Starshine Roshell – Page 26 – Writer & Columnist • Santa Barbara, CA

Who Loves Jury Duty?

Published on January 27, 2011

I know the drill. I know how I’m supposed to act.

The moment the Jury Summons arrives in the mail, I’m supposed to exclaim, “No! NO!!” and begin moaning about how I haven’t time for such things. Convinced there are better people for the task (and by “better” I mean “less good”), I’m required to bitch and sigh as I cancel appointments, reschedule meetings, and call in favors: “Would you believe I’ve got jury duty?” I’m supposed to spit those last two words like they’re profane. Like they’re “rectal exam” or “Sarah Palin.”

But I was called to jury duty last week and, having been empaneled on a criminal case and tasked with sussing out the whole nuthin’-but-the-truth truth, I should probably be honest here: I flipping love jury duty.

With the exception of having to remove my belt and shuffle prisoner-like through a security scanner (sadly, no one touched my junk), I loved everything about the experience. I loved it so much, I can’t even remember why I’m supposed to hate it.

In fact, I’m starting to suspect that all those so-called “friends” who advised me to wear my underpants outside of my trousers or tell the judge “I hate white people” so that I’d be dismissed as a lunatic, were really only trying to keep spots on the jury open for themselves. Because they know how much fun it really is.

Correcting Others' Children

Published on January 20, 2011

Thump. Thud, thud. Whack! Whack! Whack!

You’re halfway through your entrée when the child in the next booth goes all Keith Moon on your backrest.

First you ignore it. When the pounding continues, you glance over at the parents — the universal signal for, “Your child needs guidance, or restraints, and I don’t care which.”

His final blow sends petite sirah sloshing down your dry-clean-only date-night blouse, and you launch over the booth, locking eyes with Thumper.

“Sweetie,” you say between clenched teeth, “there’s a person sitting here. It’s time to stop.” Considering what you were really thinking, the comment is friendly, sensitive, and generous. It doesn’t matter, though; you could say, “Thank you, sir. May I have another?” and it would still cause the drummer boy’s parents to regard you as though you’d just stabbed their musical angel with your salad fork.

My mom friends say they feel “hateful” and even “violent” when someone else — particularly a stranger — reprimands their kids. And I honestly don’t get it.

Aura You Single?

Published on January 13, 2011

What do you wear to a meeting with a psychic? This is the mystic puzzle that plagued my soul the morning I met Pamala Oslie, a Mission Canyon resident who reads people’s auras the way fortune-tellers read palms. Auras are said to be halo-like energy fields that surround us, revealing our personalities through their various colors. Most people can’t see them; Oslie can.

“I do psychic work, clairvoyant work, mediumship,” she said. “Auras are my tool.”

She recently teamed with Santa Barbara artist and social activist Rod Lathim to create an Internet dating site that matches people based on the colors of their aura. LoveColors.com launched in September and already has thousands of members hailing from San Francisco to Sioux City to Washington, D.C., and from Ireland to Australia. A hefty chunk of the sign-ups are from Southern California.

The concept: Our aura colors correspond to personality traits. Reds are physical and sexual; Blues are loving and nurturing; Yellows are fun-loving and childlike; etc. And by whittling down the dating pool based on compatible colors/personalities, we’re more likely to find suitable companions.

I wore solid gray to meet with Oslie so as not to pollute any vivid vibes radiating from my pasty-hued winter flesh — but then, what do I know? Despite the cosmic sensibility that my name implies, I’m skeptical of woo-woo: tarot, astrology, voodoo (is voodoo woo-woo?).

Chasing the Empty 'A'

Published on January 6, 2011

Take out a pencil. This is a test.

Which of the following best describes parents who pick up their children from school and ask,

“Hey, how’d you do on that math test?”

Attentive
Supportive
Involved
Contributing to a high-pressure academic culture that’s hurting our kids’ health without actually helping their intellect.

Yeah, take your time on this one. It’s tricky.

Bowled Over

Bowled Over

Published on January 1, 2011

Feature story on the Santa Barbara Bowl for AAA Westways Magazine.

Well, Excuuuuuse Him!

Published on December 16, 2010

I met Steve Martin when I was a kid. We were at a party, and I shadowed the poor guy all afternoon, waiting for him to crack me up, to slip into character. He never did.

Where was the Wild and Crazy Guy? Where was The Jerk? Where was King Tut?

Years later, he granted me an interview about his play Picasso at the Lapin Agile. In a dumb attempt to catch him off guard, to give my readers the Steve Martin I was sure they really wanted, I asked him if he preferred boxers or briefs. I don’t recall his good-sport answer — only that he uttered it earnestly, artlessly. It seems I’d finally located The Jerk; it was me.

It’s easy to forget that entertainers aren’t always entertaining, and that they’re deeper — and sometimes duller — than their onstage personas.

Though Martin once wore a gag arrow through his head, in real life he’s far more the reticent sophisticate of It’s Complicated than the inane pratfaller of The Pink Panther. But he’s more than those, too: He’s also a successful playwright, Grammy-winning banjo player, and avid art collector who just published a novel, An Object of Beauty, set amid New York’s high-brow art scene.

Moms Gone Wild!

Published on December 10, 2010

Bring your girlfriends for a laugh-filled ladies’ night with my fellow outspoken author and overworked mom Jenna McCarthy (“The Parent Trip”).Sample bakery treats while we read & sign our sex-and-romance-packed books: my “Wife on the Edge” and and Jenna’s upcoming “If It Was Easy, They’d Call the Whole Damn Thing a Honeymoon.”Then join us next door at Holdren’s Grill for extended happy hour! Show your signed book for half-price appetizers and 2-for-1 margaritas!Friday, December 10, 7-9 pm
Borders Marketplace & Holdren’s Grill
Marketplace Drive, Goleta, CA
Event presented by SBParent.comSee who’s coming on Facebook >>

Faux Ho Ho

Published on December 9, 2010

One word comes to mind as I watch my husband and sons scramble over our extremely pitched roof, stringing lights over the precarious edge of our home: balance.

It’s hard to find during the holidays, isn’t it? I’ve yet to master the balance between magic and madness, that elusive equilibrium between what the season should be about (family, friends, and gratitude) and what it actually, quickly becomes about (overspending, overeating, and buttoning up your coat for yet another bothersome obligation).

Heres one that no longer jingles my bells: I cannot bring myself to haul the family to a bustling parking lot, scout for the least-mangled tree, curse its $80 price tag, wrestle it into a stand, curse its asymmetry, argue about which unsightly side should face the wall, curse it for tilting, crawl underneath it to add daily water, live in fear of its flammability, and ultimately drag it, browned and battered, to the curb before vacuuming pine needles from the abused rug below.

I can’t do it. You can’t make me.

As a child, it was enchanting to have a huge, live tree in the house — no less astounding than if we’d dug a pond in the middle of the living room: How can this be? It’s magic!

Fame and (Mis)Fortune

Published on November 25, 2010

School’s out, wizards! After a decade of playing Hogwarts students, the cast of the Harry Potter movies has finally graduated. Part I of the final film installment hit screens last week, and Part II is set for a July release.

Stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint are said to have shed tears on the last day of filming. But Tom Felton, who’s played Potter’s pale nemesis Draco Malfoy all these years, is relieved to finally step off of the set where he quite literally grew up.

Movie stardom has drawbacks, Felton told Britain’s Daily Mail: Schoolmates teased him. He was contractually bound to avoid the sun for 10 years. And heaps of money — combined with teenage naïveté — got him into trouble with the tax man.

“One thing that people [say] to me is that the wealth and the fame must have made up for missing out on my childhood,” said Felton, who dismisses the idea as ridiculous. “You will never get those years back, and you can’t put a price on them.”

Indeed, young stardom is a precarious state of being. Some actors, like Natalie Portman and Neil Patrick Harris, spin early fame into brilliant careers; others, like Lindsay Lohan and Corey Haim, spin out of control before they’re even old enough to legally see their own R-rated flicks.

Vajazzling Is Befuddling

Published on November 18, 2010

I live to sparkle. To glimmer. To gleam. Blame it on my name, or too many formative hours spent draping Barbie in disco lamé (that’s lah-MAY, which, for the record, is the distinct shimmering opposite of “lame”). Whatever the cause, the result is that I wear sequined sneakers, carry a rhinestone-peppered purse, and shot a titanium stud through my nostril so I could have permanent bling on my face.

I’m a chick who likes to twinkle, okay? But I draw the line at gilding the lily.

A scintillating new trend in girly grooming has some gals (let’s call them “adventurous”) bedecking their vajannies with jewels. That’s right. Paving the privates with stick-on gems in custom designs: heart, starburst, fleur-de-lis.

More resplendent than the downtown display itself is the fun-to-utter name of this privates practice: It’s called vajazzling. And some celebs find it va-dazzling. D-lister Kathy Griffin, Snooki from Jersey Shore, and Jennifer Love Hewitt are all stuck on the habit like diamonds on a … well, you get the idea.

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