DO YOU LOVE ME!?! DO YOU???
Archive for February, 2012
The Visual Equivalent of How I Feel Today
February 8, 2012You Understand Me, Right?
February 7, 2012You probably know what my “wheelhouse” is by now (thanks, beloved boyfriend, for the term.) It includes (but is not limited to) the following: abandoned buildings, hasidic Jews, anything French, obscure or debatable mental illnesses, A&E’s Monday night schadenfraude line-up, little blond female icons in literature who remind me of myself, very small communities (particularly islands), playful works of art, hotel bars, Harold Pinter, black cats, “hotlines,” people who have committed suicide (subcategory: DFW) and impossibly short poems.
A marriage of two loves, then: a very, very short poem found on the blog of Daul Kim, a model who committed suicide at age 20 three years ago and whose blog, I Like to Fork Myself, of course outlives her:
say hi to friday night
we didnt acheive
anything
on friday night.
Neither did I, Daul. Neither did I.
RIP.
Flaneurette
February 7, 2012I just read a very interesting article on the never-quite-risen “cyber flaneur” and the death of wandering through the Internet at the hands of everyone’s favorite scapegoat, Facebook. (I say that without rancor –– I loathe Facebook, and realize that now I sound like a bandwagon hater/bleeding heart Luddite, the latter of which I am, the former I am most certainly not.) I don’t even want to share the article with you because the writer does his job so well that I feel guilty even about recommending anything to anyone, virtually or otherwise, but I will point to the adorability of the fact that, “there were reports of flâneurs taking turtles for a walk.” Can you imagine, Andre Breton walking little Skipperdee?
Do I deign to call myself a cyber-flaneur?
One thing the writer sort of fails to mention, though, is that unfortunately, a lot of the flaneuristic (neologism alert) works that came out of the surrealists (and various fringe groups) were just pretty bad. They lacked the same thing that Facebook and Twitter do now: a narrative arc. God grant me a plotline!
Feeling Cracked, but Obviously Things Could Be Worse!
February 6, 2012I took a 6:30 AM bus from DC this morning and still feel a little out of it despite the fact that I got more sleep than I would have if I had taken the bus last night. My skin also feels dry as… I was going to make a really tasteless joke about Madonna here, but I’ll pass. Anyway, as you can tell, I’m not really up to this whole WORDS thing, so I will instead excerpt from this pretty amazing article about Courtney Love posted on TheFix.com. There are many gems in here, but this sentence, bolded, is perhaps the most outrageous:
How she deals with her cravings and addiction:
“I go to twelve-step meetings from time to time, though I have to be careful when I’m selecting meetings. My interest in Buddhism and chanting helps as well. I just hired a Tibetan woman whose entire job is to help me chant. And there are people out there like Tony Robbins [the popular self-help author, life coach and motivational speaker] who I rely on and who get me centered and stable. I don’t think there’s just one right way out of this. I try everything I can.”
Lord help that poor little Tibetan lady.
New Category Alert!
February 4, 2012There is now a category called “Buy Me This!”
This category will keep a record of things that I like so that when I develop a freakishly devoted fan base a la 30 Seconds to Mars (who knew?!) they will shower me with expensive and ridiculous gifts, such as these $1600 shoes, which I will wear when I feel like rendering annoying men impotent.
Youch!
Not My Market
February 3, 2012I get a newsletter written by a perpetually cheerful (euphemism) North Carolina woman named Hope Clark called “Funds for Writers.” It’s a pretty good newsletter, actually, but sometimes I wonder, who has money to pay for stuff like this?
BIRDS AND BLOOM BACKYARD BLUNDER CONTEST
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NO ENTRY FEE
Do you have a funny birding or gardening story to share from your backyard? We want to hear it! Send us your best “backyard blunder,” and the winning story will receive $500. To enter, email your true story (no more than 400 words) to contests@birdsandblooms.com. Please put “backyard blunder contest” in the subject line. Deadline March 15, 2012.
––
Alas, I have no backyard blunder stories… or maybe I do, but they certainly don’t involve birds or gardening.
Shhhhhhh
February 3, 2012Is Mercury in retrograde?
I feel strange, and unproductive. Not sad, exactly, but anxious about letting go. My day is over, though –– no hope for finishing one last manuscript tonight –– so I’m attempting to sooth myself to sleep by thinking of things simple and beautiful to me right now: Bemelman’s Bar, pajama t-shirts, Shlomo Carlebach whistling, the ocean (the Surf Hotel on Block Island!), blissfully long airplane rides, the sound of typing, Vladimir Nabokov, e.g.:
“Her painted eyelids were closed. A tear of no particular meaning gemmed in the hard top of her cheek. Nobody could tell what went on in that little head. Waves of desire rippled there, a recent lover fell back into a swoon, hygienic doubts were raised and dismissed, contempt for everyone but herself advertised with a flush of warmth its constant presence, here it is, cried what’s her name squatting quickly. My darling, dushka moya…”
The smell of straight vanilla extract, listening to children speak French, bouquets of hydrangeas, worry dolls, hot whiskey drinks, and Shel Silverstein’s picture of love.
It was love at first sight for Belinda and Benjamin Box.
Remind me to tell you tomorrow what my new dream job is.
Goodnight…
Staging an Intervention for Someone I Don’t Know
February 2, 2012RG: oh btw
i got this message from someone today on that website last.fm (music website)
“Hey…
I’m not totally sure why I’m writing you. We talked a couple times at x College years ago. I knew J at the time, visited people there. We talked about languages I think. I was really struck by you, maybe. I think you gave me your email because I remember your screen name… but I’m not sure if I emailed you or, I don’t know. Anyway, I thought I’d try to contact you again. I’m still using the same email address, at least for now. My life is actually really terrible right now, so its probably a bad time to write you but… I followed my dreams and my ideals and that really didn’t work out, so far. But I did remember you. Yeah, write me if you like, hope things are well.
P”
9:55 PM
ID: what!??!
RG: yeah
ID: do you remember this person?
RG: not at all
ID: i can’t believe he said his life is terrible right now
RG: I KNOW
what do i even say to that?
i followed my dreams and ideals
haha
i dont mean to laugh
it’s kind of a cry for help
ID: “AND IT DIDN’T WORK OUT”
i’m a little worried about him
way to be defeated
you’re what, like, 26?
you’ve got mad time
if everyone who was kind of a failure at 26 gave up
… we’d be pretty fucked
RG: right
ID: everyone i know is a failure
and you can quote me on that
This is About Me
February 1, 2012I have my writing group tonight, and we have decided, as we are very intelligent and efficient ladies, to make every other meeting of ours a WORKING DATE, meaning we have to sit and write away and try not to distract each other too much. Sadly, all my current projects (or most, anyway) require a mastery of my own snark, and I happen to feel very melancholy/feverish/low energy right now. What to do? Must look way back on the docket for something unfinished –– perhaps the story of the child piano prodigy who goes insane while trying to learn John Cage’s “4’33”?
I do so much want this sheet music framed.
Yes, this feels right. I can do this while listening to Helen Grimaud, and thinking about her strange love of wolves, picturing her as Isabelle Huppert in The Piano Teacher (eek!) This will all work, right?
But first, a short screening of “What to Eat, How to Get It,” from the archives of Soto Presentando.
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