KS: I was at an after party last night with Christian from Clueless. He spoke to me. Still unclear if he’s gay or straight even in real life! I died.
ID: I love it when life imitates art.
Archive for January, 2016
Celebrity Spottings
January 31, 2016Intern Life
January 23, 2016A few months ago (or so) I went to the Cosmopolitan Magazine ULTIMATE WOMEN Awards, which I just love to say because it’s hilarious to be called an ULTIMATE WOMAN. Anyway, long story short, I was enjoying my free Bailey’s cocktails when I noticed a young hipster crouching down behind the table next to me frantically Tweeting fluff with the appropriate hashtag attached (wording?) and I thought, “Man, it’s good to not be an intern anymore.”
Distraction
January 20, 2016I have a few big pieces I have to really stay focused on, which means I can’t write smaller things––except for that piece about learning to walk a tight-wire I’m trying to finish but nobody seems to want to publish, which is nuts––but if I did have time, I would write about this chick Rebecca, who vlogs about her trichotillomania.* This video, which shows her shaving her head, went mini-viral a few weeks back.
One thing that’s been gnawing at me since I fell into Rebecca’s TrichJournal clickhole is: if one’s emotional state while pulling is anxious––i.e. the impulse is, like for many OCD and self-harm sufferers, to relieve indiscriminate anxiety via a concrete action/visceral sensation––then post-shaving, does the anxiety remain, or dissipate? I see in the comments that the urge to pull is transferred to other hair––eyelashes, pubic, etc.––although that might be only for some sufferers. If the anxiety remains, then generally, is treatment geared toward anxiety sufferers (medication, meditation, CBT, that kind of stuff) the standard option for those with trich? Is it shown to be effective? I guess what I’m trying to understand here is if trich resembles in its pathology a generalized anxiety disorder that becomes, through reinforcement, focused on cilium, or if the neurological origin of the obsession is more enigmatic, i.e. a fetish or Morgellons Disease? (“Disease.” I have no dog in that fight, just acknowledging that there are many beliefs about it.)
*Yes, I do realize how often I talk about how I don’t have time for small pieces anymore because I’m working on big pieces, and yet how rarely my whining seems to correspond with actual working-on-big-pieces.
Gut Shabbos!
January 15, 2016Is it just me or do my challah strands have a bit of a Louise Bourgeois flaccid penis thing going on?
THE FIRST STEP IS ADMITTING YOU HAVE A PROBLEM
January 13, 2016I have found Petite Meller’s publicist’s email, and am thinking of writing him to ask if he could let me know when her album comes out so I can write a profile piece on her I plan to title “Weird for the Jews.” Because apparently her real name is Sivan, and she spent much of her teen years in Tel Aviv, although she likes to play up the French aspect of her persona (in the very Greek sense of the word) and basically ignore the Jewish part. Self-hating? Another connection to Freud? WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO ME?
I would just bypass the publicist and sign up for her mailing list, but that would mean being part of her self-titled “little empire” (echoes of Lady Gaga here?) Maybe for the profile, she and I can go hat-shopping together in London and she can tell me whether her hair at the end of the video for Barbaric was supposed to resemble payot or if that was just coincidental?
Manic Monday
January 11, 2016One time, a friend of mine told me he liked my blog because it was a throwback to those days when people just “wrote about anything they felt like” on their sites. I guess now it’s all too polished (aka written for an audience of people other than said blogger’s father, husband, and lone friend who likes ad lib) and curated and sponsored. Well, no one sponsors me, so I guess I can just say what I like! Which is helpful on this particular Monday, because I haven’t been unproductive exactly, but I just can’t seem to concentrate on anything for more than twenty seconds at a time. Below are the subjects I find myself flitting between:
- I’m way late to this game, but damn, Petite Meller is one weird child-woman. It makes me uncomfortable to watch her pale ass writhing around in a pastel onesie, and yet I have had this video on in the background basically all morning. I think these Kenyan schoolgirls might be my newest fashion obsession. I’ve considered Googling “African private school straw hats” a few times in the past hour, but I’m worried Google would just shoot back, “You’re a fucking racist.” And it would be justified in doing so.
Also, when I finally get around to creating my hat label, Whimsical Haberdashery, Petite Meller will definitely model my first season. Last note on her: she’s apparently obsessed with Freud, and The Guardian just ran a long piece on the return psychoanalysis, which I recommend although I’m too lazy to link to it. Bottom line: Way to go, Freud! You may be dead but you’re still killing it! - I keep meaning to tell someone this because I think it’s hysterical, but the other night I had a dream that the only “serious” critic (whatever that means) to give my book a mediocre review and I drove on ATVs to the Grand Canyon for a little day trip. It was really fun, actually. I think we should consider doing it in real life.
- I’m pursuing a number of very different stories at the moment, and ergo am trying to find a bunch of new sources and have no idea how to go about getting them, aside from this: if you happen to have a son at the Westminster Abbey Choir School, or are a Hare Krishna convert who wears a traditional robe most of the time, or you’re currently in drug rehab and considering becoming a Christian, or maybe you wear the same thing to work every day a la Matilda Kahl, shoot me a note.
- I’m lying to you and to myself here––I haven’t been thinking about any of the above. I’ve just been looking at pictures of Petite Meller. WHY. I get the whole shtick, right now, immediately. I don’t need to hear her breathy whispers about her philosophy degree or her one-woman campaign to help us all bring our libidinal subconsciouses (subconsciousnesses?) to light––I see where this is all headed, which makes me hate it. So why am I lusting after her fake-rosacea? Lord, grant me the strength to resist her (but not yet.)
Oh and PS, she totally stole this hat idea from me. Ask my husband. He knows.
New Year’s Resolutions
January 5, 2016ID: any other big goals?
AC: I have a list of things that I want to do (mostly one-off things) in the service of my abstract goal to have more fun and like things more
I really want to make a music video, for no real reason
ID: that’s amazing
AC: I even know which song
ID: which one?
AC: It’s this weird song about Nietzsche to the tune of call me maybe
ID: “stare into the abyss and the abyss will call you maybe”
i just laughed the deepest, most evil laugh i’ve ever laughed
War and Peace on the BBC
January 3, 2016A few years ago, a very stylish New Yorker writer told me that I was just like the Little Princess in War and Peace, which I thought was surely the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me, until I read the book and realized that the Princess’s most defining characteristic was her tiny but distinct mustache.
PS Is Natasha Rostova the original manic pixie dream girl? Certainly as portrayed by Lily James, an argument could be made…
PPS Don’t you think there should be some creepy porn TOR called Firefoxxx? Copyright!
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