It Could Be Worse… | Itinerantdaughter's Blog

Archive for the ‘It Could Be Worse…’ Category

Kinder Trauma

June 3, 2014

I contributed to my most favorite website EVER! (And yes, if you follow the link, you will see my real name.)

Traumafession:: Itinerant D. on Murder of Innocence (1993)

Here’s what I wrote:

Hello,

I am obsessed with this site. As a child, I was a bona fide televisual masochist, and remain so to this day. I could submit any number of things, from the fear that lingered after one look at the cover of the Dolls VHS to my fervent child hood belief that Chuckie lived under my bed with Talking Tina from The Twilight Zone. But instead, I’ll focus on one viewing experience that left haunted me through my childhood until well into my twenties: viewing a Lifetime movie starring Valerie Bertinelli titled Murder of Innocence. You’re probably thinking, “Lifetime?!” But this is one fucked up tale. Valerie Bertinelli is a perky young waitress who catches the eye of a handsome young man. They marry before he realizes that she is batshit crazy. Sure, he knew she was a little nervous and indecisive, but when he returns home one day to find the refrigerator full of make-up and the walls covered in lipstick drawings, he realizes some serious shit is about to go down. They get divorced and she goes completely off the wall––making hang-up phone calls to her ex-sister-in-law, crushing dead flowers with gloved hands, stealing cuts of raw meat from the grocery store. The thing that freaked me out the most––I was already a very astute student of psychology as a child––was that her symptoms made no sense. She obsessively washed her hands, but then hoarded and fondled raw meat; she loves kids but feeds them drugged rice krispie treats. Of course, it all ends terribly: she buys a gun and shoots a couple of kids in a classroom, retreats to a nearby house and then kills herself. It haunted me for years, until eventually I found it on HuluPlus. And then it haunted me all over again. YOU’RE WELCOME.

I just realized now that the site’s administrator wrote a glowing comment underneath in which he says he has now become obsessed. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Posted in Conspiracy Theories, It Could Be Worse..., Things I Love That I Go to Inappropriate Lengths to Track Down | Leave a Comment »

Poor Boyfriend

June 2, 2014

is a corporate lawyer, stuck in his office on a beautiful Sunday evening. I’m holding out hope he’ll come home and watch Robert Altman movies with me soon.

ID: What do you want for dinner?

ML: Kick everyone in the balls

Posted in It Could Be Worse..., Jesting, Infinitely | 1 Comment »

Texts From a Friend Who Just Broke Off an Engagement

May 15, 2014

MWL: The things people say to me these days…

MWL: Returned a wedding dress to ModCloth, and they told me “time heals all wounds”

MWL: Changed my policy with geico and the agent said, “OK! You’re Miss Independent now!”

Posted in It Could Be Worse... | Leave a Comment »

Back By Popular Demand

May 7, 2014

By request, I’ve decided to recreate one of my most popular posts of last year: quick and dirty reviews of Met Ball looks. This year, I’m using the Cut’s slideshow (which is not to say I didn’t use it last year––I genuinely don’t remember) and I have to say, I HAVE A LOT OF PROBLEMS WITH YOU PEOPLE:

1. Beyonce: Interesting, I admit begrudgingly

2. Taylor Swift: Dancing with the Stars prom-themed reunion show

3. Lupita Nyong’o: so many feelings

4. Kim and Kanye: boring, as always

5. Anna Wintour: ditto

6. The Olsen Twins: Why do I love this?

7. Rihanna: Hashem WHEN WILL THE CROP TOP TREND DIE?

8. Anne Hathaway: the only good example of a CT I’ve seen in ages

9. Gisele: Yet another reminder that perfection is boring

10. Jessica Lange: Hello eyebrow lift

11. Kristen Stewart, I like parts and hate the whole

12. SJP: I am bizarrely underwhelmed

13. Victoria Beckham: WHY IS EVERYONE SO BORING

14. Naomi Campbell: without the cut-outs this would have been awesome in a Liberace sorta way

15. Karlie Kloss: Hate elbow length gloves on women

16. Amber Valletta: THERE ARE NO PANTS AT THE BALL! (name that movie)

17. Katie Holmes: Why kick her when she’s down?

18. Michelle Williams: I feel like I’ve seen her in this a million times before

19. Amy Adams: The first one I’ve actively liked

20. Rita Ora: Who exactly is Rita Ora?

21. Donatella Versace: Hard to look away from that face

22. Nicole Richie: I know I should hate this more than I do, but it reminds me of 8th grade

23. Jourdan Dunn and Toni Garra: Models? I like both. Then again, hard to go wrong when you’re that tall

24. Emma Stone: She looks pretty great

25. Kate Upton: Chiquita Banana, in mourning

26. Cara Delevingne: Michelle Rodriguez was a bad sartorial influence

27. Kirsten Dunst: Oh please

28. Lena Dunham: What I want to say will certainly not be PC

29. Jenna Lyons: AHHHH IT’S A TALL GOLUM

30. Marion Cotillard: Not so bad from this angle, but I think I’d hate it from a different one

31. Solange: Is that a bad toupee?

32. Joy Bryant: Hello 2001?

33. Chloe Sevigny: forgot the gestalt aspect

34. Jessica Pare: Not bad

35. Kristein Wiig: WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT PANTS

36. Bradley Cooper: skipping stupid boys

37. Shailene Woodley: Disaster

38. Amber Heard: fine, but Johnny Depp looks like Ebenezer Scrooge out on the town

39. Florence Welch: Never change

40. Zoe Saldana: Decent

41. Kate Bosworth: decent, albeit sorta emaciated

42. Stephanie Seymour: Chiquita Banana, at play!
43. Rachel McAdams: too monochrome for her own good

44. Rashida Jones: the ball gown thing doesn’t really work for her

45. Erykah Badu: Pharrell’s hat on steroids

46. Maggie Gyllenhaal: Someone else said it best––a 70s cult leader all dressed up

47. Stella McCartney: Why so glum?

48. Allison Williams: nice

49. Frank Ocean: I think I like him, in general

50. Charlize Theron: lose the jacket

51. Margot Robbie: Oof

52. Miguel: who?

53. Naomi Watts: I’d also like to get rid of this sheer bottom trend thing

54. Claire Danes: I hate it despite the fact that it’s relatively unoffensive

55. Chrissy Teigen: A little strange in the stomach area, but different, so yay?

56. Anna Kendrick: Didn’t she wear this to the Oscars?

57. Emmy Rossum: tablecloth

58. Kate Mara: moss on a rock

59. BOY

60. Chanel Iman: She looks great, but A$AP ROCKY is terrifying

61. Hailee Steinfeld: Um. It’s not doing anything for me.

62. Blake Lively: The usual Barbie fare

63. Elizabeth Olsen: Toddlers & Tiaras (although I dig the shoes)

64. Sarah Silverman: I cannot deal with her in this context

65. Christy Turlington: Well done

66. Rosamund Pike: No

67. Donna Karan: diaphanous ain’t working for her

68. Reese Witherspoon: Yeah I like it

69. Joan Smalls: The lipstick would have worked LAST YEAR

70.Karolina Kurkova: Very… large

71. Adele Exarchopoulos: I didn’t even recognize her. Hm. I need to think about this.

72. Bee Shaffer: Alright

73. Dee Hilfiger: Poorly executed Mad Men reference?

74. Fei Fei Sun, Marina Rust, Tori Burch: Okay for the first two, I take back what I said re: gloves. Tori, on the other hand, looks matronly.

75. Karen Elson: Kinda love it.

76. Maggie Q: Who?

77. BOY

78. Alexa Chung: I am positive I would have loved this when I was 21

79. Chloe Grace Moretz: I am rooting for this kid, really

80. Amanda Peet: Makes her look dumpy. Which is… crazy.

81. Robin Deardon: Fine

82. Zooey Deschanel: Too prom-y

83. Sofia Coppola: I don’t hate this!

84. Diane Kruger: Nice, but a little old for her?

85. Janelle Monae: Hipster matador

86. DUDE

87. Greta Gerwig: UUUUUUGHHHH

88. Felicity Jones: Coulda used some make-up?

89. Kendall Jenner: I respectfully decline to recognize her existence

90. Natalie Massenet: Her torso looks like book pages flapping in the wind

91. Jessica Alba: Makes her look pregnant, oddly

92. MEN (ish)

93. Lily Allen: Hate. Loathe. Despise.

94. Oh I just can’t

95. Lake Bell: She looks bomb.

96. Elettra Wiedemann: They spelled her last name wrong. That’s all I’ve got.

97. GUGU!?

98. Olivia Munn: Would have been better with slightly less tit

99. Riley Keough: Disqualified for pants

100. Fabiola Beracasa: Uh, sure. Not wild about the color but everything else is pretty glam.

101. Lea Michele: A poor man’s Amy Adams in American Hustle

102. Catherine Martin: Delightfully wacky

103. Kylie Minogue: Yawn

104. Zoe Kravitz: I can actually SEE YOUR VAGINA

105. Hayden Panettiere: Prom in Palm Beach

106.Elaina Watley: I don’t know who this is, and I never want to see her dress again.

107. Leighton Meester: I don’t hate this.

108. Laetitia Casta: Hm. Interesting. The cut on top is a little dumpy but otherwise not bad.

109. Ruth Wilson: I like her face?

110. Selena Gomez: She dresses like a 47 year old

111. Lily Aldridge: She is as exciting to me as Melba toast

112. Ming Xi: My lord she is slim

113. Michelle Monaghan: You go, Maggie!

114. Julie Macklowe: It’s so bright.

115. Ivanka Trump: Rivals #114 for worst color

116. BOY

117. Dree Hemingway: I’ve stayed up since I saw this trying to decipher how I feel about it

118. Imogen Poots: Her last name sounds like how I feel about this dress

119. Livia Guggioli: Orange and black––bold idea

120. Dianna Agron: Feh

121. Georgia May Jagger: My lesbian crush looks awesome

122. Suki Waterhouse: Looks way skinner than she did last week, eh? Dress is fine?

123. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley: Yeah, okay, I’m into it!

124. Liu Wen: A

125. Dita Von Teese: the mermaid tail is amazing

126. Katie Couric: Does nothing for her

127. Emily Cole: Is that his daughter? That’s as much enthusiasm as I can muster

128. Giovanna Battaglia: Looks like it’s going to fall off

129. Gabrielle Union: Burn this

130. BOY

131. Dakota Johnson: Do we just have to lie down and take her fame now?

132. Brie Larson: Clown with a spending problem. Or something. PLEASE KILL ME.

133. Stacy Martin: Man, what a person with a teaspoon of fashion sense could do with her body. Sigh.

134. LaLa Anthony: WOAH

135. Sandra Lee: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

136. Arizona Muse: Yep, awesome

137. Aerin Lauder: Is it weird that I keep thinking about how old we’re all getting?

138. Tabitha Simmons: Interesting but it sort of makes her look… stout?

139. BOY

140. Nancy Chilton: I should know who this is

141. Oof, Anna Wintour’s son looks… not cute

142. BOY

143. Coco Brandolini and Bianca Brandolini: They look just like the D&G ads?

144. Idina Menzel: Lea Michele made bigger

145. Selby Drummond: Thoughtful, at least?

146. Hannah Bagshawe: LIPSTICK: wear it.

147. Sandrina Bencomo: Don’t like the hoop at the waist, but it seems like it would be hard for her to look really horrible.

OMG That was painful. Off to have a morning martini…

Posted in Fashion Blogging for Toddlers, Image Craving, It Could Be Worse..., Lists | Leave a Comment »

THINGS I WISH I HAD WRITTEN

March 13, 2014

The other night at dinner, my dad mentioned Chris McCandless, the wanderer whose death in the Alaskan woods was the subject of the terrifying book Into the Wild. For reasons unknown to me––not particularly interested in the outdoors, nor the youthful idealism that comes from reading too much Kerouac––the book gripped me from the first sentence, and haunts me though I’m not at all at risk for succumbing to the same misanthropy that McCandless did. In any case, my dad told me that that every year, numerous people die trying to hike the same trail McCandless did, and there is a subculture of people devoted to the deceased’s specific brand of sustainability. Of course I thought, “What a great idea for a story!” But of course, it’s been covered––quite well, in fact, by a writer for Outside.

“[Claire] Ackermann, who was from Switzerland, and [her boyfriend Etienne] Gros, a Frenchman, had been hiking the Stampede Trail, a route made famous by Christopher McCandless, who walked it in April 1992. Many people now know about McCandless and how the 24-year-old idealist bailed out of his middle-class suburban life, donated his $24,000 in savings to charity, and embarked on a two-year hitchhiking odyssey that led him to Alaska and the deserted Fairbanks City Transit bus number 142, which still sits, busted and rusting, 20 miles down the Stampede Trail. For 67 days, he ate mostly squirrel, ptarmigan, and porcupine, then he shaved his beard, packed his bag, and started walking back toward the highway. But a raging Teklanika prevented him from crossing, so he returned to the bus and hunkered down. More than a month later, a moose hunter found McCandless’s decomposed body in a sleeping bag inside the bus, where he had starved to death.

“This tragic story was told by Jon Krakauer in the January 1993 issue of Outside and later in his bestselling 1997 book, Into the Wild. The book, and a 2007 film directed by Sean Penn, helped elevate the McCandless saga to the status of modern myth. And that, in turn, has given rise to a unique and curious phenomenon in Alaska: McCandless pilgrims, inspired by his story, who are determined to see the bus for themselves. Each year, scores of trekkers journey down the Stampede Trail to visit it. They camp at the bus for days, sometimes weeks, write essays in the various logbooks stowed inside, and ponder the impact that McCandless’s antimaterialist ethic, free-spirited travels, and time in the Alaskan wild has had on how they perceive the world.”

Welp. There goes that idea.

Posted in I Hate Writing, It Could Be Worse... | Leave a Comment »

Baby Burlesks

February 16, 2014

While reading Shirley Temple’s fascinating, obituary, I came across the mention of Baby Burlesks, a series of very short films Temple starred in before she made the big time. According to Temple’s autobiography, the films were sexually suggestive and also kinda racist, and when the child actors misbehaved, they were (from the Times) “locked in a windowless sound box with only a block of ice on which to sit.” WHAT THE FUCK!?

The movies really are as weird as Temple (and others who have sought them out) described them. Check out War Babies, in which Temple is a dancer in a bar juggling the hearts of two admirers.

(Also, did you know that Temple had exactly 56 perfect ringlets? My inner child is dying of envy right now.)

Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Fashion Blogging for Toddlers, It Could Be Worse..., Things I Love That I Go to Inappropriate Lengths to Track Down | Leave a Comment »

Vinnie’s Says It Best

February 4, 2014

As I can’t possibly offer more to the outpouring of sadness following PSH’s death, let me instead allow the divine staff over at Vinnie’s Pizza do the talking for me.

Rest in pizza.

Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Image Craving, It Could Be Worse..., The sun has gone to bed. | Leave a Comment »

My Out Of Office

January 7, 2014

Hi! I regret to inform you that I am unable to respond to a vast majority of emails during the year 2014 as I am developing a secular version of consecrated ermeticism and then immediately inducting myself into the order. Thanks! xx ID

Whaddya think, too much?

Posted in Conspiracy Theories, It Could Be Worse..., Things I Love That I Go to Inappropriate Lengths to Track Down | Leave a Comment »

The Best Book Ever

December 31, 2013

A few months before I left my full-time job, we received two enormous boxes from our distributor––a larger publishing company––that contained more than 200 copies of a book by Paul Volponi called Riker’s High. The book is about––you guessed it!––a seventeen-year-old who is sent to the high school ward of Riker’s. When we called the company, they told us to feel free to “donate or discard” the books. How could they possibly let go of such precious prose? Below, our hero Martin Stokes tells us about the hierarchy of his unit, what makes a thug, and how to chew when your face has been slashed down the cheek.

A minute later, that kid with the chiseled muscles bounced into the room like he owned it.

He looked us up and down and a couple of the kids even took a step backward. I was sitting on the floor, leaning up against the wall, so I didn’t move.

“The name’s Cedric, but everybody calls me Brick,” he said, flexing a forearm. “That’s ‘cause I fall down hard on people.”

Brick probably wasn’t any stronger than a lot of kids with a decent build. He just looked harder, and had his thug act wrapped supertight [sic].

I kept my eyes on him as he talked. And once it looked like he had everybody else in that room backed down, he began to bark at me.

“Don’t listen to what the Cos tell you. I run this house. You want to use the phone during prime time? You need a loan till commissary comes? That’s all me,” he bragged.

I’d seen kids like him before. He was a straight-up gangster in what was looking more and more like a soft house.

“I heard what you did to Jersey,” said Brick. “I don’t hold it against you. I could use a real fighter on my payroll. We’ll talk later. Okay?”

But I played him cold and stiff and didn’t say a word.

That’s when Brick turned to the other kids and said, “Maybe they cut his tongue out, too.”

They all laughed with him, except for Ritz. I guess he’d got used to standing alone on Rikers.

Most kids understand what a thug like Brick can do. They don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of him. So they usually play it safe, going along with whatever he says.

“I’ll check you chumps later,” Brick said, bouncing back out.

About an hour after that, the Cos called the house out for lunch.

The mess hall workers were mostly kids from our Sprung. Brick and his crew had spots at the front of the mess hall line, while I was almost at the rear. I could see from the mountain of food on their plates that they carried a lot of weight in the house. We had franks and beans all mixed together, with white bread on the side.

It hurt like anything to eat with those stitches. And though I’d shoveled everything into the left side of my mouth, the right side moved along whenever I chewed.

I finished what they gave me and was still hungry. But none of the mess hall workers would serve me seconds when I went back.

“Who you?” one of them asked.

“Nobody,” another one answered.

And I had to stomach watching Brick and his crew toss their trays in the trash, still half full of food.

Posted in It Could Be Worse..., Not a Poet | Leave a Comment »

Asshole!

December 14, 2013

Tolstoy, that is.

“On the eve of their marriage, Tolstoy gave Sophia his diaries detailing his sexual relations with female serfs.”