1. The Duchess: I was legitimately worried about this movie since I’m their target audience, obsessed with period pieces, a fan of Keira Knightley, and the trailer didn’t make me want to dash out to a ticket line or fork over the $12 I could be spending on Chipotle.

Well, the trailer is deceiving.

I screened the film yesterday with a group of NYC press people and bloggers. I sat through the movie thoroughly impressed, and not just because I was drooling over the costumes and fascinated by Knightley’s Mrs. Frankenstein-like wigs. Besides unexpectedly being one of the most beautiful period pieces I’ve ever seen in my life (and I’ve seen a lot), the art direction rivaled Ang Lee films and Knightley topped her Oscar-winning performance in Pride and Prejudice. The script was sassy, well-written and comedic at moments – always necessary in a story as tragic as this one. You can check out the not-so-great trailer below, just keep in mind it doesn’t come close to giving the film justice.


2. Wardrobe Inefficiencies: When I purchased a bicycle, it never occurred to me that it’d profoundly affect areas of my life beyond basic commuting. For example, the way I dress.

Newsflash!

Biking in inappropriate attire is not comfortable, or fun.

Take yesterday’s fashion decision: Knowing that the bike’s greasy chain had the potential to ruin the cuffs of my jeans (and in my whacky world, excellent-fitting jeans are more prized than diamond jewelry), I realized I’d be forced to make some adjustments to my daily outfit of jeans and whatever-I-feel-like-wearing-on-top.

I put on leggings since this would avoid the oil-on-pants issue, but then recalled I hated leggings, primarily because they make me look like an over-size Olsen twin. So I moved onto tights, which look foolish with out a skirt.

This is how I found myself biking in a mini-skirt.

When people tell me I’m not crazy, I want them to follow my logic in an incident like this.

How did a mini-skirt, perhaps the least biking friendly attire a woman could posses, become my solution?

I was secretly planning to divulge about an additional perk of becoming a biker chick: You get cat-called at way less. I’d found this to be true. Whether it’s because you’re moving by men at construction sites at a much faster speed so they can’t really see you or that guys are just less likely to harass you when you’re on top of a mechanism with wheels which you could steer into them, I’m not sure. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t hold true if you start biking around in a mini-skirt, an activity which garners MUCH attention, primarily for its absurdity.

This incident can go on my laundry list of titanic mistakes.

3. Some fun political stuff:

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."

Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you’re a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with more than 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If you’re total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with fewer than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude," with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now

A more coherent article tomorrow.

The problem with childhood is that children have zero appreciation for it. So yesterday, as an adult, I fulfilled a childhood-like dream.

I bought a bicycle.

No, it doesn’t have streamers. Or training wheels. Or a basket (yet!). I’ve wanted a bike in New York for as long as I can remember, but negative thoughts like:

“You’ll die.”

“You have no coordination,” and

“You’ll die,” always got in the way.

A series of recent events allowed me to break free of these negative predictions. I decided to focus more on the ‘wheee’ factor and less on the siren sound of an ambulance coming to scrape me off the sidewalk.

So far, I’ve found biking around the city invigorating. You’re operating at a heightened level of awareness which is nauseating in its excitement. When walking, you’re zoned out on your iPod and the only obstacles are the occasionally uncurbed dog poo. On a bike, everything’s potentially dangerous – the homeless guy’s legs you didn’t see, cab doors, the Mercedes making a U turn, the people slowing down to argue, the upcoming stroller.

In an effort to become a savvy Manhattan bike-rider and maybe even make it to my next birthday, I’ve been attempting to learn / take cues from fellow bikers so that I might learn the rules – Gain insight into the biker’s code of conduct, so to speak. This has been an exercise in utter futility. The rules for New York City bikers remain an enigma. I witness people biking on the left, on the right, with the traffic, against the traffic, on the sidewalk and in the middle of the street. Sometimes I pass a biker in my bike lane pedaling the opposite direction of me. This is extremely disorienting.

While not crashing into fellow bikers is key, I’m also always on the look out for the opening of parked cars’ doors. My limited research indicated this was the number one cause of biking related accidents. Yesterday, I remained so hyperaware of this issue that I momentarily forgot that moving cars also make left hand turns, and got to truly test out my brakes for the first time.

My survival strategies up to now have involved:

a) Biking on the sidewalk whenever possible (i.e. in sparsely populated areas downtown or in the east village)

b) Biking behind delivery boys and using them as a guide / shield. I realize this is socially unacceptable, but they seem to really know what they’re doing, plus they’re fearless.

c) Keeping my bike seat lower than it perhaps should be so I can place my feet on the ground with ease at any time.

Like everything on our planet, the biking world also has a class system. From the little I’ve observed so far, it’s structured something like this:

1. Service Bikers: These are the folks biking to perform a service, mainly food delivery. They’re bold, swear at cars, wear baseball caps and are usually burdened with Chinese food or boxes of pizza. These men know every pothole in the city. I’m attempting to learn from them. Unfortunately, most of them don’t speak English.

2. The Casual Biker: This category of biker species is pedaling ‘for fun.’ Their bike might have a basket. They never seem panicked or concerned. They’re often clueless.

3. The Commuter Biker: These people are like the casual biker but slightly more professional. They have those rubber band thingies that wrap around the bottom of their jeans, fancy locks, a backpack, maybe even a reflective vest. This category of folks is biking to and from work. Their journey and lock-up routine is like a well-oiled machine.

4. The Blinged-Out Biker: These are the bikers whizzing past you, hunched over the handlebars like a hornet, dressed entirely in spandex. They have neon colored helmets and special bike shoes that lock into the pedals. They consistently move faster than the traffic and if ever forced to stopped, will be seen sucking a glittering water bottle. They also always wear sunglasses. I think of them as either sport-nuts or fancy versions of the commuter biker since they’re probably commuting all the way from Connecticut.

To be honest, I’m thinking of getting some bike bling myself. Not pink and purple streamers or anything, but maybe a blinking red light that encourages cars not to rear end me. I asked my roommate if she’d still be friends with me if I owned a reflective orange vest.

She said yes.