One thin line
December 8, 2010
This already isn’t going well, because when I was first inspired to write tonight’s entry I had a clear vision of how at least the first one hundred words would go, but then I had to pause to feed the cats (who are always very anxious but hardly ever satisfied) and when I came back to write I couldn’t quite remember anything,
so I sat here for a few minutes trying to recall, but then I finished my glass of crappy Pinot Noir (it was on sale for US$9 minus one additional dollar via a Facebook coupon, so I tried it because I have learned not to discriminate against wine based solely on price, as one of my very favorites is Pepperwood Grove Old Vine Zinfandel which sells for about US$8 per bottle) and decided to switch to Flying Dog Doggie Style Pale Ale which turned out to be lovely indeed even though it didn’t restore my memory—
and really, if anything, at this point in the evening contributed to just the opposite and distracted me even further, which I find to be a slight bit more of an issue as I age, especially the later the drinking goes on—aging sucks—but it did put me in a slightly better frame of mind for writing something, anything, even if I still couldn’t remember what that something was originally going to be, you know, just half an hour earlier,
which is perturbing, because I usually have a really good memory for the details of what has gone on, which any of my friends who have been annoyed by my recollection of facts can tell you, even if such remembering is in conjunction with consuming tasty beverages such as Summit Extra Pale Ale at bowling, karaoke or some such thing, but tonight I sort of lost the plan so I’m thankful that, even after I fed the cats, something jogged my memory a little bit every few minutes so that I could get this far—sort of—
and now have I just realized that I seem to have unintentionally drawn myself as Janeane Garofalo in that superhero movie (with a little bit of Amy Winehouse thrown in for good measure), and I think that’s a good place to stop.
Starring as me
August 16, 2010
Who would you want to play yourself in a movie? I’m not asking who is your celebrity doppelgänger. I’m asking who would be able to channel the inner you on the big screen?
Figuring this out occupied my thoughts as I laid in bed last night waiting to fall asleep. I had initially thought that maybe Zooey Deschanel could be the one, because I love her quirkiness, but she’s also kind of wispy, and I’m not wispy. The second name that popped into my head was Janeane Garofalo. I thought that I should try to consider more possibilities but quickly realized that there was a reason why Ms. Garofalo came to mind.
I thought about what I know about her. If put under pressure to name movies she was in, all I’d be able to come up with without looking is The Truth about Cats and Dogs and that superhero one (by the way, that skull bowling ball that she used wasn’t just a prop). What I remember is that she does dorky and class clown, awkward and a little attractive, wallflower but underestimated.
I figured she’d be the one to be able to pull off portraying my type of personality in a believable way. I’m not a starlet, glamour girl type, and it was just a happy coincidence that there was a little more of a physical resemblance (beyond the dark hair) than I had realized.
Through the years there are celebrities I’ve been said to resemble. In my early twenties, it was Joan Jett and Martha Quinn. More recently, it was Mary McDonnell. I don’t really see it beyond hair color and/or style.
Back to doppelgängers. I learned of the website myheritage.com, where you can upload a photo of yourself and it will come up with celebrity look-alikes. I did it five times with different photos. I didn’t try to trick it for four of them, though when I kept getting a particular result, I did, as a last resort, give it the sunglasses photo just to test it. Naturally you have to take these things with a grain of salt. First, my matches were almost all men. I accept that. But second, some of the more outlandish matches it gave me included Prince Harry, Desmond Tutu, and Jessica Simpson. What?
I was relieved that it did return Janeane Garofalo one time (coincidentally, the same photo that I chose to use of her). And I was a little bit flattered that it gave me Gary Oldman twice, because I really like him. But who was the celebrity that it gave me all four times? James Spader. I’m not sure what to think about that!






