I just have one thing to add to my review of Invincible:

I read that Vince Papale didn't meet his wife until after his time with the Eagles was finished. I honestly don't understand why every single freaking movie must include a love story. I'm all about love, but I find most movie love relationships trite, predicatable and boring. And in cases of movies that are based on real lives, it kind of sends the message that it's not enough to have some really awesome accomplishment, unless you have a partner. Well, not everyone has a partner at every single stage of their life. Some people are trapped in awful relationships and they would be much better off living independently [not "alone" because most of the single people I know have vibrant communities of friends and family]. It is wonderful when people who are really compatible find each other, but, it is no less meaningful to celebrate achievements with friends and family by your side. I don't think the three-date love story arc (from teasing banter to generic wedding) needs to be an integral part of so many movies . . . I can't be the only one who finds it terribly boring.

This article in today's Inky reports that nearly one in four Philadelphians suffered childhood sexual abuse. I am almost hoping something is flawed in the study, because that number seems really really high. When I was in college, I took a rape crisis hotline training class. At the beginning of the semester, everyone indicated that they were taking the class just because they were good people who wanted to help others. But by the end of the course, everyone felt comfortable enough to share that we were all there because something terrible happened to us or someone very close to us. I can remember sitting there, feeling so shocked that so many people could have gone through so much pain and shame when they were so young, just children and teenagers. Some of them had never talked about it before. I guess the only sort of positive part of this disturbing news is that people are feeling more comfortable reporting sexual abuse now. And people can know they're not alone.

It's my first day of school and I'm excited. Even though I know in a month I am going to be miserable writing stupid papers that include words like "hegemony" and "juxtapose", I'm happy to know I will be utilizing my brain again. I always thought I would have a future as an academic, even though both of my parents are professors and we grew up without much money. I was really disappointed to find out that in order to pay for my master's degree, I would have to work full time and take out loans. I really wanted to be a full time student. Then I started making a tiny bit of money working and I realized, it's kind of nice to be able to pay for stuff. It would be even nicer if I didn't have to pay back these big fat school loans. I think, if I could do it again, I would have worked more at my regular job and just taken fun classes here and there. But I do need to take classes, because working a 9-5 job in something you don't really care about can feel kind of pointless. My degree in media is likely to also be pointless, but doing the two at once makes me feel better about both. Some days I think school is total bullshit and then I think, "Well, at least I have my 9-5 job to support myself." Other days I think my job is so stupid and I am thankful to be in program studying something that really interests me. I've been asked a million times what my degree and my job are "leading up to." My answer is, I don't know that they are leading up to anything, they just are. I am envious of people who have a real passion for doing something and then find a way to get paid for doing it. As of right now, I am not one of those people. Sometimes I detect some criticism from other people, like I am wasting my life because I don't have some clear cut path. I also hear it a lot when I shrug my shoulders about whether I want to get married. I don't know. I am still figuring things out, day by day. My first strategy when I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life was to lie around, doing nothing and feeling miserable. I learned that this does not work. In general, the busier I am, the happier I am. I hope I still feel that way at the end of the semester.

So I saw this movie last night, and, for the record, I would never have seen it if it wasn't a Philadelphia story. I love Philadelphia, and I watched my first full length football game when the Eagles made the Superbowl. . . but, in general, I do not care for football.

This movie was a lot better than I thought it would be, considering Disney made it. I have only two major complaints. First of all, a lot of the movie took place in a South Philly bar, and there was no smoke to be seen anywhere. I understand Disney does not want to promote smoking in a PG movie, but come on, that is totally unrealistic. There is a way to include realistic smoking in an unglamorous way — this just seemed too sanitized. They didn't mind showing all that drinking, after all. My other complaint is the complete lack of accurate Philly accents in the movie. The Philadelphia accent is a tricky hybrid of New York, Midwest and a teeny bit of the South. But anyone who's been here for a little bit knows it's not hard to imitate. Most obviously, the Philadelphia "o" in words like "home" or "phone" generally sounds kind of like an "ew" sound, as in "hoewme." Right in the beginning of the movie, Marky Mark turns refers to his friend Tommy as "Tawmy" and I'm sorry, Boston, but we don't do that here. The only time I hear Philadelphians put an "aw" in place of an "o" is in the word "on" which generally rhymes with "dawn" instead of "don." I did hear someone say "youse" (as in "youse guys") in the film once, and I appreciate that minor effort, but if this movie took place in another city with a regional accent, I bet they'd make more pains to get it right.

All in all, if you don't care about Philadelphia or football, don't see this movie. If you care about football and historical accuracy, don't see this movie. I'm told the football stuff is innacurate, but what do I know?

It's taken me a few days to wrap my head around The War Tapes. Here's what I can say about it: Every American needs to go see it. I will admit, like many other people, I don't like to think about the war. I think, back in 2003, when I saw so many people of different stripes shut down the streets of New York City to protest the war, I thought that it really wasn't going to happen. When the bombs started "shocking and aweing" I was in San Francisco. There was a huge protest there but I didn't attend because I couldn't see the point anymore. I felt like I shouldn't be on vacation anymore — that I should to get back to New York as fast as I could — and I arranged a flight home for the next day. In the beginning, I watched the news reports. Then I just started to feel so helpless that I forced myself to think of other things. On the way to the movie, I thought about how I was probably going to see dead bodies and I would rather watch something fun. Then I thought, I don't have to fight the war, the least I can do is watch a freaking film about it.

I don't think I've ever really thought of what it must be like to be a soldier. I don't understand why people join the military: I don't like fighting, I don't like weapons, and I'm so unathletic that I am cringing now at the memory of gym class. However, if anyone asked me if I support the troops, I would say yes, of course I support the troops. But what have I done to support them? Absolutely nothing. Everyone says they support the troops. Some people even stick little yellow stickers on their cars — BFD. One of the ways to actually support the troops is to join Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America to keep informed. This page lists several charities that help American troops, their families and Iraqi civilians. Regardless of how you feel about the war, or about the military in general, there are thousands and thousands of people coming back to the States now with real problems, and they are not getting the help they need and deserve.

Sergeant Zach Bazzi said the other night, "Soldiers don't pick their wars." I think this is the most important thing for those of us who are lucky to be somewhat removed from the war to remember.

Except not at all. But that's me at the bar, facing away from the camera, in this aol citiguide review of Divan Turkish Kitchen. Dragonballyee takes a lot of these pictures — I'm thinking I should become a regular "Where's Waldo?" kind of feature.

I am generally a fearful person. I was freaked out by airplanes long before 9/11. Hell, I think roaches are out to get me. But I'm getting really sick of being told to be intermittently terribly afraid of shoe bombs and liquid bombs and mysterious plagues when there are much more likely dangers that we face in this country, every day, with minimal hysteria.

Yesterday, Atrios and Chris talked about traffic accidents. Holy shit, a lot of people [some 40,000 per year] die in car crashes. And yet, most of us still drive without panicking every time we start an ignition. I am primarily a pedestrian, and I almost got ran over by a stupid SEPTA bus that was blowing through a red light yesterday, but I still walked the exact same route today. My point? I think it's time to declare a war on traffic accidents.

If we do need to be hysterical about things that might kill us, let's direct our mania at the most likely targets. People should not be allowed to drive like drunken lunatics and kill innocent people — a war on them! And let's have a war on cancer, which killed two innocent members of my family in the past several years. A war on heart disease! A war on poverty! A war on AIDS! A war on crime — If Middle Eastern terrorists came to Philly and killed a couple hundred people this year, everyone would be up in arms. When our own thugs do it, for a lot of people, it's shrug central.

I'm certainly not in the position to tell anyone else to stop being afraid, but geez. Let's try to keep things in perspective.

I don't get this. What's wrong with viewing the flags of other countries? Everytime I ride down the Ben Franklin Parkway, I am embarrassed by how many flags I can't identify. I wish I had learned more [read: something] about other countries when I was in school. I barely even learned anything about this country. [Via The Huffington Post]

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday so far today. I am in great spirits. My boss, who didn't realize it was my birthday, told me to leave early and enjoy the day, so I did, happily. I wasn't sure what to do with this extra time, I thought maybe I should go to the gym — but, eh, no. So I am at home, watching talk shows and dreaming about what I will have for dinner. When I got home, I had a package waiting from my parents, which contained a check and a Ben Franklin action figure. [They like to give me a hard time about my extensive knowledge about, and love for, Big Ben.] Also waiting on my doorstep was my entire medical history, which I had requested to be released to me. I had no idea how much fun it would be to go through my medical records, particularly the little kid ones which read like: "Patient does not sit still, insists on climbing." Climbing what? I don't know.

Here is another milestone to celebrate: this weekend, for the first time, I bought a piece of furniture that was not secondhand or from Ikea. Albert and I now have an actual couch in our house, and while it's not a great couch by any means, it is a marked improvement from our old worn-out futon, which now sits in my "dorm room" downstairs. The only problem is that the new couch is now so much higher than our coffee table that we have to really reach down for our drinks. I don't want to get on the track of, "Well, we'll just buy another table and then we'll have to buy another this, that or the other thing . . ." so I guess we'll have to start eating upright at the kitchen table instead of wolfing down food while watching TV. And speaking of watching TV, there are female teachers who have sex with their students on Oprah right now, so I must devote my full attention.

The thing about having a birthday in the end of August is that usually, no one is around to celebrate it with you. [Of course, I suppose one could argue that it's not as bad as having a Christmastime birthday and being a constant recipient of the old standby, the combined gift.] When I was growing up, my friends were usually away during my birthday week, and sometimes my family went away during that week also. So I only ever had big birthday celebrations when someone else planned them for me, which happened once as a child, once when Owen threw me a surprise party, and once in college when we celebrated after the fact.

I never thought birthdays were really that big a deal, except for the fact that you can use them to say, "Be nice to me, it's my birthday!" I especially resent the birthdays that are supposed to be "significant" — but that might be because I spent my 16th birthday in a secluded cabin in Maine watching Toy Story with my parents and 8-year-old brother. The highlight of my day was scoring enough quarters to tearfully call my boyfriend from a beach payphone. And my 18th birthday was spent on a slow-moving train from Maryland to Connecticut, in the company of two young children who did not seem to tire of chanting "Ch ch ch ch choo choo!"

One significant birthday — my 21st — seemed like it was going to be horriffic but ended up being awesome. It was on a Wednesday, and Liz had come up to spend the day with me in Port Chester. She took me to the mall and bought me a lipstick at Stila, which cost $17. I don't think I had owned anything better than Wet n' Wild at that point. I had to work in the afternoon and when I returned, I found that Liz had made me three belts. We planned on going out to this tapas place in Greenwich, which was pretty hip and happening for the area. We spent forever getting ready, only to drive to Greenwich and find that restaurant was closed. Liz wanted cigarettes and I decided to go buy them in a bar, using my real i.d. for the first time. I pointed out my birthday to the bouncer and he just sort of grunted rudely at me. We ended up in some lonely cafe with a terrible croony lounge singer. Liz had brought candles shaped like a 2 and a 1 and she stuck them in my bean dip for me to blow out. I think at this point we both thought my birthday was going to be the lamest 21st ever. Then we went to a club that my roommates were promoting and all of a sudden there were tons of people buying me drinks and I'd had too many whiskey sours and a whole bunch of us were dancing to wonderful terrible music like Nelly. Somewhere around 2 a.m., my super hot roommate Rey and Liz and I decided it would be a good idea to sneak into Rye Beach which involved a lot of climbing and squeezing and manuevering. Once there, they both gave me extended massages. The three of us ended up passing out, around sunrise, on my living room floor — but only after digging into a chocolate cake that Liz had brought, sans utensils. The next say, we all woke up craving huevos rancheros, but it was too late to find a restaurant that was still serving them. We went to El Tio anyway, and Rey, who was a total fast talker, made up this elaborate story about how Liz was from Paris and it was my birthday and all we wanted in the world were some huevos rancheros, and it worked. Rey bought me some cupcakes and had the waitstaff light them and everyone sang Happy Birthday to me. At the same time, someone stole my bag from my car, which contained, among other things, the $17 lipstick. With the theft and all, I never thought another birthday would compare to that one. But I had a pretty fabulous one again the next year with my roommates Kristy and Cari and my friends Sara and Marissa. We spent it having a picnic at Rye Playland (with delicious food and plenty of wine) and Cari's brother, who worked there, treated us to a free boat ride. Cyndi Lauper was performing and we danced around happily. Someone won me a CareBear with a rainbow on it and when we came home, A. joined us for some delicious strawberry shortcake cupcakes.

Tomorrow I am turning another age that people think is significant - 25. Since it's a Monday, I will go to work and then go to a really nice dinner with A. Then I will see Little Miss Sunshine again, because I liked it just that much. I won't do anything crazy and I won't be around of people and I won't drink alcohol. But I'm really looking forward to it — at the very least, it will be a great Monday. I have mixed feelings about being 25, but since I have no choice in the matter, I am going into it smiling. I hope it's a great year.