Best. Photo. Ever.

Hot! HOOOOOT! So hot! That damn global warming is behind this, right?

This weekend I finally managed to get around to planting my balcony garden. I love going to the giant farmer's market and picking out flowers, grabbing a five pound bag of organic potting soil from the worm dealers (how tempted am I to learn how to compost? How tempted?) and spending the day up to my armpits (well, wrists) in dirt.

Alas, while I've been blessed with many things (a sense of humor, a nice head of hair), a green thumb... not so much. In my defense, I think it has less to do with me (and my love of overwatering) and more to do with the fact that my balcony is in the path of the world's strongest windtunnel. No matter how much love and attention I give my little flower buds, nothing can withstand the gale. A few weeks ago Matt bought me a tree. It's a hearty little bugger, built to handle the elements. Needless to say, the poor thing was defeated within days.

So this year, I'm trying something a little different: LETTUCE

Holy guacamole, I'm a farmer, folks! I'm not saying I got a little overzealous with my purchase, but, uh, I got me a lot of lettuce. And herbs! I also bought some herbs! (And lettuce. Oh my God, so much lettuce.)

Who's up for a salad?

My God I'm talented.

My latest opus is now online. Read it and weep - WITH LAUGHTER!

(FYI: The last line of the story? Not mine. I'm not sure where it came from but I suspect an overzealous junior editor.)

Send in the hook.

Pirates of the Caribbean? In the words of my bad-movie loving husband:

"I want my money back."

(And this coming from a man that didn't hate Spider-Man 3!)

Okay, maybe not so much with the Coney Islanding today.

Poor Matt. I've been pining for water for days now and, while rain is technically water, it's not really what I had in mind. So my darling husband, in an effort to appease his grouchy, sea-loving wife, suggested this:

Let's go see Pirates of the Caribbean!

While I have to give him points for creativity, I'm sniffing a bit of an ulterior motive here. (Someone in this house looooves movie nachos.) Frankly, I could not have less interest in this flick. I'm not sure why exactly, I love Johnny Depp and think he's great as Cap'n Jack, but I can't shake the notion that the movie's going to be a whole mess of lame. I have a hard time paying $11 for any movie and ponying up my hard-earned cash to watch other people frolic in the Caribbean is a pretty solid way to lead to gnashing of teeth.

So instead I'm going to the gym. I can stare at the pool while I run, right?

Dad's in town this weekend which means that the past two days have been a whirlwind of thrift shopping and treasure hunting. My dad is known for his ability to sniff out a bargain - right now he and his wife are wandering around Broadway looking for dropped coins. (You'd be amazed how much money they find during a typical weekend trip. WASH YOUR HANDS, POP!) They're leaving for an eight day cruise to the Virgin Islands and I'm tempted to squeeze myself into their carryons and sneak aboard. I'm desperate to get out of the city. Maybe it's the sudden scorching temps (a harbinger of things to come) but I'd eat my own hair if it meant trip to a tropical isle. I need to see some ocean, stat! Which means that tomorrow I'm planning on dragging the husband down to that grimy strip of corn dogs and commerce for an afternoon of sun and, er, fun? That's right, I'm talking CONEY ISLAND!

I always have such high hopes for Coney Island. In my mind it's retro, it's kitch, full of bobby soxers sipping sodas and happy children waving balloons. But in reality, it's... the word "scuzzy" comes to mind. The last time I was there, the husband and I decided to ride the world famous Wonder Wheel - which, as far as Biggest Mistakes Of My Life go, is up there.

- The fellow operating the ride was approximately 109 years old.

- He had no teeth.

- He was was engaged in a shouting match with another worker about whether or not the man had "stolen his goddamn eggs".

Goooood times.

After we recovered from our ride (can everybody say "terrifying"?) we wandered down to the beach where we encountered several used condoms, a fresh pile of poop, and a pair of children's underwear.

Still, water. Beach. Maybe even funnel cakes. Anything to get out of the city, right?

Whew, whole lotta nothing on this end, folks. I spent the last two hours working my way through a pan of No Pudge and the premiere episode of So You Think You Can Dance. I know I've got a book to write and a house to clean (dad's coming tomorrow) but c'mon, it's been a long week! Some people drink, some do drugs, I watch reality television! LET ME HAVE MY JOY!

While filling my maw with fistfuls of chocolate madness, I happened to run across a couple of commercials I didn't book. Man I hate that. Nothing puts a damper on your favorite show like seeing the job you didn't get (over and over and over). I must confess, the chick who booked one of the jobs is pretty damn funny (no hard feelings, girl) but seeing my husband up there with her - at least, the guy who'd played my husband - well, it's hard not to feel the ouch. I mean, in what other career are you confronted (repeatedly) with the jobs you didn't get? (Not to mention the fact that every time you see The Job You Didn't Get, you know the person who did get the job is getting paid. As you're sitting there!) I think about that fact every time I see those "Can you hear me now" ads. I mean, think about it -

Somebody came in second for that job.

Alls I have to say is, thank God that person wasn't me.

So much crying.

Anybody catch the premiere episode of "On The Lot" last night? It's the new Mark Burnett/Steven Spielberg (?!!) show about aspiring filmmakers competing to win a $1 million contract with Dreamworks. It's on Fox which always feels a little sketchy but the show was surprisingly good. (I'm assuming the lack of cheese is due to Spielberg. Gotta keep it high-class.) I mean, yes, you've got the requisite godawful host (in this case, an anorexic-looking, reedy voiced blonde) and of course there was crying (there's always crying) but the initial task was interesting and hard (pitching a movie to Gary Marshall (Pretty Woman), Brett Ratner (um...) and Carrie Fisher (Carrie Fisher).

These shows - the Project Runways, the Top Chefs (yes, even the Grease, You The One That I Wants) - always get me. At first I thought it was just about indulging in some good, old-fashioned schadenfreude (c'mon, we all know me) but I don't think that's it. Watching the struggle - the fact that these shows even acknowlege that there is a struggle - feels incredibly validating.

I even learned a little something from the first episode. Namely, I would make the world's shittiest director.

For you bloggers out there... (I cribbed this from the personal finance page of one of our local papers)

"At Reviewme.com, the site pays people to blog reviews about products and other web sites and companies. The rate varies between $20 and $200 per review, according to its site. Other sites like SponsoredReviews.com and PayPerPost.com offer similar deals."

I checked out Reviewme and it seems on the up and up, but who knows. If anybody does it, let me know.

IS IT REALLY SO WRONG?!

Those of you with pets, feel free to weigh in.

I have cats. They happen to eat cat food. Being a good mother I clean their bowls every day and, being a good recycler, I also wash out their cans. These tasks require a sponge, and up until recently I didn't think twice about grabbing the same one I use for everyday use. I'd simply clean the cat bowls, rinse the sponge in soap and hot water, and move on to the next dish. I'm not a big germ freak; maybe that's why it never entered my mind that it was nasty. But a few days ago a friend of mine saw me doing this and... I don't want to say that she freaked, but she kind of freaked. There was much barely-contained nausea and "That is the grossest thing I've ever seen"-ing, all of which left me perplexed. I just sort of figured that cat food was food. Not the greatest food perhaps, not food I necessarily want to eat, but it wasn't like I was scrubbing the floors and then turning the sponge on our plates. My friend then showed me a disinfecting technique involving the microwave that I now feel obligated to implement but am I the only one who does this? Do you all have separate sponges or what? Are you all thoroughly grossed out and vowing never to eat at my house again?

Okay, so here's the thing... right now I'm supposed to be hunkered down, toiling feverishly over the Next Great Thing (as per my husband's instructions). My writing has been a bit on the back burner lately and trying to get the motor restarted has been a task of Sisyphian proportions. I promised Matt that I would spend at least five hours each (weekend) day working on my "real" writing but so far... um...

- Wake up, trip over cat
- Make coffee, tea, wash dishes, feed cats, water plants, recycle paper products ("Productive Puttering")
- Turn on computer. Notice nearby coupon for 20% off at Piperlime, Banana Republic's new shoe store. Decide sandal shopping equals "research"
- Piperlime disappoints. Try Zappos instead
- Realize that attractive, comfortable sandals are akin to the Tooth Fairy (fiction, fiction, fiction)
- Summer shoes mean summer dresses
- Forever21.com. Who knew?
- Pancakes... Or maybe eggs...
- What's the cast of Deadwood up to these days?

I expect my book to be finished by the Fall of 2015. I wonder if Lindsay will still be around to star?

Seriously, cover a dog turd in almond butter and I'll eat it. You just watch.

Hallelujah, I'm back from the dead! (Or at least the really, really busy.) Mom has been safely depositied back in Tornado Town (Miss you, mom!), my feet have recovered from the mecca that is IKEA, and I've developed a squirrelly devotion to baked beans and almond butter. Such was my week.

IKEA. Man.

It's so not cool to dig IKEA. Sooooo not cool. But good goddamn they have MEATBALLS, people. Swedish ones! Meatballs covered in cream sauce and lingonberries and served with potatoes for $4, along with cake and salmon and cool Swedish potato chips. And their furniture looks awesome. Sure, it's all made from particle board and spit but where else can you buy a sofa for $200? Give me a working shower and a cable hookup and I could move right in. (I think a reporter did that once, just moved right in for the day to see if IKEA would kick him out. Of course they didn't. They are Swedish, after all.)

I seem to have hit an interesting place in my commercial career. I figured once I entered my (ahem) "golden years", I'd be shilling for the mommy products. Swiffers, toilet bowl cleaners, Lunchables... you know, things that require a certain 30-something Midwestern charm. Instead, I recently auditioned to play a bottle of water.

Yesterday I was a vitamin.

Which begs the question, What does one wear to play a vitamin?

The mom's in town for some Mother's Day visitation so the posting's been sketchy at best. Always good to have the mom in town. I plan on dragging her all the way to IKEA this visit because that's what everyone wants to do when they come to New York - go to New Jersey!

Mmm... burger!

On NPR they were talking about the livestock industry. Apparently a lot of nasty things go into our food on that we, the eaters, are not aware of. Did you know that arsenic is commonly added to livestock feed? It makes the animals ravenous so they eat nonstop and get to market faster. And guess the main source of protein fed to cattle in this country? Chicken poop! All cows are fed a diet of "high protein and cost effective" chicken poop.

Chicken poop.

Organic meat has much stricter regulation (no poison! no chicken poop!) but there are still some things that get through that are cause for concern. (Dyes mostly, which - compared to arsenic and chicken shit - I'll take.)

Oh, and remember the recalled pet food scare - the stuff that killed all those dogs and cats a few weeks ago? It's currently being fed to our pigs. Pigs that will soon be turned into bacon and sold at your friendly neighborhood grocery store. The way the official explained it, the pet food had to go somewhere and since this is the normal proceedure when they have recalled food... And no, they didn't think it was a problem that humans would be eating the poisoned-food consuming piggies. No problem at all.

What could possibly go wrong?

*This just in from today's paper: "FEDS - FARMED FISH FED POSIONED MEALS: Farmed fish have been fed meal spiked with the same chemical that has been linked to the pet food recall, but the contamination was probably too low to harm anyone that ate the fish, federal officials said yesterday."

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO CATE BLANCHETT?!

So sad. Looks like my beloved Gilmore Girls is going the way of the dodo. According to an inside source, Lauren Graham and the freakishly youthful Alexis Bledel were asking for "wheelbarrows of cash" and the CW wouldn't fork it up. Granted, the premise was wearing a touch thin, what with Lorelai's "Look how quirky and young and irresponsible I am" shtick seeming awfully forced in a pre-Botox Meg Ryan kind of way now that Lauren Graham is 40+, and the writing this season has been decidedly under-parr (ever since they fired creator/writer/producer Amy Sherman-Palladino and replaced her with... Lauren Graham). Still, for a strong dose of lifestyle porn, you don't get better than fictional (oh so fictional) Star's Hollow, where the townsfolk are quirky yet kind, everyone has time to stop at the diner for a cup of the world's best joe, the weather is collegiately crisp every day of the year, and a quasi-flakey, somewhat foolhardy woman can run a hugely successful inn and live in the world's most stylish house while struggling cutely.

I want to struggle cutely. Mostly I just flail and bark which might sound adorable but is, in fact, not.

Weekend update

I had quite a lovely weekend here in NYC. On Saturday I met up with a friend at the world famous Katz's Deli (yes, the place where Sally faked her on-screen orgasm). I'd never been there, even though it's right up there with the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State as far as tourists are concerned. The place was mobbed, but if you think that stopped me from getting some matzo ball soup, you'se crazy. I love that it hasn't changed a bit since the 40's (there's still a sign hanging from the ceiling - "Send a salami to your boy in the ARMY") and even though their byzantine ordering system is confusing (walk in, get yellow ticket, figure out what you want to eat - which is the pastrami, ask equally confused tourist which is the right line for sandwiches, accidentally end up in soup line, eventually manage to find sandwich line, hand over ticket to counter guy who scribbles price, try to find french fry line, consider trying to locate beverage line but decide that banging head against wall would be better use of time, try to find table, intimidate fleeing tourists with "hungry New Yorker" gruffness, snag table, finally eat.) The food is damn good. Damn expensive ($14 for a sandwich?!) but worth the splurge. They're famous for their pastrami (which is what I recommend) with french fries, a plate of homemade pickles, and an egg cream (which, surprisingly, does not contain eggs). *A tip: If you ask the young Hispanic soup guy which one is his favorite, he might just give you a bowl for free. I'm not saying that happened to me, I'm just saying.

After that we went for ice cream at Il Laboratorio del Gelato in the bowels of the Lower East Side. It's a closet of a place with the best damn ice cream you'll ever eat. I sampled some interesting flavors (ricotta - like eating cold, whipped cheesecake; avocado - not as gross as you'd expect, very mild and sweet) but ended up playing it safe with cinnamon and dark chocolate, both quite delish.

Finished up the evening with some Spider-Man 3 which was meh at best. (As Matt put it, "Too much crying, too many villains.")

And finally, today I have a callback for another commercial. I'm playing a talking bottle of juice.

"WHERE IN THE WORLD IS ALISHA MCKINNEY". I'd watch that!

I caught a few minutes of the Today Show this morning while polishing off some leftover pancakes (pancakes on a weekday! So decadant!) and let me just say, Matt Lauer has the best job ever. He's doing his "Where In The World Is..." tour and, while I'm sure it's slightly less glamorous than I imagine, what with the waking-up-in-a-new-place-every-day aspect of the deal, I can't help but get a little fatootsed over the awesomeness of it all. Flying first class, staying in fantastic hotels (which is really all I want from a job. They've got to retire that Great Hotels chick sometime) AND he makes $13 million a year. Seriously, how'd he swing this? I've watched the Today Show - it doesn't look that hard. Hell, if Ann Curry can do it...

Things I Learned While Watching Myself On A Game Show:

1) When I Get Excited, I Act Like An Asshat
2) I Have An Enormous Forehead

Oh Lordy...

So tomorrow night - Thursday, May 3rd - me and my dear pal Gary will be appearing on a little show called Cash Cab. If you want to tune in, it'll be on at either 5:00 or 5:30 EST (they run them back-to-back and I don't know which one I'm on) on Discovery Channel.

While watching, do your best to remember that I graduated from college.

Only pussies wear shirts!

I spent the afternoon in Central Park yesterday. Let me tell you, there's nothing like that place when the trees are blooming and the sun is out. Kids were taking skateboard lessons and gigantic dogs were pracing about and all the baby turtles in Turtle Pond were swimming around, hoping for dropped Cheerios. (I feel like such a killjoy telling the little kids not to feed the them. There are signs up all over the place but seeing as how they can't read yet - and their nannies seem too bored to bother - I feel it is my duty as an environmentalist to step in. Plus I like telling kids what to do.)

I think every male in the tri-state area was at the Great Lawn yesterday, and every last one of them was playing Shirtless Frisbee. Not that I'm complaining mind you, but I just have to laugh. By the time we were ready to leave it was probably in the 50's - definitely jacket weather - but these guys refused to put their freaking shirts on. They'd literally throw the frisbee than clutch their man boobies, shivering. Clearly this is the type that breeds with the girl who straps on a bikini and goes sunbathing in Central Park the second the snow melts. (I once saw a girl sunbathing in a bikini and Ugg boots. Woman, if you need to wear snow boots, put on a goddamn top.)

La Lohan has lived there for the past two years - in the $750 a night suite.

I was doing some research on a new project over the weekend about the Chateau Marmont. I know a little about the place, obviously - the Jim Belushi thing, the glamorous stars of yore posing in their bungalows for the pages of LIFE magazine... I'm a sucker for old school Hollywood and this place has it in spades. (Especially the bungalows. Gotta love the bungalows.) Naturally they have all the amenities - frette linens, balconys, room service. I like all that.

But then I noticed an amenity so fantasic, so Made-For-Me, that I simply have to finagle a way to stay there.

Customized stationary.

Every person that stays there gets customized Chateau Marmont stationary. You know how every hotel has that little pad of paper mixed in with the Room Service menu and the Bible? Well at the Chateau Marmont they take it up a notch. Each guest gets this customized letterhead:

Chateau Marmont
Alisha McKinney in residence

Now that is classy. And it'll only cost me $450 per night to get my hands on it.