My Addictions Then & Now

For as long as I can remember, whenever I liked something, I really really liked it. There was and is no "kinda like it" in my world. I throw myself into it. I think about it 24-7 and find it difficult to drop and walk away.

So far this winter, my addiction has been this stupid blog. I've poured my heart and soul into this personal project figuring out ways to get more readers. It's kinda worked. I've gone from about fifteen hits per day back in September to 200 hits yesterday (200 hits in one day is a record for me). I need to slowly, somehow get my life back and find a job. It's 11:30 and I'm in my PJs with only four hours of sleep. Last night I decided to catch up on the 1000 blogs I'm following and only managed to send out two measly resumes.

I wish my addiction could be exercise. I don't go to the gym daily and when I do go, I stay no more than an hour, TOPS. I wish I could be that lady on A&E's Intervention running around her neighborhood after eating two bites of a cookie. I wish I could become this sicko jogging in place in my kitchen while consuming a high fiber English muff. Never gonna be me.  Anyway...

Here are a few of my addictions, then and now.

1.  ET, Footloose,The Goonies, A Christmas Story and Rushmore - all movies I had to see like at least 100 times.

2. Morning Star Farms everything. I'm not a veg, though I wish I was. One summer I was so addicted to Morning Star Farms Grillers, I found myself having one for breakfast, lunch and dinner steadily for about six weeks. Surprisingly, I don't hate them today, but I've moved on. This past summer I became addicted to Morning Star Farms Hickory BBQ Riblets. It was scary. I bought about six boxes of them within a two week span. We still have one box left from that time period. From there, I discovered their veggie cakes and those I just can't have around me, I can honestly eat an entire box in one sitting - its very carby and delicious.

3. LUSH bath and body products. My obsession with LUSH began in 1998 while working at at teen magazine. I read an article in a women's mag about how Leo DiCaprio loved LUSH products. At that time I was the associate editor of SuperTeen magazine (yes that was the real name of the mag). We were writing lots of articles on Leo and Titanic. I worked with LUSH to include a giveaway of ten baskets of LUSH goodies. I was in heaven!

I fell in love with LUSH. I loved how you could soak in the tub with a luxurious bath bomb and your entire apartment would smell like flowers or candy. Sadly, in the late '90s, none of these items were available in the US. I began placing orders from Canada and each time a family member crossed the boarder (my uncle is from Canada) they would bring home bags of "Rock Star" and "Honey I Washed The Kids" soaps and Daddy-O and Ibiza shampoos.I'm still addicted to LUSH. Our bathroom is full of soaps, shampoos and other deliciousness.

4. Red Velvet anything. Our wedding cake, any cake, ice cream, shampoo, lip balm, if it's red velvet - bring it on!

5. Boys. I knew I was always boy crazy, but wow. Reading old diaries, they're filled with obsessive talk about this kid and that kid. It's almost unnatural. I wish I had focused on things that mattered like school work and family. Pages of journal entries about the boy of the moment. Many of which I don't even remember. Different kids I had met up with at Hot Skates or at the mall. I wish I had captured more family and friend moments.

What's your current obsession? Did you have one growing up? I have many others, these are just a few I thought of this morning. :-)

Gym Spy? Mafia Gym Spy? Cheater Decoy?

I'm celebrating the fact that I have reached over 50 blog followers today by blogging TWICE in one day.  A quick thanks to everyone for their feedback, comments and support. You guys make it worthwhile. Gay I know...  

By looking at me, you'd never guess I belong to a gym. Nah, you'd never believe that I actually work out at least four times a week. This isn't some silly New Year's resolution. I've been steadily going to the gym since 2006. Now if only I could just stop eating. OK, enough about me... check this out...

There's this chick who's super hawt and looks like a college student. She obviously doesn't work the typical 9-5, because she's there during random afternoon hours. She's friends with all of the employees and spends most of her time chatting with the front desk girls and trainers. She dresses in full-fledged, pricey-looking, trendy workout gear. Me? I'm still sportin' tattered and torn tees paired with well-worn 3-year-old sweat pants from Old Navy.

I don't know why this bothers me so, but it does. Every time I see "hawt chick", she's never, ever working out. Today I eyed her getting on machines, playing with her hair, toying with her iPod, peering around the immense gym floor, yet never moving a muscle.  She quickly jumped off after a few minutes of not working out and used the hand sanitizer. She stopped to check her look in the mirror as I watched her watching to see who was watching her from behind. Yes, that's a lot of watching.

I moved on to the next machine, pretending not to eye her. She slowly got onto another machine and looked around playing with her headphones. She stopped to chat with an older gentleman who said he hadn't seen her in a while. She twirled her long brown hair while looking around and said she's been "working out" in the late afternoons. She smiled and I wanted to yell over, "Ha ha, work out? More like hang out!" Don't worry, I didn't say that though.

By this point, I was ready to wash my hands and take a break. She popped into the bathroom and did the same. I walked out as she played with her hair and adjusted her sneakers and matchy-match workout getup. I gave up focusing on her as I was forced to pay more attention to my reps after realizing I had counted to 48 on the thigh machine instead of 5 intervals of 10.

On previous occasions I've seen her jump on and off treadmills and elliptical machines. The on and off is because she always spots a familiar face and has to talk about how much she hates cardio. One morning, she stood on a treadmill simply looking around and watching a video on her iPod. Luckily the gym was rather empty so it wasn't as if she was taking up a machine someone was waiting for.

It kills me for some reason that I can't figure this chick out. It looks as if she spends hours toning. She's super fit. However in about the ten times I've seen her, she has never once actually completed any sort of workout. Maybe she spends four hours there and as soon as I leave, she puts in serious effort. Even Hubs knows who she is. When he sees her on days I'm not with him he'll say over dinner, "Oh by the way, I saw the non-workout chick today at the gym and as usual, she wasn't working out."

Maybe she's a hired private investigator for someone with a cheating husband who works there as a trainer. Could she be a decoy of some sort? Could she be hired by the gym to make sure nobody is rough with the equipment? Could she be working for the mafia, spying on mafia dudes working out? They did tape several episodes of The Sopranos in my New Jersey town. For real. This happened.

Anyway, I wanted to take a photo of her for you guys, but chickened out - it's illegal you know. I think it is anyway.  As always thanks for reading.

Child Stars Who Became Regular People

If you know me in real life,  you know I've been slightly obsessed with child stars for as long as I can remember. Wait, that didn't come out right. Allow me to explain ... obsessed with the child stars of my day meaning we're the same age. I don't follow the careers of today's child actors, unless it's for the sole purpose of a freelance writing assignment. I've been writing teen entertainment articles since 1997.

My book, Aaron Carter, Backstreet Brother was published by Random House around that time. I pitched and wrote it because the magazine I worked for was seeing a spike in his popularity. I've tried writing other books, but never got another break. Ironically, it made me feel like a fizzled out child actor. Although in my case, the equivalent would probably be that of a non-speaking kid in the back of Ricky Schroder's Silver Spoons classroom expecting the cameo to lead to a block buster role. (UPDATE: I RECENTLY PUBLISHED THREE CELEBRITY BIOS CLICK HERE!)

I love A Christmas Story. I saw it about 12 times in theaters back in 1983. I own the video, a gift from Hubs last Christmas. Every year, I beg him to go with  me to Cleveland to see the house. When TBS does the 24-hour broadcast, I try sneaking in as many views as possible between chatting with relatives. A few years ago, when MySpace was all the rage, I discovered that many of the actors had their own REAL pages. I began adding them. I couldn't believe I was actually connected to Flick (Scott Schwartz) and Scut Farkus (Zach Ward). I was surprised to learn that unlike his costars, little Randy Parker, Ian Petrella, hadn't really gone on to act in any other movies since A Christmas Story. Something about him caught my attention for a few weeks. I followed him for a bit then moved on once MySpace became "so ten minutes ago".

The highlight of our "friendship" was a momentary interaction where he made some sort of Sopranos-like comment to his cousin. I noticed and gave him props for being Italian and he replied "Ha ha, yup!" It was such a weird feeling. Fans he had met at various Christmas Story House events and other film festivals, all tried to jog his memory of their encounters. Everyone wanted some sort of recognition, be it through a photo they took with Ian or a laugh they shared during a photo signing. Vying for a virtual high-five, we were quite pathetic to be honest.

In the '90s, several of my friends attended "cooler" colleges than I did. One friend spotted Degrassi Jr. High's "Lucy" roaming the halls at NYU. Another friend confirmed that one of her fellow students at Antioch College was Josh Miller. Josh portrayed Keanu Reeve's annoying littler numchuck throwing brother in River's Edge and had some other smaller roles in '80s TV and movies.

On New Year's Day while watching SyFy's Twilight Zone marathon, Hubs and I discussed one of the episodes, which also appeared in the 1983 film, Twilight Zone: The Movie. Jeremy Litch played the part of the evil child, Anthony who wished things and people "away". Jeremy's only other claim to fame was of the brainy brother on The Hogan Family alongside my love, Jason Bateman. Of course I had to Google Jer and see what he's been up to these days.

According to People magazine, his wife gave birth to a baby last year, but what truly shocked me was that he met his wife on JDate.com! JDate is an online dating site for Jewish singles. Could you imagine creating a profile on a dating site and marrying a child star? How weird! It surprised me that this dude who once received tons of fan mail from Tiger Beat reading girls all over the world, resorted to an online dating service sixteen years later. I mean, I know Bret Michaels and other washed up celebs rely on MTV to hook them up with a new loves every season, but come on, we all know that's not real.

There are dozens of examples of child stars becoming regular people like teachers, doctors and lawyers. Former child actor Brian Bonsall from Family Ties was in construction before getting arrested for beating up his girlfriend. Willie Aames (Eight is Enough and Charles in Charge) recently made the news by going bankrupt and being forced to take a "regular job." He's now a financial advisor. How do people treat a former actor in the employee lunchroom? I can't imagine it. "Willie, do you have change of a five? I need a soda from the machine."