Thanks, Julie/Julia

If you are a loyal reader (Mom), you may recall that several that a few months ago I discovered that The Devil Wears Prada is a terrible movie to watch if you are experiencing job angst. Well, Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci heard my cry, and made Julie & Julia to soothe me.

Background (WHINE ALERT! ): I have not had a great week. I found out that I didn't get a job that I really wanted and kind of thought I might get. They said they liked me, which was nice, but that they got applications from many people with way more experience, on account of the economy apparently. So. Also, I turned 32, which is not 95 and I would way rather be 32 than dead, or 22, for that matter, and I had a great birthday (thanks, ladies!). BUT, 32 is the age Sally is in When Harry Met Sally when she says "I'm going to be 40" and Harry says "In 8 years," and in my youthful folly I always thought of Sally at that point in the movie as being Pretty Old. In any case the combination of things was Not.Great.

So I went to see Julie & Julia, and It.Was.Great! Notwithstanding all the cooking, it is about two ladies in their 30s who are floundering about, trying to figure out what to do with themselves. Meryl Streep's Julia Child is a crazy tall, crazy-talking American who loves Paris but sludges through hat-making and bridge lessons before discovering her true calling at cooking school (at 36!) Amy Adams, as Julie Powell, is totally relatable as a lost 30ish cubicle dweller with a half-written novel and a sense she might never amount to anything, who starts a blog about cooking her way through The Art of French Cooking to give herself a project to complete. The movie makes you empathize (so slap me, Justice Sotomayor!) with them both so much that you want to applaud when Julia's cookbook finally gets a publisher, and don't resent Julie at all when her blog becomes a huge success and she gets a book and movie deal.

So I feel fortified. I have several more years in which to figure out how to turn my passion for eating Tombstone pizza on the couch and talking back to the television into a resoundingly successful career. Bon apetit!