Things I'd Like to Forget from 2005

Ariana Huffington just did a list of things she'd like to forget from 2005 on her blog, http://www.huffingtonpost.com , and I thought it was such a spiffy idea, I thought I'd do my own version (though with less political content, out of respect for the fact that I have no clue what the political bents are of the three or four people out there who actually read this blog).

THINGS I'D LIKE TO FORGET FROM 2005:

• This whole "Happy Holidays" vs. "Merry Christmas" thing. (Can't we all just get along?)
  
• "You're glib, Matt. You're glib."
  
• My husband going to Baghdad for six months. And VOLUNTEERING to go on convoys. Freaking men....
  
• Harajuku girls, as interpreted by Gwen Stefani. (Any harajuku girls who are just out doing their thing and NOT posing or dancing around Gwen Stefani and allowing her to "dress them wicked and give them names," I salute you.)
  
• Gwen Stefani. (Except for the "Hollaback Girl" video, which my daughter Maggie loves and has created an intricate and exceptionally rhythmic dance to, thereby showing the world once again how dizzyingly gifted she is. )
  
• Gas prices.
  
• The lack of urgency in the US about reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
  
• Britney and Kevin: Chaotic. (And thanks once again for making me watch the sleazy, drunken train wreck that was the premiere, Troy.)
  
• Jean Schmidt calling Jack Murtha a coward. I don't care where you fall on the political spectrum--that was just creepy and out of line.
  
• The state lab losing or jacking up my daughter Marin's newborn screening test samples twice, thereby delaying these critical tests that need to be done immediately by six weeks. As Napoleon Dynamite would say, "Idiots!"
  
• My going postal on the very nice nurse who called to tell me I'd have to bring Marin in a third time to get her heel gouged for said newborn screening tests. It really wasn't her fault.
  
• My first post-pregnancy attempt to get into my old jeans.
  
• That whole mess surrounding Jack Abramoff, The Lobbyist Without a Soul.
  
• That my one-year-old iPod is now considered "bulky" and "obsolete."
  
• Denise Austin. Girl, you are way too perky. Especially while exercising.
  
• Brilliant actor and ubercad Russell Crowe throwing a phone at a hotel employee and then JOKING about it a few months later. Note to Russell: Assault and battery is never funny.
  
• That Ron Howard's lovely (if a little schmaltzy) film Cinderella Man suffered at the box office because its star was unable to contain himself.
  
• Taradise. How can one little girl be so drunk and gross? Who is paying her for this? Where are her parents? (Oh, God, did I really just type that? I'm SO turning into my mother.)
  
• Michael "Brownie" Brown and his figurative fiddling while New Orleans burned. (OK, drowned, but that didn't go with the metaphor.) CBS News Brown: 'Can I Go Home?' November 3, 2005 21:30:06
  
• Dancing with the Stars, the Rematch. John O'Hurley, you are a sore loser.
  
• The preview for Saw II. Who is the twisted wingnut who dreams UP these things? BLEH!
  
• The ending to Million Dollar Baby. I was expecting a triumph of the human spirit, people.
  
• People who question the patriotism of those who dare to ask questions.
  
• The interview I read in Entertainment Weekly where George Lucas admitted that he has outlines for Star Wars episodes VII, VIII, and IX locked away somewhere and is Never. Going. To Release. Them. George, you are a creepy little man.
  
• Mariah Carey telling People magazine that Glitter was "ahead of it's time."
  
• My sad addiction to People magazine.
  
• That the "right" to torture our POWs was ever the subject of a debate.
  
• That there was no new Lord of the Rings movie this year. (I'm also still working on forgetting that from last year.)
  
• Keira Knightley, especially her snotty dismissal in an interview of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in the five-hour BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries. The five-hour BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries rocks the free world; Colin Firth seems like a nice guy who certainly never blasted Keira Knightley in public; and no whinyass, snaggletoothed stick insect who talks out of her nose is ever going to be a respectable Elizabeth Bennett.
  (I think I need to go lie down now....)
  
• Angelina Jolie. You're a black widow, Jolie....
  
• That little girl I read about who told a newspaper that Angelina Jolie is her hero. ARGH! Where is her mother!? (Oh, God, I did it again....)
  
• The fact that thousands of soldiers who've done their tour of duty in Iraq have had their assignments there involuntarily extended. Again, I don't care where you fall on the political spectrum--I can't help but feel frustrated and sad for them and their families.
  
• That excerpt the media released from Scooter Libby's novel. :::shudder::: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/051107ta_talk_collins
  
• The Pussycat Dolls. It's 14:59, girlfriends. Get over yourselves.
  
• The Runaway Bride. Those eyes! They're watching me!
  
• The phrase "bodice-ripper." Or anything that puts down an entire genre of fiction created primarily by women. Intelligent women write romance, and--judging by the friends I have and the letters I get--intelligent women read it. (And certain Hollywood scriptwriters should take notice of how its done, because the romantic comedies I've seen on film this year have been appalling. Do it for Kate Hudson, people!)
  
• And finally, the thing I'd most like to forget at the moment was that horrible, melodramatic "Nooooooooo!" in what SHOULD have been a powerful, moving scene at the end of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. That's no way to end the greatest film series ever, George, you wanker.