Somehow, in the same glamorous but grueling 15-hour work day two states away, I wound up with a subungual hematoma thanks to stylish boots I haven’t worn since the pandemic was just a gleam in a bat’s eye…and an $850 bill I can’t possibly afford for a faux auction bid on lunch with an acclaimed actress with a name so common it’s shared by a popular wine writer, a member of Destiny’s Child, and 4% of the black and white women I’ve ever met.
Hi, I’m Yvie and sometimes I like run-on sentences.
I’ve heard she’s very smart an absolute mensch. I hope she does more comedies. I bet she also knows her library card number by heart and occasionally makes poor footwear choices.
Holiday Movie Ho Hive, Assemble!
December has been a long year, so when Amazon tried, for the fifty-leventh time, to get me to watch their '“premium free streaming service” freevee, I held strong. Then they dangled Mistletoe Mixup, a holiday romcom starring not one, but two Lawrence brothers, and I caved because I am brittle like a candy cane these days. Yoga and 400 page books about the science of fire just don’t slap away the day job rage like they used too. And I didn’t have to buy anything or sign up for Amazon Prime.
Him: I’m Tom Wright.
Her: Mr…Right?
Him: Please, you can just call me Tom.
So lame. And I will be decompressing with it for the next 80 minutes. (Reader, I lasted about 12 minutes. Two Lawrence brothers was one too many. #JoeyHive)
I’m now forced to consult Vulture’s An Exhaustive Guide to the 153 New Holiday Movies This Year, which catalogues girlbossy, Elf on the Shelf-y original holiday films spread across 25 television networks and streaming services. I refuse to subscribe to any more of the latter, not even to watch Gabourey Sidibe write very effective letters to Santa (VH1) or Reno 911!’s Lieutenant Dangle do his perviest Jimmy Stewart impersonation (Comedy Central).
“During the holidays, no one is more desperate for couples to smash than a snowstorm.”
I am horrifying a few of my friends by writing a holiday romcom this month, so I’m calling all of this research, self-soothing, and the thing that ensures I’m not gonna DO what everybody thinks I’m gonna DO and just FLIP OUT, man!
A Royal Pain
I never knew you could be mugged by a book title. But hours after someone recently mentioned the Carolyn Prusa novel None of This Would Have Happened If Prince Were Still Alive, I’d already read it by the time I passed out that night under the Prince as a Very Funky Morton Salt Girl print hanging in my bedroom.
Friend: Still? Even after what Prince did to you?
OK, wow. Fun fact: His Purple Majesty did nothing to me except…. Well, Prince, then an extremely famous Jehovah’s Witness, couldn’t exactly spread the good word and unwanted copies of The Watchtower by going door to door like his JW brethren. So while Maceo Parker and the band made it funky now, he’d descend from the stage and slowly distribute copies of The Watchtower to every screaming Prince fan in the front row.
Thanks to my then-roommate-landlady-frenemy, I was in the front row to see my favorite musician of all time when he performed at a Philadelphia arena that has since undergone more name changes than Puff Daddy. When Prince got to me he stopped, stepped back, made an exaggerated arc in his three-inch high purple stiletto boots and, having safely kept The Watchtower out of my heathenish hands, continued distributing it to everyone on the front row except me.
This bitch.
Anyway, I’ve forgiven the dearly beloved and departed Prince even if some of my friends haven’t. I’ve pushed away every copy of The Watchtower I’ve ever been offered, and I appreciated not having to reject my tiny purple king’s offering in front of thousands of rabid fans. Another consolation prize was watching everyone on the front row sag as they realized what he’d just given them. They would have been happier if he’d pressed a baggie full of dog poop into their hands, and possibly less confused.
And None of This Would Have Happened If Prince Were Still Alive, was “thoroughly entertaining” if not “completely relatable.” Each time the main character’s lovable youngest kid threw a tantrum or peed on herself after refusing to use the bathroom, my ovaries contracted. Prince would have understood.
Any and all typos were not intentional.