Coming in 2010 from Delacorte/Random House, ALL UNQUIET THINGS. Also, someday I'll have a real website. You heard it here first!
I also blog with my lovely agent Joanna at The A Team. Check us out!
First of all, this, JIC you didn’t catch the reference. I’m not the world’s biggest Flight of the Conchords fan, but this is pretty funny. Also, “Jenny”.
Second of all, I have a new post up at The A Team. Go read it!
Third of all, sorry my posts have been kind of lame (although very informational, right?) this week–like I said over at The A Team, I’m in the midst of revising AUT according to a deeply line-edited manuscript I picked up from my editor last week. As a result, I spend all day staring at a computer screen at my day job, then I go home, eat dinner, and spend two or three more hours staring at a computer screen, typing in changes and threatening to kill Microsoft Word’s track changes feature. So, I’m tired and cranky and headachey. But I’m over halfway done, so hopefully I’ll finish this weekend. Next stop for AUT after that: copy edits.
Fifth of all, I gave up Diet Coke for Lent. This will not go well.
Sixth of all, my friend Eric is taking me to IKEA this weekend so I can get a damn bookshelf, which I badly need because, as I told my mom a couple of days ago, all the books in my room are a hazard to my health. I’m pretty sure someday one of the huge stacks I have will topple over and smother me to death. Also, I need a new dresser, because the bottoms are falling out of the drawers in my current dirt cheap IKEA model. Sigh.
Seventh of all, I’ve been watching a lot of 30 Rock while I work and before bed and so have had two dreams about Liz Lemon recently. In one of them, she and Pete Hornberger were buying a house in my friend Kim’s parents’ neighborhood.
Eighth of all, Gossip Girl has been renewed for another season! This is such good news! I call for rejoicing in the streets! All men should wear ascots and purple velvet jackets in honor of this truly momentous occasion!
Before I get to my thoughtsicles on Monday night’s Gossip Girl episode, I have a link for you. Apparently, yesterday (my boyfriend) Ed Westwick was on The View with Chace Crawford, his roommate/bestie for life. DID YOU KNOW THAT ED WESTWICK IS BRITISH?!?!?! OMFG! The British! They’re so wily with their ability to hide their accents and play AMERICANS CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!
…
Barbara Walters has clearly lost her mind. Accents aren’t heads; you don’t need really ridiculous surgical intervention to change them. This isn’t Face/Off. Although you can’t blame her, I guess, since she’s been completely incapable of talking like a normal resident of this country or any other for her entire career. “Talk American.” That’s not even proper English, Babs! And you, the pretty one with the hair, what is it like living with an ACTUAL BRITISH PERSON in the UNITED STATES OF DUHMERICA? “Well, now I say ‘rubbish’ for ‘garbage’! Can you believe it?” Same with Whoopi. They’re both clearly insane.
Oy. ANYWAY. Let me get this straight–I’m supposed to care about the Bass der Humphrey secret 90s love child, correctsicles? So why is it so hard to care? Oh, that’s right, because Rufus and Lily are completely dismal parents who have managed to totally ignore and abandon their own children separately for nigh on eighteen years now, so obviously I should want them to find another kid to punish with passive-aggressive mostly disinterested parental posturing. Okay then! So they’re in Boston, together this time, because Rufus couldn’t find the kid on his teeny tiny map last time and Lily needs to get away and dry her tear about Bart’s death on some 1500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets in a four-star hotel because she doesn’t ALREADY LIVE IN ONE OR ANYTHING and it’s not like they’re reading her late husband’s will in New York, which her grieving stepson Charles is having to face on his own.
“Why do you wear so much purple?”
OH BUT WAIT. He’s not alone! He’s got Blair (FTW) and the jackbass (massive FAIL). Excuse me but is the jackbass really just allowed to be Chuck’s guardian? Wouldn’t Lily, being his stepmother, have first crack at that? Has Lily even met the jackbass yet? Where was she when Chuck was almost falling off of buildings? So many questions, but only one answer: Lily pretty much sucks. Still, not that I think she needs yet another child to not care very much about right now, but at least she doesn’t want to bilk Chuck out of the family fortune/controlling interest in Bass Industries. Because that’s what the jackbass wants. Like we didn’t already know that, show. He’s obvs bad news bears. He doesn’t need to dramatically proclaim “That rat bastard!” or whatever he says when Chuck gets 51% of BI and thus becomes the king of all the vague arsony business his father’s company purportedly does.
Let me explain why this makes no sense, even for Gossip Girl: 1. If Chuck needs a legal guardian, he’s still a minor. 2. You can’t inherit anything when you’re a minor, I KNOW I CHECKED. Not a billion dollars, and not a company for heaven’s sake. Blah blah blah trustcakes about Chuck’s dolla billz, but you still can’t inherit controlling interest in a company. Also, here’s a thought: it is completely implausible that Bart would’ve written his letter to Chuck unless he foresaw his death or faked it. If the answer is that he faked it, awesome. If it’s that the writing is sloppy, fail. That is dumb. He would not have written this ridiculous letter. And also isn’t it interesting that Lily inherited no money and neither did her two children? Bart wanted them to be a “family”, as far as that word ever gets you on this show. Doesn’t that mean they get a cut of the funds if he kicks it? Oh, right, I forget that the bonds of family on this show are at best plot-driven and at worst totally imaginary. My b!
Here’s another question: why do people trust the jackbass even though he’s not even trying to cover up the fact that he’s a snake? Chuck and Blair won’t fully trust themselves or each other or any single other person in their lives, but with him they’re all “Sure, be my legal guardian!”, “It makes total sense that you should want me to go out and drink champagne in a limo with some hos!”, “Yeah, of course I’ll set up a secret brunch for Chuck! I’m so certain this is not a trap of some sort!”, “Fine, I’ll take these olds up to Chuck’s new chamber of secrets where I have no idea what he’s doing!”, etc. Er…disconnect! Okay, I get why Chuck trusts him–because Chuck thinks the jackbass is him, a creepshow womanizer who winks at people like Nate Archibald for no good reason. But why does Blair trust him? And why is she not worried about the jackbass whoopsing their BIG NEW YEAR’S SHOCKING EVE to Chuck? She’s so “Let’s not” when the jackbass threatens to tell Chuck what “happened”. So…really? I’m still supposed to believe they hooked up? Denied.
Looks like a really good idea!
I’m telling you, Blair made the right choice dumping Chuck’s ass. I’m as big a Bluck fan as the next person, but there has got to be a limit to the lengths that you’ll go for people before your heart is in so many pieces it’s impossible to put it back together again. The wife comment is more than insulting, it’s true. Blair is everybody’s wife. She’s Serena’s wife and Dan’s wife and Jenny’s wife and her mother’s wife and absolutely Chuck’s wife. She’s also their mothers, because of course none of them have good ones to speak of. Blair’s ultimate tragedy is that as much as she thinks she’s motivated by her own self-interest, she’s best when she’s somebody’s partner and they’re accomplishing something together. Earth to Chuck: She’s not playing wife, she is your wife. Insofar as “wife” is a devoted female partner. And I understand Chuck’s inability to keep his nastiness in check when he’s backed into a corner, and how he’s the type of person who lashes out a the last good thing in his life, and how he can’t see how important you are until he watches the light die in your eyes because of something he’s said or done. But how long can you go on punishing yourself for loving someone? Blair made the right choice.
As always, I was a day behind in my Gossip Girl watching, due to the not having television in my apartment and having to watch online, and as always, I have a few thoughtsicles.
First of all, two words: Opium den.
(In my search for a screencap of that scene, I came upon this blog, and now I have three fake boyfriends: Ed Westwick, and the two guys who write I Am Chuck Bass.)
But back to the drugs of yore. Opium den? Only Chuck Bass would be capable of finding one of those things. That scene with him in a kimono is so priceless. Anyway! “Jack Bass” is a nice play on “jackass.” Also, the actor is kind of hilarious in an I-wish-they’d-give-him-more-screen-time kind of a way. I loved the part where they’re in Headmistress Queller’s office and Jack is like, “Well he’s in the principal’s office and both parents being dead–sorry Chuck…” (like, “sorry for bringing it up” not “sorry they’re dead”, which is also hilarious) and Chuck just cocks a finger gun at him and goes, “No problem,” all high-like. Obviously, Uncle Jack is, like, the world’s most horrible influence, what with getting drunk at his own nephew’s party and then almost whoopsing him right off the edge of the building with his foghorn voice, but that’s what makes this show so fun!
Explain to me why, though Constance Billard and St. Jude’s are supposed to be two different schools, the students walk the same halls, take the same classes, and have the same headmistress? That sounds like just one school to me, and fancying that up with two names is beyond ridiculous. Also, have you ever noticed that they’re never in class? Not only that they skip school all the time with no repercussions, but also that there are no scenes ever filmed in a classroom. Yet more evidence for my personal theory that Gossip Girl isn’t about teenagers, it’s about human beings at any age.
Now, there were many choice Bluck scenes in “In the Realm of the Basses”, but probs my favorite was the one at Victrola. One of Chuck’s most interesting qualities is his insistence on saying the world’s meanest thing to the person he loves instead of expressing his real feelings, which are actually exactly the opposite. Now, saying “Is that it? Or are you going to tell me you love me again?” is particularly cruel because he knows that not only did his rejection totally crush her like it would any girl but also that, Blair being Blair, she’s been obsessing about it and wishing she hadn’t said it ever since he left, because her pride is the most important thing to her and he shattered it by not saying the words back to her when she knew he felt them.
One of Chuck’s worst qualities when it comes to Blair is that he’s always testing her. This is another one of those tests. “I love you so much it could kill me if you leave me,” is what he’s really saying, “so show me how much you love me by staying with me no matter what I say or do to you.” And she does, because Blair is constant. The fix’d foot, as John Donne would say. That’s her best, best quality. She’s the opposite of a fairweather friend–she’s only there for you if you really need her. And Chuck always really needs her. That’s just his nature. He always needs, because he was never nurtured.
Whatever. So! My favorite Blair scene this week is the one where she comes home to get ready for the Colony Club meeting (what a bullshit storyline, right?) and she sits down in front of the mirror and she starts to dry sob, but she doesn’t cry, she abruptly stops and gathers herself and straightens her shoulders and heads back out into the world. I love that scene because that is exactly what I would do. I would want to cry, I would start to sob, but what I would really want to do is scream and the tears wouldn’t come out because I would be too anguished and so I would push it all down deep and get my head back in the game. I see a lot of myself in Blair; maybe that’s why I love her so much.
I won’t even justify the Colony Club scene or any of the Jenny Humphrey stuff with thoughtsicles, because you already know my opinion of Penelope and that’s all I would talk about re: the stupid Pinkberry-set Little J/Mean Girls storyline this week. Nice to see Eric finally grew out his highlights, though. In fact, just nice to see Eric.
See? There he is.
Back in the realm of the Humphrey-Woodsens, Rufus abandoned the kids he’s (ostensibly) raising during Christmas and New Year’s and stuck them with their horrible mother for the entire holiday so that he could canvas Boston (why Boston? I though Lilly had the Secret Love Child in France?) looking for the kid he didn’t know about until the day before Christmas hiatus. What a tool. And of course, because his only resource is a ridiculous tourist’s map to Boston adoption agencies, he finds nothing. Dan finds that map, though, which makes him go “Hm.” But of course, despite being a total hot mess, Chuck still has to be the one to spell it all out for him, even though he has better things to do like teeter on the edge of the rooftop/sanity and drink whiskey straight from the bottle and nuzzle with Blair once she finally proves to him how much she cares about him (oh, I’m getting there). HOW DO YOU NOT FIGURE THIS OUT, DAN/SERENA? I knew there was a Humphrey-Woodsen love child last season, because it was so damn likely! Yeah, so, as always, the Humphrey-Woodsens are totally snoozeville. No wonder Eric wants so badly to be a Bass.
Let’s catch up with Bluck, shall we? After breaking the bad news about the Humphrey-Woodsen baby to the current heir to the Humphrey throne, and also telling Eric it was nice having him for a brother (either Chuck doesn’t understand anything or he doesn’t believe in anything, either way it’s so sad), Chuck goes up on the roof to sing some song I don’t recognize about “Spanish ladies” (??) and drink booze and possibly die. Blair, of course, knows that’s where he’s gone and the jackbass follows her up there where he almost startles Chuck off the edge like an “IDIOT!” which is what Blair yells at him. Then Chuck proceeds to talk like the Bug in Men in Black (“Well I went to the pardy…”) and scream about how his daddy never wanted him (valid criticism, Bart practically admitted that himself, although it was because Chuck reminds him of Chuck’s mother and it’s painful, not because he just doesn’t love him, WHICH CHUCK SHOULD REMEMBER, but all Chuck remembers is what Bart said to him right before he died, which is that he always screws everything up) and how he’s Chuck Bass and how nobody cares. And then Blair gets all squinty and tells him that she cares, that she’ll always be there, that she doesn’t want him to go away. And she passes the test! Chuck gets down off the edge, apologizes to her, and nuzzles into her neck like a little puppy. It’s so cute! Let’s watch it.
Aw. Best scene since the awkward/awesome hug last episode. Then the show had to go and ack a fool by pretending the jackbass and Blair did something untoward on New Year’s that Chuck can never know about. Okay, most people are freaking out because that might mean that the jackbass and Blair hooked up. To this I say: Nay. Even with the promo from next week–you know how manipulative those things are. I think they made some kind of evil deal re: Chuck. I can’t think of what that might be because I don’t actually know the jackbass. We’ll just wait and find out. I honestly don’t think Blair would sleep with the jackbass. Blair isn’t like Chuck; she doesn’t look for comfort in physical intimacy when she’s feeling broken–duh, that’s where all her food issues come from. One could argue that she looked for comfort in physical intimacy with Chuck after the whole Nate debacle, but again, to that I say: Nay. Without the Nate Archibald albatross around her neck, she was finally free to give into her chemistry with Chuck. Also, free to take off her clothes in Victrola. Yay freedom. Yay getting rid of Nate Archibald!
Speaking of that guy, where was he this week? Not by Chuck’s side, that’s where! Probs making out with Vanessa (also suspiciously absent this week) in the Brooklyn. Good riddance.
Bluck dramz + Bluck love + ridiculous new character + no Vanessa or Nate + Pinkberry product placement =
My fake boyfriend Chuck Bass is pondering something. You see? He has his wonder face on. The thing that he is wondering is this: why is Penelope, the bitchtastic leader of the UES Plastics when Blair has something better to do, like throwing a totally awesome party or being a member of the Non-Judging Breakfast Club or keeping vigilant watch while Dorota skins 101 dalmatian puppies and makes a coat out of them, so powerful that she can kick around Nellie Yuki, who is my all-time favorite marginal GG character, and Hazel, who is my all-time favorite marginal GG character with a Tumblr, yay!?
Okay, but seriously. Penelope sucks. She’s no fun, she’s not smart, she’s not cunning, she’s not interesting, she’s such a Blair-bot it’s ridiculous (headbands WHAT?!), ad infinitum. There are a million reasons why Penelope is the worst. I want to see an episode that is completely centered on Hazel and Nellie’s plan to destroy the evil that is Penelope. I can’t believe she ever had the nerve, THE NERVE, to freeze out Blair Waldorf, at BUTTER OF ALL PLACES THAT RESTAURANT IS SO A YEAR AND A HALF AGO. Also wasn’t her name Hazel last season? I’m just saying. Perhaps I will call her Un-Hazel from now on, to differentiate her from the true blue Hazel that reminds me of Gretchen Weiners and will likely, in the future, rise up to destroy her master.
Even I, who have a pretty low opinion of Little J, think she’s too cool to be hanging out with this clown posse. Penelope must be STOPPED, if only because I am sick of her getting screen time because she is THE WORST EVER. Check it.
Well, Penelope won’t get away with this kind of crap for long. I am always watching, and soon I will sic my boyfriend Chuck Bass on her. He’s in a destroying mood, although you wouldn’t know it from the TOTALLY AWESOME SANTA HAT I got him to wear. Observe:
Happy Holidays from Chuck and I! Penelope, watch your back.
Now that I’m fully caught up on Gossip Girl, let me say something: Chuck and Blair are the most awesome couple on television right now. THEY JUST ARE. I will hear no dissent (all right, I will hear dissent, but I won’t like it)! I don’t care that Chuck looks like creepy Jimmy Fallon, and I don’t care that they’re both, in their ways, morally reprehensible at times, emotionally stunted buffoons when it comes to love and romance, and out-of-control illogical in most if not all cases. THEY ARE AWESOME. They’re passionate and insane and sharp dressers (how about Chuck’s sparkly tux from the Snowflake Ball? Genius! Nobody else on television could pull that ridiculousness off) and, best of all, because they’re so angry and lost and wounded their connection is stronger than it would be if they were both relatively normal because they’re the only people on the face of the planet who truly understand and accept each other.
The best part of the episode by far was this:
Most awkward embrace the world has ever seen? Absolutely. But it’s not really a proper hug, it’s more of a union, a fitting together of puzzle pieces. Blair doesn’t need to look at his face or say a word to him, all she wants to do is hold him to keep him from collapsing. He’s so tired and weak that he can’t even turn around or sit up on his own, but he raises one hand to touch her arm to show her that he knows she’s there, that she’s the reason he’s still upright. That is some powerful blocking right there, guys. Ed Westwick and Leighton Meester are no joke in this scene.
Best of all, it reminds me of this:
Bluck (Chair? I’m undecided) is totally the new LoVe.
I thought that when I finished graduate school last June it would be the last time anyone ever gave me an “assignment”, but, as with most things, I was dead wrong! First of all, there’s my job, where I have assignments all the time although I like to think of them as “tasks.” But, of course, there’s my (very) nascent writing career to consider here. It seems like we’re at the tail end of the revision cycle with AUT; I sent my revisions to Joanna a few weeks ago before she went to London for the book fair and we spoke yesterday. She said she liked everything that I’d done, but she was going to send me a Word doc with changes tracked of small things (like, a character picks up a menu in a scene but he’s supposed to be at school…oops!) that I can fix with the stroke of a few keys, and also I’m going to write a little intro to Part Two because we thought maybe the transition was a little jarring. The good thing is that I know pretty much exactly where I want to go with it, and it probably won’t be longer than a page.
But, Joanna had one final assignment for me. She wanted me to think up a little pitch for the book, sort of like the kind you see in a query letter or an agent’s pitch letter. She said first just a one-sentence “Hollywood” type pitch–you know, “The Jungle Book meets The Nutty Professor” or something–and then one that is a few lines, so she can see how closely the ways in which we see the book overlap. Which is a fine exercise except Joanna already came up with the best one, which is “Brick meets Looking for Alaska” and after several hours of thinking I cannot come up with something even remotely better. I keep thinking “Gossip Girl meets…”, but that’s probably because I was thinking about this on the way home from Cambria’s after just having watched Gossip Girl (awesome ep, by the way, down goes Jenny Humphrey and Bri and I were right about Serena having “killed” someone! But no Chuck or Nate, and Georgina’s still around, boo). I mean, AUT is a murder mystery that takes place in a tony NorCal private school, and a lot of the characters are extremely wealthy and corrupt, but…it’s not anything like Gossip Girl, especially if we’re talking about the book series and not the show. So…needless to say, I’m a little lost on this for the moment. Hopefully if I just concentrate on making the changes Joanna suggests, writing an awesome Part Two intro, and cutting some pages/words (J thinks we’re okay on length, but advised me to cut anything I don’t think I need when going through the MS this time, which is solid advice), it will just come to me like a bolt of lightening. And hopefully it won’t include the words “Gossip Girl meets…”
“Why do you wear so much purple?”
Looks like a really good idea!
Not enough.
My fake boyfriend Chuck Bass is pondering something. You see? He has his wonder face on. The thing that he is wondering is this: why is Penelope, the bitchtastic leader of the UES Plastics when Blair has something better to do, like throwing a totally awesome party or being a member of the Non-Judging Breakfast Club or keeping vigilant watch while Dorota skins 101 dalmatian puppies and makes a coat out of them, so powerful that she can kick around Nellie Yuki, who is my all-time favorite marginal GG character, and Hazel, who is my all-time favorite marginal GG character with a 
Anna Jarzab 