December 2010
118 posts
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The Year of the Flood: Margaret Atwood
I’ve spent a lot of this past week reading underneath a blanket, drinking chamomile tea, petting my three cats and going through menopause. Or at least that’s how I felt reading The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, who became one of my favorite writers during my “I only read novels that won the Booker Prize, even those by John Banville” phase back in my early 20s.
...
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On Flying Business Class
Yesterday, I had just about the loveliest flight anyone could ask for, and it wasn’t because I flew Business Class domestically.
It was only my second time being at the front of the plane. The first had been on a flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, which only took 45 minutes, and cost exactly the same as coach. I must say, I was sorely disappointed to learn the the food is just as terrible...
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Poet of the Week: Charles Baudelaire
I’m lying in a cabin in Aspen, reading Baudelaire. Really. Oh kill my shabby self, my dilettante side, douse it in money, and burn it down so that there’s nothing left but me, white as a lily, clad in a cashmere Loro Piana robe.
(I swear I’ll never wear lambswool again!)
Anyway, I’m making Baudelaire my poet because his poem “Invitation to the Voyage”...
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My Top Ten Lists for 2010
I have about 15 minutes to write on my blog today, or else I’m going to fail out of life, so I thought the easiest thing to post would be my top 10 lists for 2010. I’m not feeling clever enough to write a better introduction than this, apologies.
Please note that these weren’t my top 10 things RELEASED in 2010, in which case I’d be able to list roughly 3 cultural events,...
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My Top Ten Lists for 2010
I have about 15 minutes to write on my blog today, or else I’m going to fail out of life, so I thought the easiest thing to post would be my top 10 lists for 2010. I was going to do something like “Top 10 People/Places/Things I Fantasized About Late at Night,” and “Top 10 Most Offensive Things I Thought About People on the Subway.” But honestly, I’m not...
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Victor G Jeffreys II Inadvertently Channels...
Girl with the Pearl Earring
Victor G Jeffreys II with the Nice Chest
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A Solitary Walk in Blizzard Conditions
No one wanted to leave the restaurant this evening to venture outside into the snow. I stayed for a while after my shift, and had one glass of cabernet sauvignon, and then another. And then a sip of egg nog, or perhaps half a glass, or a whole one (who’s measuring?), laden with spearmint and chilis that burned the tongue like vodka.
The wilding in me yearned for the storm.
I was...
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On How I Picked Up An Eating Disorder On Christmas...
I was sitting on the couch in the family room on Christmas night when the computer in the kitchen (which is connected to the living room by a double wide open doorway) started intoning, in an R2D2 voice:
“Brie is very sad. She is very depressed. She wants to kill herself. Poor Brienne.”
, who was sitting across the couch from me, had figured out how to control every desktop in the entire house...
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On How I Picked Up An Eating Disorder On Christmas...
I was sitting on the couch in the family room on Christmas night when the computer in the kitchen started intoning, in an R2D2 voice:
“Brie is very sad. She is very depressed. She wants to kill herself. Poor Brienne.”
Stuprendan, who was sitting across the couch from me, had figured out how to control every desktop in the entire house from his laptop. He had used his slight, 1990s level hacker...
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On How to Stave Off Stalkers
Earlier this week, I included an image in one of my posts that had my home address on it. This small error was noticed by very few people, except for Stuprendan, who now has a satellite aimed at my bedroom window that could annihilate me at any moment, and one of my readers, who I became friends with many years ago in Mexico City.
He sent me the following email today:
Your Holiday Party invite...
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On How to Stave Off Stalkers
Earlier this week, I included an image in one of my posts that had my home address on it. This small error was noticed by very few people, except for Stuprendan, who now has a satellite aimed at my bedroom window that could annihilate me at any moment, and one of my readers, who I became friends with many years ago in Mexico City.
He sent me the following email today:
Your Holiday Party invite...
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This Post Will Get Roughly 16 Hits: 'Twas the...
A few weeks ago, I was having a whiskey at Botanica, my ass perched on top of an exposed spring bursting out of the leather banquette, when a nice young gentleman leaned across my table, and asked me why on earth I was reading “Frames of War” by Judith Butler. It turns out he’s a pHd candidate at Princeton, in International Relations, and although he’s never read any...
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Poet of the Week: Tony Hoagland
I was going to post a Christmas poem, but let’s be honest, Christmas poems are f—ing boring. Even the Christmas letter from Frank O’Hara to Grace Hartigan.
Even the poem about a Christmas Tree that ee cummings wrote to his daughter.
Today, in an attempt to find a gem, I’ve read over 25 poems, about frozen rivers, and the commercialism of the holiday season. Poems about warmth...
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Poet of the Week: Tony Hoagland
I was going to post a Christmas poem, but let’s be honest, Christmas poems are f—ing boring. I’ve just read about 25 of them. I’ve read a Christmas letter from Frank O’Hara to Grace Hartigan.
I’ve read a poem about a Christmas Tree that ee cummings wrote to his daughter.
I’ve read poems about frozen rivers, and the commercialism of the holiday season,...
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WatchLive Blogging Dune starting in t-minus 60 seconds. Could be a disaster, but a hot one. Tune in at SpaceNymphs.
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Restaurant Recap: I Sometimes Have Uncomfortable...
By 10pm this past Saturday night, nothing out of the ordinary had happened at the restaurant, and Seben was starting to feel panicky that he wouldn’t be able to provide me with fodder for my weekly Restaurant Recap.
“Don’t panic,” I said to Seben, my eyes all dreamy. “This week I’ll tell my own story.”
Earlier in the day, I had received a text message...
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Restaurant Recap: Seben and I Encounter The...
By 10pm this past Saturday night, nothing out of the ordinary had happened at the restaurant, and Seben was starting to feel panicky that he wouldn’t be able to provide me with fodder for my weekly Restaurant Recap.
He was about to call his gay friend to come in and hit on him when a short French woman miraculously appeared at the bar. She had short dark bangs, and she was, I would wager,...
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Icon of the Week: Amanda "Foxy Knoxy" Knox
I first heard about Amanda Knox at a holiday party last week. It was at a fancy upper East Side apartment, and everyone there was so wealthy that they had a reputation. I arrived for desert, and was immediately seated at the end of the table, next to a woman who was flinging the f-bomb like it was golden shit.
I immediately fell in love with her.
It turns out that besides running one of the...
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Icon of the Week: Amanda "Foxy Knoxy" Knox
I first heard about Amanda Knox at a holiday party last week. It was at a fancy upper East Side apartment, and everyone there was so wealthy that they had a reputation. I arrived for desert, and was immediately seated at the end of the table, next to a woman who was flinging the f-bomb like it was golden shit.
I immediately fell in love with her.
It turns out that besides running one of the...
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On How to Co-Host a Successful Holiday Party
I used to love Christmas until I grew up and realized that everyone in my family is an absolute psychopath.
(I mean that affectionately. But Christmas was much more fun when all of my uncles would lock my cousins and I in the basement, turn off the lights, and hunt us down, one by one, with Nerf guns. Those were the days of my innocence.)
Once I graduated to the adult table, where I had...
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On How to Co-Host a Successful Holiday Party
I used to love Christmas until I grew up and realized that everyone in my family is an absolute psychopath.
(I mean that affectionately. But Christmas was much more fun when all of my uncles would lock my cousins and I in the basement, turn off the lights, and hunt us down, one by one, with Nerf guns. Those were the days of my innocence.)
Once I started sitting at the adult table,...
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