Tonight starts the new "cycle" of America's Next Top Model! I'm stoked! What does it say about me that I get SO into such a show? I don't care! Yay for Tyra and her girdles! Yay for clueless pretty girls! Yay for fashion! For art! For reality television!

The only other things I'm watching are Lost and Rome on HBO. I enjoy them both but Rome's violence is hard to take at times and Lost's mystery on top of mystery gets irritating after a while.

I've also been watching some great DVDs from Netflix. We're on the last season of Arrested Development and it will be tragic for that show to end for us. I thought there was a rumor of a movie based on the show, I can only wish. I watched Marie Antoinette last night. I don't care what any reviewer said--it was absolutely beautiful and Sofia Coppola did an outstanding job capturing a life that existed as a dichotomy of eye candy and boredom. I kept it and I'm going to watch it again to pay more attention to the dialogue; I was so absorbed in the visuals I didn't catch all the words.

I feel so incredibly sorry for Britney Spears right now. I wish everyone would just leave her alone.

Some of the things I like to do on the Internet...

I keep up with my very best friend in the universe: Brigette.
I am riveted by my friend Stefanie's memoir of her days as a dancer and addict.
I relate to my friend Julie's life as a mom.
I laugh at the stuff my friend Josh posts about his two adorable kids.
I keep up with my friend Kath's experience as she beats the shit out of breast cancer.
I click on a few of the interesting sex-related links that Susannah Breslin compiles.
I enjoy my friend Dan's passion for the cinema.
I am amazed by the brilliance of my artist/librarian friend Karin.
I engage in a bit of celebrity stalking: Pam Anderson has a blog.
I check up on one of my favorite authors: William Gibson, the originator of cyberpunk.
I chuckle at the adventures of Elyse, the only Americas Next Top Model contestant (cycle one, second place) I know of who has actually become a real model.
I snicker at the great tabloid-inspired art in Gallery of the Absurd.
And I learn a thing or two about gardening in northeast Florida from another Transplanted Gardener like myself.

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It's been a fun and family filled few months. We've taken the boys to the Jacksonville zoo, Volusia mall, miniature golf course, bowling alley, and eaten out a lot. It's gotten much easier to do things now that I have phased out Justin's morning nap.

Merritt talks like crazy, is even reading a book to us now:



Justin is learning to crawl for real and says "Ma-ma-ma!" when he wants me. His hair is growing out into white blonde spikey fuzz like a little Sting. Speaking of which I am psyched to see The Police back together on the Grammys tonight. I guess someone needs money. Who cares--in my opinion they were one of the best bands of all time.



So this is what happens when you don't give pacifiers to your babies:



I'm still glad I didn't give them the plastic thing but we'll see how I feel about it in a few years. And check out my AFTER braces smile.

The baby still wakes up pretty early in the morning. I put him to bed later, have cut out his morning nap, but something gets that kid up before dawn every day. He's getting his top two teeth so maybe he will be less wakeful when they finally come in. I hope. He will usually go back to sleep for Andy but never for me. So now Andy is getting up when he pulls his 5 AM wake-up shenanigans. And I feel a bit more human now.

We saw La Nouba at the Cirque du Soleil in Orlando last Friday night--my Christmas present from Andy. We had incredible seats, the show was fantastic, but then...one of the performers got hurt about halfway through and had to be carried off the stage on a stretcher. Talk about a reality check. She wasn't even doing anything at the time but somehow she fell at least two stories (that I could see, it could have been from higher). She was the girl on the posters:



Disney was very vague about it in the Orlando paper:

A performer in Cirque du Soleil's La Nouba show at Walt Disney World fell from an elevated platform during a Friday night show and was hospitalized in what a company spokeswoman said was the circus's first serious injury since it opened in Central Florida eight years ago.

The performer, who plays the character Green Bird, is recuperating and is expected to return to the show, Cirque du Soleil spokeswoman Aurelie Grand said.

"She is still being treated," said Grand, who wouldn't comment on the extent of the woman's injuries. She also refused to provide the performer's name.

"I am not allowed to give any details," said Grand, who wouldn't say how high the woman was above the stage.

"It was high enough," she said. Grand said the performer was wearing a safety harness and that the equipment didn't malfunction.


First of all I don't know where they get the name Green Bird for a red and yellow clown girl. And I sure didn't see a safety harness anywhere on her. After it happened it was just a relief to see her moving and hear her moaning rather than total scary silent and still. In true Disney fashion the show went on after she was gone (a pile of red feathers in her wake) but it didn't have the same energy or surreality that it had the first half.

I loved it anyway. It was a great night.