Celebrity Emergency Contact List

Thought Catalog recently posted an essay called "Celebrities I Would Defend to the Death." The author talks about her desire to defend people like Kirsten Dunst, Paul Rudd and Taylor Swift from the cruel taunts and criticisms of the public.

I've been known to feel an inexplicable closeness to certain celebrities too, but I have a different way of classifying it. For years, I have been quietly amassing a Celebrity Emergency Contact List. This is, unfortunately, what it sounds like: a list of famous people I want to call if I'm ever in an emergency situation. I think it would be better for everyone involved if I didn't explain why my brain has this file and just get listing.

Tom Hanks- When my non-existent child goes missing, Tom will be the one I call. Probably even before the police. He will also come over if I am ever burgled, or need someone to walk with me to the bank when I make deposits for the restaurant I don't work at. Tom would know just what to say in any high-stress situation. He is the perfect combination of smart, humble and interested. I once watched him tell a story about how every year his family fights over whether to use the electric knife to carve the Thanksgiving turkey, and for some reason this convinces me that he would keep the most level head in the event of drama and disaster. Is there any reason to think otherwise?

Laura Linney- I want to tell her about every emotion I have ever felt. If you've seen any of her movies, you'll know that I feel this way because it's obvious she knows every single human emotion. Those sympathetic eyes and that fretful mouth... Laura is a great listener and she would let me unleash my emotional burden when I was ready and for as long as I need to. She would also probably place it in a historical context or making some sweeping statement that brings my entire life up until that point into sharp focus. She's just like that.

Matt Damon- Here is a man who loves talking about toilets as much as I do. He is a high-profile advocate for sanitation and clean water, so he is also on my Imaginary BFFs list for that reason. But what is it about Matt that gets him on my emergency contact list? Well, first he is ripped, so he can lift me out from under the bus I crash shortly after being asked to take over for the driver with heart problems. But Matt is also street smart. I only think this because he played Will Hunting, but I feel in my heart it's just as true in real life. Matt can talk me out of a sticky situation, or tell me which street not to walk down at night. I think he might also be good at bartering with street vendors. This Boston Boy will always be on my celebrity speed dial.

Amy Poehler- Amy is a girl's girl, and she will be who I call when I need a friend to sort through my life's problems and then create a really bomb action plan. I'm thinking along the lines of T.P.ing an ex's house or delivering a very pointed speech to a mean girl about kindness, being human and trying to unite rather than divide. But I think Amy would be equally skilled with curbing my hoarding tendencies and helping me price things at a yard sale, for example. I guess we are moving away from emergencies and heading into Boring Saturday territory, so I'll stop here.

Who would you call and why?

Closed for the season

I'm about to leave the country for 27 months and my brain has been many places other than Catherine the Greatest. I won't be blogging here for the foreseeable future, but I hope you'll follow me over to my new blog to read about my Peace Corps adventures.

Without getting too saccharine, sincere thanks to all of you for reading. I've loved writing this blog more than is probably appropriate, and it's all because I had you to indulge me in my insane ramblings. Sometimes it's only fun to write stupid things when you know other people are willing to read them. Who else besides you would put up with my repeated denials of NASA's value?

I couldn't (temporarily) close the door on this blog without one more list. So here are some of the most-commented entries, in case you need some type of CTG fix down the road. How is it possible that over two years and 120ish posts, I never managed to break the five comment mark? Epic fail! Well, my Back on the Bean entry has eight comments, but they are mostly by porn spammer! Not exactly my target audience.Anyway, here it is.

Word Wench: A Memoir
Peppermint Mocha with a Side of McLatte
Shit Happens (the end to the Hottie McLatte saga)
Top 10 Classroom Personalities
And, just for fun, in case you're wondering what sort of job I'll get when my PC service is through, here are some Antiquated Jobs I Wish I Could Have.

My brother's a genius and I just blog.

I'm a failure. My second stab at 20 posts in 30 days was a catastrophe; I only posted ten entries! My computer crashed, I realized I was enrolled in classes and had a plethora of assignments due, and also was busy with several quarterlife crisis moments along the way. Time was scarce, and so was inspiration. Last time I tried a blogging blitz. my life was defined by dreams of McLatte, slave labor at the intern desk, and my absurd devotion to a particularly shameful ABC reality show. I had more to write about and definitely more time to do it. But no excuses. Let's pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get back to the hard-hitting, thought-provoking material you've come to expect from Catherine the Greatest.

THREE THINGS YOU THINK YOU UNDERSTAND BUT YOU REALLY DON'T.

My older brother James is a physics major doing graduate solar research at Penn State. He understands everything about science, machines and technology. I feel that he was born with this knowledge. He definitely didn't it get it from my parents, and his teachers were generally too busy collecting squirrels for pets (that really happened) or making their students write letters to other students on boats (that also really happend). He just knows everything. More than once I have called him with a question like "How do microwaves work?" or "How are electrical fires started underground? Where is the electricity in relation to the sewer system and subways in a big city?" And he always knows! How does he have such extensive knowledge about everything from kitchen appliances to sanitation systems?! My brother is so smart! He's always been a patient teacher with me, but I think he knows that my liberal-arts word-oriented brain will never be receptive to his techy, nerdy lessons. So here's a list of things, many of which he has thoroughly explained to me multiple times, that I still do not understand.

3. Aviation. I should probably go to the library and check out a book on the Wright brothers, because it is unfathomable to me that someone said, "Hey, let's take a giant weighty machine and propel it through the air." And sure, I have come across the word "aerodynamics" before, but don't lie, you don't really understand how planes work either. And don't tell me to go to howstuffworks.com. I've been there. I can read and understand it, but there is still a voice in the back of my head whispering, "This is pretend." Hundreds of people pile into a large metal object and soar through the air. WHAT?!

2. Space. One day I am going to write an opinion piece about all of the conflicting emotions I have about NASA. The fact that $18 billion dollars a year goes into that program astonishes me, and frankly I feel that the folks over at NASA could be screwing us all over and no one would be the wiser. Huh, Pluto's not a planet? Erm okay. What's that? Water on Mars? Maybe so! They could tell us Whitey Bulger was found on the moon, and who are we to say, "That's not possible"?

Remember when the Columbia shuttle exploded because of the damaged tile? NASA knew the piece broke off, but didn't really look into it, despite the persistent pleas of a chief engineer who was on his game. Also, it was Martin Luther King weekend, so people were out of the office, and didn't feel like investigating the matter. How do you send a SPACESHIP out into the solar system, and then just put your feet up and take a three-day weekend? I wrote about this topic before, but my indignant rage has not subsided in the least. Also while we're talking about Space... that "picture" of the Milky Way... is not really pictures of the Milky Way. Didn't you ever stop to think how they could possibly photograph a galaxy we're allegedly a part of? They're just pictures of other spiral-armed galaxies that science nerds imagine the Milky Way could be like. How deceptive. I feel cheated. Next time I see an astronomer, I am giving them the wickedest wedgie.

1. The Internet. James has tried to explain this to me forever, but I still don't get it, and don't lie, you don't either. Tell me, when you send an e-mail, where does it go? How can governments block sites in certain countries? When you get a virus that paralyzes your entire computer by releasing hundreds of "trojans," what is that? The Internoodle is one of life's greatest mysteries, but unlike space, I am grateful for it on a daily basis. I imagine all of its processes to be similar to what happened in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, when Mike TV puts his candy bar in the machine, and it breaks into tiny pieces, and is put back together again. If this is not how the Noodle works, then don't tell me because I don't want to hear it. In my tiny brain, the Internet is sort of a cross between Humpty Dumpty and chocolate. On a related note, fax machines are ridiculously far beyond my comprehension. How does the phone send an image?!? On another related note: phones...so much easier to understand when there were actual wires and cables. Alexander Graham Bell would have a stroke if we told him about cell towers.

What don't you understand? You can say it; I am clearly in no position to judge.

What do carbon monoxide, sandra bullock and halibut have in common?

I picked a bad time to launch another 20 posts in 30 days initiative. Schoolwork picked up, my computer lost its mind, and I took ill with a particularly draining head cold. But I’m here now. I hope you all appreciate the blood, sweat and tears I put into this frivolous exercise I call blogging. Nevertheless, I’m pessimistic about meeting my goal, but I hope you’ll still support me in my effort.

As promised, here’s my TOP FIVE LIST OF (MOSTLY IRRATIONAL) FEARS.

5. Sustaining injury to my right eye. I am legally blind in my left eye. If someone shoots an arrow and it lands in my good eye, or I contract some sort of David Patterson-esque infection that ruins my optic nerve, I’m screwed. I can see somewhat out of my left eye, but I couldn’t read, drive, or do most things I take for granted now. It’s possible my vision would strengthen if my left eye was all I had, but it gets increasingly unlikely as I get older. Would anyone be my Anne Sullivan?

4. Gas leaks. As a child, I watched absurd amounts of Rescue 911. Stories of old people dying from gas leaks in their motor homes were featured frequently, and I became preoccupied with buying a carbon monoxide detector for our house. I tried to drop casual hints to my mother, but she felt a lot less threatened by the silent, odorless gas than I did. Consequently, every night before bed, I would open my window and hungrily gasp in as much fresh air as I could. I figured if I started the night with clean air in my lungs, I would be more likely to survive an overnight leak. Sometimes, when I was very afraid, I even slept with the windows open in the dead of winter. This fear is a lot less intense now, but the radiator in my First Aid class hisses maniacally, and I can’t help feeling like we’re about to blow up, or maybe someone will come up to our remote fourth-floor classroom and discover 15 dead bodies.

3. Driving a bus. Whenever I tell people about this fear, they always say, “Oh, so you’ve seen Speed?” No, I haven’t seen Speed and now I know I never should because it could be years before I get another goodnight’s sleep. In order to drive a bus and do it well, you must drive so close to objects that it seems like you’re going to hit them, and you must have an incredible sense of the size of the vehicle you’re controlling. I consider myself a good driver, but I know the bus is entirely beyond my capabilities. It’s unlikely this scenario will ever present itself, but if it does, I hope all of the other cars are off the road that day. What if I am driving a bus with a gas leak? That would be the worst day ever.

2. Having an intersexed child. I have seen many a documentary when a child was born with ambiguous genitalia, or due to a medical error, had his genitals damaged. It was a common procedure to “turn” the child into one sex or another by surgically altering whatever was there into girl or boy parts. This method was met with disastrous results when children grew up feeling that they were born in the wrong body, and identified with the opposite gender. The psychological and physical torture that results is incomprehensible, and I am terrified that I could be faced with the decision to determine a child’s gender. As many as 4 in 1,000 children are born with issues like these. Luckily, medical knowledge and technology have improved a lot since cases like Dr. Money’s infamous experiment, but the fact remains that you can’t raise a genderless child, and difficult choices get made. Just another reason to adopt!

1. Fish. This is probably the most illogical of my fears, and that is saying something when you look at this list. Strangely, sharks, sting rays, and other legitimately threatening aquatic creatures do not bother me in the least. Instead, it is guppies, trout, and those hellish demons that look like oceanic dinosaurs that make my skin crawl. I hate fish. They are barely even animals. You can ask my brother Michael B., and he will tell you that I ruined his first ever catching time a fish because I had an anxiety attack the second he reeled it in. We were fishing in Maine when he snagged a little sunfish, brought it into the canoe to admire it, and it flopped off the hook and directly under my feet. My screams echoed through the cove while he paddled furiously back to our dock. Pictures of the event show my terrified face, ankles raised high in the air, paralyzed by the idea that the fish would somehow jump onto my face. So no, I do not like fish. And don’t get me started on restaurants that think it’s charming and serene to put a 50-gallon fish tank next to my table. I’d rather find a spider in my food.

Assigned reading

A round-up from where I've been on the Internet and what you might have missed.

A Rolling Stone profile of David Foster Wallace, famed author who killed himself in September after decades of battling debilitating depression. This is the most thorough, well-researched, and beautifully written profile I've read in a while. The piece is long, but more than worth it. I read it in two sittings and cried at the end. It makes for an absolutely aching look at a life that ended in a way that seemed inevitable to everyone who knew him, which is the most heartbreaking aspect of the whole story. I get the sense that the writer absolutely nailed this story in a way that happens hardly ever.

Someone put together a Sarah Palin's greatest hits video on YouTube, which I posted originally, but then I listened to this, and found out it was real. I actually feel bad for our Alaskan mental midget:




New York Magazine compiled a photo slideshow of the best doggy Halloween costumes. You can be the judge about which dogs you feel most sorry for.

And this week's "What the fuck" science moment, scientists want to put robot ants on Mars to build houses for us.

Never Grow Up, Not me.

Some of the best conversations you can have in college are the ones about childhood. We all come from different places, have particularly wacko sets of parents, attended twilight-zone elementary schools, and went through various other amazing/traumatic experiences that made us into the eccentric people we are today. I have spent the last two years relaying many of my childhood stories to my friends. A surprising number have been met with a great deal of alarm and/or hysterical/mocking laughter.

I guess some of my childhood experiences were somewhat unique. So, I offer you, The Top 5 Ways My Childhood Was Cooler than Yours.

5) Many of my most vivid memories are associated with the television shows I watched as a child. Many afternoons were spent praying for Stick Stickley to pick ''Are you Afraid of the Dark" instead of "Ahhhh Real Monsters!" I would be lying if I said the television didn't raise me at least a little bit. But this isn't to say my mother was being negligent or lazy. Quite the contrary, she had a very influential role in deciding what I watched. Did you ever watch ''The Sand Fairy"?


Because I did. About 1,000 times, as a conservative estimate. A quick glance at this creature might make you question the term fairy-- perhaps gremlin or goblin would be more appropriate? But nevertheless, he would emerge from a sandy beach and grant wishes to greedy British children with great regularity in the Basham household. I recently found clips of the program online and the memories came flooding back to me.

We were also regular viewers of the equally obscure shows, The Torkelsons and Today's Special. I am pretty sure that there was a cross in the television wires and somehow we were the only people to ever see Today's Special. Either that, or Mommy Dearest was the writer, director and producer and filmed it in the garage when we weren't looking, because no one has ever seen this show. With a quick glance at the YouTube video, it is probably with good reason.

4) The sandbox can be a magical place. You can make castles, moats-- entire worlds that will transport you from that war zone known as kindergarten. My father was kind enough to make a sandbox for my brothers and I to play in, but there was one small oversight.

He did not fill it with sand. He filled it with gravel. And by using the word "gravel," I am being kind. Mostly it was just rocks, which are less expensive than sand but much more painful to sit in. And castles? Forget it. My brothers and I would spend hours dragging buckets of water to the ''sandbox" in order to saturate the gravel enough to make a castle. Sometimes this would work briefly, but the magnificent, rock-bestrewn buildings would eventually crumble. Eventually, Brother James and I stopped kidding ourselves. Consumed with concern for the future (because if we had a gravel sandbox now, life could only get worse), we began burying small amounts of coinage Tic-Tac boxes for ''rainy days." I'll begin paying back my student loans as soon as I can recover those "treasures" we left for ourselves...

3) I had an eye patch. Need I say more? I was freakishly tall, had boyishly short hair, and a flesh-colored adhesive eye patch. To add insult to injury, my extremely sensitive skin did not react well to the adhesive, which resulted in angry irritation spanning from forehead to cheek. As The Girl With the Patch, I wasn't the most popular first grader. People either asked me a lot of questions or tried to ignore my completely.

One day, accepting my situation and looking to make the best out of a bad lot, I adorned my patch with a sticker that my optometrist had given to me. These stickers were mostly of the animal variety, playful and sweet. If I could go back in time, when Dr. Gold handed me those stickers, I would have kicked him in the balls and said ''Bitch, what are you thinking?" Because, really? Even I would have made fun of me. Freak show, twelve o'clock, glittery sheep sticker over her eye patch? Is she a member of the Pirates for Free-Range Agriculture Association (PFRAA)?

2) Celine Dion. Vocal powerhouse. Possibly molested by a man who was more than 20 years her senior. Slash husband. In third grade, I received Celine Dion's ''Falling Into You" cassette tape as a gift. As the gift wrap was feverishly torn away, a lifelong Celine fan was born. Strange, I know. Most girls my aged liked Alanis, Shania, or the Spice Girls. Not me, I clung to the strangely thin Canadian songstress and memorized every word of all of her songs. And as a chubby eight-year-old? Well, I'd be damned if Celine was not singing about my life. Ballads about lost loves? Breathy little ditties laden with overtly sexual come-ons? This was my truth!

This obsession continued and intensified. In 6th grade, I instituted ''Celine Fridays."

It's okay. Are you thinking that you never would have been friends with me? It's okay. A lot of people felt that way. On Fridays, I would wear my Celine Dion shirt. I don't really know what else I did to mark these designated holidays, but I probably spouted more Celine information than usual. Such as her favorite perfume is Chanel No. 5. Or maybe that her shoe size was an 8. Or sometimes an 8 1/2. I may have been the only one celebrating, but I was dead-set on spreading the message.

1) I don't mean to paint a picture of myself as a socially isolated freak. However, if you feel that way now, this next story might confirm your suspicions. I would like to think of all of these experiences as ''character building exercises." Please have my future biographers refer to them that way.

In 7th grade, for reasons unknown, I made it my life's mission to convince my entire class that I had a pet duck. Yes, you read that correctly. A. Pet. Duck. Of the "quack quack" variety. My mother bought me a plastic lawn ornament (why, mother, why...?). He was a white duck; I named him Clive. I told people about my new pet, and said that I made him a home called Duckingham Palace. I even looked up how to do this on the INTRAWEB, so that no one could find fault with my story.

I had some buyers. I took it a step further. I took pictures of Clive in the yard, by the stream, or resting by the side of a tree. Keep in mind, these were the days before digital cameras. I went to the trouble of buying film and developing it; all for this great charade. A few keen observers noted that Clive was always photographed in very similar positions. Funny, how inanimate plastic objects are so hesitant to BREAK OUT OF THEIR SHELLS. I usually responded indignantly, with a shrill "Well what do you expect him to do?!" and then would pack away my pictures because there is no greater offense than suggesting that my beloved waterfowl was not a living breathing creature.