics.com.

As the stock market plummets, so do my hemlines

 

SN Money blogger, Michael Brush, offers us several highly scientific measures of recession severity: the Hemline Indicator, the Undies Indicator, and the “Can I Return This?” Indicator, among others.

In his May 27th post, Brush explains the Hemline and Midriff Indicators:

What our economy needs. (image: rollingstone.com)

In tough times, the experts muse, hemlines drop as an expression of conservatism, only to rise again as the markets hit go-go mode. During the late-1990s boom, the hemline indicator was supplanted by a midriff meter, as more women bared their stomachs as the popularity of tech stocks (and Britney Spears) peaked.

When the financial mess hit two years ago, blouses began replacing halter tops, and midriffs started to vanish, observes Jeffrey Hirsch of the Stock Trader’s Almanac, which looks for seasonal and other patterns that traders can play. 

If you believe this indicator, Hirsch says to watch for bellybuttons, plunging necklines and higher hemlines to confirm that we are in recovery mode. As I write this, looking around the streets of New York City on a warm spring day, it doesn’t seem we are there yet.

As for the ever-reliable Undies Indicator, Brush leaves it to former Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan to do the talking:

Greenspan reasons that because hardly anyone actually sees a guy’s undies, they’re the first thing men stop buying when the economy tightens. (He told this to National Public Radio’s Robert Krulwich years ago.)

By extension, pent-up demand means underwear sales should be among the early risers when growth returns and consumers feel confident enough to shrug off “frugal fatigue,” says Marshal Cohen, the chief industry analyst with NPD Group, which tracks consumer behavior. In fact, right now men’s underwear sales suggest that things have bottomed but not started to recover. 

Image: thefrisky.com

For a recovery, we’d need to see a return to 2% to 3% annual growth in underwear sales. And that’s not in the cards, believes Bill Patterson, an analyst at consumer research company Mintel. Based on market research and surveys, Mintel predicts a 2.3% decline this year in men’s underwear sales and no recovery until 2013.

That’s four more years of saggy elastic and threadbare cotton.

And in case you’re wondering why Greenspan appears so sexist with his Undie Economic Theory, here’s Brush’s rebuttal:

Folks such as Greenspan don’t seem to look as closely at women’s lingerie — reasoning, perhaps, that women are more sensitive about wearing worn undergarments.

Oh. Of course.

Finally, let’s take a look at the “Can I Return This?” Indicator, shall we? We shall. 

The amount of stuff consumers return to stores can also tell us when a rebound is in store, says William Angrick, the chief of Liquidity Services (LQDT, news, msgs).

Returns have spiked for pricey discretionary items — such as high-end apparel and shoes, expensive electronics and top-of-the-line tools and grills — just as they did during the previous recession. “It’s been high since October,” says Angrick. And returns aren’t letting up — as you’d expect if consumers felt recovery was on the way.

Here’s another bad sign: Angrick says the number of consumers who band together to amass the larger buying power needed to purchase directly from Liquidity Services — like the soccer moms who recently bought a bunch of Guitar Hero games and game boxes — is not letting up either. That’s a sign they’re not confident enough to pay retail.

Crap. 

Curiously, today I spent $16.99 on an ankle-length, cotton Maxi dress at TJ Maxx. 

Coincidence? Only the NYSE can tell…

For more rather oddly conceived recession indicators, click on MSN Money.

 

* Initial “M” found HERE.

 

‘O New Yorker: so close, yet so so far…

hile I casually used to flip through issues of The New Yorker during house- and dog-sitting gigs for my (very tenured) professor and her (very blind, very diabetic) Bichon Frisé, I’ve always thought that the $5.00 price tag (oh fine, $4.99) on one flimsy issue proved a bit, shall we say, grandiose. And not only because I’m lucky if I can scrape together the $1.40 round-trip toll to visit my sister twice a week. Or that sometimes I stiff the toll-taker by a nickel because apparently my fingers lack sufficient traction to hold on to 70¢  in change without one renegade nickel flopping freely into oblivion, never to be seen again. Until it inevitably clogs up my Dustbuster. (B@stard.)

Anyway. Back to The New Yorker. For five smacks, I’d expect, at the very least, The New Yorker displayed in letterpressed type on the cover. Which might even be hardcover. The inside flap of which would present the reader (in this case, me) with a round-trip Boston/NYC train ticket for an all-expenses-paid weekend to explore all the museum exhibitions, theatrical productions, book signings, film premières and other pages and pages of “Goings On About Town” that tease the reader (again, me) like a madeleine to a Proustian scholar (only analogically me). I’m pretty sure that Condé Nast would become terribly disheartened to learn that one of its aspiring readers (me, “aspiring” because impoverished, because a grad student, because no one else will pay me to read cool books about elusive 19th-century French poets) falls by the madeleine-lined wayside, incapable of gaining access to the true essence of a New Yorker/New Yorker. It’s tragic, really.

Especially when David Sedaris gets added to the mix.

www.newyorker.com

David Sedaris ranks right up there with Mahatma Gandhi and the inventor of Mountain Dew on my Esteemed List of Personal Heroes (ELPH). I’ve read all his books, listened to him on audio tape at the bequest of my sister, and then (accompanied by same sister) attended a live Sedaris reading (as opposed to a dead Sedaris reading) in Providence, which was pretty much the highlight of my existence. I mean, other than being born. And drinking Mountain Dew for the first time. OK, and maybe my first trip to France. And the first time I tried a Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg. But other than that… TOTAL highlight. So, I was perusing the magazine rack of the local pharmacy recently, trying to gauge whether LiLo or OctoMom was winning that week’s tabloid contest, when lo and behold, my eyes stumbled upon a Sedaris in the rough… on the cover of the April 20th New Yorker.

D@MN YOU, NEW YORKER!!!! (*cue ferocious fist shake to sky) Must you always stand symbolically between me and my Sedaris-madeleine-’o-brilliance?!? So unfair. Must my decision to be a poor grad student for the better portion of my adult life always come back to haunt me and further distance me from a member of my ELPH??? 

I couldn’t take it. My resolve weakened, and my debit card pounded through my wallet. I’m pretty sure it was Morse code for “S-E-D-A-R-I-S.” Next thing I knew, The New Yorker was rolled into a shopping bag. Next to a 24-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew.

I suppose Sedaris’ article, “Guy Walks Into a Bar Car: Lost Loves and Lost Years,” was worth the five bucks. OK, it was. I mean… obviously. After all, his reflection encompassed the following jokes, which I will generously offer you here (see how I save you money?). Sedaris recounts a 1991 train trip he took from Chicago to New York, during which he spent most of his time in the bar car:

JOKE #1

David Sedaris is a prolific writer, just like Gandhi. (Image source: http://blogs.sfweekly.com)

Across the narrow carriage, a black man with a bushy mustache pounded on the Formica tabletop, “So a nun goes into town,” he said, “and sees a sign reading, ‘Quickies⎯Twenty-five Dollars.’ Not sure what it means, she walks back to the convent and pulls aside the mother superior. ‘Excuse me,’ she asks, ‘but what’s a quickie?’ 

“And the old lady goes, ‘Twenty-five dollars. Just like in town.’”

JOKE #2

“All right,” called the black man on the other side of the carriage. “I’ve got another one. What do you have if you have nuts on a wall?” He lit a cigarette and blew out the match. “Walnuts!”

A red-nosed woman in a decorative sweatshirt started to talk, but the black fellow told her that he wasn’t done yet. “What do you have if you have nuts on your chest?” He waited a beat. “Chestnuts! What do you have when you have nuts on your chin?” He looked from face to face. “A dick in your mouth!”

“Now, that’s good,” Johnny said. “I’ll have to remember that.”

“I’ll have to remind you,” I told him, trembling a little at my forwardness. “I mean… I’m pretty good at holding on to jokes.”

See? Aren’t you glad you hung around and read my entire blog/post/pog? Maybe I should have titled it “The New Yorker, Mountain Dew, Gandhi, Proust, Sedaris, and Dick.”

Wait a second. Wait one GOD-D@MNED SECOND!!!!!

I just Googled (as any self-respecting, lifetime grad student would do) and found the Sedaris story ONLINE. FOR FREE. AT THE NEW YORKER.COM.

Oh, that’s just fabulous. F*CK. I could’ve bought three round-trip tolls to visit my sister with that five bucks!!!!

Which brings me back to: D@MN YOU, NEW YORKER!!!! (*cue even-more-ferocious fist shake to sky) 

 

(*Initial W found HERE)

Because apparently I like riding around in ambulances for fun

n the morning of October 5th, 2008, I was transported by ambulance to the emergency room of a local hospital. The specific reasons/causes for this transport are irrelevant (as you will read below). What matters is that this transport resulted in a five-day hospital stay. The transport was, therefore, medically necessary.

On a brisk fall day, mid-November, I received a bill from the ambulance service, informing me that, of the $1315 total charges for the transport, my health insurance only covered $200. Thus, I was left with a bill for $1115 in charges for a service that may have saved my life (thankfully, I will never know).

Surely, I thought, there must be some mistake. Perhaps Aetna (my insurance company) mistook my coverage for the basic student plan offered through our university health services. But I had paid an extra $500 this year so that I could be covered under the extended plan. So… I was sure Aetna had simply overlooked some details.

So I went online and consulted my insurance brochure. And that’s when I discovered that, no, Virginia, there isn’t a Santa Claus.

OK, sorry. But, that’s pretty much when I realized that I had paid $500 for basically NO extra coverage. As it turned out, no matter which insurance plan I had chosen, the coverage for an ambulance transport (and for most other services) was the same: $200 max coverage, even in medically necessary circumstances.

ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS?!?

US health care ranks 37th in the world, just above the impoverished nation of Cuba

So, let me get this straight, Aetna Student Health: say I had a heart attack. It could happen. Say I suddenly suffered from a heart attack, and someone called an ambulance for me to be transported swiftly to the nearest ER for immediate care. And say I ended up needing an angioplasty and a stent and whatever else goes into fixing a heart attack for a 32-year-old. You’re telling me that, with all this, you would still have the balls to send me a bill for $1100 in transportation charges?!? What if I actually ended up dying as a result of this heart condition? Would you STILL send me the bill??? Because, apparently, the reasons for the transport are irrelevant (as I mentioned above). You don’t give a sh*t WHY someone might need to have emergency medical care/treatment; all you care about is that someone’s trying to bill you for a service you’re too f*cking cheap to cover because you don’t give a rat’s @ss about your patients’ health. You only care about providing the bare minimum.

Well, perhaps naïvely, I still held out hope that I could appeal the charges and receive extended coverage. I wrote a professional-sounding letter (or so I like to think) and I obtained a letter of support from one of my doctors, which I was sure would convince the Aetna people that this transport was a necessary service for which I should not be responsible to pay. Not only did I specifically select the extended Student Health coverage, but… need I remind these people that I am a f*cking grad student, barely surviving on a fellowship stipend that counts for about half of what the standard of living requires? I mean… we’re f*cking STUDENTS here. It’s a STUDENT HEALTH PLAN… what do they seriously think??

So I sent off my appeal, with fond hopes that my wishes would be granted.

And today I received the reply:

Based on our review of the above information, we are upholding the previous decision to apply the Plan benefit limit for ambulance services.

As quoted on page 11 of the student brochure, there are benefit limitations: ‘You should note that this Student Medical Insurance Plan is separate from Student Health Services and may not cover the total Hospital or other medical care bills due to Policy benefit limitations, reductions, or exclusions. Unpaid medical charges are the Covered Person’s responsibility.’

Yeah, thanks. I know how to f*cking read. I didn’t take issue with the wording of your f*cking brochure; I took issue with the coverage NOT being provided for a medically necessary transport that resulted in a five-day hospital stay. I thought I might appeal to your understanding of the words “medical necessity,” since, you know, you purport to be medical professionals with your patients’ best interests at heart. Also, considering you represent a STUDENT Health Service, I thought you may have something called COMMON DECENCY to consider the plight of a student, let alone a student with continued medical needs.

But I guess I was just being silly.

Silly me.

Silly, poor me, stuck with $1100 in charges for a required service.

It would be one thing if it were just me. It would be one thing if I didn’t hear constant frustrations from other pseudo-insured people who have been left footing the bill for medically necessary services. But I hear these kinds of complaints all the time. Hell, there was an entire documentary made about our royally messed-up health care industry — a little film by Michael Moore called Sicko. Did you see it? If you haven’t, I strongly suggest that you do.

And, once you do, I have no doubt that you’ll join me in raising my middle finger in the very specific direction of the insurance companies that fail us on a daily basis.

I should really start planning my move to France. Or maybe Canada.

Or at least write some letters to some very important people. Anyone with me?

10 Things my mom would say if she walked in my living room right now

ith Christmas looming (TEN FREAKIN’ DAYS, ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME WITH THIS?!), I have entered the annual phase I like to call: MomPrep (MP). There are several components of MP, none of which I care to share with you at this juncture (you’re welcome); however, a residual effect of said MP is that I unfortunately “hear” my mother’s voice in my ear pretty much constantly so that I may begin to anticipate potentially frustrating/enervating/absurd motherly confrontations that would make me want to slam a candy cane up my nose. So to speak. The whole point is: once I can successfully identify Crazy Mom Patterns (CMPs), anticipation and recognition of predictable CMPs will allow me to save myself (and my gram, and my sister if she’s around) and our collective sanity and, therefore, our familial Christmas experience as a whole. So, basically, MP and recognition of CMPs represent the means by which I shall become my own Christmas Savior.

Amen. 

So, as I sit now in my living room, ruminating on this Monday list, with ungraded student papers strewn about and CNN on in the background, I can’t shake my mom’s running commentary. Which really just means that I’m progressing nicely through my MP, don’t you think? Thank you.

Here are 10 things my mom would definitely want to tell me RIGHT NOW (because nothing can wait with my mom — that’s, like, step 1 of MomPrep.): 

1.) “I like what you’ve done with the place. It looks cute. But… (adjusts plant-lamp ratio on end table) … there, that’s better.”

2.) “Wow, you’ve received a lot of Christmas cards… (goes to mantle and pretends to read/appreciate the cards… thinks I do not notice when she “fixes” the card order). Very nice.”

3.) “What’s that bright orange ticket sticking out of your mail file?” (umm, a parking ticket that is 99% hidden behind other envelopes, thereby further proving the existence of Mom-(ra)Dar)

4.) “Have you paid all your bills this month?” (yes.) “HOW have you paid all your bills this month? Do you still owe a bunch of money on your credit cards?” (ugh.)

5.) “Are all those papers graded?” (no.) “Well don’t you think you should stop typing and watching Larry King and get them graded? Aren’t grades due on Wednesday? Isn’t it going to take you a long time? How long does it take you to grade one paper? Why have you waited this long to start grading them when you only have a little over a day? Come on… how long have you been in school and teaching? You’d think that over a decade in higher education would teach you a thing or two about procrastination.” (you’d think.) *note: notice that my mom strings along a ton of questions without a break for me to have a chance to answer. This is a common CMP.

6.) “Why do you have my wedding picture hidden in the corner behind your coat rack? You can barely see it!” (umm… because, I don’t know, I guess, for some reason, I thought that maybe a photo of you with step-dad #3 could be viewed as an optional design feature that probably wouldn’t gel with the overall comforting aesthetic that I’ve tried to create for myself in MY HOME.)

7.) “And why do you have that horrible, old picture of me and your father on your bookshelf where everyone can see it?” (umm…)

8.) “Are you still seeing that guy who’s friends with your good friend?” (no.) “Well, what happened? I thought you really liked him? Do you think you’ll get back together.” (NO.) “Why not?” (ugh.)

9.) “I know you don’t have much money, so why don’t you just make Step-Dad#3 and me something for Christmas?” (because I almost feel more pressured to make you something?) “Well, Jesus, I’m trying to help you here. Fine, then spend $20 or $25 on us, tops.” (gee, thanks.)

10.) “You spend an awful lot of time on that computer. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get paid for it? Have you still been looking for a part-time job? Have you called the temp agency? Do you know for sure if your Writing Fellowship will be renewed next year? because, if it’s not, that means you need to look for a full-time job, have you thought of that? and if you have a full-time job, how will you find the time to write your dissertation? and you need to finish your dissertation. What are you going to do???” (*coma ensues*)

Yeah… definitely still a lot of work to do in my MomPrep before I hit the road on Sunday. 

Think happy thoughts, please. And I will think happy thoughts for all of you and your family (dys)functions this holiday season.

GLORY TO ANNA IN THE HIGHEST!

592.5-and-a-third bajillion ways to ensure blog traffic jams at intersections of boob flashing and Oprah appearances. Also: make money!

1)  Spotted: doggies taking dumps on lawns that are not theirs. Owners looking at their cellphones, pretending not to notice.

Discuss.

17.4) Why, when we want to stand up for something, do we stage sit-ins?

Discuss.

648 ÷ 3) If “Joe the Plumber” had plumber’s butt (which, let’s face it, he does. ALL plumbers do. It’s like a pre-requisite), then would McPalin call him “Joe the Plumber’s Butt”? Because that would create grammatical confusion, causing the listening public to think that McPalin were talking specifically about “Joe the Plumber”’s posterior… rather than generally about “Joe the Plumber,” who just so happens to suffer from plumber’s butt. See what I’m sayin’? And I know that Palin isn’t exactly a fan of grammar (not ENGLISH grammar anyway, as far as I can tell), but I still can’t help but wonder if maybe they’d change the reference to “Joe Plumber-Butt.”

Discuss.

578 + ∏) Chew on this: In his Intimate Journals, the nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire (arguably the first “modern poet” of our time) questioned: “What is Love?” Clearly not a fan of rhetorical questions, Baudelaire then supplied the answer, which he then amended with a thoughtful syllogism:

What is Love?
The need to emerge from oneself.
Man is an animal which adores.
To adore is to sacrifice and prostitute oneself.
Thus all Love is prostitution.

That’s right: we are all prostitutes. Which leads me to ask: WHERE THE HELL’S MY MONEY, B*TCH?!? But… I *am* a fan of rhetorical questions. So, let’s move on, shall we? (don’t answer that — it’s rhetorical)

Just in case you weren’t sufficiently shocked-and-awed by that little Love=Prostitution equation, my dear Baudie chose to go one step further by stating:

The most prostitute of all beings is the Supreme Being, God Himself, since for each man he is the friend above all others; since he is the common, inexhaustible found of Love.

Discuss.

Wait, before you discuss, please allow me to share that I freakin’ LOVE Baudelaire, and throwing a few uncontextualized lines at you essentially equates to a crime of poetics, but… hey, I’m already a prostitute and on the road to eternal hell-fire, so… I don’t give a sh*t.

OK. Now discuss.

∜177,410,282,401) If McPalin wins tomorrow, and if I decide to find a job in Canada and/or Europe (as a direct result of the McPalin win), would that make me a quitter/ex-patriot, or just really freakin’ smart?

(*Note: if you are questioning my smarts re: becoming an émigrée, I’d like to point very strongly — as strongly as a finger can point — to the movie Sicko, which basically proves that the American healthcare system blows chunks and rapes us any chance it gets. Meanwhile, Frenchies are getting free nannies and a bajillion months off from work and free laundry service and free classes for sophisticatedly tying scarves and free pastry-making workshops and… the list goes on. I mean, seriously, Michael Moore might as well have called the movie Why Americans Are F*cking R*tarded For Still Living in America. I say this with the utmost amount of love and respect for my country. Which George W. has f*cked.)

Discuss.

592.5-and-a-third bajillion) I know a guy whose favorite flavor Starburst Fruit Chew is pink. OK, wait, that’s a color, not a flavor. What flavor is pink in the original Starburst pack? Strawberry, right? And then the red Starburst is cherry? Which I don’t really get, because, I mean, if you compare strawberries and cherries, couldn’t you make the argument that sometimes strawberries are a darker shade of red than cherries? I mean, strawberries aren’t PINK, right? So why’d they get the shaft and have to have the sucky pink wrapper, huh? Though, I guess strawberry yogurt and strawberry ice cream are pink rather than red. Whatever. I just don’t like pink. It’s, like, my LEAST-favorite Starburst, actually. Also, I’ve never heard of ANYONE who privileged the pink Starburst. I’d say the most common preference is for Red/Cherry. And this general Red/Cherry predilection has suited me very well — particularly when snacking on the ‘Bursts at a movie theatre — because my personal favorites are Orange and Yellow, preferably together (oh yeah, I am WILD with the fruit chews, baby. STEP. OFF.). 

Discuss.

And, oh yeah, this is another listless Monday. Anna, represent. Word.

This probably shouldn’t make me feel better, but it does.

i le président de la République Française peut avoir des problèmes de vol d’identité, alors c’est possible pour tout le monde!! En anglais: if the president of France can be a victim of identity theft, then ANYONE can be a victim, right?

Did you hear about this? Apparently, someone managed to hack into French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s personal checking account and stole “small sums of money.” If you’re like me, you’re wondering why Monsieur Hacker didn’t steal majorly LARGE sums of money, but that’s beside the point. The point being that I happened to be a victim of identity theft twice in two years’ time, and my bank representative actually had the audacity to tell me that I must be doing something wrong. I believe her exact words were, “This is your second time? Oh, well then… clearly you must be doing something wrong.” EXCUSE ME?! Like, way to kick a (poverty-stricken) girl while she’s down, Bank Lady. Clearly your Human Resources Department did not offer training in compassion or in “the customer is always right” mentality. So, I did what I do best during frustrating conflict: I proceeded to kick her mentally (I am a non-confrontational pacifist, after all).

Sarko & Bruni en Egypte!

So, the fact that Monsieur S. got scammed sort of makes me smile and breathe easier. I can’t help it. I mean, OK, yes, that stinks and I feel bad for le pauvre président. But you have to consider that Sarko undoubtedly employs a team of financial advisers and caretakers to deal with all that cr@p and secure his accounts. (*Note: This leads me to surmise that the theft was an inside job, which is why the person only stole “small sums” — s/he hoped not to be found out! You just wait: this sh*t has “TV Mini-Series” written all over it!) I mean, the dude’s got the Grande Dame Carla Bruni playing guitar and serenading him — he’s way too busy to trifle with insignificant affairs such as checking account safeguards.

In conclusion, the two times that some mean, mean person stole my identity just so happened to coincide with serious periods of self-doubt and reevaluation in my life. It was as though said “mean, mean person” infiltrated my brain in addition to my bank account, and proceeded to wreak havoc upon all former senses of my Self. In the end, I came out a stronger (albeit wary) person… not physically stronger, unfortunately. Still gotta hop on the whole gym-rat bandwagon thing. Hopefully, though, this theft will prove a blessing in disguise for Sarko, and he’ll come out of the whole debacle a stronger person. Maybe even a TALLER person. Hey, the guy can dream.

Like a Glove.

id you happen to see Steve Martin’s movie, Shopgirl? He wrote the screenplay, which is adapted from his short novel by the same name. He went ahead and plopped himself into the main character of the movie as well: a wealthy business dude by the name of Ray Porter, who has a distinct penchant for women half (more than half?) his age. Oh, and he also has a penchant for being a commitment phobe and leading women on. No biggy.

Old-school “shop girl”

Claire Danes plays his conquest of the month, and she’s fabulous in her role of Mirabelle, a depressed Vermonter who drives her beat-up little truck all the way over to L.A. to tempt her fate as an artist. In order to pay the bills, though, she gets a job working at the glove counter (?!) of Saks Fifth Avenue. Now, Mirabelle is an intelligent, non-comformist, self-sufficient girl who seems more likely to be a pithy barista at a cool coffeehouse rather than a blouse-wearing retail worker slumped behind a counter at a hoity-toity department store – let alone behind a freakin’ glove counter. I mean, seriously, who buys non-winter-weather gloves other than Michael Jackson and Diane Keaton???

Well, apparently Ray Porter does. Because he shows up at the glove counter one day and buys a pair from Mirabelle, who seems infinitely intrigued by his squeaky-clean black corporate loafers as he and his rich bum saunter away.

Fast-forward a day or two and — SURPRISE! – she arrives home to a perfectly wrapped glove box on her doorstep. No mention is made of the fact that Ray Porter is a total stalker for having creepily obtained her last name AND address, but whatever. He’s evidently excused because he’s loaded, and we all know that rich people are just expected to have sneaky, superhero-esque powers like finding out someone’s name and location. Accompanying the gloves is a handwritten note inviting her to dinner (again, this is not Romantic). So, of course, poor little artsy Mirabelle accepts and thus begins their story.

I’m not going to go into how the Ray-Mirabelle (Rirabelle? REARabelle?! That’s just wrong.) couple evolves and twists and turns, but…suffice it to say, commitment-phobe Ray takes enough of a fancy to Mirabelle to pay off all of her college loans, buy her a designer dress, and fly her around in his private plane. I’m still scratching my head as to why he didn’t buy her a cool car to replace her beat-up truck, but…whatever. Apparently she REALLY needed a new dress. And gloves. Uh-huh, right.

Oh, did I mention that Jason Schwartzman is also in this movie?? I don’t think I did, and I should have, because he RULES. Have you ever seen a bad Jason Schwartzman performance? I think not. And his performance in Shopgirl as the anti-RayPorter is as quirky and hilarious as they come. Ok, maybe not Rushmore status, but…that’s a tough barometer, you have to admit.

Anyway, I’m all over the place with this post. My whole point in even bringing up this movie is that I’m broke right now. And I’m less than happy (not just about the money situation), and I’m somewhat artsy, and I have an old beat-up car and a sh*tload of college loans, so… all I’m saying is: a wealthy, commitment-phobe sexagenarian sounds pretty good to me right about now.

Actually, even an anti-RayPorter sounds pretty good right now.

Hold the gloves.