January 2012
1 post
What Is Your Broccoli Telling You?
If food could talk, would it want to be eaten? Perhaps yes, to fulfill a purpose or avoid rotting. Or… would it sink its heels into the ground and toss and turn and have an existential crisis about the inevitable CHOMP?!
September 2011
2 posts
“Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that. Only a fool would regret being had...”
– Patti Smith, Just Kids
Post Grad Account
It was the summer when the main topic of conversation consisted of east and west. I, wanting east, S wanting west. Naturally, weather and crowds and space and public transportation made for good if not tired debates. To S, the allure of Los Angeles is captured in a snapshot somewhere near the California incline. To me, New York is Zizek’s retelling of Achilles and the tortoise? Maybe. A...
March 2011
2 posts
Commonplace
Though it really isn’t, at least not in Boston. Here, you understand the correlation between happiness and sunshine. I would offer: grey is a blanket, tucking even the heads and mouths of the entire city away under its color-mood. Sunshine showers (individually) in streaked spotlight, singling you out. It’s a recognition, filling you with a sense of worth and a personalized...
February 2011
1 post
An Annoyance That May Never Disappear As Long As...
Neighbors.
November 2010
3 posts
Handling
I.
A couple walks down a main street of the campus, holding hands in such a way that makes me feel like I shouldn’t be looking. I look. In fact, without my glasses, I almost bump into them before dashing across the street in a grand gesture of nonchalance. Like flying too close to a celebrity: what are you doing in plain view? Get behind a lens/The sun is a star.
I didn’t recognize...
How To Be A Good Person: A Few Simple Tips
Wash your hair. Not every day because the natural oils need to set in. Don’t condition too much (I’ve heard the “pads of the fingers” method, puppy wash). Get haircuts often. Split ends are no good, and neither is splitting them. Don’t dye your hair. Use a comb when it’s wet and a brush when it’s dry. Straighten it. Curl it. Relax it. Perm it. Get a...
September 2010
2 posts
Final
The problem with beginnings is that they make you think of endings. Is this true with other things? Does black mean white? Perhaps the ending is the equal and opposite reaction to a beginning, or, more obviously, it is just the inevitable. Like how they say the second you’re born is the second you start to die.
I’d like to enjoy my beginning without thinking about my ending, but...
Sometimes When I Make My Bed I Think
I’m too old for this.
(it’s mostly the leaning and tucking)
July 2010
10 posts
“Getting bored is not allowed. Sometimes I comb my hair with a fork.”
– Eloise
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Horn Players
1983
Basquiat has always been one of my favorite artists, but doubly so after seeing Tamra Davis’ Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child. If you have a chance to see it, go go go!
Coincidentally, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker’s Salt Peanuts is my newest most played song— with apologies to Sara. But you can listen to it even if ya...
Three Thoughts On My Mind
1. Boys Uniqlo Clothing >x3 Girls Uniqlo Clothing
2. Williamsburg may be cool and all that, but walking by those warehouses alone at night still makes me feel like I’m going to be sold into a prostitution ring. Or worse… see a rat.
3. Though economically sound, I have not yet bought another 12 inch sandwich from Subway (to eat 6 inches today and 6 inches tomorrow) for fear of...
He Looked At Her with Those Smoky Eyes and She…
In books, main characters seem to do a lot of shuddering. This seems unrealistic to me. When was the last time you shuddered? I don’t think I’ve shuddered a day in my life, except maybe for emphasis in 5th grade during recess when our science teacher would have us watch her feed live mice to the classroom snake.
Bryant Park Account
On a gray summer night in New York City a group of loud tye-dyed shirt wearers circle around an inflatable cactus. They have hula hoops in the back. Our dinner was all carbs, and I am craving garbanzo beans (or am I craving chick peas? I can never tell). The subway ride home is heavy, but at least I stopped calling it the metro.
Names Popular in Commercial Literature July, 2010
Tabitha, Astrid, Aria, Lily, Cheyenne, Tegan, Evan, Peter, Paul, Patrick, Byron
Plaguing Thought
When you say “thank you” to a compliment concerning something you are wearing, what exactly are you taking credit for?
“I already know an awful lot of people, and until one of them dies I...”
– Audrey Hepburn & Cary Grant
Charade
June 2010
13 posts
Whatchya Doing?
Without a doubt, technology’s most entertaining side effect is the life-narration… or when cell phone talkers verbalize exactly what it is they are doing at that very moment thus providing their lives with otherwise unnecessary and overindulgent narration.
“I’m ordering a gelato right now”/”Right now, I am in J. Crew looking at a cardigan and debating whether...
Pieces of Advice I Picked Up on the Playground
1. To be safe, wear bike shorts under short dresses… especially if you plan on playing sports with boys (still do!).
2. To spell TOMORROW, think of a boy named Tom who rows (good to know!).
3. To save time, brush your teeth in the shower (more for the morning showerer, and I prefer nighttime showering specifically for time-related reasons).
New York City by Los Angeles
I can see New Jersey from my table. More specifically, I can see the W hotel in New Jersey. I am sitting in one state, identifying buildings in another. Where did you say you commute from again? Conneticut?
New York City is Seinfeld and Sex and the City but mostly not. I would say Los Angeles is television, and New York is music. Music vibrating out of the city’s every orifice and sometimes...
“I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the...”
– Claes Oldenburg, I Am For An Art…
1961
14 Thoughts I Had While Licking Envelopes
1. I can’t remember the last time I licked an envelope… do they always taste this bad? I think this one is unusually bad.
2. Not-so-lucky recipient Besty Maas is going to slide her finger between my dried saliva. I apologize, Besty.
3. One time my grandparents bought me stationery that I took with me to sleep away camp. I liked writing letters home because those envelopes tasted...
Yesterday Account
So I am here is this room and I keep having thoughts about how I shouldn’t be so cavalier about the world and things and maybe New Yorkers are just jaded but I also think there’s something to it. Do you think you are having fun? Do you know when you’re having fun? Or is it just a label you put on things later. Maybe what’s fun now was really dangerous when it happened. Or...
Home on a Summer Night
It’s the grey that stiffens into the evening air that gets you, or more specifically its static nature within the walls of a house. Molecules don’t dart. They wallow with lethargy, not humidity, and they demand to be pushed around in order to move. Anxiety seems to clog up a throat from the bottom up. Take out and ice cubes. The bathroom is a mess, and don’t get me started on the...
The Stripes Caught My Attention
A Sam Edelman billboard over the Sunset strip shows a girl with a pair of shoes on (and nothing else) and the words SAM EDELMAN slathered in grey cursive across the side.
As a Los Angeles native, I know the basic idea of billboard advertising is to say a lot with a little so that information can be processed quickly and effectively. But really, the man designs shoes for a living— by the...
Mourning in the Morning
Today I went to a funeral.
It was my first funeral. Mom said I didn’t need to wear black, but I’m glad I did. The other popular choice seemed to be dark purple. Later I saw a man in a bright yellow shirt with a dark suit over it, and one in an orange Hawaiian shirt, sans jacket. They looked like they had been rushed off the golf course— maybe they heard the news late. Or maybe...
May 2010
4 posts
Why is it that
a dog is man’s best friend but boy’s worst enemy?
Examples:
The Sandlot
Stand By Me
“The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological...”
– Yann Martel, Life of Pi
Newsworthy! →
April 2010
16 posts
Yes... And???
In the context of online conversations or social networking sites, minor grammatical errors and typos don’t bother me that much. But this guy is an ELLIPSES OVERUSER. I can’t stand his kind. They are always getting distracted, randomly trailing off, or withholding surprises.
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to...”
– Jack Kerouac, On the Road
White vs Red Classifies:
1. Meat
2. Wine
3. Price Tags (Regular vs Sale)
4. Queens
5. Nicole Kidman’s Hair
Abe & Me
When I was in preschool, I had a best friend with a big upstairs hallway in her house. At night, we would turn off all the lights, have her older brother (good arm) throw a penny down said hallway, and then get on our hands and knees hoping to be the first to find it. Surprise tickle attacks and rugburn were constant risks, but I remember those games as the highlight of the sleepover.
I would...
What does a cow like to sing in the shower?...
Checking out a new band called KITTY DAISY & LEWIS. As Pilar says about them, “¡que guay!”
Smiling At Me
Isn’t it nice the sky is blue? Blue is such a nice color for the sky to be. Imagine if the backdrop to soccer games and vacation photos was yellow or burgundy or forest green!
What I Want: Sun and Tan Legs
Yesterday was one of those days when the rain clouds are so thick and heavy and close that I found myself fighting the urge to reach up and pop one with a silver sewing needle. Back in Barcelona, their break was more like the crack of an egg (appropriate for Easter Sunday?), firing ice pellets in aggressively straight projections for about seven minutes. Finally all was emptied, and the skies went...
Bragging Complaint
People like to use the phrase “no easy feat,” but you never hear anyone say that something was an “easy feat.” This is perhaps because feats, by definition, are always hard, and thus “no easy feat” is a bit redundant while “easy feat” is just an oxymoron.
Unless you’re talking about “easy feet,” which I think are probably sluts for...
Business Venture
Europe has a lot of easy bike rental services, but what I want to rent is a dog! At least from the late night to the morning so I can walk home feeling safe and also wake up to slobbery kisses and a furry hug or two.
Thyssen
I wonder what people are thinking as they walk through museums. “I bet half of them aren’t even really looking,” says E. I like hearing moms explain paintings to little kids, and I’m pretty certain they only bring them along for this purpose. It’s a slowing down, an appreciation you find because they can’t.
People use museums as an excuse to hold hands or...