Want.

Real friends

are the ones that keep you liquored up at a party and yell at you to "MAKE BAD DECISIONS TONIGHT!"

Bow down, plebs.

"Many of the absolute best beauty products I’ve found come from regular French pharmacies. I always stock up on these items when I’m in France or ask friends to bring some back when they’re passing through."

This was posted on my friend's email status. I took one look at it and guessed that it was Gwyneth Paltrow. I was right. Clearly I get her and we are meant to be BFFs slash I would be the perfect personal assistant. I also can't believe I wasn't subscribed to her weekly GOOP newsletter. From now on, expect more pearls of wisdom from this beautifully oblivious, privileged, flawless vegan fat-free ectomorph goddess.

Lessons from Blue Valentine.

1) True love does not exist.

2) Never get married.

3) If Dean and Cindy can't make it work, there is no hope for the rest of us.

4) I am glad my parents are still together. I still don't want to end up like them. Refer back to #2.

The Story of Strasbourg.

The summer before we all moved in, D had a dream that he had been responsible for house hunting and the closest place he could find was in Strasbourg --yes, Strasbourg in France --and we were all mad at him because we'd have to commute by plane everyday, and his mum was mad about the expenses.

The first time we set up our wireless network D (who is a linguistics major) fucked up the spelling and so for a year we were "strassbourg." It's fixed now.

When I was in Tours this summer I was browsing an old bookstore that had these pamphlets from the 50s on different regions, and I opened one on 'Alsace-Lorraine' and inside was a page on Strasbourg. I bought it, of course. It's stuck on the fridge.

Anyway the name has stuck in a pretty cool way not only amongst us but all our friends and acquaintances who visit, and we get called "Strasburgers" as a group and besides being a food item that totally needs to be invented, I like to think we will become the stuff of legends on Ross Street like some underground urban hip artist circle, except instead of throwing notorious dance and trance parties and doing sex and drugs off our creaky kitchen table we'll be known for our four star dinners and midnight baking sessions and bongo drumming and overheated living room and ridiculous milk consumption and spotless bathrooms...we'll be known for being Anti-Students which I am okay with because it means I can go be a hot mess at other people's parties and leave and not deal with cleaning up hungover the next morning where I will wake up to the smell of pancakes and whiskey syrup that D has made for everyone.

K: "This music is too cool for us."

Get it right pt. 2

There are some things I would like to clear up for my roommates.

I do not have a secret boyfriend.

I did not break my bed having sex.

I am not an international terrorist.

My high school friends do exist. Really.

Get it right.

Veronica? Victory??

COME ON PEOPLE.

Business as usual.

End of winter break, roommates are back. Weird music is back, fighting over thermostat is back, that's what she said jokes are back, snarky conversations are back.

Me [making shopping list]: So what veggies do we need?

D: Just put down 'veggies.'

Me: How about I just put down 'FOOD'?

Strasbourg, never change.

Mary Poppers.

Spoonful of sugar?

Let's go fly a kite?

Chalk?

There's no way this film isn't about a secretly alcoholic nanny who sedates the children with pot and hallucinogens right?

Whatever, Beatrix Potter.

I never cared for books with talking animals, but Dick King-Smith was the man. Look at him, I wish he was my grandad. OH, childhood memories...

Deconstructing Hugh Grant.

I'll admit it -I've had too much Hugh Grant this holiday. The fact that I somehow managed to not watch Bridget Jones with a tub of ice cream is somewhat of a miracle. What is it about this man anyway? He's not that attractive or dreamy. He's kind of insufferable. And he's definitely kind of really poncy. So why do I proudly declare my love for Colin Firth only to find myself guiltily searching up Two Weeks Notice on YouTube?

Watching a Hugh Grant movie is like slipping into an old pair of smelly sneakers with holes in the bottom and maybe some dog shit stains that won't wash out....you know you should throw them out, you know it's embarrassing to be walking around in them, you know you should switch to something more decent, but god they're just so comfortable. That's what Hugh Grant is: smelly, comfortable familiarity. You know exactly what you're going to get. Which is why the guy is all too often labelled as an one-dimensional actor associated only with romantic comedies.

Which is actually not as correct as your instincts might tell you. You think you know Hugh Grant, but think about "fuck/marry/kill." No, that's not the new Hugh Grant movie, much as it would be a perfect one for him. It's like a crasser version of the informal "hot or not" game only you categorise three different people and feel good about judging them and being an asshole. Anyway, my point is that Hugh Grant covers all three bases of fuck/marry/kill with the characters he's played. And these roles are pretty different from one another --but because he becomes the archetype for each one so perfectly, people forget this um, versatility.

Fuck

Obviously this is where all the bad boy Hugh Grants go, the prime example being Daniel Cleaver. There is NO QUESTION that Colin Firth/Darcy is far more superior but someone needs to make room for that trope of Sleeping With Your Sexy Boss (because what else do working women do, right?) and that is how Hugh Grant edges himself into the picture. He is that cocky bastard you shamelessly flirt with/diss/preemptively tell your friends to keep you away from before you get drunk only to find yourself all over him anyway. Anyway, the important thing to remember is that Bridget fucks and chucks him and ends up with Darcy. Instant gratification Hugh Grant means you don't want to deal with him the next morning.

Marry

Only Hugh Grant could make marrying a politician look appealing. Seriously, a Prime Minister who deliberately fucks all diplomatic relations with his country's biggest ally because the US president made a pass on his crush? And then uses state facilities and personnel to track down the girl at her house on Christmas day? Who cares if the country's going to shit, the guy is a total romantic! Also, someone I can have dance and lip-syncing parties with? Yes please.

Kill

Disregarding the fact that I kind of want to kill myself for wasting an hour and a half on any Hugh Grant movie, there are two particular types of Hugh that make it near impossible not to stab the screen.

First, you have the Hugh Grant who is basically the "fuck" version minus any self-awareness or wit and infinitely dumber. In other words, a total man child brat which is what Sandra Bullock and I had to deal with in Two Weeks Notice....god, this film. The worst part is the coupling of the two at the end which although predictable is SO WRONG and absolutely infuriating. Let's not even get into the whole Type A Woman Needs To Not Be So Accomplished And Intimidating So She Can Find A Man deal....

Even further on the murderous spectrum is Chopin Hugh Grant. A distinction needs to be made here between Chopin the composer and pianist whom I love and is brilliant, and Chopin Hugh Grant in Impromptu who is almost a person in his own right due to the levels of ridiculousness and sap achieved. This is Hugh Grant at his most sickly, snivelly and apologetic as a sad romantic musician. He's probably meant to be pathetic in the sense of evoking pathos, especially when pursued by a headstrong, fiery woman but GOD do you want to just push him into a lake and watch him flounder about. Look at him there, sitting next to that damn fine Liszt.

So there you have it, the fuck-marry-kill trichotomy of Hugh Grant, who is very much a three dimensional actor. Okay, so a resume of three stock characters might not make him a chameleon. But it's kind of extraordinary how the same accent, bedroom eyes and bewildered expressions result in a disparate trinity that at the end of the day, makes him a lot of cash. And while he may not be my favourite actor, he is definitely my favourite 80s has-been pop star. You know those hips don't lie.

New beginnings, same old debauchery.

Only at a college New Year's Eve house party do you:

- Find yourself drinking from a measuring beaker because all the glasses and mugs are being used as ashtrays.

- Find yourself singing along with an entire room to "I Wanna Dance With Somebody"

- Talk your friend out of going upstairs and doing a second um, snort

- Find yourself feeling like Winona Ryder in Black Swan aka resenting all the 18 year old first years who can afford to do hard drugs and still look young and flawless

- Find yourself drinking champagne from the bottle

- Think the DJ cloned himself/has a twin because suddenly there are two of them

- Find yourself being talked to/at by a guy seriously rolling about the unacceptable misogyny at the college

- Find yourself being talked to by another guy who is also rolling about how he sees tunnels when he closes his eyes and that time he cried watching John Malkovich's performance in some Arthur Miller play

- Find yourself constantly checking the time because it feels like hours have passed but it's only been 5 minutes and you're exhausted already and those DJs are creeping you out and you feel like an old lady and wish it was bedtime

- Find yourself in bed at 4am