Reasons Not To Kill Yourself

FUCK yeah we're having brunch!

2011-04-19T18:29:00.001-07:00

FUCK yeah we're having brunch! by crocuschortle featuring stamps watches

Etoile Isabel Marant sweater
145 EUR - shopmrsh.com

J Crew chino short
$50 - jcrew.com

Christian Louboutin platform stiletto heels
765 GBP - brownsfashion.com

Raymond Weil stamps watch
$1,598 - forzieri.com

Oscar de la Renta crystal bib necklace
$995 - net-a-porter.com

Cartier ring
jewelry.1stdibs.com

Totally Picnic Worthy

2011-04-19T18:17:00.001-07:00

Totally Picnic Worthy by crocuschortle featuring kenneth jay lane jewelry

Rag Bone dolman sleeve top
$275 - lagarconne.com

J Crew linen skirt
$75 - jcrew.com

Deborah Marquit underwire bra
$195 - net-a-porter.com

K. Jacques leopard print shoes
80 GBP - net-a-porter.com

Kate Spade metal jewelry
$145 - katespade.com

Kenneth jay lane jewelry
$20 - charmandchain.com

Chanel vintage looking jewelry
$900 - amrag.com

NARS Lip Lacquer
$31 - asos.com

Essie Midnight Cami
11 GBP - austique.co.uk

-------

2011-04-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

Ugh.

Reason Number 2013: Dealbreakers, some more obvious than others

2011-04-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

Zionism

at the risk of being a broken record, hats

(subheading: fedora, Panama, driving cap, tam, BERET, wide-brimmed, floppy, and, for that matter, hair accessories of almost any kind)

Burning Man

long leather coats

McSorley's as favorite place

dumb, contextless Sanskrit mantras chanted by white Brooklynites in an otherwise inoffensive yoga class

self-aggrandizing Macbook photobooth sessions

use of "no?" as rhetorical device, e.g. "Roberto Cavalli really nailed it with his fall '11 RTW collection, no?"

thinking Spanish is an easily-learned language

St. Patricks Day

real, raw emotions felt over sports you're not actually playing

espadrilles

limousines

over-involvement costuming oneself

New Years Eve (though even I'll admit there've been some good ones)

Guess by Marciano

Inception, obviously

elaborate smoking devices

people who discuss hand-rolled cigarettes other than to say "I think I'll roll myself a cigarette" or "Would you like me to roll you a cigarette?" or some other logistical concern

talking about how much you love the 80's

James Franco

parades

being offended

sudden acquisition of an accent

referring to Bob Dylan as a poet

for that matter, referring to any song lyrics as poetry, unless you're talking about Great White

piercings

uttering the phrase "style icon"

expensive, coordinated exercise clothing

refusal to wear sunscreen in predicaments that require sunscreen

elaborate menu substitutions

rudeness to service people

making fun of the homeless

bath products made to smell like desserts

diet tips

adult braces

refusal to make fun of people who do deserve it, goddamn it

LAN parties

poker

stringently and inflexibly adhering to a theme when throwing a party

insistence on making a particular face/affecting a particular posture in pictures for any reason

most quotes

ordering soup at restaurants in which the soup is not prioritized, or generally well-regarded

Las Vegas

most facebook status updates

pretty much all references to St. Tropez

prescriptionless glasses

Reason Number 2012: People be fluting

2011-04-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

Rejection is a mother. And I mean mother on multiple levels.

Ahem, I'm never the kind of girl to pine over boys at shows, and I think this officially takes me to an altogether new level of lame, but:

Dear Destroyer Flautist,

You just about had me with saxophone, but when you switched it for a fucking flute, my face fell off.

Sincerely,

Employment of atypical instruments, or instruments used in atypical contexts? Snags me every time.

Writing a cover letter is one of the least enjoyable yet most necessary tasks. Up there with tampon insertion and swallowing enormous calcium supplements, but at least those take two seconds.

Reason Number 424:Chickpeas

2011-03-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

After revisiting "Too Close," I remembered when I first heard it and though Next was bemoaning the tribulations of relationships, ladies making things difficult rather than facilitating gigantic boners. There was a time when I thought boners were caused by changes in weather patterns, and that subway trains were not operated by drivers, and instead by some kind of all-powerful centralized computer system, but at some point reality hits and you realize Silk is actually five guys, not just one, and touchdowns are not tackles, and there is no fourth plate.

These are the things that keep a person up late at night.

In the daytime, there are chickpeas, imo one of the most versatile proteins ever, and alongside sea salt, olive oil, and a cast iron skillet one of my most utilized pantry staples. And! Not only can you mix them with pasta, a satiating curry or formulate your very own homemade hummus, you can also employ chickpea flour in certain baked goods. And did I mention they're more than just okay eaten straight out of the can?

Vegan cornbread was not a resounding success, but that's probably more because as a Southerner (by the Grace of God, of course) I have a very set idea about how cornbread should taste, and crumble in one's mouth. Namely: buttery, salty, sandy. Was worth a shot, though. And it was super easy. Might be good draped in peanut butter, or drizzled with honey, which I bought in fucking abundance (and for so cheap!) at Titan Foods in Astoria, for sure the best Greek market in the city.

Sometimes in brokeness I find myself more materialistic, or a different shade of materialistic. Like, I've been hoarding recipes on tastebook.com, a dangerously incredible recipe search database that allows you to save and store recipes in a folder! YES! I'm sure this is old news for most epicures who actually know how to use computers and internets, but I was very delighted by the possibility of storing recipes on these internets, because I feel like I always end up with a disorganized, daunting bookmarks bar, or forget where I found that white bean cassoulet recipe I was looking to try. Sigh.

Oh man, and the chickpea recipe options on this thing could distract me for days.

I've also been craving a cactus collection, which may or may not indicate I've actually lost it. But plants you can neglect! The kitties of house plants!

Reason Number 423: Alaia sandals, unflinching productivity

2011-03-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

I should have known there would be more wintry mix before this capricious winter draws to a dribbly close. I never thought optimism would be my undoing, but like an idiot I'm gun-jumping, blasting choice arias from Handel's Messiah as I drink Coors Light from a repurposed peanut butter jar, stowing away thick sweaters and shearling boots, relieved over something that's not really over yet.

March gets me every time with its inscrutable whims, and now I kinda sound like Jonathan Edwards, but it could be worse. I could sound like Nicholas Sparks, or Rivers Cuomo, or James Franco (aaah I just dropped JF on this blog, it's definitely time to chase my favorite bottle of percocet with a handle of Evan Williams and call it a lovely afternoon).

Perplexed at whateverthefuckisgoingon, folding, unfolding, refolding clothing, uncertain what should be stored, what should be put to use, I unearth my Alaia sandals, the zenith of my Neiman Marcus Last Call discoveries. They are perfect sandals, distinctive yet neutral, unfalteringly comfortable, a means of elevating even the dumbest, laziest summer outfits. I know I will wear them soon, but for now I will enjoy this transitional climate, which is still preferable to that of January, I suppose.

I'm getting some super quality creative writing done. When I'm writing fiction it's difficult to know what will be funny, what will be tragic, and that sometimes makes me feel like a terrible writer, but then I'm like, wait a minute, it doesn't matter one bit, and it's how I live my life. One of the last times I had a serious good cry was over the stray kitten I used to feed smashed flat in the middle of 116th St. I'd like to say that's the worst thing that's happened to me in three years, but many other things just make me laugh, or feel stern, and not because I don't care, but what in the world else are you going to do?

Reason Number 422: Rupert Holmes says it the way you wanna say it

2011-03-19T17:35:00.001-07:00

More breaking news: people are seriously not nice.

Adverbial crutches!

There's also absolutely nothing you can do about that aside from eat a bagel, take a jog, realize you're probably not that nice either. Or, if you're really ambitious, bake some bread, which is something I've never done before, but oh get ready because here it comes. I'm sure it'll be a failure the first, even the second time, and let's be perfectly honest, probably the third, but someday I'll bake a loaf worth swooning over.

There will also come a time when I will walk out on adverbs once and for all, and my writing will bloom with crisp promise. Not gloriously bloom or astonishingly bloom or even simply bloom, but bloom.

I know I said I'd write about dealbreakers, but here I am, dealbreaking.

Reason Number 421: First Iced Coffee of the Year, Not Counting the One I Drank in Los Angeles

2011-03-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

Breaking news: People are not nice.

I think in every post I reference a bad pop song or unpopular vocalist. This probably won't change, and right now I'm absolutely dying to drop Glen Medeiros but I just won't. Or will I? Or did I just? The games we play.

I think I like being embarrassed more than other people do. In fact, I know I like being embarrassed more than other people do, because most people don't enjoy being embarrassed whatsoever.

At this stage in my writing life, I try not to compare myself to famous authors, because that's generally a pointless, grief-inducing strategy, but as I approach thirty my worries about my literary shortcomings are heightened to the point that I wake up sweaty thinking holy shit, Flannery O'Connor was only ten years older than me when she died and even boring writers I don't care about like Junot Diaz were starting to publish at twenty-seven and man oh man I'm not as young as I used to be, or think I am. But then there are total badass weirdos like Grace Paley who didn't publish until their late thirties, which gives me another decade, but decades fly by as they say. And I know I'll never be a Joyce Carol Oates, and I wouldn't want to be, and most likely I'll end up a Ronald Firbank, or an anonymous monk who transcribed segments of Beowulf and imho turned them into Jesus-speak, or maybe even an Aldo Buzzi if I'm lucky, and by lucky I mean perseverant. The point being I need to punch myself in the face and try harder.

Also, LA's pretty cool. I drank my first iced coffee of 2011 there, but fuck if I'm going to count it. This fine New York morning I scaled the stairs in the New Science Building to drink the yuppiest iced coffee in town, and right now I can't think of any better way to spend four dollars than delicious caffeination, which is not a word, and the idea of making up words is really dumb unless you're David Foster Wallace, who should have read this blog because listening to "Rhythm Nation" would totally have given him the fortitude he needed to not kill himself.

Sometimes I ask myself why the J. Crew factory online store is only open on weekends, but then I realize I know exactly why, and feel embarrassed for thinking about the J. Crew factory online store in the first place, but since I like being embarrassed I continue thinking about the J. Crew factory online store, and smile.

And next time: dealbreakers.

And, in the near future, an -ly adverb-free post. It's like Oulipo all up in here! Constraints. Challenges. Life being a highway and all.

Reason Number 420: Floral Arrangements turn you into your Mother, acceptance follows

2011-03-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

There's a time in every lady's life when she says goodbye to her ravaged red cowboy boots. They are no longer wearable, not only physically, but stylewise they no longer pack a punch, or even seem useful. Not throw them away, but stuff them in a shoebox, save them for a niece. This sounds like a metaphor, and not a very good one.

The time it takes to walk from my house to Fairway (hearthearthearted) is exactly the time it takes to listen to George Michael's "Freedom 90." Like, we're talking down to the last second. Trial and error led me to this exhilarating conclusion.

Today, as I skipped at the prospect of blueberries on sale and then subsequently felt self-conscious about my exuberance, I spied some hipericum, and although I've never purchased personal-sized, pre-cut flora in my entire life was inexplicably inclined to put them in my basket alongside my chard. I'm now searching for a receptacle to put them in, but since this is a new experience for me, I have no vases, only an empty tin of Irish oatmeal, or maybe a tall plastic cup. I will let you know how this goes.

I know I've mentioned this before, but there really is a Janet Jackson song for every emotion I could possibly feel in life. It's both terrifying and strangely comforting to turn on my ipod and listen to her wise advice and spot-on observations. Sometimes it's a good idea to wait awhile, nice packages are alright, lots of things don't really matter, and who doesn't love an escapade, or want to encourage another person to participate in an escapade?

My dweebiness knows no bounds. In other news, anything related to celebrating St. Patrick's Day is the biggest holiday dealbreaker. My word problems continue. But I temper my inclinations with vigilance, and small, average words.

Reason Number 311: A Well-Stocked Pantry

2011-02-27T17:28:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it frustrates me that even after all these years I still wake up wondering whether my life would be better if I were ten pounds lighter, and frantically trying to figure out how to attain a greater lightness. This is indicative of my inability to sit with myself, to respect myself as I am, and to strive for improvement in areas that actually need it, because doing that is more difficult than going on a diet. I wonder what people who don't fret about their bodies do with their thoughts, but I don't envy them because I'm sure they have other things to fret about, and I maintain a general happiness in cohabitation with this preoccupation (rhymeskies!). I don't know this will ever go away, but maintenance makes me resilient. And there are times that are better than others, and those times are extra wonderful, but that doesn't mean I should give up when things are sub-wonderful.

I think I'm almost at the point where I can write about it, like, in a nonfiction way. I've yet to read anything that's captured how I feel about eating disorders, as most articles are full of generalizations about control, or theories on how recovery happens, or triggering personal accounts. Not that these things don't help some people, and it's also worth noting that nothing anyone can do or say to an eating disorder sufferer will make them want to recover unless they reach a point at which that life is no longer sustainable, and this often happens in a very tangible and tragic way. These are strangely contagious illnesses, too, and oftentimes I've found companionship with fellow sufferers has been painful, though at this point in my recovery that is a lot less true.

I will always maintain that the reason eating disorders are ultimately harmful is because of the toll they take on one's productivity and existence. You never regain what you have lost (PUNS!) in the process. And that having something(s) to live for and take comfort in--in an overarching, personally significant way--is the only way to climb out.

Recognizing that this is not about bodies, really, and coming to terms with the subliminal factors, is a trying process, but it's the best thing you can do. The translation of "my thighs are disgusting and need to be diminished" to "I am miserable about the fight I just had with my mother" is so crucial. This is something I need to work on. And often feelings about body parts are so deeply ingrained you don't exactly know what's bothering you, but in this case you just have to dredge and plow through the sadness and anxiety and self-hatred.

I will now step off my soapbox to say I've spent my entire life hating "Lady in Red" for what I thought was Chris de Burgh's faux-British pronunciation of "dance" but today I found out he actually is British, born in Argentina. So fuck me.

Reason Number 112: Singular Pluralism, Warm Showers, Literal Diarrhea, Beasts

2011-02-21T21:19:00.001-08:00

Someone, somewhere thought naming a band "Vertical Horizon" would be a great idea. It's always weird, and more than a little lame, when you can precisely identify an artist's* motivations. I would bet at least two boxes of Publix brand popsicles that the word "paradox" played a substantial role in the dreaming up of this brilliant moniker. Can a horizon be vertical? I dunno, but wouldn't that be cool? And like think of the connotations of horizon, like so much space, into infinity. Space! Infinity! Deep thoughts into deep songs.

Champaign is also no stranger to transparency. Clearly, these folks sat down and thought, who the fuck doesn't love champaign?** And, by that rationale, who wouldn't love a band named after a benign alcoholic beverage served at even the most milquetoast breakfast gatherings?

Every time I read anything I'm guilty of immediate analysis of the writer's intention, and not even consciously at this point, but in most great shit, these intentions are complex and highly subject to debate. And that makes literary analysis, and the possibility of discussing that analysis, so exciting for me I could dance in a circle.

Today, I am run ragged. I sit down to write, feel that familiar throat knot, but am somehow less inhibited in exhaustion. Maybe I should exhaust myself more often. Along with being wet, being tired is one of my top most intolerable feelings, but today, between taking re-taking bad camera phone pictures of black wool coats, I realized the only solution is plowing through anyways.

I'm working on deadlines here. Hiatus from my brain. I need to write something I'm proud of again. I will write something I'm proud of again. I just have to sit and write embarrassing things and not be afraid.

*ha! I'm calling the band member(s?) of Vertical Horizon artists. I need to go to either go to sleep or be a total blogger hypocrite and do the deed for goodness' sake. I've always wondered whether goodness is, in this case, a singular or plural possessive. Good thing I'm not ninety and will therefore use this word sparingly for the next several decades.

**I don't really love champaign.

Reason Number 111: March Approaches, Imminent Self-Fortification

2011-02-16T21:32:00.000-08:00

You know, in life, really bad shit happens.

Like Youtube starts inserting advertisements into otherwise unadulterated Destiny's Child videos.

Kenneth Cole appears in news articles because of some stupid insensitive comments about Egypt and inspires people to pay attention to his disgusting and embarrassing clothing, even in infamy.

The Project Food store runs out of Kashi Go Lean Crunch and 1 percent milk in the very same day.

Golden raisins happen to innocent baked goods.

You find yourself liking particular Kelly Rowland songs for no reason you can identify consciously.

You purchase unflattering pale-colored pants you can't afford while too tipsy to control yourself.

The month of March.

Staples begin creeping out of your always stalwart, perfectly-constructed clog boots.

You begin to wonder if, in your heart of hearts, your self-defining hatred of all cheeses might be dissipating along with the vestiges of your suburban childhood.

You use phrases like "heart of hearts" in place of something that means anything. And then you're like wtf do I even know myself one tiny bit?

Then as you prepare to squirt the heinous three dollar Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo conditioner hybrid (NO TEARS? More like MANY TEARS because I'm POOR, with the worst split ends) into your outspread hand, you take comfort in wtf. Something as dumb as a healthy heap of unrefined oatmeal in a bright green bowl will get you to apply lipstick so red it repels certain insects, and thinking of weird inside jokes makes you smile broadly enough to showcase the crimson smears all over your front teeth to strangers at Fashion Week events.

And in spite of crusty black ice patches and sinus impairments and resounding halt in professional success, the Project Food Store will never stop carrying Colt 45 tall boys. And after twenty-seven years of daily pixie stick ingestion, your teeth are free of cavities. You discover a secret C Town(town (town)) so close to your house you could practically throw a stone through the window if you could throw a stone at all. You fall onto your knees, get right up and poke your gigantic bruises without a single flinch, look down at your boobs, which are bigger than they used to be, and then at the end of the day you open your freezer to the comfort of APC jeans and supple, untouched chicken breasts, and deduce with a sigh that soup is imminent, and in your control.

Official Story Time

2011-02-10T19:25:00.000-08:00

You Can’t Ride That Man, He’s a Ghost Man

We were married beneath the auspices of a rollicking coaster, our hair spun sugar in the gusty lurch of overhead cars—the splendid screams, the raising of desperate hands, the suckling on spoonfuls of frozen raspberry lemonade, the scent of rapidly-generated fried doughballs that exploded in our mouths, our hands. I flipped his bangs with my free finger, and repeatedly we reeled through Monster Plantation until the bedraggled animatronic shag mammoths retracted their acrylic claws. I spread even sandwiches, intercepted afternoon calls, rigged extraordinary windsocks, noteworthy backsplash murals, but it wasn’t long before David met his ghost boyfriend behind the washing machine. Pinching my flesh into shrunken shirt dresses, selvedge denim, I began to launder away, in coin-operated machines, to achieve that desired delicate softness, light lofty warmth, while David spoonfed his ghostman chocolate ice cream, watched it dribble down his transparent esophagus, occasionally prying fingers in, to taste. Alone, I watched gumballs spiral down intestinal shafts, waiting for a pink, settling on recurring green, stale, unfit for bubbles, belabored, jaw-throbbing smacks as my legs dangled from the behemoth dryer, vibrating, pulsing imitation radiance. The bras and sheets so dank, but in front of me a freckle-breasted woman with serrated teeth airing clean purple towels. Flapping and flying, buoyant in the warm milky din, her mouth rounded in anticipation of aftershower. STOP, I pressed, releasing my towels from tumble. I held them, smelled something like my skin in the folds.

Reason Number 111: Delusions of Grammar

2011-02-09T22:22:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I want to be important.

I am a bad writer, getting worse and worse, especially late at night when coffee makes me fall asleep and no matter how many Wham! songs I listen to I want to hibernate.

Reason Number 110: Self-Queery

2011-02-03T09:42:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you have to motivate yourself to do certain things by doing the exact opposite. Pleasure reading, fiction writing feels laborious so in response I force-feed myself queer theory, which for some reason feels less taxing than prior theoretic pursuits. It's also somewhat better than cleaning behind the toilet, another delay tactic I employ in desperate situations.

Hocquenghem's "The Screwball Asses" is strangely engrossing and hilarious and rich with new and exciting information I'm probably misinterpreting like crazy, my reaction saying as much about me as it does about him or Noura Wedell, his translator. I AM THE OTHER and by that I mean in possession of vagina sinkhole object receptacle subject exogenic cumshot shitbucket bourgeois phallus receiver.

I've learned several words, and actually took the time to seek their definitions. Oh hi online dictionary revelry! "Unequivocal" is everywhere, all the time, and I always assume I know what it means though I never attempt to use it in conversation or otherwise, but now I know precisely. But I'm gonna make you work for it if you don't know already, which you probably do unless you're a dumbass ignoramus like me!

But even though I went to Brown and majored in English reading theory still makes me feel like I'm watching the Super Quartz Rose Bowl, and I don't think I'll ever understand Cybernetics, or the particular sentence structures theorists always seem to employ.

In other news, bodegas don't sell heavy cream or raisins, and I find this very off-putting.

RRRRReasons Squared: Time Sinks, Literary Gestation

2011-01-30T22:24:00.000-08:00

I don't think I ever really know what comes of stories until they're actually produced. I wish my process were more spontaneous and carefree, as opposed to a few words at a time, my timidity getting the best of ideal productivity. Caution kills, literarily. It's going back and fixing things in the most exacting manner possible, but generating fearlessly. I have no problem looking like an idiot in life, but somehow on paper I'm in junior high school again.

I'm thinking of putting my indefatigable knowledge of obscure pop music to good use. And I don't mean making more operatic versions of more Blues Travelers songs, although that's not even kind of such a bad idea.

I thought of this when I found myself skipping down First Avenue singing the entire Beauty and the Beast soundtrack after a glass of prosecco. I was not by myself, though. Internet loser admissions part 2345667.

In terms of structure, my idiocy knows no bounds. And discourages me from writing, or finishing writing. I've never been good at arranging. In fact, I'm very bad at arranging. But admitting you're awful at something doesn't mean you shouldn't try really ridiculously hard. I think I haven't followed this rule as much as I'd like.

I feel like this is why collages make such abounding sense to me. I haven't made one in awhile. Probably because they're dumb and for teenage girls. I am proud not to be a teenage girl.

Why hate Valentine's Day? Hate is way too passionate. This holiday calls for indifference, or hanging out with your least favorite friend and sharing a King Kobra. Or even a more average drink. I'm a sucker for little glittery heart-shaped pieces of pink paper, though, and my adoration of candy knows no bounds.

This feels a little more like a livejournal entry than I would prefer.

Reason Number I Don't Even Know Anymore

2011-01-19T12:17:00.001-08:00

Writing is difficult. An understatement. I keep thinking any minute it's going to be warmer than it is now, which is defeatist.

Revision is ugh. I'm losing words, and feeling my writing become more lucid and more frenetic simultaneously. The story I'm working on is grotesque and campy in ways I haven't played with yet. I don't know if it's good or bad, but I'm having a good time fictionalizing. I guess that's all that matters for now.

In other news, I made soda bread, which was not amazing, but certainly tasty.

It's not the act of producing words, it's putting everything together, determining the overarching structure, the decision-making that accompanies structuring.

What a suckfest post.

Reason Number A: Soft Peaks

2011-01-17T12:31:00.000-08:00

In spite of weather so foul I can't even formulate a scathing aside about it, and in spite of not being in possession of a stand mixer, I managed to create soft peaks with just an egg white, a whisk, and a green bowl. Not to mention monster hand and wrist strength, and epic determination. Pancakes are well worth grueling efforts. And these required cornmeal in addition to plain old flour, with grand textural consequences.

I'm beginning to wonder if a well-constructed, impeccably-fitted boot cut jean is not so bad. I tried on a pair while in Georgia, and they were bizarrely flattering, and I might even go so far as to say an exciting way to reinvigorate denim after years of ankle constraint. I did not buy these jeans, as I felt it would be impractical and perhaps too brash to do so at this time, but maybe in summer?

Too much Janet Jackson is never a bad thing, and I say this with absolute, empirical certainty.

Reason Number &: Oreo Cookies and Unwieldy Poetic Frameworks

2011-01-11T18:42:00.000-08:00

I think one of my greatest skills in life is ruining. I actually sneezed chocolate (a full five minutes after eating chocolate) onto one of my favorite shirts, a cream silk blouse with a nipped, slim fit that goes with just about everything, or did before I ruined it.

I also destroy even the most resilient shoes that, on another person, might remain pristine, unscathed by vicious sidewalks and precipitation.

On any given day, I have a rash.

I overuse mediocre, frivolous words like "extraordinary" and "humiliating" and "extreme" in both adjective and adverb form, and now that I've brought up adverbs I may as well admit they threaten to ambush my every utterance.

I will never understand how a person doesn't trip and fall at least once during the day. Forward movement is perilous, and often I don't see how it's done, in the literal sense that my glasses are fogged, or smudged, and I always forget to bring the right kind of cleansing cloth, and worsen the smudges with improper fabric like rayon. (cough, rayon is always an improper fabric)

Often, my upper lip gets stuck to my teeth when I smile at nothing, or at something that makes no sense to anyone around me.

I can never tell a not circuitous story, full of pauses, tangents, sideways glances into space.

I lost my virginity to a song from a Disney movie soundtrack. I'll let you guess which one. I would insist this was not my idea (it wasn't!!), but at this point the fact that I let it happen makes me just as guilty as the penis-wielder that pressed play.

What if I were to write a series of sestinas that is actually an enormous sestina?

What if my coat weren't always covered in cat hair?

What if I were to stop complaining right now?

I could, after all, be listening to Luther Vandross in a cold room.

Instead, I just ate two oreo cookies that reminded me to eat more oreo cookies, and often.

A man rang our buzzer, the reason being that he had an extra copy of our keys. He wanted a reward. "I could have stolen your plasma TV! Or your iPod!" he said. We don't have a plasma TV. But thanks random man for not stealing from me. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

ETA: Editing. A reason for gratitude. A way to make adverbs disappear, and melt reiterations, and just make things better. Can be repeated until things are better.

Reason Number: Cold Clandestine Showers of Indeterminate Value

2011-01-10T17:29:00.000-08:00

I take showers brief enough to make family and friends balk, question my degree of cleanness, which I will defend almost as much as Mozart's Clarinet Concertos, or hating Inception. The brevity of my showers is intensified (can brevity be intensified? probably not) when the water spurting from my spigot is lukewarm and it's 24 degrees outside, or less, probably.

Things are strange when there's more than an inch of snow on the ground in Georgia twice in one month. And here I am, addressing the weather.

Ely's been biting in increasingly formidable and damaging ways, and there is the possibility of putting him to sleep, which may be for the best, but as Doug pointed out like the astute pseudo-adult that he is, the thought of Ely's smell vanishing from the house is bizarrely off-putting and sad and strange. Sometimes I mark eras in my life by the lifespans of pets. When Ely was born I was fifteen. I wore dark makeup. I wrote solely about disease and heroines with embarrassingly Baroque names. Probably while listening to embarrassingly Baroque music. And having embarrassingly Baroque crushes. We never got along very well, our relationship wavering between red rockets and bared teeth, snarling standoffs over the years becoming more strained, and as it stands now he barely tolerates me unless no one else is in the house, in which case in desperation he squeals for me to pick him up and swaddle him in blankets, which I refuse to do out of sheer terror.

In other news, I spent the day dressing models while wearing only black, which is something I hadn't necessarily foreseen. I also ate an entire miniature pizza in front of them, which did not make me feel bad about myself one bit. A feat.

I'm thinking of doing a prose poem series about sports. Back to basics. 1B Delgado on the DL.

Less thinking, more doing.

I remember when I used to try doing experimental things with my writing, like writing about miniature golfing in Middle English. Sometimes I wonder if doing this detracts from storytelling or if it enhances what could otherwise be ordinary. I guess both.

I'm going to bed before ten thirty. Tomorrow morning, I will walk past Hollister while wearing all black on my way to dress models.

Reason Number ?????: ??????

2011-01-05T07:47:00.000-08:00

Bulldozed. All I want to do is search eBay for deco blouses and suede boots and Chanel flats while my cat bites my feet. New beginnings, new anxiety, new desperately seeking reasons not to. Thesis advisory, joblessness, the silver lining (which certainly is NOT the fact that I just said "silver lining") being endless time to work on thesis without money for recreation, distraction. I want to take a road trip somewhere, revisit, rewrite, edit my life into oblivion and reconfigure. Reconstruction is the name of the game. The name of the game? Cliche, apparently. The names of trees in my brain always. Sometimes I feel the person I was at fourteen was a different beast altogether, and other days I wake up, her again, and terrified. But all I want to do is write, but now I'm too scared to write, and sometimes even read. But I gotta choose a thesis advisor, and go to yoga, and spray medication up my nose, and put one foot in front of the other foot. And there are a billion books I've been meaning to read but haven't, having been busy, so here I am.

Reason Number 8^2: Warmer Weather Than Previously Anticipated

2010-12-31T11:04:00.000-08:00

Oh lord. Back in the city, which is slushier than I'd like, but at least the weather is warmer than it could be.

My black t shirt is coated in angora from my brand new sweater present, and my hearing is impaired from flying.

But naps are grand, and I will take one, along with a scone. Along with DayQuil. And potentially (!) a hot toddy if I can find some scotch in time.

New Year, New Sheets, and also I found a never-been-used memory stick in my closet in Georgia that I will use to transfer at least a few files to my new computer.

I also read a bunch of old, excruciatingly embarrassing letters I randomly found in the bowels of my desk, which probably hasn't been unlocked in seven years. I think, above most things, it's important to embrace whatever kind of lameness your past holds, never letting it keep you down, but also never letting yourself forget who you were, how much you've learned.

Reason Number JESUS: People.

2010-12-30T16:02:00.000-08:00

Today, I am annoyed by humans. Very. Also, I have a cold that makes me sneeze every ten seconds or so and makes my nose and eyes embarrassingly red. Nothing like a handful of wet tissues and perpetual snot dribble to make me feel repulsive.

I did find suede pants in my size for a billion percent off, and they're not too long, and the perfect buttery color and consistency. And also very warm.

In spite of my extraordinary perfectionism in high school and (parts of) college, I've never once protested a grade.

But in spite of it all there are sphinx kittens spreading their slithery paws and batting at tepid bathwater with intimidating speed.

And a whole new year to look forward to, preceded by a lame annoying night of partying in the presence of assholes. Or, in my case, hanging out by myself, or possibly watching male strippers prance on top of a bar with a dear dear friend. The things we do! Especially on ridiculous, terrible holidays of death.

I'm grateful, though. And I appreciate the perpetuity of nasal cleansing, calcium supplement ingestion, and, when I get around to it, exercise.

Reason Number 100000: Story Balm, Overshare

2010-12-27T11:45:00.000-08:00

"How would you write the perfect story of getting a pap smear?"

--Gynecologist, This Morning, upon my admission to being a writer

Hands down, the best question any doctor has ever asked me. It really made me think, how would I tell the perfect story of getting a pap smear? As I drove to make manifest my prescription for Nasonex, and also to purchase a Neti-Pot for the purpose of alleviating extraordinary nasal congestion--for those of you with sinus problems, I discovered today that this bizarre blue teapot works wonders, though it feels counterintuitively uncomfortable--I realized that because of one thoughtful physician I could go back and revise a years-old story, potentially with better results than I'd thought possible.

Thank goodness for no surgery. Daily nasal exercises, equalizing pressure. Perpetuity.

Today, after hospital overkill, I will grade. And also seek out antiques beforehand.

I would give anything to be in the library right now. Peace and quiet, the imminence of a low-hanging concrete ceiling, the soft mildewy odor of brittle Asian volumes. Rarely visited study spots. And more.

Reason Number 100: Eat, Pray, Suck

2010-12-26T17:20:00.000-08:00

I got a very much needed new computer for Christmas, for which I am extraordinarily grateful.

Not worrying I'm going to lose my entire thesis is something to not kill myself over, that's for sure. I am knocking on proverbial wood as I type that. Because there is no wood in close proximity. But oh, if there were!

Ely ate a bunch of candy canes and puked like eight times all over the living room floor. There were little candy-cane colored puddles to prove it.

Sometimes I worry blogging is selfish, or self-absorbed, or not as edifying as reading the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English, or singing to nursing home patients, or a number of other things that aren't sitting by myself in front of a computer generating sentences from random musings and a menagerie of neuroses. But I guess it's alright. It's like a less serious writing exercise, a form of release for a small audience, or not even.

Reason Number 666: Pnumonic Dervish

2010-12-23T10:15:00.001-08:00

When I was in eighth grade, I employed a Third Eye Blind song* as a mnemonic device for remembering the polyatomic ions. It still winds its way into my head sometimes. Like today, I'm googling for ways to clean the insides of my shearling clog boots, the general consensus being sodium bicarbonate, which is actually a chemical compound, but bicarbonate is a polyatomic ion, at least it was according to Third Eye Blind, who also reminded us, please, to step away from that ledge. It sucks I don't actually know a damn thing about chemistry, but I do remember strings of words like crazy.

Especially song lyrics.

Incidentally, I always forget how to drive, but then my terrible driving skills haunt me when no one's around my mom's house and I NEED to drive to the Dunwoody Cobbler to have some shoes repaired, or purchase a large cup of highly-caffeinated coffee without killing myself and everyone in the process.

Embarrassing fact: I didn't realize exactly how to cut, copy, paste by keyboard until two days ago. For some reason I feel the need to admit this over the internet rather than with individual people. At least it's in the open and off my chest (cliche x 2).

Laguardia Airport has eliminated their Starbucks and replaced it with some kind of strange replica of hipstery Brooklyn coffee shops, complete with pour-over! I died a little, mostly in embarrassment over my excitement and relief that I could experience this brewing method before an overcrowded, uncomfortable flight full of crippling anxiety.

*I dare you to guess which one!!

Psst, I also used Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me" to memorize the steps to the scientific method.

Reason Number KITTIES: Candy Canes

2010-12-21T20:34:00.000-08:00

You know those multi-colored candy canes difficult to locate in your average pharmacy, and when you do manage to locate them are usually suffocating beneath some kind of reject sale candy batholith (BWAH geology plus edibles)? The ones that unexpectedly taste like the best cherry cough syrup, as opposed to peppermint?! I found some on a CVS outing the other day, the purpose of which was hairbrush-buying, because my hair at its current length has become increasingly prone to tangles, which makes me feel totally insane. Breaking from the process of determining potential hairbrush effectiveness, the exhaustive struggle to narrow down myriad offerings of spiral brushes and paddle brushes, I came across these incredible candy canes, because of their rarity almost exclusively reserved for private personal fantasies only, and ate one on the way home. I also bought some really ugly gloves that I'm almost embarrassed to wear because they are hot pink and my reservoir tip hat is RED. But fuck. Three dollars.

Caring for a cat is less difficult than finding a job, but more difficult than listening to Steely Dan's Greatest Hits, I'd imagine.

I never thought I'd become a nail biting person, but here we are. My middle finger is starting to embarrass me. The last time I got a manicure, which was not recently, the lady pointed to it and guffawed in a manner so sincere I couldn't even find myself angry.

Anger is unusual, but not persistent humiliation!

Pizza is never something to balk at.

I still need to knit a hat.

Everyone and I mean everyone should read Lydia Davis's collected works. Seriously, if you don't buy it immediately, or at least check it out of your nearest public library, you will never read about neighbors masturbating with oboes. A grave tragedy, and I'm not even kidding.

Reason Number Wha: ______

2010-11-15T18:20:00.001-08:00

I've been teaching for over two months, and I still have searing episodes of undulating panic every night before class, and during the day before as well, which always ends up being a waste and involves a lot of pacing and drinking ten cups of coffee and twice as much cold water and trying to figure out what outfit is best for extensive fidgeting. People assume a lot of things about me (as they do about everyone, I'm told) but people have indicated I'm perceived as a non-shy, boisterous person, which is simply not true. I am like ice cream (or ice, or snow, or butter, or whatever else melts and turns into something grosser than it was before) when I'm the central focus, or even a focus at all. Unless I'm dancing or something, and there are a million people surrounding who are also dancing.

Story BREAK

2010-11-13T11:25:00.000-08:00

Turning

Reason Number 0.5

2010-10-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

A bicycle is a relatively uncomplicated machine that allows you to travel distances that are just barely not walkable. Mine has three gears, bouncing and clicking down intermittently cobbled, heavily pocked Brooklyn roads. Only one of the gears works, the middle one, which works out perfectly for my riding skills and moderate leg strength.

Unfortunately, I got a flat tire in the middle of a neighborhood with which I'm pretty unfamiliar, on my way to get my first haircut in TWO YEARS. My hair is very uninteresting, which makes me very happy, as I've now graduated to the stage in my adult life in which I crave follicular consistency over experimentation. After a billion not-quite-right yet exhilarating hairstyles I have finally found what actually works. I don't care about my hair at all. And I'm starting to not care that much about clothing, but not in a late-twenties-meandering-towards-pregnancy-and-therefore-flares way, more in a way like I've figured out what I need, I have most of what I need, I don't have the money for fun purchases, nor do I want to extend myself beyond what money I have. Simplicity. And I'm sick of having a closet that vomits clothing I hardly wear.

I don't want a Chanel bag. Not until I can actually afford one. Or maybe I don't want one at all.

I will always keep the deadstock Victorian boots I bought in Chamblee almost a decade ago, even though I haven't worn them once. I remember the lady I bought them from said "These aren't the perfect shoes for the fourth of July, but they'll be great other times." Paraphrased, for memory bias.

I think it's always important to question the things you think are unrelentingly true about yourself. I don't have to be the person who mixes patterns. Or, I am the person that mixes patterns, and I know that about myself when I'm wearing jeans and a grey sweater. What I choose to wear reflects my personality, but not so much that it actually matters.

Reason Number EEEE: Back to School Special

2010-08-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

I love the Allman Brothers Band, and maybe it's partially because it reminds me of my dad and when I think of my dad I get c-r-e-a-t-i-v-e.

And don't tell anyone but whenever a reference to Georgia happens in anything I feel a small warm spurt in the depths of my rib cage.

Every time I think about teaching I feel nightmare nausea, and not because I'm not excited about it, because I'm THRILLED, but the most socially awkward person in the world aka me is not always ready to stand in front of multiple eye pairs, staring.

Not lying, I really will try to wear heels the first day.

I also want to purchase hand weights. Strength is not always so bad.

Reason Number 1: Back to Basics

2010-07-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

I feel that this blog has lost its original focus. Which doesn't matter all that much, as I don't consider any of this good writing, but more of just an outlet (OUTLET MALL!!!! Is it bad that every time I think "outlet" I think shopping even if someone is talking about a wall socket? Braving the back racks of Off 5th for surprises like Lanvin parachute pants or Miu Miu wooden platform sandals, most of which I never even buy because it's still out of my price range, in the face of mean Asian ladies from Duluth and carpet cleaner and air conditioning so intense it makes me feel like I have a sinus infection???). I'm just going to stop.

Pie equals creative output equals writing-inducive thoughts while making churning crusts so HELP?

Conclusion:
I need to make a pie. There are a bunch of recipes I've found for summer pies. Strawberry rhubarb is what I've settled on.

Reason Number 69: How do you express to people that you don't mind taking a shit without being that girl who talks about poop?

2010-06-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

Uninterestingly enough, I finally got a new computer battery. This enables me to travel to my nearest Dunkin Donuts* in order to write/blog sift/make purposefully low (but not too low) bids on Edwardian lawn dresses and Alaia sandals on eBay to fool myself into thinking I might win when really I don't want to pay because I can't/Max Hardcore/facebook stalk my mom's friends/search craigslist for puppy listings/cover my screen in denial and humiliation, all without worry that as soon as I unplug I'll lose it all in a second.

*At the risk of sounding like an elitist ("at the risk of" filler language for "I don't want to admit it but I AM" meaning I AM AN ELITIST) I wish there were another coffee shop in our neighborhood aside from Dunkin Donuts. I'm such an elitist that I don't even consider Dunkin Donuts a coffee shop even though coffee is their primary product (aside from munchkins, etc.). And I LIKE their doughnuts, I always have--even the Bavarian cream, the grossest, most horrifying to most people doughnut that's ever exited--but I think their coffee blows and I only get it if I'm about to keel over and die from caffeine withdrawal, which basically means every day.

Somehow, the misspellings of the dunking process and the doughnuts themselves do not bother me in the least. In general I don't want to spit bile into someone's face because (s)he mistakenly misspelled a word, nor do I care when a business purposefully misspells, as in this case. There are, of course, exceptions I'm sure I'll think of about five minutes after posting this.

But! I want to sit in a coffee shop that has chemex coffee, free trade coffee, an expansive collection of white teas and fizzy waters from which to pick. Or not even this. Just someplace with a couch and some outlets and tables that aren't covered in thumbprints and sprinkles.

Elitist? Am I? Well, sometimes. Sometimes I think you know, I'm not really much of an elitist at all. I don't automatically think my opinions are better than other peoples'. But maybe I do? Literarily, at very least. But then I like the dumbest stuff ever, like the Commodores and Lucky Magazine and every show on HGTV.

The things we love.

Reason Number 85&: Most Hated Expressions

2010-04-17T12:11:00.000-07:00

brain fart

epic fail

I, myself, for one,

artsy!

grab life by the balls

examining the other

busting my balls

ergo

balls-out

the panopticon

vis a vis

cleansing

hubby

decolletage

can't see the forest for the trees

boo

I am a woman who speaks her mind.

raison d'etre

left-brained

vixen

toxins

tail

FML

deus ex machina

chick lit

because, clearly, you see,

girls' night

amigo

chinoiserie

je ne sais quoi

juice fast

ho's before bro's

ganja (gange, trees, smokes (n.))

takin' names

avant-garde

one cannot help but note

herstory

bro's before ho's

FIFY

ciao

chocoholic

guilty pleasure

I take no issue with the insertion of "like" into intelligent, well-meaning conversations. We all get anxious for filler now and then.

Reason Number 85: Writer's Block is for Idiots

2010-04-10T11:47:00.000-07:00

I am plagued by adverbs. This is surprisingly (SEE!) difficult to overcome in writing, especially (GAH) energetic writing with a billion word pileups that render narratives so confusing readers wish they were comatose.

I like to think some of this is innate to me as a writer, innately (BAM) kind of okay about me versus other writers who write simpler, unadorned sentences. It's kind of like the difference between a straight-up chocolate cupcake and a cupcake made with spinach icing and topped with some kind of compote. Um, no?

There is always a time, usually in early spring, when I think "You know, Urban Outfitters really isn't that disgusting." This always results from seeing someone I respect wearing a darling dress and asking her "Where did you buy that darling dress?" to which she responds "Um, Urban Outfitters! Tee-hee! I know RIGHT?!" Then I end up having writer's block and looking at the $9.99 and under section on their website for two and a half hours while trying to think of the perfect way to describe a windowsill without sounding like a moronic half-wit Wordsworth-inspired dickface. Or Jhumpa Lahiri. But in spite of my best efforts to find something that doesn't look like garbage I always turn up empty-internet carted.

I hate the term "writer's block." Even though I have it. Often. It's just such a dumb idiotic excuse tossed around by people who don't know how to write, or don't care about writing, or think writing is glamorous and tragic. Writing is a nasty-ass crusty chore from hell while also being uproariously (here we go again!) fun and something I could easily not do with my time while remaining my most viable skill. Mostly it's just a shitty job I don't get paid for. Kind of like working at Brusters (RIP), but for free.

Reason Number 57: The Most Perilous Cod Disasters Can Be Resolved With Chickpeas

2010-03-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

My mother got me a Costco membership as a gift. I went today for the first time, and oh. Not only can you buy Tupperware in various sizes (that all comes in one deceptively light box!), but organic chicken broth, Greek yogurt, a clamshell of blackberries, about six thousand grapes, and two hefty organic pork tenderloins can all be purchased for deals so excellent I want to fist someone's grandma.

But there is a catch, aside from the beyond stressful shopping experience, or the diarrhea I've experienced from eating about four of those six thousand grapes: the fish is so awful I am open-mouthed, and wordless (almost). Although this blog has a meager readership, I am earnestly begging those of you who are reading right now to never, ever buy cod at Costco.

I adore cod, in spite it its bad reputation. I always associated cod with pirates and forced stoned fast food runs to epicenters of breaded doom, as well as depressing jaunts to the Food Lion in College Park for my grandma (is this the second time I've referenced grandmas in this post? s-e-x-y). BUT David began roasting cod with tomatoes, fingerling potatoes, and olives, and my opinion was transformed by the meaty simplicity, the wholesome integrity of plain, unadorned fish accompanied by wholesome sidekicks.

At Costco today I saw the price--ten dollars for a piece of cod so huge it was actually frightening--and I HAD HAD HAD to buy it and bake it in the oven with paprika, sea salt, and olive oil and serve it atop a bed of sauteed spinach and tomatoes drizzled with sherry vinegar.

But unless you are fond of sniffing your (or your loved one's) sopping maxi pad, the subtle taste of condoms, or the unyielding texture of beachballs, I really wouldn't dare supplement Costco cod for Whole Foods'. Seriously.

Thank the dear lord I also bought a nine-can pack of Goya chickpeas for $4.99 (STEALIN!), which I mixed with the spinach/tomato melange and some brown long-grain rice.

You can't beat those little powerhouse nugs of stealth wonder.

Reason Number 52: Choosing Wallabees

2010-03-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

My brother always gives me shit for my adoration (and adulation) of flats. Most of the shoes I've dropped significant sums for are definitively low to the ground. The idea of purchasing extraordinarily expensive heels feels counterintuitive to me, because cost per wear is still so high, and to me there is no mid-point--like, mid-high heels look atrocious, and if you're going to bother making yourself uncomfortable you may as well succumb to the rapturous extremity of the sky-high and make yourself five inches more commanding (especially if a built-in platform is involved, which facilitates much simpler and easier movements).

Not that I'm one of those women in denial about her height. Random Rant: women (especially under 5'7") who feel the need to wear heels at all times to provide the illusion of tallness. No thank you. I am five foot four and unabashedly content. Or at least resigned. It's the only body issue I've never had. I would never in a billion years want to be taller, and I definitely wouldn't want to resort to platform cork wedges and espadrilles to lengthen myself comfortably on a daily basis.

But in spite of my height confidence I do love the way supertall heels look, especially to occasionally elevate whatever outfit I'm wearing. But for everyday? What if I need to carry a bunch of paper towels up a flight of stairs? Or rush to get a sandwich on my lunch break at the awesome sandwich store that's twelve blocks away? The worst (as I addressed in my previous post) is not knowing how to walk in heels but wearing them simply because you feel you have to. Am I rambling?

It's strange because as a small child I was embarrassingly impatient for the day I could finally wear a pair of heels to the supermarket, or to get my emissions checked at the Jiffy Lube. My mother had very small feet, so by the time I was nine or ten I could almost fit hers--and she had some cool as fuck 1970's wooden platforms that I wish weren't too small for me now. Even in high school I was beyond thrilled to buy some Steve Madden black platform maryjanes (shhhhhh) rehashed by Miu Miu this spring. Not that there's any comparison between Miu Miu and Steve Madden (or that the designers at Miu Miu would do anything besides puke all over everything Steve Madden has ever envisioned. Ha! Envisioned. More like plagiarized). I'm just sayin. Is it really an opportune time to bring those back? (Though the print is pushing marvellous.) Pictured below is one iteration of these mildly underwhelming (though intriguing) shoes.

I wish I could find a picture of the (gulp) platforms I used to own, for comparison's sake. Though a part of me is very pleased with Google's inability to image-locate and thus implicate me on all style fronts.

In spite of my pre-adolescent lust for heel-wearing, at some point I was like, fuck it. I'm wearing the Clarks Wallabees I got for Christmas, and you idiots can suck my dick (I actually *am* wearing them right now, but I'm not imploring you to suck my dick for real, nor am I suggesting you are of below average intelligence). But. Like. I just don't know. I still don't have a pair of basic black heels. I know I would wear them if I did. Would I? Yes. Really? And put down my desert booties? I
just
don't
know

Reason Number 57: I have no idea.

2010-03-03T08:28:00.000-08:00

In March, it's always excruciating to dig down and seek out life reasons, vital, exciting prospects that make me want to skip around East Harlem in broad daylight while wearing spandex. Winter has stopped being cozy. Summer is far. My bangs are overgrown. I have split ends. My skin looks waxy, my eyelids sag. My hair is always greasy, in spite of being washed every day. No matter how many times I floss/gargle/SoniCare, deep down I ooze perma-halitosis. I've exhausted my butternut squash excitement, my lust for burnished dying plants, rekindled each fall. Hot chocolate! Tea! Flavorless to me. My mittens are fucking pilling and and I'm ready to throw them away, and I'm ready to yank each of my teeth out with my crusty, nibbled fingers. I'm ready to dry-clean my eggplant sleeping bag coat and shove it into a deep, underbed dusty hole.

I have always hated March, practically since the day my mother forced me out of her vagina in Baltimore in 1983. Though growing up in Georgia, mid-March equals dogwoods and bluebirds and maybe even the daring to wear your sandals and eat ice cream, if only for a warm afternoon. Here, however, not. Although for some reason, I've been hearing the Mr. Softy truck round the block. What brave/stubborn manchild is ordering ice cream outdoors? Who forced Mr. Softy to drive his truck? Did he do it of his own volition? Was he so desperate to share his snowy cream with Upper Manhattan that he's braving real snow? Seriously.

I, for one, am still wearing my stupid ugly cumstain reservoir tip smurf hat that everyone on the street says looks like "Where's Waldo" but is so warm I can't bear to give it up.

This morning, a kitten pranced up to me as I bent down to pick up a carton of milk at my corner bodega. (After having already poured myself a bowl of cereal and wrongly anticipating the tiny amount of milk we had, it was a soggy, sloppy mess by the time I came home with the new milk, but I couldn't put it to waste because cereal is expensive, so I ate every gelatinous bite. And that sentence is so garbled not even I, the maker, can make true sense of it. I have truly lost my touch.)

At any rate, the kitten nuzzled me and my 1% (the perfect % for taste and texture and calcium absorption), attempted to ascend my arm, but I declined, exhausted by its cuteness as is. We are creepy, cats and I. It followed me to the register and stared at me as I walked into the dribbling rain to eat my unsatisfactory breakfast with my bitey handicat, who promptly scolded me for not having fed her earlier.

Reason Number %: Dried Cherries

2010-02-22T10:26:00.000-08:00

Dried cherries are inappropriately delicious. I could eat them with (and between) every meal. I buy so many dried cherry packets when I go to Whole Foods/Trader Joe's/The Drugstore that I'm kind of embarrassed for myself and my specificity. Many are fond of dried fruit--apricots, apples, cranberries--but my level of adoration for dried cherries, to the exclusion of other dehydrated nutrition sources, is creepy and diarrhea-inducing.

Tart Montmorency, specifically.

I am very snobby about vintage. Don't ever tell me you love vintage clothing when really you love acid wash denim dresses with American Apparel headbands. Not that it's impossible to look flawless in an acid wash denim dress with an American Apparel headband. It's just not the same as loving vintage.

Though my attitude toward vintage has evolved, I think. As a sixteen year old, I was indubitably, wholeheartedly a vintage purist. Only wear one era at a time. I had my early 1950's silk posy day dress, which I wore with early 1950's red bow pumps and a red embroidered cardigan I bought at Express but that seemed to blend well enough into the outfit so as not to disrupt the historic balance (yes, I said Express. I did.).

And, lest I ever think of myself as cool in adulthood, my seventies obsession of 1998: pagoda-rose printed polyester button-downs with enormous Mudd bell-bottoms and worn-out converse with 666 on the toe, written in Sharpie. And white lipstick! (Mudd!)

AND my brief but impassioned Victorian phase: ankle-length turn of the century lawn dresses with appropriate (though, when necessary, anachronistic) t-straps. But even I felt uncomfortable taking that kind of insanity to the streets, or high school classroom.

I never was a sixties person. It's still one of my least-favorite decades, though I do have a blue velvet babydoll dress with a bib collar in my closet at home that I love to pieces and wear about three times per year.

I still love vintage as much as I always have--even the most ridiculous pieces can find a place in my closet--but I don't want to wear only vintage, and especially not only one era at a time. It's hard, though. It's hard to wear lame and destroyed cowboy boots without looking like a total hipster poser idiot. Sometimes I find myself treading that line.

And that's why there's Quoddy to keep me in check, even though I don't own anything they make.* And very basic denim. Some people can look amazing in neon paint splattered jeans, but I am not one of those people. The simplest pair of jeans grounds my Edwardian blouses in a way nothing else can.

*Oh but I wish I did. The inclusion of Quoddy into my wardrobe would suddenly make me a punctual, beer-guzzling, less frivolous person who means business.

Reason Number 50: Mrs. Manganelli actually was pretty awesome

2010-02-13T11:20:00.001-08:00

Re: Mrs. Manganelli, who in spite of her puppy hair and Anne Klein loafers, really was an excellent math teacher. If only I could have appreciated her explosive mathematical prowess by having been good at math, being good at math, and continuing to be good at math (sorry SAT, GRE, SAT II, tipping in restaurants, calculating discounts on leather leggings at the Barneys Warehouse Sale). She was also a total heinous cunt, and slammed David with like eighteen demerits for cutting off Sara Gilli's hair when she fucking told him to cut her hair and he responded affirmatively. But extreme fear equals extreme love equals lust equals oh man teachertime, and I will never in my life forget the impact Nora Manganelli had on my fantasies, my songwriting, my home life, my effusive self-loathing. I feared her even in the confines of my playhouse, tumbling slideward wondering if I'd forgotten to staple a homework assignment yet again. Or did I miss a page on my pop quiz? Did I say the Lord's name in vain? OH YOU BET I DID (NOT) DID (NOT) DID I?

I also got in trouble for writing a Mother's Day Card haiku about fetal alcohol syndrome. But this was a different teacher with a manbeastier haircut and a labcoat.

I still don't know how to number pages.

The moral is, instead of inheriting the earth, as a meek person is wont to do, I am eating the earth with my cruelty and insensitivity, and then spitting it out a masticated disaster. I mean, not really. I'm not even remotely that important.

In the vein of our late friend McQueen, who will never design a pair of tartan drop crotch trousers again, other things I'm tired of, but delight in relating to you so much they make me never, ever want to pull a McQueen (and yes I said McQueen twice (now three times, count them!) in the same sentence):

-nondescript indie pop masquerading as something other than nondescript indie pop. Why why why are the Shins still played at parties? I do not get it. At. All.
-Taylor Swift (like wtf? Why is she famous?)
-The Sartorialist/Garance Dore/other short-sighted, narrow-scoped street style blogs

As soon as blizzardfest began last Tuesday night, I turned to Ryan and said: "I can't wait to see puppies jump around in the snow!"

So, here I am, forever lame and crying at meowing kittens and wee birds. If you're ever in New York, you should check out the wee bird (a parakeet, I think) at Assembly on the Lower East Side. You'll also find (some) really super awesome clothes. They have a leather shift dress that fits like a dream. If I were wealthy (cough: had any money whatsoever) it would be in my closet right now. With the Quoddy boots and over the knee Chanel boots I fantasize about on a semi-daily basis.

UGH what a mess. Hangover city.

Reason Number 34567#$@6: I count like a three year old, but Quoddy exists

2010-02-12T12:19:00.000-08:00

Every time I post I miscalculate how many reasons preceded the post I'm working on, so lord knows (oh yes HE does) how many posts I've accumulated under improper numerical headings. I've never been good at math. Mrs. Manganelli, my seventh grade pre-Algebra teacher can attest to that. She wore tartan flannel shorts with opaque navy tights and had a frosted corkskrew permanent she obviously didn't care for properly because it was constantly fried, but unlike a rapturously delicious and crisp chicken leg and more like a cocker spaniel.

So, Quoddy. In spite of my sustained passion for all things frivolous in fashion (Marc Jacobs multi-strap white maryjanes anyone? authentic antique Victorian ankle boots? chiffon cocktail dresses with built-in scarves for additional flounce?) I have begun to take several steps backwards in evaluating my aesthetic, and the aesthetic I favor in general. This is not entirely a conscious thing, but perhaps a reaction to the crazy bright colors/mixed patterns I've been sporting for nearly a decade.

In addition to taffeta houndstooth electric wonderland, I also crave sturdiness and peace of mind. Khakis, button-downs, simple jewelry, unobtrusive wrist watches, very very basic haircuts. Shit, I haven't gotten a haircut in a year and two months. I definitely don't want to have mermaidtastic goddess hair (which would never happen with my hair texture anyways) but I'm taking it easy, seeing where things go, avoiding funky textured mess blonde punkface in favor of natural.

Too soon? Alexander McQueen equals snooze. I get it. I get that he made insane reptilian shoes and popularized skulls to such a degree that seeing one on a lightweight scarf makes me want to puke. I'm sorry for anyone who hates him/herself enough to turn to suicide (chortle). But how many butterfly gowns can one wear before losing his/her mind? How many his/hers can I toss in before becoming Julia Kristeva/some kind of suburban master bathroom?

Oh Quoddy. You represent the best in practicality, in gender neutrality. Your grizzly boots can be made for me, or my boat-footed husband. Your ring boots can be worn with liberty print, the Rodarte Gilt skirt I wanted so desperately but couldn't afford, and all manner of vintage.

Quoddy, rescue my sequins from unbearable girlishness and dislikeable frivolity. I love sequins. LOVE. THEM. But not all the time. And not with everything. No, I'm not becoming serious, or sensible. More like tactful? Tasteful? Malaprop central?

Quoddy boots are hand stitched in Maine. I spoke with the owner *on the phone.* WHILE HE STITCHED A PAIR OF THEM WITH HIS BARE HANDS. They have a lifetime guarantee. They don't showcase their designs on models.

(I hate models. But we'll get to that tomorrow.)

Maybe I'm yearning for a false reality, an unobtainable grittiness. Or maybe for a sense of rugged dimension heretofore lacking.

I do, after all, love my A.P.C. jeans.

Reason Number 21: Beverly Cleary is still alive!!!

2010-02-04T09:39:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up wondering is Beverly Cleary, esteemed American author of countless beloved classics such as Ramona Forever and The Mouse and the Motorcycle--is Beverly Cleary still alive?

The possibility of her death somehow making me extraordinarily anxious and I thought maybe in the J.D. Salinger/Kurt Vonnegut/Bea Arthur/Walter Cronkite/Bob Hope/Estelle Getty/Ronald Reagan/other super old people deaths occurring over the last approximate half-decade that Ms. Cleary had been forgotten, or that I'd neglected to notice her eulogy in Reminisce Magazine, which I obviously read every morning over lightly-sugared oatmeal with a sprinkling of dried cherries.*

Although dazed with motivation-annihilating dehydration from my insufferable radiator, I just HAD to know, so: wikipedia! And holy fucking crusty menstrual Virgin Mary she is still alive and well--or as well as you can be if you were born in 1916, which means she's either stark raving ridiculously crazyface or atrophying in a wheelchair somewhere in Oregon, I presume, because that's where she's from, and I read her biography in third grade and dressed like her for some inane elementary school contest, so, basically, I should know. I remember thinking of Oregon as one of the most exotic places I'd ever heard of, decidedly un-American because of its VOLCANOES (wtf), but yet Cleary is such an "all-American-what-a-pointless-term" person.

*I actually was obsessed with this magazine in junior high school. I especially loved the "Stirring Up Memories" segment, always involving life before proper refrigerators, and pot-bellied stoves, and waiting for a boy to ask you on a date while your dad (whom you call Pop) brines pickles in a hefty barrell. I'm probably the only person born after 1933 ever to read about this, and the only person born after 1933 to buy into the Golden Age of Perfection and Family Values so touted by the elderly. I was always like "why do I eat microwavable popcorn when people in the incredible early 1940's popped theirs on a white enamel STOVE while hand in hand with their multiple sisters singing Greensleeves and maybe listening to a radio broadcast on patriotism? Like, I don't even HAVE a sister and my dad is GAY?"

I still haven't been to Oregon.

People worth doing, soon to appear on my People Worth Doing Other Blog: Beverly Herself, and possibly the Rodarte sisters. Let's see!

Reason Number 20: My cat is better than some

2010-02-03T15:26:00.001-08:00

I can't believe it's been like two years, and I've only come up with twenty reasons not to kill my(your)(one)self.

Fuuuuuuck.

Things:
-I accidentally took a three hour long nap and woke up with campfire throat and sweaty feet. I was wearing tights. And a rayon (ew! but no seriously it's awesome) dress. My special needs cat was curled in my fetal-position crook.
-As I noted on my sister-in-law's blog: I actually genuinely like Bud Light. Yet another reason why I'm not a yuppie, or a hipster for that matter. It's only been about two years (maybe even less) that I've enjoyed beer in any capacity, so I suppose you have to start small.
-Sometimes I feel like a horrible person because at every moment I'm looking around wondering how people put their outfits together. This is not always a judgmental thing but sometimes a curiosity thing.
-Default settings. What's yours?

Reason Number 24: There Are Always Cookies Worse Off Than Yours

2009-12-06T20:48:00.001-08:00

This is perhaps the most important lesson your mother ever told you before she tucked you in.

Just say no to failure and yes to learning everything better.

At least genuine vanilla was employed, but even the most Madagascan and overpriced extract can't always reverse an over-burnt bottom, a too-thin spread.

How (how (how)) to avoid this kind of spread? How to make them fluff?

BUT: I could be eating Chips Ahoy, or Whoppers, or a subpar cluster of homemade pralines.

Reason Number 23: Reggae is so hilarious, and it doesn't even mean to be

2009-12-01T18:15:00.000-08:00

"Gash Dem and Light Dem" by reggae artist Chuck Fenda inspired me to write a homophonic/syllabic translation based on repeatedly listening and watching the video, which wasn't even about weed! WTF. But seriously, the patois is so garbled and rapid I had no idea what the fuck was happening, which made it all the more applicable for an English to English translation simulation explosion.

Before sharing my interpretation of what I think Chuck Fenda's lyrics sound like, I'd like to take a moment to express my warm admiration for what reggae did for my creative process, in spite of my general distaste for this genre.

This poem is best read while listening to the song.

Splash Sperm, Englighten

Old, old lard!

Hmm, a’delivering four ewe, one finer swineherd.

Hmmm, derivative lard friar, hyar! Sexton in lieu

Of compromise, no timid eunuch.

Just give up!

Big manatee rape, pop a sixty year old bayleaf,

A big mangrove ewe papa, young gonad

Pull knight porn, a biddy, old lady.

Abet mange, lick few

moms dung schoolyard, undertaking a Mexican scabie,

But Godhole young, thick, nor nutbutter swell mighty bode, prithee.

Gashing and frightened for the negative version in my brains,

Crash, perm, and quite prim

Plea comfy mash-upward, make up a senseless kenning.

Flash them and fight Dubois, revere, offer—why? teabagging, gumming,

Mashed, dim, indict phlegm,

Ham, Gwar, and come out, dye wagers of skin.

Summer’s Eve, it’s on special o’er at Target.

Off the rocket, signet, call it, whack it, sparkle!

Unlove your leash, see dung and pork it

and “Stop, Carrie, water innards, Basquiat,”

Sung Moammar Kadafi, snuffed, “charmeuse is law.”

Ionic pushpin till bloodspurt drawl

All die wrong, buoy spew half toupee. Fish.

Dunce bat, je ne se qois, not smart

Come and tell me, say you don’t have newt hearth.

A long timid wiki priest, and a caulk.

And until you give Diptychs a stalk,

Utah. They tell me you’re nuts, fried fist-poppet, scoff,

Caw! You love her, tepid dog. A balk.

Reason Number 22: Life is long, maximize analysis

2009-11-14T08:51:00.001-08:00

Definitely try Apple Pancakes, courtesy of Smitten Kitchen.

2 eggs, beaten

1.5 cups milk

2 cups flour (I used 1 white, 1 whole wheat pastry flour)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup sugar

3 golden delicious apples, peeled and grated

Mix the eggs and milk in one bowl, the dry ingredients in another bowl. Combine them, but gently. Never overmix pancakes. I've learned this the hard way. Fold in the apples.

I added 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp vanilla, as I believe NO baked goods suffer from a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Especially the Madagascar kind they sell at Williams Sonoma.

Oh yes, I'm a yuppie. And it's okay. It's okay to forego life essentials like paper towels in favor of the best vanilla extract available in stores.

I say this as I drink an enormous Dunkin Donuts coffee in lieu of the organic chemex-brewed Costa Rican beans I crave.

Revision: I'm not a yuppie. I ride the bus. And use Cetaphil.

Reasons why I might be a yuppie:

-specialty cupcakes

-Columbia University

-I listen to NWA while perusing balsamic vinegar brands at Dean and Deluca.

-several varieties of gummy vitamins

-lavender essential oils

-i phone

-A.P.C. desires

-bikram yoga

-no less than fifteen pilates DVDs (I don't use them anymore!)

Reasons why I am kind of not a yuppie:

-my apartment

-I've never been to Paris. Or Venice.

-Sunbeam cravings

-An ability to discuss diarrhea with poise and an open heart.

-I don't think Grizzly Bear is all that special.

-I have no idea how to use i phone

-I feel a sense of extreme relief upon entering WalMart, Target, and any drugstore (especially Walgreens)

-my cat is retarded

-I ALWAYS buy generic brand paper towels, toilet paper, garbage bags, CEREAL (!!!), canned goods (I just said CANNED GOODS), and sometimes shampoo.

-I don't enjoy discussing Chekhov with strangers. Or flirting.

This could go either way. I'll leave it to you to decide.

Reason Number 21: There are more words for HATE than despise

2009-11-11T19:19:00.000-08:00

I realize I use "despise" so often it kind of does make me want to, you know.

Thank the dear Lord for thesauruses, even poorly-rendered, free online editions.

Dear Alex,

Here are some synonyms. You might become well-acquainted with a better vocabulary:

Love,

Thesaurus.reference.com

abhor, abominate, allergic to, anathematize, be disgusted with, be hostile to, be loath, be reluctant, be repelled by, be sick of, be sorry, bear a grudge against, can't stand, contemn,curse, deprecate, deride, despise, detest,disapprove, disdain, disfavor, disparage, down on, execrate, feel malice to, have an aversion to, have enough of, have no use for, loathe, look down on, nauseate, not care for, object to, recoil from, scorn, shudder at, shun, spit upon,spurn

Reason Number 20: villanelles are less amazing than cupcakes and more amazing than sandwiches

2009-11-11T16:55:00.000-08:00

If she didn't look so much like my mom I would totally want to have insouciant yet tender anal with Ina Garten (aka Barefoot Contessa). As it stands, I've made quite a few of her recipes, all of which are so unbelievably delicious I can barely stand it.

Tonight is my second time making Perfect Roast Chicken . I forgot to buy fennel, so I'm using beets* instead.

These days I'm suspiciously happy. So happy it (shhhhhh) almost makes this blog irrelevant. I suppose even the best of us, the most unrelentingly dejected and acrimonious, need respite from that nagging urge to jump into the nearest heavily-trafficked intersection.

Who wants to drag a serrated knife across her throat when a mid-sized fowl carcass is roasting, blazing brown in a golden oven as brilliant yellow leaves fall crisp onto a sidewalk full of children riding bigwheels? (Even though I despise children more than a healthy serving of melted Swiss cheese.)

Who wants to turn the ignition in a carefully-closed garage when kittens the world over are diving into boxes too small to accommodate their soft, plump, adorable bodies?

Life is way too hilarious for these kinds of shenanigans. Life is too short not to use words like shenanigans. Twice!

Fuck you! I have floral doc martins.

*How amazing are these earthy purple wonders? Seriously.

Reason Number 19: Blog Renovation is No Longer Just for Pussies

2009-10-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've missed putting words into space in a non-fictional setting.

I'm going to start posting recipes because, you know, I like them. And I try them often.

Also, fashion.

If this blog post is grammatically and/or sensically garbly, smashed, mushed, or otherwise not at all thought out, I apologize. While reading Charles Olson's "Mayan Letters" (to Robert Creeley) I stood up in the East Asian Studies Library and hit my head (very hard) against a concrete overhang.

CONCUSSION CENTRAL! Staring into a mirror at two different-sized pupils is unnerving. I remember my mom's big cardboard oversize font first aid (JUST IN CASE) book and being totally freaked out by the illustration of a girl with a fresh, hardcore concussion.

Have I mentioned my hatred of non-functional hats yet? Well, I hate them, and my hatred of them is part of my everyday existence in ways you wouldn't imagine (or if you do imagine I'll kiss you, right in the middle of your forehead!).

Also, for the record, I despise the ombre hair trend rampant on fashion blogs aplenty.

According to this aforementioned site that I usually agree with, it's at least worth pondering this 9/11 of hairstyles because, hey, it looks good on the runway (NO IT DOESN'T).

No. Just no. Go ahead and get yourself an ombre black-to grey cardigan! Or even a subtly ombre pair of ankle boots! Just. Don't. Make your hair like that.

Reason Number 18: Hiatuses from blogging

2009-04-30T08:37:00.000-07:00

Approximately every five blocks, there is a Dunkin Donuts.

This might be disturbing for some, but for me it means ENORMOUS Iced Coffee (which cost only fifty cents on April 21st).

Today, I also ordered a croissant, which wasn't nearly as bad as one might imagine.

So, I suck at blogging. But my school year is essentially over, so maybe this summer will be reserved for more extensive digital recounting of my dull, hyperextended existence.

In other news:
-I'm learning photoshop! And flash! I really want to make a flash story/movie that evolves through time. I realize this makes very little sense.

-I'm starting a new blog with wee brother Dougles. It is a fashion-oriented blog with crazy awesome clothing on display (and for sale). I will let you know when it launches. It's partially online now but looks like garbage because I can't fix the header or the sans-seraph font (gross!).

-Salt and Vinegar almonds are delicious.

-I think I might like writing academic essays. It's almost more empowering than writing fiction, especially fiction no one likes.

-I don't really see a problem with wearing Denim on Denim anymore. Especially if it's done right. There are crimes way worse, like non-functional hats (newsboy, fedora, scally caps, those gross oversize headbands with fake peacock feathers that abound at Urban Outfitters).

-I want to challenge myself by writing a story with an intense plot with simple sentences. I just might die trying.

Reason Number 17: THIS BOOK

2008-11-02T19:09:00.001-08:00

Payback really *is* a mutha. This book is guaranteed to convey some universal truths. I'm going on an adventure tomorrow to buy it (hopefully, at a discount).

Reason Number 16: This Picture

2008-10-27T17:40:00.001-07:00

This really doesn't need an explanation.

Reason Number 14: Apple Cake can be better than you've ever imagined, and Brenda Russell peeks from the recesses of your mind and into your itunes

2008-10-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

For one microsecond, I'm changing this blog name to reasons TO kill yourself, because I bombed my Spanish midterm, Al Qaeda-style.

It sucks, because I used to be kind of okay at Spanish. Granted, that was like ten years ago, and I haven't done the best job of practicing throughout those ten years (making/ordering flautas or saying things like "tengo tres familias de tortugas en mis pantalones grandes" notwithstanding).

I'm terrible--terrible--at pacing myself during tests, because I'm constantly double-checking literally everything, so by the time I got to the essay (which asked me to be a fake journalist trying to decide how to title an article about how the Chinese were really the first to discover America, which is insulting to begin with: journalism being an obviously inferior form of writing (I kid, and yes, I just said "I kid" as if I were the most pretentious beret-wearing person in the world))<--double parenthetical wtf what is this, Thomas Paine/Edith Nesbit/Sir Walter Scott/my dad?! At any rate, by the time I got to the essay, I had like five minutes left so wrote something completely nonsensical that went something like "Columbus was obviously Italian, and could never be Chinese." Um, fucking duh back to Kindergarten time. Kill.self.

BUT, in spite of colds (one of which I have) and bad grades, there is a light, fluffy, sugary explosion at the end of the st00pid, in addition to The Importance of Being Earnest, which I just started reading for Richard Howard (one of the greatest men on earth, with the best glasses ever, totally gay for Allen Ginsberg forty-odd years ago, but who wouldn't be?).

Smittenkitchen.com has some ridiculously great recipes, apple cake being one of them.

I just made it, and holy hell, it's so delicious I'll never go back to eating real food again, or bother trying to learn something as obviously pointless as the Spanish Language. And by that I mean I'm having it for BREAKFAST tomorrow, and then having an arugula/tuna/tomato salad for lunch.

And if you haven't seen this video, you should go ahead and jump in front of that bus:

Reason Number 13: Alexander Pope is, was, and will always be HAWT

2008-10-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

Sephora
HOLIDAY SEASON BLOCKBUSTER AVAILABLE NEXT MONTH FOR ONLY $49.99! (on a sign outside, emblazoned with glittering holly sprigs and falling red-orange-yellow leaves, a model’s face, digitzed, demure, and smiling).

I had run out of my coral-red semi-matte1950s starlet lipstick (the name of which I’d unfortunately forgotten), so I dashed into Sephora, paramount luxury cosmetics supplier. Blinded by space-age lighting bouncing off innumerable reflective surfaces, I scrambled around overly-manicured sales associates in sleek pantsuits, their eyes spidery with mascara. I shielded myself against strategically-placed pyramids of shiny glosses, eyeshadow triads, and exotic, heretofore unmentionable brands like Makeup Forever (forever?), tooth whitening promotional kits, and celebrity-endorsed lip plumping serums designed to create an incessant, indefatigable pout—words like “buxom,” “venomous,” “fusion,” and “immortality” bombarding me at every turn.

Circumventing Dior, I was blocked by a woman—early thirties, at the latest—her shopping bags strewn across the aisle, trampled by bow-legged pre-teens in miniskirts as she frantically slathered her cheeks with a cutting-edge polypeptide moisturizer promising to regenerate the magical underlayer lurking beneath the lackluster, inadequate surface, eradicating wrinkles within three days, tops.

“Excuse me,” I said, shuddering as I turned to face the display of French brand NARS—

“—has the most concentrated pigmentation of any makeup brand in the known world, and you really must try SUPERCLIMAXXX blush, the new take on the beloved original CLIMAXX, imbedded with mirrored particles that really enhance your skin’s natural brightness in ways you wouldn’t even understand,” bellowed a tall saleswoman, lacquered pixie haircut sparkling.
I caught a glimpse of myself in one of the many mirrors lining the walls, and I was aghast at my flattened hair, my uneven complexion, my chapped lips. The perfect red lipstick would help, I thought, and I began snatching different sample shades—reptilian massacre, lucifer’s embrace, razorwire, suicide—“try me,” said suicide, on a sticker, and I opened my mouth, drew on color, puckered, blotted, when I felt a man’s hand on my shoulder.

“I prefer rape myself, as it has bluer undertones,” said the man as he wiped suicide off my lips with a gilded handkerchief, applying glossier, hyper-satured rape with abandon. “Such a velvet quality, in a far more flattering hue!”

I faced the mirror again, and smiled at the perfection achieved, the improved replication of my original coral-red semi-matte1950s starlet lipcolor. He stood next to me, and I marveled at our side-by-side reflections.

He was very small—many inches shorter than me, with a pinched face covered in whitening powder, dotted with pencil-moles shaped like stars. His powdered wig stood nearly two feet tall, and was interlaced with gemstones and Flanders lace and box tortoise combs, dripping with ringlets, and I noticed he was no ordinary man; he was Alexander Pope, arguably the greatest English poet of the 18th century!

“Mr. Pope!” I said, blushing, “it’s an honor, an absolute honor.”

“It is no matter,” he said, “applying cosmetics is a great pleasure of mine, crafting creations with the sweep of a brush, a squirt, a spurt, a dash of a single color manifesting epic loveliness. Your hair, for instance, is lovely but desperately needs enhancement.”

He produced a bottle of volumizing sea salt spray from an embroidered leather pouch attached at the hip to his fitted chartreuse brocaded trousers —“to feign the tousled effects of a stroll along a seaside promenade”—feverishly sprayed the strange faux-salt-air substance, running his tiny hands through my hair.

“But truly,” I said, “Rape of the Lock has always been one of my favorite poems, the mock epic being one of the most intriguing genres, and I’ve always wished I could—”

“Nonsense,” he said, “tilt your head back,” dipping his emerald-ringed index finger into a miniature urn of fig-pear eau de parfum, which he spread liberally all over my neck, unbuttoning my yellow dress to expose my clavicles, shoulders, dripping fig-juice between my breasts as a timpani-rich remix of an early-90’s classic blasted from iridescent speakers designed to blend in with the overall ambience.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked, clutching at his hands, stop, but we were already on the ground, legs splayed between Bliss™ and Urban Decay, and as he struggled to rip off my dress he kicked cosmetics out of their kiosks with his satin buckled pointed-toe shoes, blending brands, travel-size nail polish bottles raining over our heads, a flourish of body glitter pouring from an overturned vat, further powdering his already-saturated wig. I tugged at his curls, pulling him closer as he drew around my nipples, chest, stomach with electric blue liquid eyeliner—hearts, constellations, half-poems. I applied false eyelashes to the corners of his eyes with a minute tube of glue included in the package—“don’t blink,” I said, but before I knew it, he’d slipped off my polka-dotted underpants to get inside me, rubbing his made-up face against my breasts as he pumped.

“I want to ride,” I said, spitting out one of the star-shaped moles that had fallen off his face and into my mouth. I forced him onto his back, maneuvering myself up and down when I noticed a box of brand-new SUPERCLIMAXXX had fallen near my thigh, so I figured what better time to try it, opened the compact, equipped with a well-rendered miniature synthetic-fiber brush, which I rubbed into the pink, spreading it all over his cheeks, “to create the most natural, healthy flush,” I screamed as he pulled my hair. Sweating, he picked up a full-size pony-hair foundation brush, and shoved the long, rounded handle into my mouth. I bit down against the wood, groaning as he resumed his position on top and then proceeded to turn me over, “indeed, from behind,” he said, restraining my wrists. His heavy silk stockings created an almost unpleasant friction against my bare legs.

“I’ve always wanted to know,” I gasped, “how you managed five cantos, from lapdogs to spleens and back, letting tea-kettles walk all the while.”

He pulled out and came all over my back.

Reason Number 12: There is a possibility, however slim, that khakis might look good, when properly paired.

2008-09-29T11:55:00.001-07:00

Also, Baltimora is awesome. There's no better song than Tarzan Boy for:

(a) organizing one's room

(b) trying on khakis that have heretofore sat, limp and lifeless, at the bottom of a crowded closet, alien to the rest of one's wardrobe, a reminder of elementary school and USPS uniforms, not to mention investment bankers.

(d) practicing Spanish with flashcards

(e) writing (sometimes)

Perhaps that is a hyperbole; Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Rachmaninov, Pavement, and Lionel Richie also suffice in some of the above contexts.

I think I have anger management problems. Or maybe I just hate nine out of ten people. Is this hyperbole, too? I honestly don't know.

I inhaled cayenne pepper today for reasons I don't want to get into, and my face is still suffering for it.

Thomas Love Peacock, author of Nightmare Abbey (1817 I think?) and contemporary of Percy B. Shelley (who totally suxxx) is unexpectedly fucking wonderful and has inspired me to read more little known early 19th century novels.

I have a feeling khakis might come back, in a big way. Aside from the fact that they exude an aura of stuffiness and social anxiety and are generally the least flattering pants on the planet. I still want to wear mine with pride, though. And a comfy plaid shirt.

Reason Number 11: Even Marc Jacobs fucks up, big time

2008-09-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

Marc by Marc Jacobs sucks hardcore balls this season. Danny and I were enjoying the glorious and amazing early fall weather we've been lucky enough to have this past week or so by taking a monster walk around the city, presumably trying to locate nameless outdoor markets in Chelsea but often ending up in strange places, like THE MOST ABSURDLY TERRIBLE STARBUCKS IN EXISTENCE (where we waited twenty-five minutes for our drinks because some dickwad wearing earrings that looked like hubcap rims kept forgetting what we ordered, even though we ordered tall lattes, seemingly the simplest drink you can ask for at Starbucks these days, aside from plain old coffee--black) located near Times Square (our first mistake) beneath a dreary overpass, as well as the Marc by Marc Jacobs store on Bleecker Street.

First of all, the store itself was moved. It used to be a spacious men's/women's store that was fairly pleasant to walk around in, but recently (don't know how recently, because it's not often that I find myself in the position to purchase Marc Jacobs clothing) the men's and women's sections were put in separate buildings. The men's store is now ridiculously tiny and difficult to maneuver through because of endless crowds of tourists eating Magnolia cupcakes (which are infinitely inferior to Sugar Sweet Sunshine cupcakes, or the cupcakes they make at Nettie's Cafe, the fantastic coffee shop/bakery that just opened in my neighborhood). Most of the merchandise was placed so high you could hardly see it without being either ridiculously tall (like Danny) or in possession of a step stool. Because the clothing sucks so hardcore this season, though, it was to my benefit that it was so difficult to see and touch.

I very strongly believe that fashion should be unexpected, fun, and not adhere to predetermined dictates. Almost anything (except sarongs, espadrilles, and non-functional hats) can look good if some thought and experimental fervor is put into it: I'm open to jumpsuits, Dansko clogs, electric colors that make your face bleed, velour, pvc, corduroy overalls, even skorts, as long as the finished product is something you look at and think "wow, I never would have thought that would look good, but how brilliant."

But, for some reason I can't quite understand, Marc Jacobs decided it was an excellent idea to emblazon at least a third of his men's collection with PEACE SIGNS. Peace signs. I understand the man recently got out of rehab, but peace signs? Not only does it look hideous on bags, t shirts, and sweaters, but it's also the most derivative thing ever in the guise of being fun and cheeky. It's like his inspiration came from Party City and Spencer's Gifts--he may as well start selling mood rings and yin yang pens with neon pink feathers bursting from the top.

Not to mention everything looked cheap, the fabric felt chintzy--the pants could have been sold at Old Navy. He also included several shearling coats that looked like you could find them in one of those leather merchant stalls in midtown on a Sunday afternoon stroll following Applebeetinis and a hearty meal at Red Lobster.

The only thing worthwhile in the entire (very crammed) store was an awesome leather tote bag--buttery soft, perfect brown, with a laptop compartment on the front that managed to look sleek and not clunky businessman from suburban Atlanta. This bag, I might add, was not part of the Marc by Marc collection but the more high-end Marc Jacobs fall line.

Story time!

2008-09-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

In the hopes that Jason the Grasscutting Teenage Boy might notice me—staring out the kitchen window—when he took a break from his mower, exhaustedly wiping his brow with a paisley rag.

Before he arrived one summer Saturday, I drew a Loreal matte red lipstick dot in the middle of my nose, and whiskers on my cheeks with the cacao dreams Borghese eyebrow pencil Mother received as a gift with purchase at the Macy’s makeup counter, along with a miniature blue pleather backpack I used for phosphorescent dinosaurs and the archaeological misadventures I created from clothespins. “Meow,” I said, taping to a purple headband the ears I’d carefully drawn on the blank underside of the cover of a used-up sketchpad, crayon-coloring the tawny triangles, pink on the inside, cutting them with Mother’s left-handed safety scissors (though I was right-handed). “Hisssss,” I jumped as I pricked my bottom with the safety pin I used to attach my tabby tail.

Headband on, whiskers materialized, I stared into the mirror:
In spite of the hair I had, which was a dull shade of brown, as stringy as hay, and brittle as undercooked pasta, incapable of holding a curl no matter how many hours Mother spent wrapping, re-wrapping the long, limp strands around a small-barrelled iron (“simply the best for curling troublesome hair,” according to Glamour), my hair as a cat was lustrous, wavy, cascading down my back the way a secret waterfall might. My nails were long and pink, and I was lanky and sleek. As a girl, I was smaller than most, with stumpy dimpled hands and legs that remained stocky although at Mother’s insistence I frequently ate powdered chicken noodle soup and pickles for lunch, and when other people’s grandmothers offered me cake at the birthday parties I was rarely invited to, I politely declined in favor of a glass of ice water with a splash of lemon.

RING—the doorbell, a scurry of feet, and I tiptoed to the top of the stairs as mother opened the door to Jason the Grasscutting Teenage Boy. Stealthily, palm-paws sweaty, eyebrow pencil whiskers pricked, I peered around the banister, at Mother, wearing her long, green nightgown that showcased her nipples and a pair of slip-on, square-toed flat shoes with bows on the toes—she made me sit for hours at The Shoe Pavilion while she tried to decide between them and a pair of Sam and Libby slingbacks in beige. I stared at Jason, long blonde-hairy legs, pock-marked face, strange dual-toned voice that made me cringe and glow inside my cat stomach. I watched his mouth move, his chapped lips, which I imagined were framed by minute, sparse hairs, maneuvering around “b-a-c-k-y-a-r-d, m-a-’-a-m,” Mother’s hair-sprayed head bobbing up and down in agreement, yes, yes, the backyard please, door shut, Mother returned to the kitchen, and I attempted descending the stairs on all fours but found it too difficult, so I stood up, a momentary biped, creeping kitchenward, past Father, who lay sprawled among newspapers and empty ice cream bowls on the couch, his head covered by one of the afghans my grandmother knitted for us when her hands still worked.

“I am going,” Mother shouted, wrapping herself in a lightweight teal Talbots cardigan, “to the store for soft drinks, milk, sunscreen, and high-fiber cereal. Father is sleeping. SLEEPING. I’m aware that you like popsicles. Would you like some popsicles?”

I was tempted to say yes; I longed for popsicles, imagining their metallic fruity taste creeping down my throat, the fibrous frozen texture, the sound they made when I split them apart, the stains the grape ones made on my white canvas shoes.

All I could say was “purr.”

“Excuse me?!” said Mother, brandishing her car keys. “Excuse me, but popsicles? I’ll buy popsicles, but just this once.”

“Purr,” I said, but she did not hear me as she left, keys jingling in her hand.

The house was quiet, apart from the clicking of the air conditioner and the hum of the lawn mower outside. I lay on the floor next to Flossie, resident real pet, and she stretched her long cat legs and yawned in the light of the bay window, which provided a perfect view of the backyard and was framed by long, cloth curtains that filled me with a strange kind of dread. Something about the hot air balloon toile pattern made me lonely, the familiar stiff taupe figures waving at the world with vacant cloth-person eyes, reminiscent of the kind of doll that doesn’t come alive with the others when you shut your bedroom door to picnic alone in your Perseverant American Pioneer Lady outfit—complete with calico bonnet and lace breeches, skirts spread over the grass as you eat your heart-shaped marmalade sandwich underneath the knotted cherry tree.

I braced myself against the window, staring at Jason the Grasscutting Teenage Boy as he rounded the backyard, creating strange patterns as he mowed, watched his arm muscles expand as he leaned into the lawn mower, which massacred the small blades of grass. I cracked the window open to smell the fuel intermingled with the fresh, vernal odor of clipped greenery, as reminiscent of summer as puss-filled mosquito bites, Revolutionary War reenactments, encyclopedia-reading, and frog-sounds at night. I stared at the sweat darkening his heather-gray t shirt that probably belonged to his father in the past, and wondered what men smell like when they approach you after a long day of cutting grass and peering into microscopes and driving large automobiles, or planes, and it was probably like firewood, or crushed ladybugs, or aftershave lotion, but softer, saltier, somehow, like unlaundered underpants.

I was imagining that someday when I was older and no longer stumpy we could live in a mushroom-shaped house and fly biplanes over the Kalahari Desert, or maybe own a chocolate factory in the poppy-coated fields of Lichenstein, and he would buy me estate jewelry and I would wear acid pink Dior lipstick and would never have to wait for my mother to decide whether she wanted to go to Aerosoles or J.C. Penney, and I would learn to metalsmith and make him pocket knives and cutlery out of geodes and agates when suddenly, as he neared the sawtoothed oak tree, a swarm of hornets emerged from the ground, overtaking him. Arms flailing, he ran towards the house.

I jumped up. “Dad!” I screamed, “Dad!” running into the living room, pulling the blanket off his head, but he belched and turned over.

I heard a desperate knock at the back porch door, and I opened it, staring straight up at Jason the Grasscutting Teenage Boy, sweat-drenched and covered in welts. I motioned for him to follow me inside, and he sat at the kitchen table in one of the strange anthropomorphic chairs Mother bought during a brief but frantic garage sale phase she went through when I was a toddler. Trembling with bewilderment, I felt my face flush as I scoured the medicine cabinet for some kind of insect bite ointment or salve, cotton balls, bandaids. I heard him groan with pain, and the low sounds his throat made sent a series of confusing shivers down my neck.

“Calamine lotion,” I said, desperately, “is all we have.”

“It’s fine,” he said.

It’s fine it’s fine it’s fine echoing in my head as I edged closer, clutching the lotion and cotton balls tightly, feeling the tiny bottle grow moist with the heat from my hands, and I realized I’d altogether forgotten I was a cat, or supposed to be a cat as I bent down, screwed open the lid, poured the pink powdery fluid onto a clean cotton swab. I wanted so badly to make eye contact, but all I could do as I swabbed the welts on his legs was stare at his Tretorn nylite sneakers, crusted with dirt and motor grease. I wished I had access to those sneakers when his feet weren’t in them, to smell them, push my small hands into the moist, sweaty darkness molded to his insole, to measure my feet against them when no one else was watching, deep inside my closet fort lined with human-sized blue rabbits and long billowy nightgowns.

“Um,” I said, “you can do the rest,” motioning to his arms, neck, face, wondering why I swabbed his legs for him in the first place, and whether he thought poorly of me for doing so, whether he was confused, whether he knew the way I thought about his shoes.

“It’s fine,” he said.

Still kneeling, I looked up, noticing the whiteheads that lined the crevice beneath his nose.

“Your ear,” he said.

I gasped.

“Your ear is broken.” He reached out, pulled the headband out of my hair, and propped up the paper cat ear, which had fallen flat. He smiled and handed it back to me.

Dumbfounded, I clutched the headband as the door opened and Mother entered, her arms full of groceries.

Reason Number 10: No Walk Through Columbia's Gates Anita Baker Can't Fix

2008-09-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated this blog in at least three months, and there are a few reasons for this (none of which have anything to do with not killing yourself, especially):

1. I've been avoiding all things related to word-production in preparation for (avoidance of) the inevitable, looming beginning of graduate school (September 2nd).

2. I've been planning my wedding, geez.

3. I'm bad at commitments (which, fortunately, doesn't apply to aforementioned soon-to-be-husband Ryan C. Daley).

4. Vodka.

Getting your MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University is pretty much everything I anticipated it would be, and then some. Read: reading, EXTREMEXXXX DEADLINEZ, verbosity, people trying to impress other people, not being able to get into a Spanish class because of the Core Curriculum requiring every undergraduate to take a foreign language, and, of course, opportunities galore. Joking aside, being back at school is better than the best pumpkin muffins or warmed Oban with a cinnamon stick--plunk--in a mug with the cutest kitten ever painted on the side, and is pretty much the opposite of genocide set to Fall Out Boy. Even when I feel like I'm going to burst into flames/hide in New Jersey/not be able to read every single book I'm assigned because there are so many books/workshop writing samples I'm assigned to read I'm still ridiculously happy in that stupid, silly, wildflower-twirling-scattering way you are when you've won your first game of Candy Land.

In preparation for classes full of people who are smart smart smart, I like to walk through THE GATES after climbing the six thousand flights of stairs that barricade Columbia from Harlem while listening to the stupidest, worst song possible. Each day I challenge myself to find something more heinously awful than the day before. The first day it was an accident--I was listening to a Taylor Dayne song (***NOT an accident***) and afterwards, "Higher Love" by Steve Winwood shuffled to the forefront of my ipod from the murky backwater encompassed by the Top 100 Hits of every year ever with which my dear friend Jay provided me, and I was like "It's totally awesome that I'm listening to 'Higher Love' by Steve Winwood in a giant crowd of ivy league students heading to their Machievellian Theories of Darwinian Post-Structuralist Proto-Punk seminar." But then it's like, c'mon I can do better than that. Steve Winwood isn't nearly as bad as, say, Anita Baker, who I listen to regularly while walking past places like MoMA.

I spend many days wondering what is as soul-crushingly dull as an Anita Baker classic? Honestly. Except maybe "Pink Cadillac," possibly (maybe definitely) the worst song of all time, in all its forms (and there are many). Oh shit, and Lenny Kravitz. AGDSLKF and Melissa Etheridge! I have a whole two years to walk through the library stacks while vomiting/laughing to "Come to My Window" before settling down to some good, healthy literature.

Reason Number 9: Other People Have Totally Been There, Done That

2008-04-04T08:57:00.001-07:00

A serious post, coming your way!

I was thinking about my friend Amy the other day after being invited to the 2008 Renfrew Reunion (which is way too depressing and weird for me to handle this year), and I realized I need to (need to) write a semi-autobiographical but not really, long-ish story full of humor and hijinx about my time there.

I'm sick of novels/documentaries about eating disorders and how self-indulgent, melodramatic and exploitative they are. Like, look at how secretly, freakishly glamorous this woman is for eating two apples per day, eventually reaching an unprecedented low weight of -45.73 pounds! And then, one day, on the verge of death, BAM, she starts eating again and is now completely better, even thought she's still 20 pounds underweight and on a low-carb diet.

It's the same fucking story every time, and (in my opinion) isn't helpful to anyone reading it. It intrigues non-sufferers and makes those who are suffering covet thinness even more.

What they don't tell you is that your mind wastes away too, your thoughts captivated by unnecessary drivel, starved into submission. It can be a slow, corrosive process that sucks the life out of you in ways you wouldn't imagine. I couldn't write for two years. I could hardly read ten pages without being exhausted. I lost friends, wasted summers.

Agh. And for something so silly. Thankfully, not too silly to make into a story. Or perhaps just silly enough for the best kind of story?

Reason Number 8: Floriduh

2008-03-28T14:51:00.000-07:00

What a great vacation, though I don't think I'll be eating at Chili's again anytime soon. Especially since everyone on their waitstaff is on meth and/or is infected with impetigo.

But whatevz, it's cool. Their fajitas are better than some.

While we were waiting for our flight at Laguardia, some crazy with a kid asked us to watch his bag, which was large and plastic (as in: a jumbo-sized garbage bag) and full of burger king, diapers, and windbreakers. I was so stunned that someone actually had the nerve to ask me the question no one dares ask at an airport because there are instructions against asking this question blaring from the loudspeakers every five seconds that I just nodded and hoped nothing would explode, or that if it did explode, it would be a small explosion, like a roman candle or a bottle rocket, pretty and unobtrusive, killing no one, providing only pleasure, like snacktime and freedom.

Anyways, I just got back and I have the final MFA rundown.

Ins:

Columbia

New School

Montana

Outs:

Iowa

Texas

Washington

Waitlisted:

NYU

I'm pretty okay with everything. In fact, I'm more than okay.

Reason Number 2: Redux Mariah Effing Carey Whut

2008-03-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

As random as this may be for anyone reading this blog who doesn't know me, I've got to say that Mariah Carey's self-titled first album is enough to part the clouds in my overcast horizon any day.
Heart-rending, cataclysmic soul-transcending ballads collide against fast-paced morsels of early 90's girl rap, the phrasing at times indecipherable, at times introspective, all the while interspersed with healthy doses of true wisdom. Re: love really does take time, as any thinking person knows all too well.

I just realized there is no Reason Number 2

2008-03-09T20:28:00.001-07:00

In which case, I don't know what to tell you.

I can think of a few viable substitutes, such as: fur coats, Lanvin's Spring Collection, the possibility of invisibilities, and learning a foreign language. You can always get better at speaking Arabic, or understanding the Earth's Geological Mysteries.

All of the above devoid of a self-harming gesture of any sort. Not even a scratch.

Reason Number 7: Memoirs?

2008-03-09T16:10:00.001-07:00

You know, maybe writing a memoir isn't such a bad idea after all. Only if it contains a colon followed by a qualifier (A Memoir being the the most poignant, and My Story being a close second) and is called something like: "Gathering Moss: A Memoir" or "Flailing Sycamores: A True Story of Grave Loss." "Magic Johnson: My Life" isn't so bad either. I mean, being 24 and not a professional athlete with a t-cell-obliterating virus, I feel like I don't have as much license to do such a thing as, say, a 50-year-old HImalayan sexual predator or an aging ex-model with a busted septum, inferior bone density, and a broken heart. I have some skeletons in the closet, I suppose (HA! No pun intended), so it's possible I could totally probably make it work, or at least embellish it to my liking. Literary lies=okay by me! A bad, fake memoir is still better than lots of things, like: The Tyra Banks Show, 311, and Urban Outfitters.

I really am kidding, though. I think for now I'll stick with hedgehog rape and Mall Sex. Until I become a drug trafficker for LA-based gangs and/or go to rehab (again).

Flossie killed the mouse we thought was a rat yesterday. RCD gave her a delicious fish-tasting treat for her kill, and she savored every delectable morsel of blood, sea, and victory.

So that's another thing to be thankful for. Actually, two things: (1) my cat, although developmentally disabled, can still kill things like a normal cat, and (2) as far as I know, the rat problem is of no import anymore. Hooray!

In other news, after fifteen years of hating bacon, I like it again. Quite a lot, actually.

Reason Number 6: A rat infestation is better than a snake infestation (or AIDS!)

2008-03-06T19:47:00.001-08:00

I hope we have a panther infestation on the day I get my Columbia rejection letter! That'll put things into perspective.

Whatevz, I eat rats like you for breakfast! With Irish oatmeal and clover honey!

Reason Number 5: Not Having To Move To Iowa

2008-03-06T13:55:00.001-08:00

I got my first rejection letter! From the Iowa Writer's Workshop. I would say I'm devastated, but at least I don't have to deal with snow-covered cornfields, friendly Midwestern folk, or back pocket-less Bongo jeans for the next two years. Because, you know, that's exactly what it would be like.

I like how rejection letters always insist on how much talent you have, how the admissions staff LOOOOVED reading your manuscript, but how there were just so many applicants, and they can only choose X of them. When what they should be saying is:

"Your writing is just not to our taste, and there were so many more commercially viable candidates in your place, some of whom have affiliations with our alumni, and it was really hard to choose between a heartrending story about overcoming cancer written by an ex-con paratrooper whose older brother is Dave Eggers and the hilarious rehab novella written by an orphan from Taipei who doesn't know any of our faculty but who is Flannery O'Connor's great-great-transgendered grandchild. We're sorry. Try again next year!!!"

I'm going to go stick my head in a toilet full of whiskey and blood. <3

Reason Number 4: Really, really bad jokes

2008-03-06T08:23:00.000-08:00

And not even like "What's the hardest thing about Rollerblading?

Two nights ago, taking a break from reading my Medieval Bestiary (which is the best book ever, and I will discuss it at length in my next post), I decided to google "bad jokes." After a really hard day of contemplation and being on hold while calling Spirit Airlines and realizing you can't speak Spanish anymore and rejection letter fears and mean stares from girls on the subway who hate the knee-high lace-up boots you bought at Camper last fall (just because they look like they're hard to take off at night, which is downright st00pid because they zip up the side), all you really need are some racist, misogynistic, lawyer child molester priest jokes to make everything disappear, to make you feel like those girls on the subway were actually talking about how hot you look in your boots, and how you're the best writer/seamstress/singer-songwriter/Blue Man Group member in the world, etc.

While seeking bad jokes and concocting a turkey sausage/farfalle pasta combination, I came across this website, which is about as funny as Ray Romano's gallbladder. I have no idea who made up this site, but they are obviously very bad at speaking English.

Here's an example of one of the "political jokes" on the site:

-Why do govern personnel from the minister have no right to look through the windows in the morning?

-Because they will have nothing else to do in the evening!

Here's one called "Intimate Place":

A couple goes to an intimate place. She says to him:

"Do you want me do take my panties off or to spit out my gum?"

Reason Number 3: Strawberry Rhubard Jam On Sale For 75 Cents at Marshalls in Harlem

2008-03-04T16:37:00.000-08:00

Yes, the title is so true I could kill a kitten. And by kill a kitten I mean love kittens, because who wouldn't, except of course for the most abhorrent kitten haters on the planet.

I went to Harlem last night to (a) visit a dear friend and (b) make tuna salad (without mayonnaise, obviously) and decided to adventure to the Marshall's on 125th Street before settling down for fish and greenery. Unlike Target and The Supermarket, Marshall's is usually a poorly-lit cesspool of last season's fleece-lined boots and mysterious, half-empty shampoo bottles. But this time, to my surprise, I came across wonderful things: strange sculptures of gospel choirs and Easter bonnets and enormous bejeweled jester heads to hang on your door (c-r-e-e-p-y), in addition to intriguing jams on sale for less than a dollar! You can't even find erasers at the motherfucking DOLLAR STORE for under a dollar.

It was totally worth every beleaguered, end-of-the-long-day foot drag along the dull linoleum floor.

DANCE DANCE HIBERNATION

2008-03-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

Other seventh grade girls were squirrels, but in spite of prenatal gel caps and acorn pancakes I could never grow a tail. I gnawed the edges of magazines decrying fashion's turn toward feral, prodded my nipples and wished there were more. I stared from the ground, offering sodden sandwiches, cups of birdseed they ignored to leap sycamores and pluck glow-in-the-dark fleas from furry undersides, smoking pinecones, braiding. Avoiding shaving, I sought oversize mohair sweaters, to hide my opposable thumbs. I chased them from the mall to the playground, set out pink lipstick tubes and audiocassettes and sequined training bras, twizzlers, tampons, high-heeled shoes, painted nails, waiting--desperate--as they sneered at my smooth legs and gigantic brain.

Self-Mutitillation or: Reason Numero Uno, and yes I just said Numero Uno

2008-02-18T19:53:00.000-08:00

After visiting the Cloisters for the second time (taking phone pictures of sinister-looking saints and primitive unicorn faces), I found a ridiculously awesome compendium of Medieval Beasts in the bookstore. I'm pretty sure if I don't buy it on amazon.com, something horrible will happen to me. Like: I won't learn nearly enough about Medieval beasts.

I also decided to start a blog about the following things:
-WRITINGS of all kinds (mine)
-books I've read (love! hate! ambivalence!)
-gasp-worthy observations, possibly involving the most important matters: Whitney Houston, The Boer War, and/or Express for Men (no thanks!)
-how much I dislike blogs, my dislike being a manifestation of fear or otherwise (there are, of course, blogs I enjoy wholeheartedly, and I may discuss these at length another time)
-families (yuck! and by yuck I mean infesting restaurants nationwide!)
-learning to polish my nails without getting polish all over my fingers (perhaps the most difficult task of all)
-eating disorders (fashion!)
-food porn (recipes!)
-learning new things, which I've heard is always a good thing
-Bill O'Reilly's new cookbook!

All of this while shunning anything even remotely hinting at politics at all possible costs. Not because I don't care, but because others can and will do it better. And more power to them!

Sometimes, pictures will happen.

Sometimes, tears.

So many reasons. So many I could punch my fists through a wall and make a sandwich!