Thing of the Day: Chelsea Handler

I have expressed my not-so-secret aspirations to become Chelsea Handler (that is, physically morph into her in every way shape and form possible) both on this blog and in every day life, but after reading her third book, Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, I have become hellbent on going to a filming of Chelsea Lately, charming her with my own inappropriate humor and affinity towards vodka sodas and television, and becoming Ms. Handler's intern and susequently her second in command for all time.

In Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, Chelsea takes her 300 pound African driver to Turks & Caicos to find him a lover, adopts a dog with the same nickname as her boyfriend, steals a Cabbage Patch Kid from the neighboring teenage boy in exchange for an innocent game of doctor (here we diverge, Chels--I find Cabbage Patch Kids terrifying and awful dolls for children. They look like Chucky and cause hieghtened levels of teenage pregnancy in kids who grown up thinking that babies come from cabbage patches), and boozes her way through weddings, funerals, meetings, and casual Monday afternoons.

Furthermore, a recent episode of Chelsea Lately has clued me into this gem of a news piece--Zhora, a chimpanzee in zoological captivity in my great communist hometown of Moscow, has been expelled from the zoo and sent to rehab because of his drinking problem. Oh yes--zookeepers decided that Zhora the chimpanzee was consuming too much alcohol, and the alcohol caused him to behave erratic and aggresive. Additionally, he began to fiend for booze to the point where he would harrass innocent zoo-goers sipping on brewskis for sips of their alcohol, and sometimes accompany his liquoring habits with cigarettes.

WHAT? How does a chimp even hold a cigarette, let alone smoke one? Cigarettes are fairly fragile, I always find them irritatingly broken in half and scattering tar and nicotine onto all of the contents of my purse. Chimpanzees have big hairy clumsy hands, and if they get their hands on cigarettes without breaking them, how in the world do they light them?

Food for thought for Chelsea's next book, perhaps. Or mine.

Thing of the Day: Literature

I have decided that starting this summer and continuing over the next few years, I want to read every novel that has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize. Three very important events sparked this lofty goal:

1. My roommates have started a book club for next semester. We are reading Franny & Zooey for our first meeting, which will take place on the Sunday we get back to school and continue taking place every other Sunday, pending that more than half of us can rouse ourselves from Saturday night hangovers. Maybe they will take place every third Sunday. Or maybe we should just aim for Mondays. Guys?

2. When driving home from LBI on Sunday night, I dug Are You There Vodka? It's Me Chelsea out of my roommate's back seat and proceeded to read 100 pages on the way home. This would all be fine, since Chelsea Handler is my personal hero and I aspire to be just like her when I grow up (Why, you may ask? The woman has managed to write a best-selling novel based entirely on her love of drinking AND star in a popular television series based entirely on her disdain of stupid shit. And she has a pet midget. What I would do for a pet midget! Except I think I'd want an Asian one)--but, I have already read Are You There Vodka. Thrice. Four times if you count the re-read in the car. And despite necessary re-reads to learn how to behave exactly and precisely like Chelsea, I find it silly to read the same book more than once or twice at most. Nonetheless, I find myself doing this all the time.

3. J.K Rowling is not planning on writing any more Harry Potter books. When I Googled "8th Harry Potter book" the most reputable source I got reporting possible developments was The Gryffindor Gazette. I plan on contacting The Gryffindor Gazette ASAP to inquire about any potential need for guest columnists, but future post-graduation job if being Chelsea Handler's second in command doesn't work out aside, this is bad news.

These three combined facts, plus my desire to be able to tell people that I have read every Pulitzer and Booker book and then have them revel my intellectual superiority, has led me to print out a list of the books in question (40 Booker and 60 Pulitzer, a sweet O.C.D-friendly 100 books), cross off the ones I have already read (10.5. I started Disgrace by J.M Coetzee and hated it) decide which one I am going to read next (Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout), and plan a trip to my favorite bookstore, Strand, today before yoga.

Intellectualness(Intellectuality? Spellcheck, why are you telling me this isn't a wordddd?), here we come.