December 2009
43 posts
“Just once in my life - oh, when have I ever wanted anything just once in my...”
– “Memoir” by Amy Hempel
cologne hypothesis
An Abercrombie store’s defining traits are as follows:
the interior is usually darkened to the point of not being able to discern the exact color of a tank top
technofied versions of top-40 hits (even top-40 hits that are already techno) are blasting at a volume that doesn’t allow for conversation - lots of “ISN’T THIS SWEATER SO CUTE??!?” being yelled from person...
beep
There was a guy, mid-20s, nicely-executed buzz cut and camouflage coat, standing in front of me in the express checkout line. He put the following on the conveyor belt: Silk milk (regular flavor), Tropicana orange juice, some strange brand of all-natural peanut butter, pretzels, Hannaford brand seltzer, and a single apple, banana, and grapefruit. I don’t know why this Army dude’s...
your birthday indicates you are a scorpio
I just saw a Facebook ad with a headline that said “Hello 20-year-old female car driver!” My goodness, they’re getting specific.
lift them amps
The ride back from NY was all kinds of ridiculous. My head was realll congested-like, nose be runnin’…rough going in the backseat of a Honda Odyssey. For some reason my father was playing what seemed like Jackson Browne’s ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY. Normally I think he’s okay. For some reason though, tonight it was painful. The live version of “The Load Out/Stay”? ...
une calculatrice
There are some events which one must attend, and places where one must travel that aren’t unpleasant enough to merit total annoyance but still invoke feelings of meh when mentioned. One great way to combat this mehness is to force oneself into such a state of physical exhaustion that the meh does not physically or emotionally register. More simply put: stay up overly late the night before...
Is It Christmas? →
w8 i has question
Say you saw a friend that you hadn’t seen in a while, just ran into them getting coffee or at a large appliance store or something, and when you ask them what they’ve been up to, they say either
“I’ve been working on a novel”
or
“I’ve been working on a novella”
Which is more grating to the ears? Does size (of book project) really matter?
tumblr, vicodin edition
I got one pitiful little wisdom tooth out. Now one of my cheeks is swollen. I am asymmetrical. I look like half of Marlon Brando in the Godfather.
…you come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married…uh
Taking a shower after taking painkillers is a great idea. It’s so pleasant. Anesthesia is pleasant as well. I guess I was under the impression that when you get...
this is what happened when i googled "hipster...
fash-un, part dos
…and the rest.
2006: A tie-dyed t-shirt that says “Hug Me” on the front and “I’m Sixteen” on the back. ‘Twas a gift given at my surprise birthday party. I was very surprised! Truly. I remember a Funfetti cake and watching, I don’t know, West Side Story. I still wear the shirt even though I’m twenty now. I haven’t really...
fash-un, part one
In honor of the new decade that is a rumblin’ towards us, I am going to talk about ten items of clothing from the past ten years of my short, silly life. Ned Hepburn went pretty in-depth on his, but I will keep it brief like underwear. Here’s the first five…
2000: A turquoise velour turtleneck from Gap Kids. My three sisters also received the same sweater in different jewel...
oh i also enjoy j.d. salinger
My dinner last night was that of a ten-year-old boy’s in 1953: a corn dog, a bowl of Rice Chex, and a glass of 2% milk.
slobbery
I was in Uncommon Grounds today, trying to study using Wikipedia en français and drinking a hot apple cider. Sadly one of the tattooed-forearm employees forgot to ask me if I wanted a cinnamon stick, and of course I was too shy to ask, so I’m cinnamon stick-less. And here I am, reading some French baloney, and I see that the college-aged lad and lady sitting at the table next to me are...
oh boyzies
I am studying for my Fiction final
and the second half of the semester relied pretty heavily on, ah, American fiction
and American writers really did enjoy drinking a lot
like, we read, like, a Flannery O’Connor story, and when Flannery O’Connor wrote, she would mix sherry and hot tea and have it next to her typewriter
THUS to study for this final i am drinking a whiskey sour in a...
turn that _____ upside _____
This is getting a leetle ridiculous. This campus is SO GRIM. Everyone is wearing dark coats and wincing or frowning as they walk. NO ONE is smiling. People GLARE at you if you start smiling. This is what I imagine happens at a party full of celebrities and Armenian supermodels: the famous people wish they were as attractively gaunt as the models, the models wish they were famous enough to not...
terrorist bananas
On March 14, 2007, Chiquita Brands was fined $25 million as part of a settlement with the United States Justice Department for having ties to Colombian paramilitary groups. According to court documents, between 1997 and 2004, officers of a Chiquita subsidiary paid approximately $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the AUC, in exchange for local, employee protection in...
imagine if this happened
A pair of cops bust into a young man’s apartment. They catch him unaware; he is watching The View and mindlessly eating a large bag of Fritos. The cops sneak up on him, handcuff him, and start yelling.
“Alfred P. Gungmeier, you are under arrest for the murder of an old lady in a supermarket.”
One of the cops starts to read him his Miranda rights. Alfred looks incredibly...
sunday times: simile edition
I slept until 2. This meant I saw maybe 1.5 hours of daylight. The feeling was sort of like going to a movie in the afternoon and leaving the theater to find the sun has gone down; I was zonked. At 4:30 I left for the library to salvage some of the day’s productivity. The weather had switched from snow to a dribbly freezing rain, and the sky was a sickly shade of chewable Tylenol purple....
this would be a great topic for a scholarly...
I think Beyoncé is living proof that the longer you repeat or practice a motion (flipping an omelette, folding a paper crane, playing “Für Elise” on piano) the better at it you will be, until muscle memory completely takes over and the motion becomes hard-wired into your body.
Beyoncé’s repeated motion is the booty shake - ass shimmy, butt jiggle, what have you - and I...
a pony. three ponies.
Do you think bloggers might abuse their blogginess by posting about what they want for Christmas so people won’t get them things they don’t want? Is this “ethical”? Are there even “ethics” relating to blogs and/or Christmas presents?
Well, besides the fact that you should never go looking for where they are hidden. And if you already know? Don’t open...
i'm a hustler, homie/homey/homé
I’m trying this great new thing called MICROMANAGING. It should generally be written in all caps. My friend introduced me to it. It means you write down what you are going to do at EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY. And that way your duties get did. Shit gets DONE. With MICROMANAGING. Here is the next part of my MICROMANAGED day
Turn off crazy techno music.
Put lotion on hands (they are dry)
...
snowformz
snow is fantastic when it is in the shape of a
cave, tunnel, quaint cottage
chair, table, beer pong table
large cube, large rectangular prism, large penis
ball, whizzing toward yo’ head, sucka
an entirely new breed of technology
We left the coffee shop a little before 8:00 and there was a woman across the street, in front of Borders, singing into a microphone to a track played on a keyboard attached to a shopping cart. The sound was amplified in some clever way that allowed you to hear her all the way down the street. Her singing was fine, and the songs were warbled ballads over those karaoke-style keyboards. She wore...
ring-ting-ting-a-ling
Gosh, finding the holiday radio station on the dial is such a treat. They do play some genuine crap (some easy-listening woman singing a song called “It Must Have Been the Mistletoe”??) but 85% is fully decent. Right now the original Anderson version of “Sleigh Ride” is on.
Speaking of which, when I was in our high school band sophomore year, we played a very ragged,...
the depressed person
David Foster Wallace said he writes fictions about “what it is to be a fucking human being”; thus I will write fictions about
“what it is to be a fucking android”
“what it is to be a goddamned English Springer Spaniel”
“what it is to be a bloomin’ onion”
"say it. say 'fuck' - c'mon, say it!"
When I turned 13, I anticipated the immediate onset of teenage angst. This was ridiculous. I guess I thought, Hey, any day now I’m going to start rolling my eyes and slamming doors and saying WHATEVER and stuff. Of course this happened eventually, but not on my birthday. 13 was, however, the age when I started trying to curse profusely in an attempt to be badass. I also thought that...
“I have a medium coffee and a ham & swiss sandwich on whole wheat. I am...”
the magazine about shopping
Lucky magazine launched in 2000 when I was ten years old. Before then, I didn’t know about the concept of creating a magazine; I assumed People and InStyle and naughty, naughty Cosmopolitan had all existed pretty much for all time, and that there were a set number of monthly publications with no room for new additions. Lucky was fascinating. The makeup in the beauty section looked fun to...
right now
There’s an old-school ’30s (?) ditty on the radio right now and its chorus goes like this: “You can’t scare me/I’m stickin’ to the union/I’m stickin’ to the union/’til the day I die”
This leftover pork fried rice is great, but it’d be even greater if there were no peas in it.
I wonder what would happen if I started writing the...
penultimate
I just bought a new pen and got unreasonably excited. Getting all googly-eyed over office supplies is not new; the big trip to Staples before the start of the school year has a Mecca-like appeal, with the gigantic warehouse full of swiveling office chairs and children asking their parents if they can upgrade to the 96-box of Crayolas.
The pen aisle is the best of them all. Variety in anything...
dreaming of a white...pretzel
Malls during the holidays are the SHIT. Seriously. Between the snowflake decorations at Auntie Anne’s and the sexy Santa negligees, brains are ‘bout to explode with Christmas cheer all over the place. Oh, and Michael Bublé? Don’t get me started on Michael Bublé. He’s a keeper.
I passed one of those mall craft kiosk thingys on my way out, and a guy was displaying his...
pensons
What are some cures for mediocre moods? Not bad moods. Those are easy. Usually if you combine chocolate with terrible television, and you indulge in both of these wonders in the comfort of your bed, you are golden. Bad mood cured.
But mediocre moods? When you feel kind of…meh. And squiggly. And itchy. Like a five-year-old on a long car ride. Like an old lady in the salad bar...