Texts from this Year Part 2: Anya Redecorates

By this time you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect from our one-sided textual recap (golden moments of reality tv, the low bar set by our co-workers, and the ongoing power struggle between Anya and her mother). What’s noteworthy here is that this series of texts takes place during the month where Anya got her shit together (at least in one significant area of her life). Keep your eyes peeled for a tonal shift as we move forward, but don’t hold your breath for a pile of positivity (it still only comes in pops).

Tuesday, February 26  8:08pm
“it will be hot for him under the sun, yet he can’t go naked because of his alopecia” Lisa on giggy. And this is why I love her
Her fucking pomeranian has selective alopecia

Tuesday, February 26   8:11pm
They’re going to visit her stepson, who is now married to her friend, in San tropez. Context only improves it lol

Wednesday, February 27  6:01pm
You should ask him how getting his books published is going. “Couldn’t you at least get an ebook deal? No? Oof...”

Saturday, March 2  11:27am
My mother has lost what remained of her mind.

“No wire hangers, ever!”

Monday, March 4  6:36pm
Just saw a bumper sticker that says stop abortion now with the stop in a circle with a line through it. I can’t decide if I want to key it or not. You win this round, person with strong, but indeterminate abortion feelings!

Monday, March 4  6:37pm
On second thought, only the anti choicers would have such a stupid fucking bumper sticker.

Thursday, March 7  8:38pm
Also, is it ok that I’m plotting a bedroom with a fuckload of bookshelves but none directly over my head because I’m certain that my vigorous future love life will inevitably tumble them onto my head and I don’t want to be concussed by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?

Saturday, March 9  10:31am
“expectations are premeditated disappointments” maybe that should have been our tag line

Saturday, March 9  11:09am
I mean this is supposed to be our for real last house so I can do whatever I want. Maybe staple Ivy to the walls and call it Secret Garden

Maybe skipping the rope swing of death. And the ghosts. And the cholera.

Sunday, March 10  2:39pm
Ahaha my mother HATES my room idea. That’s how I know it’s great

Sunday, March 10  6:21pm
Yup haha. Girlfriend, go visit the gym you fucking “own”!

Monday, March 11  6:31pm
Yeah I feel you. I’m resisting the seductive powers of crazy bread, it’s a challenge

Tuesday, March 12  9:06pm
Paul. Paul. Watching the dance moms explain don’t ask don’t tell, glorious

Bring ‘em back down to earth, Holly.

Wednesday, March 13  8:31pm
I need a catchy phrase for when reality television stars give a medical lecture as if they’re qualified to explain it

Wednesday, March 13  9:28pm
Now Kimmy is pretending to be an expert on private investigating. Realllly need a snappy phrase for this. celecturing? Celebrity lecturing? Ughh I need seamless blending. Like celebutante.

Thursday, March 14  10:15am
Also, Frazzled Feminist today: “sometimes I really loathe my job”

Thursday, March 14  12:04pm
Here’s to hoping I never reach a weight where people getting between me and my lunch hour is a joke rather than a reflection on their lack of consideration

Thursday, March 14  1:11pm
The number of times I have used my sneezes as a form of vengeful chemical warfare is frankly kind of disturbing

Also: saliva and pink eye discharge.

Thursday, March 14  1:26pm
Yes. I picture some evil person in another department tracking our internet movements and just blocking things as we go to them. Or Grouchy Co-worker specifically requested it.

Thursday, March 14  8:37pm
Icy hot packaging says I can wear one for up to 8 hours and no more than 3 times a day. I could be wearing it every waking hour and then some! Can I do my whole back like a mummy?

Thursday, March 14  8:54pm
But it ALL HURTS. What if I ask That Guy to apply them?

Thursday, March 14  8:56pm
Haha then the mummy back is ok?

Thursday, March 14  8:57pm
Or I could ask him to remove the one I just can’t quite reach...

KEEP IT.

Honestly, How Do You Make Your Hair Do That?

Ok so we’re moving, and starting new jobs (hopefully) in a new place (definitely). Hooray! We’re upgrading to a New City, and some of us are feeling the stress. The Libertarian is already there, working away at his Real Job, wearing dress clothes and doing dry cleaning and matching his watches to his outfits like an Adult, and we’re more in this stage:

And I can assure you, I don’t look like this.

Just going to start with this text exchange so hopefully you can understand the level of lazy we reached this weekend:

ANYA: Can I wear peep toes shoes in a professional workplace in New City?
PAUL: Yep, as long as you’re prepared to do your little toesies
ANYA: Bah, ok fine. Or at least just the first three
PAUL: Lol right.

Yes, those last two toes are just TOO MUCH WORK. The fact that Paul was on board with this should be shocking to you, given the fact that he makes a habit of giving Anya’s...less put together looks...the once over with raised eyebrows and pursed lips. The thing is, somedays she just can’t be bothered to hunt down a chic pair of cigarette pants, some nice black heels, and a boatneck shirt to tie it all together. Any day? This is our state of affairs.

But there are ladies and gentlemen out there in the world, who wake up every morning and put themselves together. Sometimes in misguided attempts that make them look like orange floozies,or witches, or bros, but at least they’re trying?

And some of them are most definitely pulling. it. off. They know terms like “second day hair” and “highlighting and contouring”. They own products like “texturizing spray” and “pomade” and have tools that end in the word “wand”. Literal magic. And the thing is, we went through a sadly enormous chunk of our lives pretty sure that they just won some sort of genetic lottery, and had hair the likes of which we would never see, and they had it naturally.

Oh, just casual Friday

Well, times have changed, the internet has exposed the seedy underbelly of people who put in effort, and we would love to tell you that now Anya does her hair every day and has learned invaluable tips for making her eyes look bigger and her cheekbones more pronounced. Alas, no. Despite many a tutorial pinned and many a product available to her by virtue of her very put together sister, every goddamn day the girl goes to work with wet hair and let’s it “air dry” (how quaint) into a quasi-wave that evolves into a ponytail by mid-afternoon. Once she straightened her hair, and THREE CO-WORKERS commented in a way that suggested they were deeply impressed(surprised). A sad state of affairs indeed.

Here’s the thing though: how do you make your hair do these things? Does she need some sort of master/apprentice relationship to master the messy side fishtail bun? Why are we even doing things that require a black belt in hair?!

Step 1, have amazing hair, steps 2-4, be a unicorn, step 5, repeat step 1, step 6, SORCERY!

At the end of the day, it also comes down to the laziness you see at the top of the screen. You would be hard pressed to find a weekend that she’s not wearing jeans and a super lazy hairstyle because “What if I’m out doing activities and I see a dog that I need to pet! I can’t be all ‘not on my J. Crew’ to a puppy! What if I do my hair all perfectly and then I want to have afternoon sex? Then I’d have to do it AGAIN and I probably couldn’t get it quite right or have the requisite equipment and then I’m fucked both literally and figuratively!”

But, when better to change our ways than during a time when we’re facing general upheaval? Shouldn’t this move be the time to fix our (her) errant hair? Steps one (buy work shoes that are not moccasins) and two (purchase a straightener) are complete. Who wants to mentor Anya through difficult path ahead? (ha, get it?). She’ll pay you in puns! And on the plus side, has a very healthy head of hair, almost untouched by heat or product for the last twenty something years.

Cat Caveats

An at-length discussion on the “If I fits, I sits” phenomenon concluded with a shake of our heads and a repetition of one of our go-to mantras, “cat people” (other oft-repeated phrases include “Seriously!/?/!?” and “Fuck that noise.”). Normally, “cat people” indicates a topical shift for us. It pops out when we’re at the end of our explanatory feline rope. We have conveyed all that we are capable of verbalizing on the subject, and are forced to chalk up the rest of the mystery as being accessible only to members of the bizarre world of cat ownership.

It’s a very exclusive club.

However, this time something was different. Maybe it was a result of the temporary lull in the Hellish July heat wave, or perhaps it was due to the moving-induced deterioration of our mental health states, but for whatever reason, we just couldn’t let it go.

PAUL: Cat people.
ANYA: Seriously, cat people.
PAUL: Right.
ANYA: No, really. Like, we’re all weird about our pets. Your dog is the most neurotic mess I’ve ever seen, and I’m completely insane about my ferrets. Sure. But CAT PEOPLE, man. They’re on a whole ‘nother motha-fucking level (to quote Chris Rock in Ye’s hit record ‘Blame Game’).

The conversation kind of devolved from there, to the elaborate ways that cat people explain their feline companions to other people. From their social handicaps, to their delicate sensibilities, to the weird shit humans capture them doing, cats are fucking crazy, man. And some require more in depth guidelines for coexistence than others. See: My Cat From Hell. Love them or hate them, we can all agree they’re bizarre and inexplicable creatures. And so their owners (guardians?) have to write whole rule books for visitors meeting the cat(s) in the house.

Smiling to hide their joint terror.

And for any of you out there who are saying “noooo, that’s crazy, cats are pets just like everything else, and other pet owners are exactly the same/worse”, calling bullshit on the play. To demonstrate the truth of this, see below. One of these scenarios happened before our very eyes. If you can guess which one, kudos, you have a cat and you’re crazy. If you can’t...well then that really proves our point. Sound fair? Don’t care. Here goes:

Scenario 1:

STOP! What are you doing!? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout, but you’re really better off not sitting there. That’s Gregory’s spot. He doesn’t like the fabric on the couch, and we can’t reupholster again right now. I tried putting a blanket down, but he knows and just tears it up anyway. I know it sounds like I’m being crazy, but things have been really stressful around here. For both of us. Since I started the new job, I’ve been getting home 15 minutes later in the evening, and it’s completely destroyed his [still on the cat here] schedule. He always ate dinner at 6:15 on the dot, and he’s having a very difficult time adjusting to change. And who among us doesn’t? It just breaks my heart to think about him crying here for a quarter of an hour “where’s mommy?!”. Ugh I feel so guilty.

And on top of that, he’s completely changed his eating habits, like he wants to punish me! He has always gotten pretty much whatever he wants, of course I do the mixture of wet and dry food so that he’s hydrated but also gets tartar protection. I even tried whole prey for awhile, but since I still had to cut it up and debone everything, it totally wasn’t worth it. But for the past two weeks he’s refused to eat anything but salmon patties. Not that I mind making them or paying for them every day, I’m not trying to cheap out on him or anything, I just hate to think about all of the other dishes he’s missing out on. My poor brave boy. He’s so shaken up that some of his hair is falling out! I hope that it’s just a temporary funk and that he hasn’t developed psychogenic alopecia. I would hate for Gregory to have to go back on his antidepressants. They made him so terribly groggy.

Scenario 2:

You saw one of the cats? Which one... not the shaved black one!? Oh, the gray one? Yeah, that’s fine. Wait. You didn’t go in the basement, did you? That’s his place. I mean, he lets my mom come downstairs every few days the change out the litter, but otherwise... Okay, I’m making him sound completely terrible, but he’s really not that bad, he’s just a little misunderstood. His name? Well we call him Diablo, as a joke, but his real name is Voldemort, just because we love Harry Potter and he has that weird scrunched up nose, not because he’s a supreme evil lord or anything, like, he can be a little naughty, but he really is totally fine for the most part. If you see him, he’s not going to suddenly attack you or anything, just do not, I repeat, do not ever pet him.

Well, he’s fine when he’s sitting there and sometimes he even looks like he wants you pet him, and I’m not saying that it’s a trap, but he’s just really sensitive and once you start petting him, he remembers how much he hates petting and he will turn on you in a second. But don’t freak out about sleeping tonight. You guys will be totally fine on the pull-out couch, Diablo has never bitten anyone while they were sleeping. You might wake up with him sitting on your chest, but he won’t claw your eyes out, just, like, don’t move. He’ll probably just stare at your face for a bit, but eventually he’ll get bored and leave. Well, he might go and kind of... mount? your leg and kind of... gyrate, a little bit. It’s just a little territorial/domination thing, but it usually doesn’t last that long, just, you know, don’t touch him while he’s doing it... because he will bite you.

Scenario 3:

Okay, man, we all set for tonight? Just swing on by around 8, it’ll be great to see you guys again. Huh? Oh, uhh, no, we’ll just have to hang out and stuff, like, it would be really cool to play Settlers of Catan, but Ginger hates board games. What? No. My girlfriend’s name is Jenny, Ginger’s my cat. Yeah, I think that it’s because it’s an activity that she can’t participate in at all? Like, if we’re all just chilling out, she can sit with us and she’s totally fine, like she’ll walk around with us and snuggle and everything’s great. But board games are just, like, not really an option, yeah, she’ll try to play with us, so she’ll, like, steal and hide pieces or else she’ll just kind of roll around on the board, and it’s really funny and stuff, but we can’t really play anything.

Well, sure you guys are welcome to stay the night, just maybe leave your stuff in your car? I mean, I guess I don’t know how she is about people sleeping on the couch, but every time Jenny stays here, Ginger gets, you know, normal cat territorial, and just pees on all of her stuff. Even the towel she uses in the bathroom. What? Yeah I know, it sucks, but what can you do? I mean, I get where she’s coming from. No, the cat, not Jenny, she can just leave her stuff outside in the trunk or whatever. I mean at least she can fix the peeing thing but doing that. The thing she really hates is how Ginger hates it when we fuck. Yeah. Well, I mean she just kind of hate-stares mostly, which I don’t think is that big of a deal, but Jenny isn’t really down with it. But if we lock her out of the room, she does that howling thing until we let her back in! So like, what choice do we have? Yeah, she just kind of perches on the nightstand. Jenny keeps saying she’s going to attack one day, but it’s like no way would my cat do that to me. Yeah. Ha, well yeah. Ok, see you tonight then.

I always win, Jenny. Always.

A Surprising Pop of Positivity

If you read even semi-regularly, you know that we’re not the sunniest people in the entire world. You could generously assume that our devastating humor comes from a dark place, it’s a coping mechanism as we deal with our deep seated issues in a decently productive way. You could more realistically assume that we’re just pretty fucking jaded for twenty somethings, and blame it on our upbringing/the state of the economy/our codependent relationship. Pick your (our?) poison! Regardless of the reason, it’s true that we’re not often brimming with optimism and love for our fellow man. But it can be exhausting spending so much time wishing people were better, you know? And we sleep the troubled sleep of the hopeful, despite our insistence that we’ve thrown in the towel on Everyone Ever.

So here we are, two desperately underemployed and underutilized young adults stuck in a place that prohibits us from starting our Adult Lives and Careers and Establishing Independence and things like that. You know your life is fucked up when your greatest joy in a week is that the token Self Righteous Christian from high school got knocked up by a dude whose “job” is online poker. So we’re changing shit up. We’re moving away and starting new things, and we plan to worry about paying rent instead of when we’re going to get out of this dead end situation. It’s nice to focus on whether we should put on ten pounds as a buffer for the poverty diet we’re about to endure, or if we should just let said diet run its course, leaving us looking like city waifs instead of tourists.

So, in the spirit of new things and sharing personal shit with you, dear reader, today we’re going to send you things that make us happy. Things that pull us out of the depths of despair, or just make us chuckle. Use them wisely! (That means frequently and with vigor). And don’t get used to this happy tone! We’ll be back with snark on snark on snark on Friday. Probably.

The Sound of Music

If you hate this movie, you are a Nazi. That is all. “I hate musicals, it’s so long, blah blah blah” NO. This entire film is a work of art, Julie Andrews is a force of nature, you’re a fool. The dialogue! Her voice! That part where the Captain gets all choked up singing “Edelweiss” before they flee “ALL the way to SWITZERLAND?!”? It makes us happy from start to finish, even the sad parts. Watch it when you’re doing just fine, watch it when you’re melancholy, watch it when your life is in upheaval. And enjoy that goddamn goat puppet show like the child you are.

Anya probably spent her lifetime allotment of her mother’s patience listening to this song on repeat.

“If I fits, I sits”

The more we see, the funnier it gets.

Somewhere along the way, this phrase got lodged into our vernacular. Not typically purveyors of the millions of cat pictures and videos on the internet, Anya literally woke up one day and had this dumb phrase stuck in her head. Now, every time we need a completely out of context giggle, it sends us into hysteria, no pics needed. No explanation for this one, folks, but we hope it works for you too.

British accents

"I'm just like any other regular mum."

If you haven’t figured it out by now, we may or may not be extreme Anglophiles. What began as a childhood obsession with Julie Andrews (see above), has grown and expanded into an enchantment for all things British, beginning and ending with those glorious accents. We love every damn ridiculous one of them, from prim and proper Lady Mary to scruffy little Eliza Doolittle and all the absurd Gwyneth and Madonnas in between.

Watermelon

The Fruit Demon of Deliciousness

Honesty time: Anya is a frequent puker. And a marathon puker. Some would consider vomiting a desirable way to deal with stress (better than eating your way through like six cookies and a Taco Bell meal in twenty minutes), but it’s not GREAT. And the only food that she kept down after a particularly nasty fight with the Stress Demon of Upchuck was...you guessed it, watermelon. Yes, watermelon has gotten us through some dark days...and you thought this one was going to be a paragraph extolling the vodka soaked virtues of a watermelon keg on a summer’s day, didn’t you? Sorry, not sorry.

Puppies (particularly of the corgi variety)

ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THAT FACE, CORGI?

Goddamnit. Look at that thing. You can just imagine how long we spent scouring the internet for a pic of a Corgi puppy. “Wait, there’s a couch full!” “That one is SLEEPING!” “Look at this costume!” “HE’S WINKING” etc. etc. etc. When we see one in real life, we become dangerous. Like knees giving out, pray to god neither of us are driving, dangerous. See Anglophilia above, for a partial explanation.

Witty puns

“You're an ice cream sundae with a cherry on top, and careful, Cherry, 'cause I'm the king of pop.”

None of the entries on this list (except for perhaps the watermelon one) should come as much of a surprise to you, this one being no exception. We always appreciate a well-placed pun and perfectly executed one has the ability to knock us out of commission for an entire afternoon (See: “NUNAVUT” tweet). Admittedly, you could make the argument that this is almost always a self-congratulating circlejerk of us laughing hysterically at each other (or to each other at ourselves), but... can you really blame us?

Sunshooooine

We all have seasonal depression (we, the denizens of Not Florida or California), and a bright day cheers us right up. Sure, they’re not made to order, and sure, we have a fifteen to twenty degree difference in temperature preference, but that Vitamin D really does do wonders for our mood. Plus, WAY more corgis outside in the sunshine. Plus it’s watermelon season, plus we can do our over the top Spike and Dru British accents. Really tying it all together here!

U Mad, Bro? A Compilation of the Most Ridiculous Things That Inspire Anonymous Internet Fury

Alternatively titled “We Don’t Comment and Neither Should You” or “Facebooking Lawyering: Never A Good Idea” (See “The Sequel: Facebook Evangelizing, Even Worse”)

Unless you look like this.

First of all, don’t you think we should be in charge of writing titles for theses? Just take a quick pass through our Archives and tell us we wouldn’t be great at that. Unfortunately, this is a relatively recent skill, and we’ve turned in more papers than we’d like to admit with just “Title” typed in at the top, waiting for a burst of creativity that never came. How sad. However, let’s turn from the emotional problems of our academic past, and focus instead on the topic of today’s article: things people get really goddamn upset about on the internet that they wouldn’t dream of touching in person.

What’s that you say? “But Anya, Paul, isn’t that list absolutely endless? Isn’t the anonymity of the internet almost wholly responsible for the slow decay of modern society? Haven’t we all agreed that that’s how the kids these days are bullying each other?” Yes, sure, the internet is a double edged sword, the one ring to rule them all, with great power comes great responsibility. But we’re not here to tackle those kind of topics. Those literally are thesis material (holla Master’s students! We’re here if you need us, drop us a line if you need a title, or want this one), and we’re more the sort to make mocking lists.

Per usual, our realm of expertise is specific.

As people who spend a fair amount of time online (like WAY too much), we’re pretty experienced in the ways of online forums/comments sections/etc. As people who exist, we’re totally guilty of confirmation bias, in that we seek out articles and sites and discussions that support our beliefs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, our strongest beliefs are centered squarely on some of the most controversial issues, which means a guaranteed load of bullshit by the time we get to the comments section. YAY.

Things like women’s rights, abortion, gay marriage, and whether or not we should care about the Royal Baby are things we expect to be hot button issues, with vitriolic fights between the right and the correct. You can visit any page that so much as mentions these issues, and read a series of tired arguments and quickly devolves into name calling. In fact, like fights with our parents, we might as well not even have them anymore, since we’re freakishly good and predicting exactly how the conversation will go, down to the turns of phrase.

“And then she’s going to make passive aggressive comments about your life decisions.”

But there are other, stranger forces at work here. There are things on the internet that make people into monsters, tear relationships asunder, turn perfectly normal (?) people into vicious trolls the likes of which the undersides of bridges have never seen. Why people choose to be so personally offended about things that are so obviously none of their business is really surprising to us...haha but really. If you’ve read much of this blog at all, you’ll have noticed that we’re pretty sassy and pretty hard on the general public. We just so badly want to everyone to get it together and be decent to each other! And no matter how snarky we seem when we’re taking out our fury on our poor little keyboards, we assure you that we are actually very pleasant in person. Sure, we have our fair share of anonymous internet fury, but we’re not directing it at specific people, demanding their ritual sacrifice for having naturally blonde hair or following the paleo diet.

But we would totes turn some of them into rats.

We’re not firing off emails to our legislators full of incomprehensible punctuation and a very evident lack of research on the topic at hand. We’re not leaving nasty reviews on Yelp because we don’t understand basic veterinary medicine (holla at the lady who was mad that she spent money on antibiotics and her kitten got better so she “obviously didn’t need them”!) or restaurant etiquette (holla at the guy who had passive aggressive fights with a three year old and seated himself next to us at breakfast last weekend!). As much as humankind tends to drive us crazy, we do operate under the premise “innocent until proven guilty and then also benefit of the doubt in case you’re having an especially bad day”.

Here are the things we have found that the denizens of the internet cannot read about without instantly turning into dickheads of epic proportions:

1) Vegetarianism (or Vegans, or really any kind of specific diet)

If we have to read “PETA = People Eating Tasty Animals” or the pseudo science of why meat protein is actually essential to our diets one more time, it will be just another day. Or how STUPID the Paleo diet is because OUR ANCESTORS ACTUALLY ATE X,Y,Z AND EVOLUTION GUYZ”. On the flip side “I will be laughing as all of you meat eaters die horrific deaths from heart attacks and cancer because I will never get sick or go to tell because of my respect for LYFE”. Stop the diet shaming! At least on the internet.

You’re all this guy.

We’re sorry everyone is so goddamn annoying, but shut.the.fuck.up. Eat what you’re going to eat, don’t eat what you’re not, and stop making everyone’s life decisions about you. WHY DO YOU CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE PUTTING INTO THEIR BODIES? Literally we could not give two shits about strangers using heroin, why would we get on their dicks about carbs?

2) Talking during movies

Yes, we shit you not, the number of casual death threats over talking during movies is actually astronomical. Anya is a movie talker, and will never stop doing that. Her inability to stay silent during movies is something everyone around her has to either enjoy or put up with. HOWEVER, she would never do that shit in a movie theater unless it was empty or full of people that were being so inconsiderate that her “movie talking” morphs into “Can you honestly please shut the fuck up?” to the teenagers behind her. No one likes a loudmouth at the movies, let alone the cell phone answerers, the shriekers, and the children crying. Does that mean we have to summarily execute these people? No. Calm the fuck down and just get management to throw them out the movie.

Unless it’s this hot mess, then loud scoffing is allowed.

(To be fair, this type of inconsiderate behavior is often not an isolated trait, and if these people are just generally breaking the unspoken social contract, we support execution).

3) Breast feeding in public/any type of parenting shit

“If you’re not a mother you CAN’T POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND” “I give no shits about your feelings, this is a NATURAL PROCESS OF FOODZ FOR MY BAAAAABY”, etc. Unfortunately, the Great Kate Wait has given rise to the number of articles about our least favorite thing: children. Doubly unfortunate: the mommy bloggers are out in force, reading these articles and showing their “tiger stripes” or “mama bear instincts” by being incredibly judgmental and shitty to everyone who is not a parent/wants to go out to eat in a child free environment once in a goddamn while. Let us just say, they are setting a terrific example for the next generation of entitled, self obsessed, the entire world must bow down before my very specific preferences assholes they’re raising. THANKS.

We know this list could be endless...what ridiculous shit have you seen on the internet that made you go “really?”?

[Fake Kate Photo by Alison Jackson]

10 Hottest Hollywood Jews

We’re ending an incredibly hot week with a blog article about some incredibly hot people. Because the temperatures outside literally will not allow us to voluntarily raise our own body temperatures, we spared you by choosing pictures of all of these sexy people in some of their...cooler...moments. Basically we’re making the case that yes, anyone can look pretty frickin delicious when they have a team of four to six people dedicated to making them look really, really good for an hour and a half of walking down a well laid vermillion carpet, but these ladies and gents look better at their worst than we do at our best. And by “we”, we mean “you”. Sars.

Because we’re so into equality, we divided our list (almost) evenly down the gender line. Because we’re also into the Chosen People, we did not divide our list evenly down the faith line. Jews only today, folks! To be fair, we did not put a shit ton of effort into fact checking the Jewish credentials of these people (but we’re pretty sure the same goes for the folks as Buzzfeed, whose strangely-ordered list last week inspired us to one up them), because the internet says it’s true, and also we don’t care that much.

1. Natalie Portman

We're just going to cut the bullshit and start at the top, and there is no arguing about this, Natalie wins every “Top 10 Hottest” everything, ever. She is the best looking human the world has ever known, and if you think differently you have poor taste. Nat is our girl crush, the only lady Anya allows her boyfriends to admit is hotter than she is (if they deny it, they’re lying). The best part is, it’s not just her perfect face and perfect body that puts her at the top of our list. Israeli born genius, Harvard graduate, vegetarian, need we say more? Plus, she loves her dog and she did that fantastic rap on SNL. Finding a picture for this article led us straight down the rabbit hole of “God, even bald she looks amazing” “Wow, has she EVER taken a bad picture EVER?” and most telling of all: “Ugh, I even want to be her when she’s pregnant”.

Even her goddamn mom hair is inspiring.

2. Joseph Gordon-Levitt

“Joe” as his friends call him, (that’s us, Joe’s friends!) Mr. Gordon-Levitt has been a favorite of Anya’s since...she laid eyes on him? He charmed us even as a slightly pathetic lovesick puppy in (500) Days of Summer, and redeemed himself in Inception. Remember when he was in Batman and he was super fly in that uniform? Remember how great he looks in a suit? Remember how he said “most pretty girls aren’t funny” and then apologized and felt like an asshole and we actually believed him which is unusual in this day and age? We enjoy that he, unlike Nat, appears to be operating on our plane of existence. Some days he looks like a million dollars, some days he looks like a normal person, but he also seems like a sweetheart.

“Paul, who is that guy that looks like James Franco and Heath Ledger had a perfect lovechild?”

3. Eva Green

Arguably the classiest Bond girl, Eva Green ran rampant over Daniel Craig’s secret agent heart in Casino Royale, and left us sad for the first time at the death of one of his booty calls. She’s sassy, just the perfect amount of weird, and we love her foreign flavor. It doesn’t hurt that she also played one of our favorite heart-breaking witches, Serafina Pekkala (sorry Willow!), in the ill-fated movie adaptation of The Golden Compass. Even when she’s being all French and languid and slightly consumptive, she’s a force to be reckoned with.

And look, science!

4. Jake Gyllenhaal

Ah, Jake. This makes Anya feel a little old, but he was one of her very first crushes after the onset of puberty, and the heartache she felt when he and Kirsten Dunst adopted a puppy together is unmatched to this day (by any other celebrity couple’s demonstration of commitment). Those blue eyes! That invariably spectacular hair! And we’re not sure if this is just great management on the part of his agent, or fact, but Jake always comes off as a good guy in his movies. Like painfully good. If he’s actually a douche, he deserves an Oscar just for fooling us for the past decade and some change. Subtracting points for his short lived relationship(?) with Swifty, adding points for his reaction to her song about him(?) which was: Silence.

Too busy giving no fucks and calling Anya while wearing his flannel plaid.

5. James Franco

It seems like the older he gets, the more of a douchebag James Franco becomes. Anya was pleased when he decided to go to Yale and do some learning, but we all know how that went. And remember when he hosted the Oscars and we all had to spend like three hours feeling bad for Anne Hathaway? And then she was nominated for an Oscar and we had to spend like three months regretting our former pity? ALL HIS FAULT. However, the reason he is getting away with all of this bullshit is clearly his exquisite looks! And he does seems to have a selectively good sense of humor. There’s something in most of us that is conquered by his broody, dark eyed, slightly off kilter mosey through life, and if he can keep milking it, good for him.

Not interested in hiking with him though.

6. Jesse Eisenberg

It’s hard for us to separate Jesse Eisenberg from his excellent portrayal of on-the-spectrum asshole Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, and we’re not really sure what that says about us given that and his placement on this list. Like an attractive Michael Cera, he’s made a career out of playing bumbling man-boys with communication issues. At first glance, he may not seem like much to look at, but once you get past the fuzzy mop and permafrown, you’ll notice his blue eyes and a bone structure that would make a lot of male models jealous (they’re probably not, however, jealous of his spindly little limbs). Jesse is also a vegetarian who apparently really like cats. We’ll take it.

He also manages to act using only two faces: smug and pondering (pictured here).

7. Rachel Weisz

First point for Rachel: she’s English. We obviously have a deep seated affection for our brethren across the pond, and she is no exception. Second point, if you haven’t seen The Fountain go see it RIGHT NOW because it’s an incredible movie with another incredible actor (Hugh Jackman, only missing from the list because he’s not a Jew), directed by an incredible director, Darren Aronofsky (To whom our girl Nat owes her Oscar and who is missing from our list because he’s not that hot, although he is Jewish).

Unapologetically rock that cardigan, girl.

8. Paul Rudd

I think we all know how Paul Rudd made this list...he’s fucking hilarious, and that can really do a lot for your attractiveness factor. But he’s not just funny, he’s also smart enough to do some pretty incredible improv, and we’re suckers for wordplay (shocking, right?). Even if he weren’t super famous, he’d catch our eye on the street (or in the office) because of his unrelentingly happy golden retriever smile. Seriously, it’s very charming. He’s one of those people that would be a great or friend’s boyfriend, but not someone you want to actually be in a relationship with. While we appreciate the earnest energy he’s always giving off, we prefer our men of age, in that magic trifecta of physically, mentally, and emotionally. Tall order, we know.

Loving the purple, less so on the gut.

9. Josh Bowman

We’re just now realizing our list leans slightly older than we initially expected, with beautiful Brit Josh Bowman being the youngest entry on our list. He’s also the most attractive in the traditional sense, coming to fame for his role as the dreamy Daniel Grayson on the soaptastic Revenge (Paul hasn’t watched past the first season, but hopes that Daniel is still alive and successfully stealing Emily/Amanda’s heart away from dopey Jack). His teeth (or veneers) and nose look pretty great for a former Rugby player. We predict a bright future for Josh of playing young and pretty rich boys and distinguished and pretty rich men.

Some were tougher than others to find “normal” screencaps for.

10. Idina Menzel

What’s not to love about this wacky Broadway lady, with a set of pipes that give us goosebumps and a sexy husband worthy of her greatness? Nothing. We loved her as sassy, eternally self absorbed and terrible Maureen in RENT. We loved her even more when she originated Elphaba in Wicked because holy shit if you haven’t listened to her sing “Defying Gravity,” you are not living life even a little bit. And she did a jazzy remix of “Pokerface” that we listened to our on waterfront drive to Santa Cruz that is fantastic. She’s got a great name, a great voice, and even Glee couldn’t ruin her for us.

Nor could this terrible hairstyle.

Top 5 Episodes of Buffy Season 2

Followers of our blog may have noticed a recent increase in Buffy the Vampire Slayer related pictures and tweets. This is due to Paul finally succeeding in getting Anya to watch the spectacular (I will defend it to my grave) series. Although it may have started in large part due to Anya having to spend an hour a day in an internet free house, and Paul owning Buffy DVDs (we grew up without Netflix), she is now totally on board with the dark, witty, cheesy, and heartbreaking show, and Paul couldn’t be happier.

As Anya finishes a season, we’ll do a rundown of our favorite episodes. Season One only has 12 episodes, and while it sets up the show and has its moments of brilliance, the show did not really hit its stride until Season Two. So we’re just going to skip the first season (not sure we have enough favorite episodes to warrant an entry) and start with the emotionally-charged Season Two. Please be aware that all of these articles will feature spoilers for their, and any previous, season.

5. “Lie to Me”

“It’s just, like, the more I know, the more confused I get.”

We begin our list with “Lie to Me.” This episode is a favorite of Paul’s, mostly for its final scene. After an episode of being confronted with uncomfortable truths, Buffy asks Giles if “life ever gets easy,” and, knowing the answer, requests that he lie to her and gives her the answer that she wishes were true. Giles tells her that life is “terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.” His speech is sweet, yet incredibly tragic, especially considering upcoming events with Angel and Jenny Calendar.

Great comedic moments include Angel wearing the same clothes as a wannabe vamp, the eyeliner (oh god the EYELINER), everything about “Chanterelle” (the name, the clothes, the eternally clueless demeanor), and Drusilla talking to her dead bird (“You sing the sweetest little song. Won't you sing for me, hm? Don't you love me anymore?”).

4. “School Hard”

“Do you like daisies? I plant them, but they always die. Everything I put in the ground withers and dies.”

This episode is important for its introduction of bad British vamps, Spike and Drusilla. Drusilla is a truly magnificent secondary character. She manages to be ethereal, kooky, and terrifying all at the same time. You really never know what batshit crazy thing she’s going to do or say next, and we love it. Famed slayer of Slayers, Spike, rolls into town to up his kill count to three, and picks Parent Teacher Night, of which Buffy is in charge, to make his first big attack. We learn that subpar student Buffy is also incapable of making lemonade and that Principle Snyder and the police are somewhat aware of the supernatural goings-on and their go-to public explanation of PCP gangs.

Angel pretending to be evil with faux-hostage Xander is great, as is Spike seeing through the charade and angrily bewailing that Angel was his Yoda. If there’s anyone we quote more than Spike and Dru these days, it’s Ewan McGregor’s spectacularly pathetic “You were my brother, Anakin!” and the end of Episode III. Melding these two pop culture phenomena keeps us going through the endless days.

3. “Becoming (Part 2)”

“Close your eyes.”

This is one hell of a season closer. Willow successfully casts a spell to return to Angel his soul, but it is too late and, after a tearful reunion, Buffy is forced (still not buying the necessity of this part) to stab Angel, sending him to Hell. It’s all too much for Buffy, who then leaves town, giving us a rough end to a rough season. With Giles getting tortured, Buffy’s expulsion, Drusilla siding with Angel over Spike, and Xander lying to Buffy about Willow’s spell, there are not a whole lot of bright moments to this episode.

We thankfully briefly get the dynamic duo of Buffy and Spike. This gives us the incredible formal introduction of Spike and Joyce (“Um.. you hit me an axe one time, remember? Uh, ‘Get the Hell away from daughter!’” “Oh...So do you live here in town?”) which is perfection, even if it unfortunately dissolves into the brutal exchange between Joyce and Buffy on acceptance (“I mean, have you tried not being a Slayer?”).

2. “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”

“I think it’s more of a hot night, don’t you?”

We decided that we needed a safe and silly episode to sit between our third and first selections, and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” certainly serves that purpose. Though it doesn’t actually come in at second place for either of us, we couldn’t stand putting all of that sad in a row. After being scorned by Cordelia, Xander enlists the help of witchy Amy to cast a love spell on Cordy (so that he can dump and embarrass her), which goes awry and causes all of the women in Sunnydale to become violently obsessed with him. Poor Cordelia’s love(ish) for Xander can’t overcome her desire to be popular, but her getting the locket “out of her locker” pulls at the heartstrings of an especially sensitive viewer (read: not us). And how many times are those two idiots going to seek shelter in the Summers’ not-so-secure basement (Joyce must have some kind of ridiculous home insurance/If you’re okay with the constant threat of death, Sunnydale is the place for contractors and construction workers)?

By far the highlight of this episode for Anya was a creature we affectionately refer to as Buffy-Rat, and nervous little rodent intent on escaping the confines of the library and hunting down some delicious cheddar, but only in a place that is large enough for her to transform herself...in the buff. GET IT? Watching Buffy-Rat scuttle around was a close second to watching Willow try to murder Xander with an axe, uttering sentiments that are probably dangerously close to her true feelings sometimes.

1. “Innocence”

“I’ll just let it burn.”

This episode is the epitome of what Buffy accomplishes at its best: showcasing the heights and depths of the human condition through the Fantasy lens of monsters and magic in a moving way. The show attempts to do this with varying levels of success (Everybody ignored her so much that she became invisible! Be careful what you wish for!), but this is one of the times ol’ Joss got it very right. Anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone who turned out to not be the person you thought they were (which has happened to anyone who has ever fallen in love), can relate to plucky protagonist Buffy Summers, as she slowly (SO VERY SLOWLY!) realizes that the man she loves, Angel, has turned into a monster. Spike may criticize the evil Angelus for being too soft, but his torturous treatment of Buffy throughout this episode is pure cruelty and malice.

The scene in Angel’s apartment where he ridicules her performance in bed, calls her a needy child, and then brushes off her confession of love? UGH. This episode is light on the comic relief, highlights being Xander telling the soldier that he only needs five minutes in a closet with Cordelia and Drusilla’s eternal oddities (this episode features her stargazing through the ceiling and naming them all the same thing). “Innocence” also gives us the iconic Buffy-using-a-rocket-launcher scene and the wonderful speech from Giles, where he tells Buffy that she will only ever find support and respect from him. When Joyce asks Buffy what she did on her birthday and she replies with, “I got older,” you believe it.

Honorable Mention:
“Passion”
In a heavy season of dark and twisty plots and nothing great happening for anyone, Angel’s stalking and murder of Jenny Calendar (or Gyp-say Jen-nay as the more pro-Angel among us call her) really put the sad icing on the miserable cake of this season. This is an extremely important game changing episode, featuring the first death of a major character on the show, but it does not resonate with us as much as the above sad sack selections. We knew when the disc fell that her soul restoring work would live on, but watching Giles smell that rose before ascending the stairs with a smile on his face was a heart wrenching build-up to the scene that made us realize that things with Angel really never could be the same. Ouch.