It isn't often that one works with such a rare group of internet dorks that one gets a fancy goodbye lunch at a nice restaurant and suddenly flashmobbed by cats and pandas on sticks and an entire play constructed to demonstrate one's coworkers five stages of grief over one's leaving. But that totally just happened. Here's me with @MarySnauffer, making a Sad Panda face. Mary is grinning devilishly because she wrote the play about the five stages of grief and knows I have no idea what I'm in for.
Important note: these animal cutouts were made by printing them from the intarwebs and gluing them to file folders, then cutting up the file folders to make them into puppets. Apparently, my coworkers did this in my office the day before yesterday while I was wrapping up business in our Connecticut office. YOU JUST NEVER KNOW what people are up to when you're gone.
Are you familiar with the five stages of grief? Well, here they are, as represented by cats on sticks: 1. Denial. In the above photo, I am reading aloud from the THREE PAGE script as Mary holds Denial Cat, looking all denial-y.
3. Bargaining. Bet you thought there'd only be one Bargaining Cat. Nope. There are three. Go figure. I didn't make the rules. Truth be told, the puppets were under our plates when I got there and I thought they were really artsy placemats -- and I was SO SURPRISED that they used the same kind of file folders we have at work to make them.
I am an idiot.
In the middle there is @lshon who took the rest of the pictures.
And here's cheerful Acceptance Cat, who speaks in a southern accent and said, and I quote, because I have the script in front of me: "You know what? I wish you the best of luck over there. But you know what, you don't even need luck because I know you'll do just great. Just the way you are."
Then Sad Panda becomes Happy: So, basically, this is the best goodbye party anyone has ever given to anyone, ever. I work with some of the most creative and hilarious people in the world, and I will miss them very much when I move. Tomorrow. At 8am.
I wish everyone had friends at work who understood exactly how and exactly how VERY dorky they are. I know it's not the case, but for one day, I felt like my unique flavor of dorkiness was completely acknowledged and celebrated by my coworkers, and that was pretty darn fantastic.
I will miss them all very much, and will never forget this joyful, hysterical and delicious lunch in NYC.
So. This American Horror Story was an "FX special event," as season finales often are -- extra special because there was an extra 10 minutes. Let's see what unlikely American horror stories are executed to bewitch, bother and befuddle us this week on American Horror Story, Season Finale (01-12): "Afterbirth."
Ben's looking at a tablet (computer kind, not pill or Moses kind) nine months ago in a modern apartment. Vivien comes downstairs with two suitcases and a major case of the "I'm gonna cry so don't talk to me face." She says she's taking Violet to Florida. Ben wants her to come to Los Angeles and start over. She says she has a wall (emotional kind, not structural or Pink Floyd kind). He says "look at this house," referring to the tablet. It's the scary house. She fights a little more, then presumably gives up and agrees to go with him to LA to look at the house.
Wow, this entire series almost avoided itself.
Now Ben's in the house calling for Vivien and Violet. I think this is present-day now, so they're dead. He doesn't know that yet? Oh wait, I think he does. He whispers "Where are you?" in more of a Poltergeist than practical way. The "I LOVE YOU" is back on Violet's chalkboard.
The creepy-baby-parts credits roll.
Ben asks Constance to take care of the baby. Oh wait. No. He's asking Constance NOT to take care of the baby anymore, because Vivien's sister's coming. Constance isn't into giving him up. She makes a dig about Ben not being the father and forces within his house wanting to do the child grave harm. Good point, Jess. And congrats on that Golden Globe nomination.
Why doesn't she take him to court? He's not the father and she's the grandmother. Can you prove grandmother...ship with a blood test? I bet you can. Well, nothing in this TV show is very Los Angeles, is it?
Seriously, if this is LA, he should have a restraining order against her by now, because she's scary. And she's always there. Does she have a secret room behind a bookcase in their house, or does she just hang there to talk to her dead children? How come she gets to talk to allllll the dead people? Where is her fourth kid? Why did she want the maid to stay there forever, and even make Ben build a gazebo over her bones?
I'm getting stressed out. Back to the show.
We're flashing back to when Ben called Constance to tell her he can't treat Tate anymore because he "crossed the line" with his daughter. Abigail is still alive and is drawing with crayons.
Back forward. I'm not really sure what the point of that flashback was. Constance tells Ben that Tate is long dead. Ben makes a vague threat on her life (on account of alleged family-destroying) and leaves with the baby. He also leaves a whole heap of toys just sitting there. Wasteful.
At the house, the maid and Viv are chatting about Viv's "transition." The maid tells her that people can only see her if she wants them to. Does that mean that dead people can see each other all the time? That can't be; every square inch of the Earth would be PACKED with dead people chatting about their feelings. So, it seems dead people only appear in the present to have conversations with each other and sometimes to tousle the living a bit.
Where do they go when they're not appearing? It must not be very interesting; they keep coming back like exes to a Facebook page. Move ON, dead people. If they can't move on because of the house ... how come? The house is less than 100 years old (built in the 1920s). What do the writers purport our great grandparents were up to? I mean, I know that the dentist was a murderer and the doctor was performing abortions, but neither of those make for an evil house.
Ahem. Vivien says she made Violet promise never to appear to Ben so that he will be able to leave and raise their baby away from the house. Viv and the maid talk a bit more about Ben, for whom Vivien's feelings have totally returned now that she sees him without her, and then Viv asks the maid for a cup of tea. The maid's all like "I don't take orders from ghosts, we're equal now." Vivien says "Call me Vivien." The maid's like "I'd like that" but she's probably thinking "that's what I just said I was going to do in not so many words. Are you so convinced that you're superior to me? Geez, lady. Get a clue." But she doesn't say that. She tells Vivien to "let him go." I'm not sure if she means Ben or the baby.
Ben's monologuing to the baby in the living room. The baby cries. Ben snuggles him. He stops. Ben goes to the kitchen and lays out all his personal effects, then goes to the office of broken dreams and proceeds to try to shoot himself (Viv's sister is en route, so supposedly the baby will be ok). Vivien appears to him and stops him. She forgives him for everything and tells him to make like a tree. Violet appears grumpily on the couch; apparently she's been watching this go down. She jokes that she saved him lots of money by killing herself. He plays along with the joke. Dark stuff, people.
Violet tells Ben to go. Vivien starts making out with him and then Violet and Viv both disappear. Ben goes and gets his suitcases, and then dead Kate Mara shows up on the staircase! Oh, Kate Mara. You're so pretty.
Pretty, dead Kate Mara hangs Ben by a noose from the chandelier, killing him and making it look like a suicide. Whoopsie. Best laid plans.
The baby cries.
ACT TWO
The realtor is showing her racist side to a new couple as she shows them the house. She's also carrying Viv's dog, who we haven't seen for awhile. I'm starting to wonder what her role in all this is. She's basically feeding the house. Is she the most evil of them all? Did she make a deal with the devil?
The Ramos couple has a son Violet's age. Love interest? Perhaps. His name is Gabe and he has a skateboard.
The realtor tells the Ramosi that the previous owners died in a tragically romantic way; she died in childbirth and he hung himself from grief. Doesn't that tie things in a nice little bow? She says she adopted the dog. Are the writers just tying up a loose end here because they forgot about the dog? Maybe. Or maybe something cool will happen two seasons from now. Who knows?
Gabe goes skateboarding. The dead redhead twins throw stuff under his wheels and he falls hard. Violet is watching him. The realtor says "gringos" to the Spanish couple. They still buy the house.
ACT THREE
Constance is back at her house talking with two detectives about having found Ben Harmon, hanging. There's a great flashback to the moment where she finds him and smokes a cigarette, calling him stupid a bunch of times. Then she goes to get the baby and finds an empty carrier; the baby must have been stolen by Pretty Dead Kate Mara.
Vivien welcomes Ben to the other side, along with Violet. Group hug!
We see that Violet's body is rotting in the basement. Constance presumably steps right over her to find PDKM rocking the baby. Have we discussed the fact that PDKM is unusually crazy? That is clearly not her baby, but she thinks it is. Guess you can't be that pretty without being a little nuts, no offense PDKM.
Some dude slits PDKM's already-dead throat, which I guess startles her a bit, and he grabs the baby to give to Constance. Maybe that's child #4. Or am I supposed to know who that is and I forgot?
Constance tells the police/detectives that Violet stole the baby and ran away, and that she prays for them. I did a triple take on the girl detective, thinking she was Jessica Alba. She's not. They leave. Constance goes and takes the baby out of her closet, where she was hiding him.
She picks him up and says "Who's my good little angel?" over and over, which sounds like benign baby talk but seems extra foreboding when you type it out. And when you say it. I just said it to my cat and felt weird about it.
Violet's playing Gabe's music in his new, her old, room. He comes in and is all like "What's this random girl with pretty hair doing in my room?" She criticizes his taste in music. The "I LOVE YOU" is no longer on the chalkboard. Violet's lines have clearly been looped in after shooting, probably to balance them with the music level, but geez, she slurs like crazy and having her reiterate lines she clearly slurred at the shoot makes it extra annoying. Okay, theater major rant over. Tate appears in the doorway and sees Violet chatting up the new kid. He looks all shocked and devastated. The music swells.
The Ramosi are unpacking. They talk about the realtor, who's name is Marcie. Exposing her name so openly makes me think her part's going to get bigger. (That's what she said.) They start making sweet sweet love on the kitchen counter while the Harmons (Ben and Viv) watch creepily. They talk about having another baby. The Harmons decide they can't let the nice Ramosi have a baby in the evil house. The maid appears over the writhing bodies and gives a speech about being on the "good" side of the spirits in the house; among those who don't want to see more suffering. I guess this means she'll help get the Ramosi out of there.
ACT FOUR
The Ramosi are sleeping. Mr. Ramos hears something and gets up to investigate and WOW does he work out! Sorry. Someone in a black bodysuit like Tate's starts getting frisky with Mrs. Ramos. Tate appears to Gabe and says a bunch of cryptic stuff (at least it would seem cryptic if you were Gabe). Mrs. Ramos notices that the black body suit dude isn't her husband. (It's Ben, we'd know those baby blues anywhere!) She screams. Gabe hears it and calls to her. Mr. Ramos turns on the stove and starts to burn his hand in a trance. Etc, etc. The Ramosi get terrorized. Mena Suvari is there and everything. It's not particularly difficult for the dead to terrorize the living. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. Oh yeah, this isn't real life.
What I AM surprised about is Tate's participation. He's not on the evil side, apparently -- and much to my surprise. Perhaps he just wants to be on whatever side Violet's on.
The Harmons kill each other a bunch of times, but they're already dead, so it's ok, except for that they're doing it in front of the Ramosi, who are hella scared.
Oh. Now Tate's got a knife to Gabe's throat, claiming that Violet needs a boyfriend or something. She manipulates him into letting Gabe go. She kisses him and vanishes. Like mother like daughter. Gabe escapes.
The Harmons, Violet included, watch the Ramosi drive away and make a sort-of-oath to keep any nice people from staying in the house. Fade to black. FALSE ENDING!
ACT FIVE
Marcie puts "REDUCED" over the For Sale sign by the house and tries to shoo away the Ghost Tour or whatever it is.
Ben is sweeping, because actors need things to do with their hands, and Tate comes in. He wants to talk. Ben calls him a monster and a psychopath. Then Ben denounces therapy as a sham: "Week after week, month after month, year after year we collect checks, but deep down, we know it doesn't work." Tate manipulates him into relative submission despite being a known psychopath with a pathetic "But can you just ... hang out with me sometimes?" Ben is a fool. That was a pretty good scene, though -- if a little heavy-handed. Good writing.
Vivien is playing cello, which seems a far more likely ghost activity than sweeping. She hears a baby crying and heads down to the basement.
She finds the 1920s doctor's wife Nora Montgomery, exhausted and condescending. Nora is rocking Viv's baby #2 -- the one who didn't make it. WHOA. We just had a major eureeka moment.
Viv says she thought the baby didn't make it. Nora says "barely," and notes that he made just one little cry and then passed on. Did American Horror Story just address abortion law? Yes. Yes they did. Apparently, you only get to be a ghost if you lived, and you only live if you're born. Fair enough.
Anyway, this baby is the one that was fathered by Ben. Nora calls him a weakling, but claims ownership. Viv offers to help quiet him down. She picks him up and sings to him. He stops crying. Nora goes to take a rest and leaves the baby with Vivien, just "for the night." On her way out, she says she's not sure she has the patience to be a mother. Vivien, who clearly does, walks through the house with her baby. She finds the maid in the kitchen who is cleaning because she has nothing else to do.
Viv lets the maid hold the baby. The maid says "I would have been a good mother if I hadn't been such a little tramp." HAHAHAHAhahahaha. Vivien makes her his godmother.
Now there's a Christmas tree. Ben, Violet and the maid are decorating. Viv comes in with the baby. Ben says he didn't think it was possible, but he's happy. Violet smiles. Then she notices Tate and PDKM watching from the other room. They're broody and scary. Tate says he'll wait forever for Violet.
"THREE YEARS LATER" - aka Act ... Six? Thanks for these extra special extra 10 minutes, FX.
JESSICA LANGE IS GETTING HER HAIR DONE. Are the writers reading my blog? Or am I just a genius? OR BOLTH?
Constance tells the hairdresser she had a baby; or adopted a baby whose parents were distant cousins who died. She calls him "Michael" and gets her hair awesome-ized. Finally, an explanation. Thanks, American Horror Story. Merry Christmas.
Constance gives a very long, crazy "I was destined to be somebody" speech in the mirror, ending with the notion that her son needs a strong mother, and that everything that happened to her was preparation for her to guide him wisely through life. Actually, I'm going to go ahead and transcribe this bad boy. It's so theatrical. Actors wishing to use this as a monologue: you're welcome.
"May I confide something? Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I was destined for great things. I was going to be somebody; a person of significance -- a star of the silver screen, I once thought, but my dreams became nightmares. Instead of laurels; funeral wreaths. Instead of glory; bitter disappointment, cruel afflictions. Now I understand: tragedy was preparing me for something greater. Every loss that came before was a lesson. I was being prepared. Now, I know for what: this child; a remarkable boy destined for greatness, in need of a remarkable mother -- someone forged in the fires of adversity who can guide him with wisdom, with firmness, with love."
Dang. That's some Turgenev stuff. Or at least Sam Shepard. Haha, theater joke! Oh -- they broke up. Two years ago. That must be why they sold that gorgeous house in Stillwater, MN. Sorry, Ms. Lange, I meant no ill will.
Ahem. Constance arrives home. The fridge is open. There's blood on it. She puts the milk in it anyway, but definitely looks perturbed. The cookie jar is on the floor. She calls for Flora, presumably the nanny. She's on the floor of Michael's room, dead. Michael is giggling in the rocking chair, which is smeared with blood. There's blood on his face. Constance kneels in front of him and says "Now, what am I gonna do with you?" She gives him a long, admiring look.
And that is the real end.
So here's what we know: The house has been around since the 1920s, and anyone who dies there stays there -- with the exception of if their bones are removed, which is a difficult-to-explain loophole the maid seems to have been interested in back in gazebo-building time. The Harmons are all dead now. Constance is alive. She has four children and is now raising a fifth, who is her grandson (Michael is the son of dead-Tate and live-Vivien, who is now dead-Vivien). Tate is waiting for Violet's forgiveness. PDKM wants revenge or the baby or something; but probably really just wants Ben. Michael is supernatural and evil.
That was fun! Am I missing any important facts? Leave 'em in the comments.
Here we go, folks. Let's see what unlikely American horror stories are executed to bewitch, bother and befuddle us this week on American Horror Story, Season 1, Episode 6: "Piggy Piggy."
A doorbell rings. Jessica Lange pats a hairdo she 100% cannot have achieved herself. Possible conclusion: dead people do her hair. She opens the door. It's a SWAT team. Why not?
They're looking for Tate Langdon, Lange's ("Constance's") son. They have big guns and chinstraps. They proceed to raid the home, and suddenly we are informed it is 1994, in Charles Rennie Mackintosh font.
Oh hey! It's all those dead teenagers from last episode! Wow. These people are all roughly the same age as I am (tad younger, who's counting), which means American Horror Story is shamelessly using the Columbine massacre as the inspiration for Tate's tortured character. Ouch. I actually knew one of the girls who was killed in that. She was in my cabin at camp and we played tetherball for a whole afternoon one time. I digress. Anyway, nice thinly-veiled riff on the wounds of my generation's youth.
Well. This is great. Remember what I just said? Now it's these kids trapped in a library as someone shoots up their schoolmates. Are the writers using true American horror stories all the time, and I just hadn't noticed yet? Is it because I tend to either work or fall asleep while I watch TV? Because they should be expecting that. Nick Swardson's Pretend Time, for example, shows the hashtag #pretendtime in the bottom left corner of the screen for the entire duration of the show. Why? Because they know me.
And yes, tweeting counts as work.
Isn't that that girl from that show on MTV with the cast on her arm?
Ok. The shooter shoots holes in the door, then opens it (easier). He begins stalking the students in the stacks. The students all look a little ... old ... but not like, 90210 old, so we're fine. A student begs for mercy and gets shot. The shooter is wearing a black coat, but not a trenchcoat, more of a euro-military-style coat. I am still uncomfortable.
MTV girl screams "WHY?" and is shot by Tate. You're not winning any points with me, American Horror Story writers.
Cut back to Constance's home; the SWAT team arrests Tate, who stands and puts a finger-gun to his own head. He fires. It is ineffective.
ACT TWO
Violet is Googling (I'm sorry, generic "Roundsearch"-ing) the Westfield High Massacre. She is visibly freaked out when she sees the kids, then she sees that Tate was the shooter. She runs downstairs and calls for her mom. Unfortunately, the only person around is Jessica Lange in the kitchen with the same hairdo, smoking an appropriately anachronistic cigarette. Wait. Is she wearing the same outfit from 1994?
Nope. Just checked. That's a negatory. Actually, the hair's a little different, too. How does she do that without the help of dead people? Can I accomplish this in the morning before work? Deep thoughts.
Constance makes a dig about Vivien's (Violet's mom's) cooking and guesses that Violet found out about Tate. What's she going to say now?? She has just blatantly acknowledged that Violet has been cavorting with a dead murderer. That's kind of harshing on my comprehension.
Violet's all like "Get out of my house!" and Constance is all like "THIS HOUSE MADE HIM DO IT." Then she takes Violet to meet Billie Dean Howard.
Billie Dean is model-pretty except I think she's had some work done. Yes, I will notice this every time. So. She's a medium. Like we need a medium on this show; everyone and their mother can talk to dead people.
To remind us that the world we live in is stupid, we learn that Constance found Billie on Craigslist, and that Billie has been offered a pilot for a show on Lifetime. Or is that to establish her legitimacy? (In which case, we live in an even stupider world.)
Billie is all put-upon about being a medium, and vaguely racist. Ugh, fine. She also has the oddest shade of pale salmon nails. I can't tell if I'm supposed to hate her. And now I notice that Violet's hair has been brushed perfectly. Maybe she has a dead hairstylist, too.
Billie says someone named Mary wants to talk to Violet, and musters a quote from Mary's deathbed that makes Violet run out of the room in disbelief and perhaps exhaustion from acting disbelieving. Constance asks Billie if she can trust Violet. Billie says she's not sure.
Cut to Vivien rubbing lotion on her pregnant belly in blissful ecstasy while listening to classical strings. Then... oh lordy. That was a claw. Everyone with half a brain in their head just flashed back to Alien, or at least Space Balls. A defined claw pushes from inside her belly. That's not great.
It's painful. She screams. She wakes! It was a dream.
She takes off her wedding ring and calls her police guard. Why not? He checks the house and doesn't find anything. She reminds us that her husband just moved out. Thanks, Vivien. Apparently, the guard's wife cheated on him with another woman. Well. That's a fun fact.
Dylan McDermott shows up! Oh, his name is Ben. Ok, cool. We'll call him that. The guard tells Ben that the woman he recently removed from their home never made it to the police station. It's because she was a ghost, but the guard doesn't seem to realize that, or be in any way alarmed that it happened.
Ben and Vivien bicker about Ben needing to run his psychiatry business from the home he's just wrecked by murdering his pregnant ex mistress, and oddly, the Producer credits show up. We are a full 15 minutes into this show. Fine. Viv says Ben can be the father to her kids but that she won't be his friend and that he has to leave after his last session of the day. He seems non-plussed, which is just how I would feel, especially since he just said that's what he would do anyway.
Up in the bathroom, Violet's got a razorblade and cuts a huge horizontal cut in her very-horizontally-scarred wrist. Then she slashes her own throat! Wait. I think that was a fantasy. Tate appears behind her and says "Are you scared now?" She turns. He's gone. OoooooOOOOOOoooooooo.
In the office of broken dreams, Ben is having a session with a man who familiarizes us with the tale of "Piggy Man." Here's the rundown: There was this pig butcher who got killed by his pigs and disappeared, then all his clients starting turning up dead. If you call him in the mirror and say "Here Piggy Pig Pig," he'll "return for the slaughter." I feel like a writer lost his soul over this one, in a fit of "Guys, that's not even creative ... but maybe we can work with it."
The man has never tried the mirror trick, but is afraid he might. What a horrible life he must have.
Ben make an appointment to see him again and suggests that he shave. The man fearfully says "in a mirror?" ... but this man clearly has only the very beginnings of any facial hair growth. Shouldn't they have cast someone with a beard to make this plot device functional? I am confused.
Violet comes in and says the darkness has her. All right.
ACT THREE
Constance is in the kitchen exchanging glances with the dead maid and recommending that Vivien eat offal during her pregnancy, making this all a bit Rosemary's Baby. It's like every horror movie ever got together and made a baby. A Satan baby.
Constance leaves muttering something about "we need that baby," and later, the dead maid is cooking offal for Vivien and talks about how despicable Ben is. Vivien is shown huffing a raw bloody pancreas by the sink. Ew.
Ben has his Piggy man in his family bathroom -- like, not even a guest bathroom on the ground floor; there's a whole shower in it. He hands him a knife and encourages him to go in. Again I am compelled to note this man has virtually no scruff on his face. This is either a brilliant plot device (i.e. Ben sees a beard we cannot see) or it is stupid. If a big dude were afraid to shave his face, he would have a beard.
Derek (oh -- we just learned the man's name is Derek) says his "Piggy Pig Pig" spiel, sees a corpse in the shower and screams. Ben comes in and shows him there is no corpse. And there isn't.
Vivien is getting an ultrasound.
Violet's friend wearing a ridiculous floppy purple hat (are people really wearing those??) and a bandaid on her face tells Violet the devil is real. Then she gives a chilling account of the book of Revelation complete with a red dragon and a woman screaming in labor. Violet unwisely takes pills from this friend. Idiot.
ACT FOUR
Violet's in the library where all the kids got shot. Some dude from the earlier library scene, older and in a motorized wheelchair, rolls over and calls her a "sicko," and tells her where the kids were shot. She realizes he was their teacher and calls him a hero. He says "Now you know what heroes look like," and hits the full-speed-ahead button on his wheelchair. "Wait," she says, though he has barely passed her and is moving at approximately .01 mph. They exchange words about Tate. Violet just wants to know why Tate did what he did. The teacher asserts that "maybe he wasn't a good person." Maybe!
The dead maid serves Vivien a raw brain. Oh, and notes that Constance brought it over earlier. SHE EATS IT. There is a weird eating montage, with music like there's a storm in a Jane Austen movie playing, and then Vivien looks disgusted with herself.
Violet gets home. It's late. She chases shadows of Tate around the house to the basement, and ends up seeing the two dead boys, then lots of other dead people. She runs back upstairs like a good girl.
Upstairs, her iPod is spontaneously playing. She turns it off. The blackboard in her room says "I LOVE YOU." Yeah. She has a blackboard in her room. She starts to cry. So would I. Then she takes one of floppy-hat-bandaid-face's pills. I guess that's really where Violet and I differ.
Then she takes, like, all of them, with a Sigg bottle, and curls up on the bed. I know. Aluminum poisoning.
Tate shows up and freaks out, and puts her in a cold shower to wake her up. He cradles her as she cries. Let's not forget that he is dead. Is Violet dead now, too? I don't think so, but the writers have barely established any "rules" here.
ACT FIVE
Ben tells Derek he has to do the "Piggy Man" thing in his mirror at home and that then he'll be free.
Vivien goes and meets Angela, her last ultrasound technician, in a church. Angela tells her the reason she freaked out and quit (this was last episode) is that she saw the devil in Vivien's unclean womb, complete with little hooves. Vivien takes this as her cue to leave.
Cut to Derek trying to be brave in the mirror at home. A robber appears from the shower and shoots him. His robber buddy is like "what are you doing, this is supposed to be a robbery!" They leave him, shot in the head, on the floor.
HA! Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself, but in the next scene, Constance calls Billie out on her ugly nailpolish! Sweet satisfaction. Anyway, Billie says Constance's dead daughter is mad at her. She notes that the dead can keep grudges even better than Scorpios (whoa). Constance says she has one last thing she wanted to say to her daughter and asks Billie to talk to her. Billie obliges. Constance says she's sorry for being a terrible mother, that she's proud of Addie, and that she thinks she's beautiful. Billie says Addie says thank you and that she knows, and that on the other side, "she's a pretty girl at last." She's also thankful not to be in the lawn at the old house because she's afraid of Tate now that she knows the truth. Bam!
We see the finger-gun scene from 1994 again, only it continues. Tate pulls out a real gun and the SWAT team fires on him until he is dead. Dead-dead.
Violet's reading a book and Tate comes in all like it's no big deal that he's dead and talks to her about the pills. She mentions that her parents think she's depressed, which leads us to believe she's still alive. Tate says he loves her and that he'll leave her alone if that's what she really wants. Violet instead offers to spoon with the dead boy.
And that's it! Tune in next time for god knows what.
Special thanks to FullHouseReviewed.wordpress.com whose delightful prose reminded me how much fun it is to review television shows.
I jest. Every now and then I get a note from someone asking me about becoming a professional blogger, usually referring to a job posting from one of the big-guy sites.
What I mean by "big-guy" sites is not legit blog or news websites with a few bloggers and/or journalists, but the major blogger networks. You know who they are, or you're about to know, if you're job-hunting. I'd rather not name them.
Here's a letter I recently wrote to a good friend who was interested in blogging as a side job, adapted for the interwebs:
Dear Very Smart Potential Blogging Superstar,
The fact that they say "join our network of 450,000 content creators" and a few other indicators lead me to believe this will pay nothing, or nearly nothing, or be traffic based and still pay nearly nothing. This company is following a high quantity, low quality model, and that model does not include paying the creatives properly.
The reason for this practice is search engine optimization (SEO). As long as they're churning out tons of content on relevant topics, their search engine rankings remain awesome, which means they can sell their ads for more. They don't actually care if the content is any good, they just need a lot of it.
I wouldn't recommend this as a real side job. Just learning to use their CMS (content management system) and format everything just the way they like it will be a bunch of work upfront, especially if you haven't blogged professionally before, and the rewards are likely super low.
That said, if you're interested in writing professionally and want to build your resume, this is a fine place to start -- but consider it more like an internship than an actual lucrative use of time. You'll have less hassle if you just start your OWN blog and develop a following -- and depending how much $ your time is worth to you, it may actually be more cost effective.
Developing your own following is pretty much the only way to get offered one of those fantastic, for-real blogging jobs that everyone wants, unless your parents are famous or you've been on a reality show. So, if that's your goal, you can build your following independently or with a big guy. There are pros and cons to both.
When you do begin blogging, write about everything you want to be writing about two years from now, on separate blogs if the topics are truly varied, because all bloggers are considered specialists and you want to get proven experience (and reader trust) writing about whatever you want to write about.
That's it!
Yours Truly, The Annie Scott Experience AOL, HuffPo, Huffington Post, Yahoo, Shine, Examiner, ReadWriteWeb
An unexpected Post-It war has broken out in my office. And I'm the one who started it.
If you work in an office in New York City, chances are your window looks directly into someone else's office. In my particular case, I look into an office AND a hotel. Occasionally, I see a maid making the bed. From what I hear, the 8th and 11th floors of my office have seen less family-friendly displays in the middle of conference calls. Yipes. I'm on floor 2, where, apparently, it's all Disney.
It all started on August 29, 2011, just 3 days after the infamous New York non-hurricane. (Yes, I know it was a real hurricane in other places, but Irene never manifested in NYC, despite our best efforts to scare ourselves.)
Rather than explain, here's what I posted to Facebook that day:
Upon seeing this, a friend (Hi Mel!) recommended I check out PostItWar.com. It was love at first sight.
We had a lengthy debate in my office, which is comprised of myself and two other fabulous women in social media management, and decided to break the ice with a simple "Hi!" in the window.
It was a simple test to see if the office across the street was willing to play with us. We have no idea what they do there, or why their office is so enormous and cool, but our only ambition here was and is to make contact. The sheer thrill of communicating via post-its, sadly, is totally enough for us.
Luckily, for our egos and for this blog, our effort paid off:
... we got a "Hi" back. GAME ON, FOLKS.
We didn't know quite where to go from here, so we stalled by posting the next most obvious phrase. It required venturing outside our office and adopting one of the windows in the hall:
At this point, stuff exploded. Other floors started responding.
Then, we learned later, other floors in our own office got involved. The 9th floor across from "Hola" started to play, as did the floor directly above ours with a candid "Yo!"
(Photo courtesy of Jessica Randazza.)
(The office windows we are utilizing are blocked by scaffolding and not visible from the street.)
As you might imagine, we had no interest in telling anyone to stop. Instead, we kept the momentum of post-it enthusiasm going!
Note the "Woof" upstairs and the "Hi" on a mid-level floor. We meow'd and got the same response downstairs:
Is this blue "Woof" from the same company as the office that "Woof'd" above? We still have no idea.
Naturally, we weren't going to let this just die. We're a marketing agency. And I work there.
So, we gamified it:
There is no ending to this story; it's still going on. Further updates as events warrant.
Can you guess what our Post-It Hangman secret says?
I am toilet training my cats. These ones. It's working. I think.
My husband and I have an apartment in Brooklyn which is, well, not as tiny as our previous apartments, but not exactly Beyonce and Jay-Z's penthouse at Grand Army Plaza. For years, we've half-heartedly joked about potty-training the cats to avoid having the icky smell of litter in our home. We've all seen Meet the Parents, right? In case you haven't, Robert DeNiro's cat Jinxie knows how to use the toilet. The movie contains several scenes you might not think could actually take place in real life, but it turns out the cat using the toilet is not one of them!
We watched some "how-to's" on YouTube and it all seemed very complicated. Then, one day, we discovered the CitiKitty Toilet Training Kit for under $30, right there on the internet with all the news and celebrity bikini photos and everything. We bought it. Oh yes, yes we did. To add to the awkwardness of this, I had it sent to work: The CitiKitty kit sits on top of your toilet bowl, under the seat. You fill it with litter and get rid of the litter box, and basically lock yourself in the bathroom with the cats for four hours and keep putting them on it until they both ... go. Or, at least, that's what we did. Then, over the next weeks, you start by cutting a small hole in the middle of the new "litter box," and you make it bigger and bigger until the cats are balancing completely on the seat. Then, bit by bit, you remove the litter from whatever's left of the tray until the cats seem ok using the toilet without the litter smell.
Apparently, their instinct is to cover up the scent of their waste (makes sense). Once they grasp that the water gets rid of the scent, they can potentially let go of the litter.
And so can you.
In case any of you are into this, you have to start by first getting your cats accustomed to flushable cat litter (we use Feline Pine) and move their litter box to near the toilet in the bathroom. So, if you were just about to order your kit, start that part today.
Ahem. So, that's what's supposed to happen. We're not there yet. In fact, we went too fast too soon and ended up with poop in the bathtub and urine in the sink. There, I said it. Also, the corner of the rug has been tainted. I'm not proud of it. I'm not happy about it. But I'm willing to admit it for the sake of internet education.
So, here's how it's gone for us so far.
1. We put the seat on the toilet and got rid of the litter box. That's Margot the kitten on the seat, and Pistol chattily investigating from edge. Forgive the blurry iPhone shot.
The cats were very interested ... because we used catnip. We've never given our cats catnip before because I think it's weird, but the CitiKitty directions recommended it and we figured we were playing with fire, so we gave it to them.
It's a little worrying, really. We are concerned that the cats may start associating catnip with pooping, or worse, that they'll wake up months from now and go "Hey, remember when we were stoned for like three weeks and we pooped in the toilet? Weird." Maybe that will happen. Who's to say?
In any case, after a good amount of cuddling, cajoling and encouragement, they both adopted the tray in the toilet. No accidents. We celebrated the fact that our cats are geniuses. But don't get me wrong. It's messy.
First of all, you obviously have to remove the tray from the toilet and put it on the floor every time you need to use the toilet yourself. Furthermore, you should keep some bleach spray handy, because the cats like to kick the litter all over the toilet seat (not to mention all over the floor). Lastly, and worstly, they are accustomed to a bigger box and their aim isn't great, meaning that sometimes there is actual cat poop on the toilet seat. I know. Gross. Horrifying.
Bleach spray.
But, you can't help but be proud of the little cuties for figuring out that you want them to "go" in the toilet. Aw. Such good kitties.
2. Cut a hole in the middle of the litter tray.
CitiKitty makes this part pretty easy. There are perforated marks in their training tray that show where you should cut. We did as it said. The cats? Were fascinated. Margot became immediately obsessed with finding out how far down the hole she could get her paw (ew). Unfortunately, this turned the toilet seat into something of a game for her. We thought it would be fine, but when we got home from work? Poop on the rug.
Yeah.
I proceeded to lock myself in the bathroom with the kitties for like four hours again (ok it was two hours, but still), and eventually got Pistol to do #1's on the tray with the hole. It was so weird. By chance, she "went" directly into the hole, and it sounded just like HUMAN PEEING. I wouldn't make that up. I'm still sort of unsure how to feel about that moment.
Anyway, when Pistol was done, Margot scratched around on the tray and seemed to understand. I let them out, and spent the rest of the evening very smugly satisfied with myself. Then, in the morning? Poop on the rug.
I needed to go to work, so after scrubbing the rug, I hesitantly locked both cats in the bathroom. I felt very guilty about it, but they had their food and water, it's a perfectly nice bathroom, and they like to play in the tub anyway. It had to be done, for the sake of the rug.
Unfortunately, when I got home from work, there was urine in the sink and poop in the tub. Poor kitties. They tried so hard to be good. They were just confused. So, we had to go back a step. CitiKitty provides a form of "insurance" for this; you can insert a backup tray over the tray to basically return to the previous step.
We let them get used to the tray being in the toilet again for a few days, and there were no more accidents. Just today, we cut a -- much smaller -- hole in the middle of the tray, and so far so good. Maybe the hole was just too big to start with.
So, either they'll get used to the hole, we'll make it bigger, they'll adapt, they'll get used to using the toilet and pigs will fly, or we have totally broken our cats.
We'll see. Stay tuned for the next installment of Toilet Training My Cats.
It isn't often that one works with such a rare group of internet dorks that one gets a fancy goodbye lunch at a nice restaurant and suddenly flashmobbed by cats and pandas on sticks and an entire play constructed to demonstrate one's coworkers five stages of grief over one's leaving. But that totally just happened.
Here's me with @MarySnauffer, making a Sad Panda face. Mary is grinning devilishly because she wrote the play about the five stages of grief and knows I have no idea what I'm in for.
In the above photo, I am reading aloud from the THREE PAGE script as Mary holds Denial Cat, looking all denial-y.
Here we have @mink21 holding Anger Cat.
Bet you thought there'd only be one Bargaining Cat. Nope. There are three. Go figure. I didn't make the rules. Truth be told, the puppets were under our plates when I got there and I thought they were really artsy placemats -- and I was SO SURPRISED that they used the same kind of file folders we have at work to make them.
Depression Cat, as expressed by @JessicaRandazza.
And here's cheerful Acceptance Cat, who speaks in a southern accent and said, and I quote, because I have the script in front of me: "You know what? I wish you the best of luck over there. But you know what, you don't even need luck because I know you'll do just great. Just the way you are."
I wish everyone had friends at work who understood exactly how and exactly how VERY dorky they are. I know it's not the case, but for one day, I felt like my unique flavor of dorkiness was completely acknowledged and celebrated by my coworkers, and that was pretty darn fantastic.
