Oscar night is my favorite television night of the year, as I’m a huge movie geek. I mean, just look at me in my element here in Hollywood about 10 years ago.
I’ve always have been a movie fanatic–I can even remember watching my first film in theatres, Bambi, at age 3. It’s no wonder that I grew up and worked at a movie theatre in my twenties, doing everything from selling popcorn on commission, to the rare usher or box office shift, to working as a projectionist and eventually managing the busiest movie theatre in the United States. I lived, slept and breathed movies. I’d work every day and come to the theatre to watch movies in my rare spare time, or stay late after the building closed, watching new movies that weren’t even out yet. It was the life ever movie nerd like me dreamed of. I found an old paycheck from my managing days, and it had 128 hours on it–for a two-week period. Then I found three more paychecks, all with similar hours. (A shame I never got paid overtime, huh?) I can remember back in my early days at the theatre, when I’d compete with my friend Guy to see who could work more hours in a single week. I once did 102 hours, and still lost since he had worked 110 hours that week. Ah, to be young again like that …
I am proud to say that I am still friends with many of my former theatre co-workers, and miss the days we’d rotate hosting our big Oscar parties. Back then, I loved nothing more than a competition, especially when it came to predicting Oscar winners. Sometimes I won, but I was competing with other hard-core fans and had my fair share of loses, too. The past few years have been spent at home, watching the Oscars with hubby, as we’ve all grown old, have children and more responsibilities, and live so far apart, even with friends living on each coast of the U.S. I miss being surrounded on this night of all television nights, so I thought rather than doing another live blogging event as I’ve done in the past, I’d post my predictions instead, so I could compete with any of you who’ll be watching tonight. This is one of the best Oscar years we’ve had in a long time–and I couldn’t be more happier. Since June of 2009 I had only seen 4 movies, and over the past 6 weeks I have crammed as many Oscar hopefuls in as humanly possible on an unemployed woman’s budget. (Thank you Blockbuster, for sending hubby free movie coupons for no reason, as well as thanks to my local theatre that has $5 movies before 6 p.m.) I love it when you don’t know who is going to win, it’s so exciting. Perhaps since my dream is to win an Oscar for Adapted Screenplay, based on the best-selling novel I have also written in my future life, I get really carried away most Oscar nights. I’ve been gearing up for the show tonight, watching old video moments from past Oscar shows. Remember how great Cuba Gooding was when he accepted his Oscar for Jerry Maguire?
I am not ashamed to admit I cry during the big moments, like when deserving writers such as John Irving (The Cider House Rules) or my beloved Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous) win. It isn’t because their speeches were incredibly moving, it’s because I knew they deserved to win and they DID win! Sometimes the Oscars are political, awards going to the right person for the wrong film. I hate that! Some of the best actors, directors, producers and writers have never been nominated or even won Oscars, and it just isn’t right, but that’s how life is. I’m still furious that Christopher Nolan wasn’t nominated for Inception. I’m hoping tonight at least half of the right people win, including Colin “Mr. Darcy” Firth, who hands down deserves his Oscar for Leading Actor in The King’s Speech.
And, the Oscar goes to …
BEST PICTURE The King’s Speech
BEST DIRECTOR
David Fincher, The Social Network
BEST ACTOR Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
BEST ACTRESS
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale, The Fighter
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
David Seidler, The King’s Speech
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE Toy Story 3
Here is my full list of Oscar predictions. The stars represent the movies or performances I’ve seen.
I’ve had visual problems my entire life. I have Sjogren’s Syndrome, so my eyes are chronically dry and lack moisture, which is very painful, not to mention expensive, as I have to use special eye drops at least twice a day. I also suffer from Blepheritis, which causes my eyelashes to fall out, due to the inflammation and styes that cover my eyelids. I also have Lattice Degeneration due to a connective tissue disease I inherited, which can lead to my retina detaching. Already I have a thinning nerve with holes. My father and both of his parents were blind at the times of their deaths. And my mom and half-brother wear glasses, as do all of the relatives on my mom’s side of the family. So, wearing eyeglasses rather than my contacts has become a reality for me at this point of my life.
Sadly, I wasn’t a fan of glasses in my youth–by third grade, I was cheating on my mandatory school vision tests, because I was so worried about looking poor and nerdy with the welfare glasses I was certainly going to be wearing. That makes me laugh a bit now, but it wasn’t until eight grade when my Algebra teacher noticed my grades were starting to get affected because I can no longer see the blackboard. He actually did me the biggest favor of my life, because I was kicked out of that class until I came back with my glasses. I had no idea how bad my vision was. Since I was raised on welfare, I had the cheapest, ugliest and largest frames that were made in the 1980′s. I refused to wear them unless I was sitting in my algebra class, and it wasn’t until I was 16 and received my first pair of contacts as a gift from my first boyfriend that people finally could stop calling me squint. It wasn’t until the 1990′s that I began to even wear my prescription glasses, because I finally discovered that I could buy fashion glasses, rather than cheap welfare ones.
When I found out that GlassesUSA.com was willing to sent me a pair of prescription glasses, I was intrigued. Buy glasses online? Hmmm. I’ve been buying my glasses in stores since 1984. And I’ve been buying a new pair of glasses every year, as my vision deteriorates yearly. The thought that I should buy my glass frames online had never occurred to me, even though I do most of my other shopping online. I had a lot of questions, and GlassesUSA was more than happy to answer them for me quickly. Who knew that cheap designer glasses and cheap prescription sunglasses were available to me online? I love nothing more than finding discount glasses that look great. Sadly, what I’ve been buying all of my adult life hasn’t been sold at much of a discount.
Like many people, the thought of cheap glasses once scared me. But, I hope once you see my glasses you won’t feel that way. I know I now love cheap glasses–go figure!
GlassesUSA.com sent me the Independence Brown frames by DC’s Washington Collection. They retail at $48 and are available in both black and brown plastic, and I chose the brown frames. As you can see, the unique rectangular shape compliments most facial shapes, including my own round face.
Picking out and ordering my glasses was very simple. All I needed was my prescription! It was much easier than I expected to pick out the perfect frames for me, and I love they have a 100% Guarantee, just in case I didn’t like my glasses. I’m happy to tell you that my glasses fit me perfectly and even came with a free case and polishing cloth. I loved that you could add all sorts of extras, such as
GlassesUSA.com is the premier online retailer of prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses. Our mission is to guarantee the highest quality optical products at the most affordable prices in the fastest time span possible – all across the world. We guarantee our customers the highest quality – yet affordable – prescription eyewear because we own our laboratories, saving our customers on every order! We pay less. You pay less. It’s a win-win situation!
The prices on GlassesUSA.com are so low already, but if you visit them now and enter the code “Blog10″ at checkout, you’ll get 10% off your order of eyeglasses.
Visit GlassesUSA.com now to take part of this special offer. Everyone deserves to look as fabulous as possible. Why not do it at a discount?
What if I told you that you could win an item of your choice (between $40 to $100) from ActivewearUSA.com? In case you haven’t heard about this online retailer, they carry a wonderful selection of high-quality active apparel, including pants, tops, jackets and shorts for both men and women. They even carry capris and skorts. As a girl who loves to wear soft, comfortable clothing whenever possible, I am more than happy to be able to give one of you the chance to win something fabulous from them!
Ok, I’m so not as skinny as this photo, so let me show you how they really looked on me.
Two things I really appreciated about their pants–they comfortably fit big girls like me, and they are long enough for tall girls, too. There isn’t anything worse than buying a pair of exercise pants that are either too tight or to short. Plus I’m always a sucker for a bootleg cut made from material that is durable and strong. ActivewearUSA.com was founded with the goal of providing the best activewear and fitness clothing on the market, to encourage women to look and feel their best while enhancing their life through fitness. As I write this review, I’m wearing my Activewear pants, and I can honestly tell you I love them and they feel great on me. They are made from a Supplex/lycra and micropoly/spandex blend and fit me like a glove. The stretchy, breathable style is comfortable and fashionable, allowing me to wear them for everyday wear at home, while exercising, or running errands.
ActivewearUSA carries more than 30 high quality, performance and fun activewear brands made of SUPPLEX with Lycra, which allows the fabric to maintain its shape after repeated washings. I’m looking forward to being able to wear my pants for a long time. While looking around their website, I found many products that I liked, such as the Margarita Activewear Pants, shown above. Other brands sold by ActivewearUSA are their KOS USA, VATA Brasil Activewear, Body Language and Bia Brazil clothing, including the pants show below.
At ActivewearUSA, they are doing their best to promote sensible reuse wherever possible. Every order they ship contains a free reusable and recyclable 20 oz. aluminum sports bottle, in the hopes you’ll use it rather than drink from plastic bottles. They were kind enough to send me the water bottle shown below. ActivewearUSA is generously offering one reader an ActivewearUSA piece worth $40-100 in value!
ACTIVEWEARUSA GIVEAWAY
RULES:
**Open to US residents only.
**No P.O. boxes, please.
**Must include your email in your comment, unless you signed in to leave a comment with your “real” email.
**All comments must be separate to count as separate entries. For example, if you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, leave 2 comments, one with your Facebook name, and one with your Twitter name. Or, if you posted about the giveaway on your blog, leave 5 comments, all with the link to your giveaway.
**Mandatory Entry:Visit ActivewearUSA.com and tell me which item you’d pick out for yourself if you could have anything.
+1 MORE ENTRY: Becoming a fan of ActivewearUSA on Facebook.
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+1 MORE ENTRY: Follow me on Twitterand tweet the following RT @NerdGirlBlogger I entered the ActivewearUSA giveaway here http://bit.ly/fC0cMk.You can tweet 4x a day (Once every 6 hours) for even more chances to win. Make sure to leave a link to your tweet in a comment below.
+1 MORE ENTRY: Subscribe to my blog via email or Feedburner.
+1 MORE ENTRY: Enter one of my other giveaways and tell me which one you entered.
+1 MORE ENTRY:Comment here and tell me whyyou need to win this giveaway! Do you love the working out or exercise clothing? Give me your best plea as to why you should win.
+5 MORE ENTRIES: Write about this giveaway on your own blog. Make sure to post a link to this giveaway and leave me 5 copies of your link via comment here.
Contest ends Sunday, March 6, 2011 at midnight. Good luck to you all!
As someone who is obsessed with all things pop culture who has also watched American Idol (off and on) since season one (Kelly Clarkston, you were my favorite since the moment I heard you sing Aretha!), I was super excited to receive my review copy of American Idol: The Untold Story by Richard Rushfield. As you can imagine, this book is a recap of what has happened both on stage and behind the scenes of America’s favorite talent competition since the show began.
Rushfield is a writer for the Daily Beast, who has also covered recapping the show for the L.A. Times. He’s even been on set of American Idol since season 6. (That lucky bastard! And I mean that in the nicest way possible.) That being said, as much as I liked going down that old Idol road, I was a bit disappointed that he did not get on-the-record interviews with Ryan Seacrest, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, Kara DioGuardi, or even Ellen DeGeneres. If you are an Idol fan like me, you NEED to know how Paula felt about leaving the show, rather than hearing how Brian Dunkleman felt when he left. What, you aren’t sure who that even is? Well, that’s my point exactly. Screw Dunkleman, I want to know about PAULA! As much as I enjoy Tyler and Lopez on this season’s Idol, I’m just not sure we are going to get judge moments like this one with Paula, during season one.
Of course, Rushfield makes sure there is plenty of drama in the book, like how much Paula made verses how much Simon made (Damn, that would piss me off, too!), or how Kelly Clarkston and Tamyra Gray both hooked up with Justin Guarini (Ugh, why? I thought the whole world hates guys with curly hair, or is it just me?) or the whole Vote For The Worst nightmare that kept Sanjaya on Idol for way to long (Oh, my god, that Mohawk nearly killed me as much as his singing did!) , or like when Bo Bice got sick before a major performace from a late night of partying with a bottle of tequilla, or even the famous fights between Simon and contestants–oooh, remember how he called Nikki McKibbin a little bitch? And, oh how fun it was remembering all of the past terrible singers! That is the stuff that made this book worth reading.
Unfortunately, most of what is covered in the book has already been covered in online media, or even on my own blog, as I used to recap the shows weekly. Then again, not everyone is into reading blogs or the internet, so this book could be full of all new stories to those people. I’m not saying I disliked the book at all–I just needed a bit more from it. I feel this book could be a very fun read for someone who hasn’t paid close attention to Idol gossip or who is curious about all the hype behind the show, if they haven’t watched it since the beginning.
I am totally wrecked by this book–it was so heartbreaking and beautiful, tragic yet utterly fascinating. As a girl who grew up with an unmedicated bipolar mother who may also be psychotic, I loved how Mira Bartok wrote her memoir as a loving tribute to her homeless paranoid schizophrenic mother, rather than focusing on the negative side of her mother’s madness. Not that the negative side of schizophrenia was ignored in this book–it had its place, but it wasn’t the focus. Rather, Bartok tells her story with great compassion and love. Being raised by someone with severe mental illness is terrifying, traumatic, draining and dangerous and has lasting effects on a person’s psyche. I feel Bartok has done a remarkable job balancing her love, compassion, sensitivity and fear of her mother, while writing this book. Trust me, you will never be able to look at a mentally ill or homeless woman the same way after reading this book.
The Memory Palace is not only the story of Mira Bartok’s mother, Norma Herr, a piano prodigy turned paranoid schizophrenic, but it also is the story of Mira’s survival and quest to find herself after losing many important memories. At age forty, Mira suffered a debilitating head injury called Traumatic Brain Injury, after being hit by a tractor-trailer in 1999. The car accident followed a concussion that Mira suffered from 9 months earlier after slipping on ice. Mira was forced to relearn how to do basic things, even read, write, and paint. She realized that she needed to reconnect with her mother to fill in the gaps, so Mira contacted the homeless shelter where she believed her mother was living. Mira and her sister Natalia had spent seventeen years hiding from their mother after surviving a violent attack that led them to change their names and warn all of their friends and employers to never give out their address or telephone numbers to their mother. When Mira found out that her mother was dying of cancer in a hospital, Mira and her sister traveled to their mother’s deathbed to finally reconcile with their mother. Mira finds a set of keys, one of which opens a storage unit, where they find their mother’s diaries, as well as childhood toys and photographs that were believed to be lost forever. These mementos trigger Mira’s lost memories, and allows her to relearn about her past, which she thought to be impossible. Even more fascinating is the letters and journals her mother wrote, which were full of insight into the mind of an art-loving and lonely schizophrenic who missed her children.
Mira not only survived a traumatic childhood and brain injury, but she has had plenty of other adventures and terrors in her lifetime. She’s found a near-suffocated baby in her artist’s loft in Chicago, accidentally became an art forger in a small village in Italy, lived with her mentally ill ex-husband and abusive neighbor in a remote town in Norway, and had an armed Israeli soldier stalk her in a small city in Israel.
This book was so moving to me not only because it was well written, but because I know first hand what its like to feel both guilt and relief after stopping contact with my own mentally ill mother in order to survive. I’ve been doing it off and on since I left home at age 18. In fact, I’m on a break right now, after my mother had a huge episode on my 40th birthday. Like Mira, my own mother would show up unexpectedly at my home and work, either in an agitated state or in pure euphoria, often times with bruises on her face and crazy-looking clothes on. I’ve received countless telephone calls and letters from my own mother throughout the years that have terrified me, and now that my mother has mastered technology, I also get text messages and emails. I am filled with dread each time I receive one, and ignore them when I can. Like Mira, when the phone rings, I shudder and expect the worse. I can’t even put into words what that does to me, but I empathize with anyone who goes through something similar. We aren’t supposed to be afraid of our mothers, or hide from them, or suffer knife attacks from them like Mira and I both have. Yet, there are plenty of mother’s out there who further damage their children, only because they refuse or aren’t able to find treatment to help with their madness.
Like Mira’s mother, my own mother was raised in a disturbing home herself. My own mother admits she knew something was wrong with her by age 8, yet her own parents did nothing to help her. Because of this, my mother had two children who suffered greatly at her hands. Even though people repeatedly called on my mother, and she spent years under the supervision of a social worker, my life never improved until I was free of her. I am so tired of society judging people for mental illness–it isn’t something anyone can help having. Trust me, no one wants to feel terrified and out of control, and I feel its everyone’s duty to help people who can not help themselves. Mira and her sister tried to get their mother taken care of, but a judge found her sane since she could balance her checkbook and buy cigarettes. Mira’s mother was living on the streets at age 80, spending time sleeping in her old backyard and in a homeless shelter while blind and suffering from many illnesses. Had it not been for the kindness and compassion of the people who took care of her, as well as the other shelter residents who looked up to her for surviving this type of life for so long, I can’t imagine the isolation and additional terror her mother would have faced. If I had one wish in this world, I think I may use it to cure ignorance about mental illness and homelessness.
You must read this book immediately! If you can’t afford to buy it, please make sure to enter my giveaway.
Mira Bartok is a writer, poet, musician and artist living in Massachusetts. She has published many children’s novels. Bartok is also a strong advocate for other writers, poets, and artists. She blogs about grants, fellowships, and opportunities for established and aspiring writers. How can you not help but fall in love with her?
Visit Indiebound to purchase a copy of The Memory Palace.
THE MEMORY PALACE GIVEAWAY – 3 LUCKY WINNERS WILL WIN A COPY
RULES:
**Open to U.S. residents only.
**No P.O. boxes, please.
**Must include your email in your comment, unless you signed in to leave a comment with your “real” email.
**All comments must be separate to count as separate entries. For example, if you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, leave 2 comments, one with your Facebook name, and one with your Twitter name. Or, if you posted about the giveaway on your blog, leave 5 comments, all with the link to your giveaway.
**Mandatory Entry: Go to Mira Bartok’s Blog, Mira’s List, or visit The Memory Palace Website and tell me what fun or interesting thing you learned or noticed there.
+1 ENTRY: Follow me on Facebook. Make sure to leave your Facebook name in your comment.
+1 MORE ENTRY: Follow me on Facebookand share a link on your wall with the following comment “I entered The Girl from the Ghetto’s The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok Book Giveaway here http://bit.ly/g1rkrw.” Make sure to leave a comment below with a link to your Facebook profile or with your Facebook name.
+1 MORE ENTRY: Follow me on Twitter. Make sure to leave your @Twitter name in your comment.
+1 MORE ENTRY: Follow me on Twitterand tweet the following “RT @NerdGirlBlogger I entered The Memory Palace by @Miraslist book giveaway here http://bit.ly/g1rkrw.” You can tweet 4x a day (Once every 6 hours) for even more chances to win. Make sure to leave a link to your tweet in a comment below.
+1 MORE ENTRY: Subscribe to my blog via email or Feedburner.
+1 ENTRY: Add The Memory Palace to your to-read shelf on Goodreads.
+1 MORE ENTRY: Comment here and tell me whyyou need to win this giveaway! Do you enjoy reading memoirs? Are you a survivor of a dysfunctional childhood? Do you or someone you love suffer from Schizophrenia? Do you enjoy reading in general, or, do you just love winning free stuff?
+5 MORE ENTRIES: Write about this giveaway on your own blog. Make sure to post a link to this giveaway and leave me 5 copies of your link via comment here.
Contest ends Tuesday, March 1, 2011 at midnight. Good luck to you all!
If you are a publisher, author or publicist interested in having me review your book or product, please check out my review policy first.
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