Presenting the Class of 2011-2012!

I broke the rules and wrote this myself since I had a lot to say. But I think breaking the rules is actually this week’s theme anyway!

Biggest Tease: Castle
I caught up on this procedural over the summer to help overcome my disappointment with the Bones finale. See, many comparisons are made between shipping Bones and shipping Castle so I mainlined all three seasons in about a week. I definitely ship Castle and Beckett, only slightly more so than Beckett and myself (Fillion is cool, but not my type). But last season’s cliffhanger finale written for shippers is--OF COURSE--not resolved in the way we would have hoped. And so I’ll wait all season for those two to get their act together. And pray it doesn’t get all wrecked Bones-style.

Class Clown: How I Met Your Mother
I’ve given up on this show ever going anywhere, but it still makes me laugh a lot so I don’t really care where it goes. Bang bang bangity bang.



Best Smile: Hart of Dixie
I will take Bilson in whatever form I possibly can. A Josh Schwartz show seals the deal. Lite and funny with some cute boys? I’m down.

Most Relatable: Unforgettable
Alright, I don’t have this girl’s crazy good memory (it’s a disease that only a handful of people in the world have), but I do have a bit of memory situation. I like to think I could fight crime with it. Especially when paired with my investigatory journalist skillz. Besides making it about me, it’s also interesting because there is one day she can’t remember. The day her sister was murdered. Intrigue.

Most Overrated: New Girl
New Girl is this year’s Glee which is to say New Girl is a completely overrated show that is being inexplicably darlinged. I could barely handle the pilot and it’s most likely going downhill and fast. And yet I imagine people will cling to it and that Zooey D. Eye. Roll.

Most Likely to Succeed: Modern Family
Make that already succeeded--with a near perfect sweep at the Emmy’s, this show is on the track for can-do-no-wrong backlash. In fact, I’ve already heard some retro-backlash. But I’m rooting for it anyway.


Most Anticipated: Revenge
This show is just the perfect kind of thing I want from TV. I thought the pilot was really, really strong and even though the second ep dragged in bits (Eric Van der Woodsen snoozefest) I still feel a lot of promise. This is the show I’m looking forward to each week. Emily VanCamp is an actor inside of an actor and the rageaholic inside of me is totally impressed and in awe of her character’s life-destroying actions. Bring ‘em all down, Amanda!

Cutest Couple: Up All Night
While I dutifully love Applegate and Arnett as sexy-funny-cool couple, it’s Ava that’s bringing me back each week. Maya Rudolph is simply genius.

Biggest Disappointment: Bones
While this won’t actually be coming back until November due to Emily Desch’s real life baby, I’m already filled with regret. Like I mentioned above, I found the finale really disappointing because it was important to me as a shipper to see Brennan and Booth get together. To see them choose each other instead of every other alternative that’s happened over the last six years. But we were robbed of that and everything I’ve read about the seventh season promises no paying of damages. Sad face.

Most Likely to Become President: Parks & Recreation
This is my favorite comedy on the air right now. Knope 2012.

Least Likely to Succeed: The Office
After appreciating Michael’s last season and feeling the show was out of it’s slump, I wasn’t super impressed with this season’s premiere. I’m hoping the show pulls itself together, but emotional women jokes should always be made by Michael Scott, not the actual writers of the show. I’m curious to see if the ratings tank sans the world’s best boss.

Most Improved: Chuck
This is more of a wish and a hope and a dream. I used to love this show and last year it was my most anticipated. But this last season was all over the place and a pretty big disappointment for me. It got renewed again despite it’s poor ratings (which were pretty good compared to it's timeslot replacement, the failing Playboy Club) and this is officially the final season. Show, please, please, please end well.


Best Dressed: Pan Am
This show is just delicious. I thought it was just going to be pretty ladies doing pretty things in the past and likely boring or enraging me a la Mad Men. But it’s actually really great! And there’s even intrigue! And the pretty ladies are totally bad ass!

Visit TV Guide for complete show listings.

When I forget about Guest Post week, I just make Joe write something at the last minute. I rule!

No, Kevin Spacey, I RULE.

TV Talk, with Joe Baxenwald

So, TV, then. Let’s talk about television. Cathode ray tubes and what-not. Invisible information traveling through space and time, beaming into a machine in your home, displaying pictures and creating sounds for one to see and/or hear. It sounds like science-fiction, does it not? Like some fantastical product of The World of Tomorrow?

Don’t be an idiot, it’s just TV. Pretty much everyone has one. A lot people have more than one. Some people have a TV in every room of their home, and a few people even have them in their bathrooms. I consider this to be overkill – partly because I have a TiVo and can thus pause television when I have to use the potty, but mostly because I don’t want to ever associate episodes of my favorite TV shows with going really bad twosies. For forty minutes. Because it just won’t stop.

Ahem.

The Fall television season is upon us, and with it a veritable legion of new shows to watch and discuss. I have a confession to make: I don’t care. Most of those new shows can stick it in their twosies-holes for all I care. Sure, there’s The New Girl, which we’ve watched the first episode of and enjoyed. There’s Revenge, which was fun, and I could see being very good depending on where it goes.

I’m interested in a few new shows, for various reasons. I’m curious about The Playboy Club and Pan-Am for the reason that I’m pretty sure the networks want me to be – they remind me of Mad Men. I haven’t watched either yet, but may get around to it. I’m also planning to watch Prime Suspect. I’ve not seen the original series, but I’ve heard nothing but good about that, and after the disappointment of The Killing (watched three episodes, was bored, gave up), I have high hopes for PS. Plus I hear that Maria Bello absolutely owns it, which is awesome. I also hear that the new Thundercats cartoon, which premiered recently and totally qualifies for this, is pretty awesome. I’ve got the first episode of that TiVo’ed as well.

But then there’s Ringer. Oh, poor, poor Ringer. Or, I should say, poor Buffy. Maybe she gets paid twice as much for playing two characters? How does that work? Does anyone know? That’s the only scenario in which I can see Sarah Michelle Gellar reading this script and thinking, ‘That’s great stuff, I can’t wait to do this.’

Heh heh.

So Ringer, The New Girl, and Revenge are the only new shows that we’ve watched. Sure, we watched the season premieres of How I Met Your Mother (steady), Modern Family (great), Community (fantastic), Parks & Recreation (also fantastic), The Office (best it’s been in a while), and Fringe (buh-waaaah?), but those aren’t new, they’re returning, and thus do not count. Although I love them all, so go watch them. Community, Parks & Rec, and Fringe are definitely Must-Watch TV.

There is one show that I really do want to watch at some point, though. It’s not new, but it is returning. It’s The Good Wife. I saw one episode of it during its first season, and I loved it, but I never came back to it because I didn’t start at the beginning. It has great people on it (Carol Hathaway, Detective Mike Logan, and Dan Rydell!), and several friends have told me that it’s really good. That’s one I want to watch sooner rather than later. I know, a CBS drama that I want to watch! The world must be ending. As long as it doesn’t end before I find out what’s going on with Peter Bishop on Fringe, I’m okay with it.

Well, things at Collective HQ are a little glitchy this week, as you can probably tell from Heather's post on Monday and Abigail's lack of post yesterday (don't worry, it's a-comin'). I myself have been trying to get a guest post out of Winston for the last two days but he's been a bit uncooperative on account of being real sick. So in lieu of any words from this kid here:



perhaps you'd like to read some of his antics here. And one day, ONE DAY, maybe we'll get our collective asses together.

I speak six languages, two of which you've never heard of.

me: i need a giant favor
10:32 PM Amy: where are you?
me: in my office.
10:33 PM Amy: i thought you had to watch pan am so you can recap it.
10:34 PM me: i will in just a second, but i need you to write a collective post for me for tomorrow. it's guest post week and i totally forgot.
10:35 PM Amy: you forgot? that is shocking.
10:36 PM Amy: i hate writing, you know that. what do you need?
me: can you just write one teeeensy post about what tv show everyone should be watching this fall
10:38 PM Amy: isn't that your job? like your actual job?
10:39 PM me: yes, but it's guest post week, and anyway, i am fucking bored to death of my own opinions about tv. plllllleeeeeeaaaase.
Amy: yes, if you'll come down here and make me some brown sugar toast.
me: thank you! ok, how about something like "the five criteria for choosing which fall shows to watch."
10:42 PM Amy: okay. 1) is it bones?
me: lol, ok.
Amy: 2) does it have any australian guys in it?
3) does it have any australian guys in it who take off their shirts a lot?
4) does it have any australian guys in it who take off their shirts a lot and drive sexy cars?
5) does it have any australian guys in it who take off their shirts a lot and drive sexy cars while shooting guns?
10:45 PM me: so, hawaii five-0, is what you are saying?
Amy: and bones.
10:51 PM me: what if booth was australian?
Amy: he would live in the Commonwealth of My Pants
10:52 PM me: thanks, you've been a big help.
Amy: i'm sensing your sarcasm.
me: good, 'cause i'm laying it on pretty thick.
11:27 PM Amy: dude. where's my brown sugar toast?

get your shit together

I feel like I've typed a million of these posts. You know the one. The "I'm going to cook more!" post. The one that turns into, "I love cooking!" that turns into "I haven't been cooking as much as I'd like," to "We've ordered pizza for dinner for the past six days!" to "My pants don't fit!" to "I'm going to cook more!"

It's a vicious cycle, is what I'm saying, and I'm stuck somewhere between "My pants don't fit!" and "I'm going to cook more!" only we're moving in a month so YEAH I'm probably not going to be cooking more for at least a month and a half. But I can try.

The first thing I do, before trying any recipe, is I Google the hell out of any and all variations of it because WHAT IF THERE IS A BETTER RECIPE OUT THERE. I have a problem, and the fact that practically all information EVER is at my fingertips is not helping. Eventually, I stop searching and decide on a recipe. Then I read it and Google anything I don't understand, like roux or braise. The Googling process can take a while. It's sort of like internet dating.

Anyway. Today! Today we are baking Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting. I know. Hold onto your butts. I was going to type the recipe for you but just click on that link instead, OK? Lazy.

Since I already picked out the recipe and I think I know what all of the instructions mean, the next step is to check the kitchen to see what ingredients I already have. Usually I have, oh, about none of them, so I have to go to the grocery store, which is one of my least favorite things to do on account of all the people there, all up in my business. The one thing I do like about going to the grocery is that I get to make a list.

Once I buy all of the ingredients, I head home and realize I'm too tired to cook anything because OMG YOU GUYS I WORK FOR A LIVING AND ALL I WANT TO DO WHEN I GET HOME IS WATCH RERUNS OF MAD MEN UNTIL IT'S TIME TO SLEEP.

Ahem. OK, this DOES sometimes happen, but usually I can shame myself into cooking by thinking about all the money I just spent and how the food might go bad if I don't cook it right then.

Time to start cooking! I learned from Kat that you should always start by getting your mise en place, which means "get your shit together," basically. I put all the ingredients on the counter (usually in the order I need them! nerd!), as well as any measuring spoons/cups I might need. Then I read the recipe like five times because it's usually at this point that I think I've forgotten something really important. But I don't think that I did this time. I guess we'll find out.

I made the frosting the night before the cookies because I can only handle so much cooking in one night. After I made the frosting, I had to restrain myself from taking a spoon and eating it all right then and there because it was SO GOOD. I mean, it's cream cheese, butter, a ton of powdered sugar, and MAPLE SYRUP, how could it NOT be good? I'm glad I made it early, though, because it was a bit runny and needed to be in the refrigerator to set, I think. Oh! If you do this, make sure to take the frosting out of the fridge so it can get to room temperature before you try and ice the cookies with it. Otherwise it'll be all hard and unspready (technical term). Although, I let mine get to room temperature and it was still too runny, so what do I know? Whatever, the first time you try a recipe, it doesn't count.

Time for the cookies! Wheeeeee! Actually, I'm not really sure they're cookies. They taste like muffin tops. But let's call them cookies because I'm not sure what else to call them.

After making the frosting, making the cookies shouldn't be all that hard, right? You just mix all the shit together that you didn't already mix together for frosting, bake it, and BOOM cookies. Midway through whisking all the shit together, I remembered that I have a super fancy stand mixer that I probably should have used but I was too busy pretending I was in Potions class so let's move on, shall we?

Don't be frightened if your batter looks like vomit.

Also midway through, I tried one of the cookies. This was a huge mistake because A) I hadn't eaten dinner yet and B) IT WAS DELICIOUS. So delicious that I wanted to eat the rest while I waited for more to bake AND I HADN'T EVEN ADDED FROSTING YET.

So after like a million hours, all of your cookies will be done. Let them cool and be careful not to burn yourself. If you're like me, when you do inevitably burn yourself, stick your fingers in the frosting that's still cool from the fridge. DOCTORED.

Burny. Except not really because these aren't cookied yet. BURN. YES. Nailed it.

The cookies will take what feels like forever to cool and you'll want to eat them all but DON'T. Or do. I don't care. It's your life. If you don't eat them, though, slap some frosting in between two of them, squish them together, and EAT THEM ALL LIKE YOU ARE THE COOKIE MONSTER. Or Whoopie Pie Monster. Whatever.

I meant to take a picture of the finished product but I forgot. This is why I leave the professional food blogging to Kat. Just go look at these pictures some more.



Recipe is from Brown Eyed Baker. All shitty pictures are from ME.

How to Bake a Pie

Bottom Crust:

For two weeks at least where I went so too did The Sound and the Fury, yet not once did I read beyond the front cover. I carried that book like a shield from place to place, from home and back again. But it wasn't protection I needed, it was something to hide behind. It kind of worked.

Sunday afternoon I moseyed on down to the hardware store, bought a big ol' bag of dirt, repotted my choking mint and overcrowded basil. In a smaller pot I sowed a few chervil seeds and with the rest of that soil replaced the summer's wildflowers with what will hopefully be a tiny garden of arugula and winter lettuces. Three flights up I've hoarded myself a bit of earth, and though I'll never be able to live off the fat of the land at least I can look forward to a peppery salad.

It's a little thing.



Filling:

A half peck of New York State apples I found waiting for me on my desk, "Mr. Mitchell agreed with me that you should have these," he said after I looked behind with one eyebrow raised. I half expected to find tiny little hearts carved into the skin of each one, but in my relief at finding them all unbruised there was perhaps a twinge of disappointment just the same. Joe as ever was slightly less subtle. "Where are the cookies?" he hollered, no hello after his long flight from Atlanta, no how's life, how's the house, how's the boyfriend. "I'm protesting," I replied.

Because, as ever, I am.



Top Crust:

"Do you still post on your food blog?" Seth asked next morning; "apparently Kristen's still checking." [ed: Hi, Kristen!] And golly, how to answer that. In my head I post every day but things have a way of getting in the way. My intentions are good but like everything else I do the execution leaves room for a great good amount of improvement. I don't know, I just miss my old kitchen I guess.

I'm running out of excuses.



Bake:

Once upon a time the hardest decision was what to make for dinner. Protein, starch, veg. Glass of red or white. He threw a wad of cash on the bar and left to sign some daycare papers, I pulled on my sweater as the cold air rushed in behind. Our last warm day has come and gone and too late I've realized I ate hardly any peaches this year. I've half a peck of New York State apples but nary a peach in sight. It's not the same.

But nothing's ever the same, not really. Except for when it kind of is? I broke another office personality test last week, NO TALKING, NO TOUCHING this one hollered at me. "I can't tell if I should do the complete opposite or use this as an excuse," I whispered. I mean, I don't know, sometimes it's all about the path of least resistance.

(He said we'd always be a part of one another's life, but I guess that's just one of those things you say.)

I wasn't supposed to put beef in the trifle!

I don't cook often mostly because I'm lazy and pretty easily satisfied with the non-cooking of avocado and tomato on a piece of toast. In the last month the extent of using fire for my eats was boiling water twice. Once for eggs and once for spaghetti. So. Cooking barely intersects with my interests. The sliver of that Venn diagram is two important websites.

1. Pinterest

Pinterest is basically an online bulletin board where you pin all kinds of goodies found about ye olde internets. Among the pages and pages of awesome things you'll fin inside Pinterest is hundreds of recipes that nearly inspire me to get in the kitchen.

Crispy Fried Goat Cheese



These h’ors d’oeuvres are really easy to throw together on the fly. Basically, you take slices of goat cheese, dip them in beaten egg, then coat them in seasoned panko breadcrumbs, then fry in a little olive oil until crispy.

Campfire Cones




Stuff an ice cream cone with chocolate chips, nuts, toffee pieces, mini marshmallows, banana pieces, butterscotch bits, etc., etc. Wrap in foil, place on campfire to melt all together.

Apple Sandwiches


Chicken Avocado Salad


Ingredients:
1 cup chicken breast, cooked and shredded
¼ cup corn
¼ cup black beans, rinsed and drained
¼ cup green onions, chopped
¼ cup tomatoes, diced
¼ cup cilantro, chopped
¼ cup corn chips, crushed
2 tablespoons white vinegar
4 tablespoons mayonnaise
Salt to taste
2-4 avocados, sliced in half with pits discarded


Many more delicious finds at www.pinterest.com/schilbo/food/.

2. My Drunk Kitchen

THIS is how to make cookies:

Bridget Jones with Sit Up Britain, looking for the tuna

The first time I went to a cooking class, the instructor said, "Cooking requires keen attention to detail, nuance, and the ability to be present with your food at all times." And I was like, "Er, I'm just gonna go ..." Right? Because those are not three things you're ever going to find on my resume.

Excepting the part where humans need to food to stay alive, I never even really understood the allure of cooking — until I saw Kat work her way around a kitchen. It's not just that her food is The Most Delicious; it's that she's a magic-maker, the way she moves around with such confidence and ease and skill. Every time I reread Half-Blood Prince, I think about how Kat would have been the best potions make in the history of Hogwarts. Even Snape would have been forced to concede her superiority.

One day I hope she'll let me be her sous-chef again, and so I've hammered away at the cooking thing, trying to make delicious stuffs that are also not poisonous.

Here are the five most important things I've learned about cooking:

1) Cheese is the cure. For serious. If you fuck up something, just cover it in cheese. If the recipe calls for 1/2 a cup of cheese, use six hundred cups of cheese. Cheese is the most delicious thing, and therefore: more of it.

2) The other cure is lemon. The acid from lemons calms down soups that are too beefy or desserts that are too sweet. And they perk up most meats and vegetables after you're done cooking!

3) Get yourself a good knife. Yes, it's true that sometimes you will chop at your fingers in such a way that you're going to need stitches, but that's a risk you've got to take. You can do lots of things with a good knife, but you can't do shit with bad knife.

4) The other best cooking tool is your hands! You can actually learn to feel when stuff is done, and also it's a fun time to mix up things with your hands like a little kid making mud pies.

5) Sometimes your beagle might eat several raw steaks or a whole pound cake or an entire bowl of gravy. But guess what? It won't kill her. Probably.

back to school, back to school, to prove to dad that I'm not a fool

  The other day, Joe and I were talking about career paths and whatnot and I asked if he'd ever considered becoming a teacher. Don't you think he'd be a great Kindergarten or first grade teacher? Wouldn't you have loved it if your Kindergarten teacher was a super-tall, bearded BFG with the most boisterous laugh in all the land?

I think I'm trying to bully him into becoming a teacher because although I enjoy the career I've stumbled into, when I was younger, I always wondered if I'd end up a teacher. I definitively decided against it once I started volunteering and realized how difficult it is to corral only four six-year-olds, let alone a class of like 25 of them. And for the whole day! Not just a couple of hours. That's a lot of time to not say any curse words.

Also, I'm afraid to go back to school as a teacher because I loved school so much as a student. Because, you guys. I LOVED SCHOOL. I was totally that kid you hated, the one who got 100% on every test (or, like, cried if she got a 97% WTF) and always volunteered to write things on the chalkboard and got to grade all of your papers with the ANSWER KEY (!) and who was basically a know-it-all-smarty-pants. I don't know what happened to that kid. I mean, I'm still a know-it-all-smarty-pants but I have even less to back it up now since I think my brain reached Learning Saturation a long time ago. But I digress. AS PER ALWAYS.

My favorite part about going back to school was finding out who my new teacher was going to be and who else was in my class. They'd always put the lists out a week or so before school started and I'd bug the shit out of my mom until she took me to look at it. I'm not sure why, exactly, I was so excited because it's not like I ever knew anything about many of the teachers. I think I was just always hoping for someone with a last name that started with an A to be in my class so I wouldn't always have to go first on presentations. 

My second favorite part about going back to school was SCHOOL SUPPLIES. Glorious school supplies. Pens and rulers and new folders and notebooks and YOU GUYS MAYBE EVEN A TRAPPER KEEPER. I don't wanna wait for my trapper keeper to be over! Ooh! And best yet! NEW CRAYONS. I remember this one year, they'd just come out with (I think) the 64 count crayon box with A CRAYON SHARPENER ATTACHED TO THE BOX. So you could sharpen your crayons and they'd be like new all the time! WHAT KIND OF AWESOME SORCERY IS THAT?! I somehow convinced my mom to get it for me, probably because I told her I needed it to live or something. Also, probably because my dad wasn't there.

Did your dad ever used to give you the Want vs. Need speech? Like, whenever my sister or I said we needed something, he'd be all, "do you want it or do you need it?" and I'd be like, "yes, dad, I need this penicillin to live," JK it was more like, "yes, dad, I need this Saved by the Bell game TO LIVE." My point is, do they still make Trapper Keepers? Because I need one. No, I don't want one, DAD. I need one.

Triple Lindy

The transition from green to yellow is surprisingly quick, the light dimmed so suddenly that one day it just happens, every hour of sun is squandered on the inside, leaving life solely illuminated by fluorescence and cathode rays. The rain rolls in one night on a rush of wind and in my stubbornness I refuse to unpack the umbrella, preferring for the moment the shock of cool water against my face. The rainy season has arrived.

Back in college it used to rain so much this one time Pete picked me up in a canoe; we spent the entire day drinking beers while he paddled me about. Sometimes we just drifted where the streets would take us, but mostly we just laughed and laughed. He ran Hood to Coast this year so thoroughly he's taken to Portland, It reminds me of New Orleans he told me a few weeks ago, and that's as good a reason to take to a place as any I suppose.

After the storm my best friend and I compared notes and succeeded only in making us both horribly wistful for days spent commiserating over lunch trays at Bruff. I lost 15 freshman year--I always have to be different it seems--but gained more than I can count. My friends, yeah, and myself. So now, at the start of yet another school year, I'm planning my own return to campus. Flights and hotel are booked, football tickets are in hand. But this time my companions will be rooting for the other team. You can go back, but it's never quite the same.

Especially when your cat has smothered the entire damn city.

A life not void of pure intent

This time of year means a lot of things to me. First of all, I work in higher education so I've been obsessively tracking enrollment data for the last four weeks because students = money = paycheck. Second of all, I'm supposed to be in school right now getting a degree in Business Cats but I once again have to take a leave of absence from school cause the rest of my life is... in disarray.

But what I observe most is that fall marks my anniversary of moving to California. I came here for school and I've never left. I was lost and now found. And I'm back again, running hard, one foot in front of the other, chin up, clear-eyed, straight into my tenth year.











This is home.

Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.

I went flipping through some scrapbooks tonight trying to conjure up fond memories of my school days, but the only thing I found were drawings of dinosaurs, notes from teachers complaining about my habit of drawing dinosaurs, and three hundred gazillion field day ribbons. Which pretty much sums up my entire academic career. Well, that and all the UNSATISFACTORY! handwriting grades on my report cards.

I wasn't very good at school for a badrillion different reasons. But I did learn some things. Some things I have carried with me for, well, 26 years. 



Mrs. Johnson, it seems, taught me computer words all the way back in 1985. She also taught me it is slutty to exchange kisses for candy bars.

At least one of her lessons stuck.

From henceforth, you shall be known as Big Haircut.

When I was eight or nine, I decided my bangs were too long. I'm sure I mentioned to to my mom, and she either told me my bangs were fine or that she'd trim them or, you know, maybe I should just shut my face because did I think haircuts grew on trees? Because they don't.

Instead of waiting for help or for my next haircut, I figured I should cut my own bangs. How hard could it be, really? It's not like I was cutting the hair on the back of my head THAT WOULD BE CRAZY.

I decided to cut my bangs the next time I washed my hair, while my hair was still wet. I used scissors that I grabbed from the junk drawer. I stood on my tip-toes in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to steady my arm against the sink. I pulled my (wet, remember?) bangs tight against my forehead and cut them in one giant chop.

The problem was...well, ONE of the problems was that I cut them at the length I wanted them while they were wet AND stretched down as far as they could go. I'm sure you can see where this is going because you're all smarter than I am.

Once my bangs dried, they ended up shorter than I'd intended. A lot shorter. Like Rooney-Mara-as-Lisbeth-Salander short. But my super short bangs didn't dry straight or flat or anything, because my hair is wavy and dries wavy but not pretty wavy, more like frizzy wavy, so when my bangs dried, they pretty much stood up straight like they were trying to escape from my head. Sort of like this:

I've been terrified of bangs ever since. No fringe on top for me, no thank you.