Sawdust & Diamonds

Gal Pals

2011-06-05T16:22:00.000-07:00

This is totally unrelated to road trips, my life at this exact moment in time, Cape Cod, or anything else all my devoted blog-followers are probably checking my blog to find out about, BUT a few weeks ago I came across this seriously awesome piece from Vice Magazine about the bizarre, enchanting, and thoroughly baffling phenomenon of girls hating girls. I have thought a lot about this during my lifetime as a girl (all of my life) and this article articulates a lot of my own feelings about the relationship between girls in the extremely vulgar tone we've come to know and love from Vice.

http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2011/06/03/girl-news-why-girls-hate-each-other/

With love from Cheyenne

2011-05-20T19:20:00.000-07:00

Folks, let me tell you something: this country is amazing; each state I pass through is more beautiful than the last. California with its rolling green hills, Nevada's snowy mountaintops and low-hanging clouds, the wide salt flats of Utah, and now Wyoming dotted with rock formations in greens and reds and browns. The Rocky Mountains are monstrous and majestic and fill the horizon. There is so much sky out here where you can really get a good look at it and the clouds are so low it feels like they're hovering just over our heads. You can see rainstorms from miles away -- long, wispy fingers of the clouds reaching down.

Seeing Olivia & Reno was wonderful and cute. Salt Lake is ringed by snow-capped mountains and the air is crisp and clear and dry and the light didn't fade until past 9pm. Cheyenne is... a little quiet. It has a feel of a town that knows its heyday was during the time of the Union Pacific railroad and those times are gone.

Tomorrow we chug on through Nebraska and into Iowa. It will be nice to get back down to sea level again as that's the elevation I've always known and loved. I've been updating my twitter from the road, so check that out if you really want to come along for the ride: http://twitter.com/moirak

Another Travelin' Song

2011-05-18T01:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm getting ready to leave yet another city and undertake yet another move. The closet's empty and I'm saying sayonara to San Francisco just as I round the curve to my 25th birthday.

It's been a really lovely visit here in Northern California but now I'm off to summer in Cape Cod (a girl can really get used to saying that phrase, let me tell you). Tomorrow I leave with my little blue Honda for Reno & Olivia, then on to Salt Lake City & Jake & my dad, Cheyenne, Omaha & Chicago with Dad, Ann Arbor & Detroit & Linnea & Nina, Oberlin & Zoe's college graduation, New York, NY, and finally Wellfleet with Zoe. Ross arrives in Cape Cod at the beginning of July and then my life will really be a bowl of cherries (or, perhaps more appropriately, a bowl of lobster rolls).

And the adventure begins tomorrow! It's been a fun 6 months in San Francisco -- two homes, lots of old friends and lots of new ones, too, and more than a few late nights in the bar singing along to the jukebox.

Stay tuned for updates from the road.

The funniest thing to ever happen to me

2011-03-20T00:12:00.000-07:00

From: Micah Gordon
Date: Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 10:28 AM
Subject:
To: Moira Kerrigan

An unfathomably bizarre and unlikely set of circumstances led to an unfortunate incident this morning. It goes as follows:

1. John keeps his towel on the curtain rod at the far end of the shower, due to his freakish height, he also showers at the very far end of the shower, thus letting water splash about of its own accord, soaking the bathmat and leaving it smelly, dirty, and wet for days at a time.

2. Sunday, I washed said bathmat for the 3rd time in as many weeks-- a record number.

3. Monday, frustrated from the constant washing of the bathmat, I angrily moved his towel to the FRONT end of the shower, leaving the curtain at the far end free to close fully, protecting the bathmat from impending flood. In the process, I knocked my toothbrush from its cup atop the medicine cabinet, only to see it land on the very bathmat I had been trying to protect. As I am rather sensitive as to the cleanliness of my toothbrush, indeed most hygienic products, I promptly threw it in the trash bin.

4. Being the lazy and forgetful man that I am, I spent the next two days without toothbrush, brushing my teeth with my finger.

5. Wednesday evening, as I was eating my dinner, John and Ross announced they were going to the market. Having been reminding myself to go out and buy a toothbrush most of the evening, I sprung up, got my wallet, handed John three dollars and asked him to buy me a toothbrush.

6. While on the phone with you, John returned triumphantly with the toothbrush and plopped it down on the coffee table before me. I got a very brief glimpse at it, noticing some vaguely red/pink/purple color.

7. At next glance, while we were playing Liebrary, the toothbrush was gone from the coffee table. I thought nothing of it at the time.

8. That very same night that I received a new toothbrush, not of my choosing, seen for only a split second, you came over to play Liebrary, and you decided to bring a toothbrush of your own to our house, for the very first time ever, one that was vaguely red/pink/purple in color.

9. You placed your toothbrush in my cup atop the medicine cabinet; a cup that was only empty because of the preceding set of circumstances.

10. This morning I awoke, took my shower, and prepared to brush my teeth, noticing that a vaguely red/pink/purple toothbrush was placed, opened, in my cup. "Odd," I thought. "John must have opened my toothbrush and placed it in my cup." An unusual thing to do, to be sure, but not something I would put past John, as he tends to do weird things all the time--especially as related to my stuff.

11. After contemplating, "can I go another day brushing with my finger while I figure out why John opened my toothbrush, and if it had been used?" After all, as previously mentioned, I am sensitive as to the cleanliness of my toothbrush. I decided no, I could not, and what could possibly be wrong with the toothbrush? John wouldn't USE my toothbrush, even if he would open it and stick it in my cup. I proceeded to use the toothbrush.

12. As I was leaving the house, Ross woke up. I asked him if HE opened my toothbrush, knowing full well that would have been extremely out of character for him. He said no, but informed me of steps 8 and 9. I was offput and upset that I had used someone else's toothbrush. After all, as previously mentioned, I am sensitive as to the cleanliness of my toothbrush.

13. I found my UNOPENED toothbrush, of near-identical color to your own, under the coffee table.

14. I cried a little inside, shouting "What are the fucking odds?"

--
Micah Gordon
typewritermender@gmail.com

From: Moira Kerrigan
Date: Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 1:59 PM
Subject: Re:
To: Micah Gordon

Micah,

That was the most hilarious email I've received in quite some time. Thank you for that little ray of sunshine you brought into my life today.

The plot actually thickens a bit in a hilarious way which I will share with you now:

I purchased the toothbrush in question a few weeks ago and although I am not a forgetful and lazy man like yourself, I never found the right opportunity to bring said toothbrush along when I came to your house. Call me old fashioned or prude but I think when a man and a woman consent to keep an extra toothbrush at the other's house, that is a big step. Essentially they are saying to each other "I like spending the night with you and I see myself continuing to do so in the future, however, I am not willing to risk the health of my teeth or gums for you." I needn't explain why this proposal of keeping a toothbrush at your house was a bit scary to me.

Last night as I was preparing to come over for our rousing game of Liebrary, I thought to myself: Moira, take the plunge, be brave, bring the toothbrush. And I acted accordingly.

When I arrived at your house, I set my bag down on the coffee table as I often do, exchanged a few words with you over the din of an MLB videogame and stepped outside. When I returned, you were still quite distracted by your inability to trade any players from your team.

Intending to clear the table in preparation of the impending game night, I picked up my bag from the table. Lo and behold, my toothbrush or so I thought, was laying on the table (about which I was already feeling a bit self-conscious of, after all, how would Ross take the news that I was planning on brushing my teeth at his house? Next I would likely be filling his closet with my clothes, painting his room pink, moving in and day dreaming about names for our children!). But there it lay! Exposed for everyone to see! My face flushed. It had clearly fallen out of my bag, why else would a toothbrush identical to mine be sitting on the table? You would all know my plans about brushing my teeth at your house! I stealthily swooped the toothbrush off the table and tossed it aside into my bag, thankful I had not attracted any attention.

Later in the night while fishing in my bag for my phone, I discovered two toothbrushes where I had expected to find only one. At this point in the evening, I was retiring to Ross's room while he was still talking to John in the kitchen. As aforementioned, I did not want to draw attention to my possession of a toothbrush and so decided I would simply leave it on the table the next morning as I left. No one could need it before then, I assured myself, after all, who throws out their old toothbrush before buying a new one?

After having the toothbrush talk with Ross and securing his consent that I may in fact keep a spare toothbrush at his house, I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth. However, having been given no instruction as to where I should store said toothbrush, I looked around distressed. Atop the bathroom mirror there rested two cups. The cup on the left appeared uninhabited. Although I was certain I had noticed a toothbrush in it before, the toothbrush resting on the top of the cabinet seemed to account for its absence. The cup on the right held another toothbrush, and upon inspection, I found the medicine cabinet contained a third. Assured that all three brushes lay safely in their environs, I delicately placed my toothbrush in the cup on the left. I even admired it there for a moment. It was a very nice red/purple/pink color. I was happy such a fine looking toothbrush of mine was now a part of the Ewing household.

As I left your house this morning, I placed the mysterious toothbrush on the ledge beneath the coffee table hoping that whomever it belonged to had not missed it and would find it easily in the morning. I left the house with a smile on my face, confident the lonely toothbrush would find its way back to its rightful owner.

Alas, Micah, I'm afraid my girlish self-consciousness and later, brazen claiming of ground for my own hygienic items has led us to where we stand today. I sincerely apologize that you mistakenly used my toothbrush this morning. I am not terribly sensitive about toothbrush hygiene and therefore will likely continue to use that toothbrush after a thorough rinse. In that way, let us both agree that having shared each others mouth germs -- both having used the same toothbrush only once -- our friendship can only grow stronger.

Please, however, do advise me on the best place for me to store my toothbrush in order to ensure this doesn't happen again. I hope it hasn't ruined your day entirely. It's actually made mine quite delightful.

Your friend and fellow toothbrush user,
Moira

From: Micah Gordon
Date: Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 2:21 PM
Subject: Re:
To: Moira Kerrigan

Thank you for your insights, Moira. They indeed add to the sheer perplexity of the entire situation. In fact, the toothbrush laying on its side in front of my cup was my old toothbrush. Someone had fished it out of the trash and placed it there (thus strengthening my rationale that my new toothbrush had indeed been removed from its case and placed in my cup by a third party--likely John; as Ross, despite his stringent conservative political leanings, remains quite laissez-faire in the affairs of those around him).

You may very well place your toothbrush anywhere you desire apart from my cup. The most obvious place likely being inside the medicine cabinet, a space which I believe belongs solely to Ross. If that doesn't fit your needs, however, alternate arrangements can surely be made.

Please know that the toothbrush incident did not in fact ruin my whole day. While it was upsetting, I have since smoked three cigarettes, ingested a large cup of steaming-hot coffee, and eaten a tuna sandwich. It is my belief that any ickies I may have acquired via the use of your toothbrush have since been burned away and replaced by tuna. I will, however, likely put my new, unopened toothbrush immediately to use upon my return home this evening; at which point I will be happy to relocate your toothbrush for you to your preferred location.

One can't help but think that, if not for the robust advances in dental health over the last two centuries, affording every man, woman and child one -- and as we've seen, in some cases even two -- toothbrushes, this entire situation could have been easily avoided.

Something to think upon.

Yours,
Micah

From: Moira Kerrigan
Date: Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 2:54 PM
Subject: Re:
To: Micah Gordon

Micah,

Truly, I am glad that we have been able to come to some conclusions about this dental hygiene situation. I see your point about the advances in dental health, but stick fast to my belief that sharing a toothbrush with a fellow man is far better than having no available toothbrush at all.

If you would be so kind as to move my toothbrush into Ross's toothbrush holding place, I would owe you a large debt of gratitude. I think our best move now would be have some laughs about this over a few beers this weekend and put it all behind us.

Sincerely yours,
Moira

*Please note that this incident occurred nearly a year ago and only now am I deeming it finally appropriate to post it here for your enjoyment.

Shortlisters

2011-03-07T21:48:00.001-08:00

The infamous trio of the Ewing House (also known as some of my best friends & boyfriend Ross, Micah, & John) have finally figured out something useful and creative to do with their discussions-cum-arguments besides just sit around their patio drinking cocktails and secretly hating each other -- they've created a podcast. It's called The Shortlisters and in each episode the three of them engage in a battle of the wits to create a Top 5 list for the topic at hand. For their premier topic they've chosen the top 5 things they would put in a space capsule. It's brilliant and hilarious and you should definitely listen to it.

http://theshortlisters.tk/

Also, upon listening to their show I learned that they have a Twitter page, a fact I find endlessly amusing.

Modest Mouse's comeback

2011-02-24T22:32:00.000-08:00

I heard this song for the first time yesterday:

I kind of freaked out for a second when I first heard this. It's like Lupe Fiasco/his producer/s had the idea to widen his fan base by honing their focus on young adults who were really into Modest Mouse seven years ago but have always had a place in their hearts for pop hip hop. But, hey, I'm kind of into it.

Moms 4 MC Hammer

2011-02-20T21:16:00.001-08:00

I would like to share with you all a recent email interaction I had with my mother. Let me give you a bit of background:

Recently, I've been doing some writing for my uncle's blog for a new company he's starting. My uncle apparently emailed my mother to tell her one of my blog posts was "laugh out loud funny" and my mom had asked me about it. Really the only joke in my post is about how uncool MC Hammer pants are. The only joke.

Okay, now you should be good to go.

Moira Kerrigan

to Beth show details Feb 15 (5 days ago)

Hi Mom,

Just thought you might like to read this since it was the one Jim referred to: http://true2o.com/blog/36-the-true-cost-of-recycling

I don't think it's THAT funny, but I'm glad he liked it enough to tout it to you.

Love you!
Moira

Beth Margolis

to me

show details Feb 17 (3 days ago)

I can see why he laughed out loud – what the hell are mc hammer pants ?

Moira Kerrigan

to Beth show details Feb 17 (3 days ago)

You know! Like MC Hammer. Where were you during his 80s pop chart reign?

Beth Margolis to me show details Feb 17 (3 days ago)

Taking care of my new babies - where were you?

Mom: 1, Moira: 0

Moms & Daughters

2011-02-02T21:50:00.000-08:00

Remember when you were a kid and you spent all that time hating your parents and their stick-in-the-mud ways, vowing that you'd never end up like them? You promised yourself you'd let your kids stay out past midnight and you'd let your kids eat Sour Patch Kids for breakfast, and you'd let your kids wear midriff-baring shirts to school. And then, the funny thing is, you get older and suddenly that age-old adage "you'll understand when you're older" is miraculously true. You see teenagers running down the street, shoelaces untied, empty Doritos bags flying out of their backpacks at 10pm and find yourself questioning just what they're up to and who let them out so late and shouldn't they be in bed soon? You come to a time and place where you realize that you are more and more like your parents every day... and you find yourself kind of liking it. ISN'T THAT WEIRD?

Please follow this link to my facebook page and see the video I posted yesterday of Legacy and her mother Kamala rocking out to Wavves and being the same, identical human being. Case. In. Point.

facebook.com/moira.kerrigan

Wine & Woody (Allen)

2011-02-02T21:34:00.001-08:00

I realize I may be a little bit late to this, but Caitlin screened Manhattan Murder Mystery for me last night and I am beside myself about how just bowl-me-over excellent this movie is. It's basically like all of Woody Allen's movies from the 70s with their dry, deadly, New Yorky humor PLUS a heavy dose of good old fashioned murder mystery thrill. Diane Keaton's outfits are outrageous (in particular I'm thinking of a little belted khaki skirt-suit number which she pairs with ankle boots and cuffed white socks), Angelica Huston shows up as a smokin' (and smoking, like a chimney) babe, and even everyone's favorite Zach Braff makes an appearance as Allen & Keaton's Brown University-attending son (uh huh, right).

Diane Keaton, as a side note, is my new style icon.

Adventures in Public Transit

2011-01-31T22:10:00.000-08:00

In San Francisco there is a disproportionate number of crazy/violent/absolutely incoherent people riding the public transportation. I get to know them better and better every day. First, I made friends with a guy who pulled out his switch blade on the bus and was just clenching it in his hand after an altercation with a woman who was exiting the bus as he was trying to get on; next, I met a nice fellow was just screaming to himself at the top of his lungs "DON'T TOUCH ME. DON'T TOUCH ME. GET OFF ME."; finally, a pair of strangers having a long and very loud conversation across the length of the bus about how facebook & technology would be the downfall of humanity. They were very upset when an elderly woman asked them to keep it down because: "FREEDOM OF SPEECH. I GOT MY FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS. FREEDOM OF SPEECH. GO BACK TO SCHOOL! AND ALSO, FUCK CORPORATE AMERICA."

Lots and lots of new friends in San Francisco.

San Francisco

2011-01-28T15:32:00.000-08:00

Exciting news! I moved to San Francisco!

It's been a whopping 12 days of my residency here and I've spent a lot of time trying to think of an appropriate blog post to describe my experience so far. Should I write about how heart-wrenching it was to leave Los Angeles, my really first proper homehome since leaving New York? Should I write about the thrill of driving up the 5 with my car packed to the gills with all of my earthly possessions, singing along to Joni Mitchell's "California"? Do I write about the sunny little spot on my deck where I've been taking my morning coffee (see photo below)? The hills of San Francisco (there are a lot of them)? The crazy, homeless freaks of San Francisco (there are a lot of them, too)? The really, really Northern California-ness of San Francisco?

It's such a strange feeling suddenly becoming a permanent resident in a city where you've become so accustomed to being a visitor. I still am having a little bit of that "Oh, wait, I LIVE here" feeling, and I think my friends are, too. But I have to say, as hard as it is to move cities (how do I use a Clipper card? What in the world is a Clipper card?), I've been very much enjoying the luxury of not having to go into an office everyday, having lots of my very own space, and lots of time to read and write letters and do all the other fun stuff you don't get paid to do.

I miss Los Angeles a whole bunch -- I miss knowing my way around and my neighborhood and of course, most of all, my just genuinely warm and wonderful boyfriend & friends there. But I think San Francisco is going to provide a whole new something for me. That something remains to be seen yet, of course, but fret not -- I will absolutely let you all know when I figure out what that something is.

Comebacks

2010-12-30T09:58:00.001-08:00

You guys, I'm really glad that Robyn made a comeback. "Dancing On My Own" is really good. I know you already know that, but I just wanted to reaffirm.

Travelocity

2010-12-28T22:32:00.000-08:00

Every time I come back to New York in the winter I always desperately, desperately wish it will snow. I never get to experience even the faintest sprinkle of cold, white flakes living in Los Angeles (clearly), much less get to go outside in it, stick my tongue out into it, get my feet and ankles terribly wet and cold in it.

This trip it snowed. That's a bit of an understatement, actually -- it blizzarded. Twenty inches in one night! Snow up to my kneecaps. Beautiful, heavy, wet snow. I bundled up in my mother's snowpants, hat, waterproof gloves and boots and walked backwards against the wind up the street to meet Taylor and the boys to go sledding down Pleasant Street. Wonderful powdery, veryvery cold snow. I embraced it so!

Then Ross's flight to New York was canceled. Because of the snow. He won't be here until 2011! I hate the snow now, I spurn it. I reject you, snow! The snow has become like a little sister -- Get out of my face. Stop interrupting all the time. Go back to your own room and stay out of mine! And no, you cannot borrow my favorite skirt for the party you're going to tonight. I liked you before, but now I am very, very upset with you. Leave me alone.

Summer words for your winter heart

2010-12-21T12:41:00.001-08:00

More awesome words from Dictionary.com. This one is extremely pertinent today thanks to the onslaught of rain in Los Angeles and the snow that's apparently taking over the rest of the country/world.

estivate \ES-tuh-veyt\ verb:
1. To spend the summer, as at a specific place or in a certain activity.
2. In zoology, to spend a hot, dry season in an inactive, dormant state, as certain reptiles, snails, insects, and small mammals.

Estivate derives from the Latin aestivare, with aestivus meaning "relating to the summer."

I know, right?! Try it on for size!

Moving

2010-12-21T12:17:00.000-08:00

Maybe you've seen this commercial: Swamp Thing is moving into a new apartment. The broker/landlord hands him the keys and says, "A bit different from the pond, huh?" Swamp Thing dejectedly drags his suitcase into the living room of his supremely modern apartment. He gets a text from Mom: "Miss you at the pond." He sheds a tear as he responds "Miss you more." He scrolls through some photos and videos of his friends from the pond -- a video of his duckling friend skimming along the surface of the water seems especially fond to him. He draws himself a steaming bath, puts on his favorite Hanging at the Pond playlist, and submerges himself in the hot, lonely waters of the outside world.

This commercial makes no sense whatsoever. I have no idea who paid someone a probably obscene amount of money to put this together. It has nothing to do with the LG smartphone it's trying to sell and it's not even funny. This commercial brings nothing new or exciting into my life. But yet, every time I see it, I think it's just the most horrifically sad thing I've ever seen. I guess I must be getting ready to move out of the pond myself. I foresee a lot of hot baths in my future.

NPR is for Nerds

2010-11-16T18:37:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I just can't get enough NPR. This American Life, Car Talk, news on the hour, and most recently, Fresh Air. Recently Terry Gross has been interviewing lots of great people -- everyone from Keith Richards to Loretta Lynn to Jay-Z. But the thing that I find so amusing about Terry is that she is so white and nerdy (in her interview with Jay-Z she pronounces Tupac as "two-pack"). But I could never have imagined it was this bad:

God, I wish Fresh Air would put a video camera in their studio. I would LOVE to see Terry's face when Keith Richards disparagingly tells after the interview, "nice try, hon," or to watch her say to Jay-Z, "this is the bitch and ho question." I mean, I'm down the The Gross. She's a smart lady for sure. All I'm saying is maybe a new haircut and a dress wouldn't hurt her that much.

Jams

2010-11-11T11:14:00.000-08:00

You know how I know today is going to be a great day? As I was pulling out of my driveway this morning, I turned on 100.3 The Sound and the three songs it took me to get to work were "Last Kiss," "Alive," and "Better Man," all by Pearl Jam. Telltale sign of good things to come.

The earth is as full as life is full of them

2010-11-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

Life is so rich! Skipped out of work early to enjoy the phenomenally beautiful oh-it's-85-degrees-in-November afternoon and: a complimentary beer with bang trim at the local hair salon, $2 for a fresh basket of strawberries at the farmers market (they even let me pay with that pesky two-dollar bill I've been trying to get rid of), two young girls having a playdate across the street from each other -- one on her balcony, the other on the street below behind a chain-link fence, running into newly turned mom & pop friends with their exquisitely beautiful daughter, confirming with local bookstore clerk that yes, he was in the great folk band I saw play a few weeks back, purple sunset over my shoulder as I walked home, now "New Morning" on the stereo, and plans to pool hop at a swanky Hollywood hotel tonight. And the weekend's just getting started! Tomorrow I'm off to adventure in San Diego with my sweet boy.

Coffee Humor

2010-11-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

While we're on the topic of plugging cool shit my friends do, check out Micah's online comic series, Coarse Ground. It's hilarious.

http://coarseground.tumblr.com/

Also, one of many attempts to start a group blog with the former members of May House: Anne Frankenstein. I find our back-and-forth over what to rename our blog pretty funny (we eventually decided on Sad Horns, after our house mascot, a ram whose head hung on the living room wall) even though this blog never exactly took off, shall we say.

Bagel Land

2010-11-05T12:48:00.000-07:00

Gotta keep the day interesting, somehow, right? A fancy bagel-cream cheese-tomato-pinch of salt-fresh thyme breakfast is how I'm working it today.

Stats

2010-11-05T12:41:00.000-07:00

Once in a while I check the stats on my blog to see a) if anyone is reading this shit, and b) what my wide fan base likes so I can keep giving back to the people who support me. Surprise of the century: the most popular post on my blog BY FAR is my post entitled "I fucking hate hipsters and other cliches." People found this page using some pretty awesome Google search terms such as "why people hate hipsters," "hipsters are assholes," and "hipsters ass holes?" This page has been visited 40% more times than the entry page to this blog. You guys, people of the world, YOU STILL HATE HIPSTERS? You're still Googling this shit?? What is WRONG WITH YOU?

As a side note, thanks for visiting my blog. G'day.

Leaps and bounds in technology

2010-11-03T20:36:00.000-07:00

Lately, my local laundromat has been doing pretty well for itself. I could tell it was moving up in the world when it changed its name from Dirty Laundry to Aroma Laundry. Smart move, marketing team. Then I knew it was really getting rolling when I wandered in with my bag of laundry and discovered two newly-installed massage chairs! That's right, massage chairs, like the kind at Sharper Image (only these you have to pay for, you can't just sit around in them for 2 hours pretending like you're actually contemplating buying one).

But the kicker is that after the new-fangled name and fancy chairs, my laundromat, my lovely local laundromat, installed this:

That's right folks, it's an Internet Machine! This is so cutting edge, they really don't have a proper name for this type of technology yet. I have no idea where they got this thing, if they had to purchase it from the government or what, but it is im-pres-sive.

Party & bullshit

2010-11-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

Some very old and very dear friends of mine put together this song and accompanying music video. I think it's pretty awesome. Credit goes where credit is due: Adam Waters (vocals), Danny David (music) and Perry Kerr (video).

Refrigerator Challenge!

2010-10-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

Oh, hey there! Didn't see you sitting over there so quietly! It's been a while, folks, I realize, but such is the way of highly informal blogs for friends. Some exciting email came my way recently and it was just too good to not share with you all so I've made my victorious return to the blogging world. Ah, it feels good to get back to one of my all-time favorite topics: all-company emails...

Subject: [All] MyShape Refrigerator Challenge

Hi Team ~
Welcome to the MyShape Refrigerator Challenge ~ ~ ~

For today, Tuesday, September 28th -

Let's commit ourselves to taking at least ONE ITEM from one of the two fridges and throw it away!

ITEMS TO THROW AWAY:

Moldy Food:

Outdated Beverages:

Long Lost Stray To-Go Containers:

Old Cheese, Butter, Sauce and Condiments

And anything else that may be brewing in there... Let's pull together and take on this challenge!

Thanks

And you know what the fucked up part of this email is? It totally worked! Everyone was so impressed by the office manager's ability to Google image search that they cleaned the fridge out! I mean, c'mon people, we're all adults here, you really need someone to send you an email with a spiffy "Refrigerator Challenge" subject line to get you to throw out your rotting food? You make me sick. Oh, but this is not the end of the Great Refrigerator Challenge of 2010, not in the least. Let's move on to exhibit B, shall we?

Subject: [All] MyShape Refrigerator Challenge II

Hello Team ~

Many thanks to those who helped clean out outdated, moldy and past-due items from our fridges yesterday. That was Step One.

Step Two:
LABEL ALL THAT BELONGS TO YOU.

In other words, please MARK YOUR NAME AND DATE on all remaining items within the two refrigerators.

This includes:
1) Condiments: Mustard, Mayo, Salad Dressings and Cream Cheese.
2) Drinks: Canned, carton and bottled
3) Plastic Bags filled with Mystery Items
4) Any other item you want, love, crave or need to stay in the fridge.

Step Three: WEEKLY FRIDAY NIGHT CLEAN OUT

If your items are not marked with NAME & DATE -

THEY WILL BE THROWN OUT BY THEN END OF THE WORK DAY, THIS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1st. (And every Friday night from this week forward.)

Consider this a "fair warning". The Cleaning Crew will be sanitizing the two refrigerators on Friday. Therefore, we can start anew. Hopefully we can be proactive in keeping our fridges from becoming two competing petri dishes.

Thank you

First of all, let's talk about how much office managers love to abuse the quotation mark. Jesus. Second of all, I really like our office manager's creativity with her images on this one, but not at much as I like her laundry list of what one may potentially like to label in the fridge. I bet when she wrote this, she was like "Okay, hm, what should my coworkers put their names on in the fridge? Well, let's start with condiments. But no, wait, let's be more specific than that -- condiments like mustard, mayo, salad dressings, and cream cheese. Yeah, that will really drive my point home."

But you know what folks, the Refrigerator Challenge is now a few weeks behind us, and let me tell you, those fridges are still sparkling. Yep, life in the office. Exhilarating and thrilling around every corner.

Verses Versus Verses

2010-03-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

While I'm on this posting spree, I might as well throw in a plug for the new blog that my friend Micah and I started. It's a writing blog -- I'm not going to explain it all here, you're just going to have to check it out: vvsv.wordpress.com

Office Culture

2010-03-06T15:33:00.000-08:00

Working in an office can be pretty hilarious. I am especially partial to all-company emails. There have been two recent incidents that I've found particularly inspiring that I would like to share with you all now.

Subject: [All] Break Room Coffee

Please use only “one” bag of coffee per brewing pot, not two, when making coffee as has been the practice in the past. I have consulted with the supplier and confirmed using two bags does not make the coffee taste stronger or better. The only result in using two bags, is twice the cost. We are using Columbian Supremo which is the strongest/most flavor available at this time.

Thank you.

There are so many good things going on with this email. My favorite is the "one" bag of coffee -- I'm really curious as to why my office manager felt that "one" needed its own little quotation marks. Is "one" a euphemism for something that I'm just not hip to? Or did she mean to use italics and just couldn't find the font button for it? Fuck it, I'll just put it in quotation marks, she thinks to herself, then they'll really notice and and then they'll know who's boss.

I also really like that she calls out Columbian [sic] Supremo -- it is the "strongest/most flavor available at this time." Is that a fact? Are there no other stronger/more flavorful coffees out there? Listen, office manager, the coffee at work is shitty. Let us at least pretend we're getting a stronger/more flavorful cup if we want to.

The other great recent all-company exchange also happens to involve the breakroom at work and, again, my office manager, happy woman that she is.

Subject: [All] Kitchen Can Opener

Whoever removed the can opener from the kitchen this morning, please return it IMMEDIATELY.

Thank you.

Which was followed by this email from another coworker:

Subject: RE: [All] Kitchen Can Opener

yes, please return the can opener so i can open my can of Cafe Du Monde chicory coffee & make us all delicious coffee!

Ah, but we haven't reached the end yet:

Hi all,

Unfortunately, that can opener was Stacy's personal one that she left here on accident. She is gracious enough to lend it to us until Friday, at which point Susan said she would buy one for the company. Thank you Stacy!

DANG! Office drama, guys! This shit is real.

Spam

2010-03-06T15:30:00.000-08:00

Dear comment spammers,

I'm so glad you found my blog! I know it's been awhile since I posted anything, so you must be anxious to hear what's going on in my life. Well, for one, I changed my settings so that I have to approve all comments before they go up.

Love,
Moira

Actually, all these strange spam comments have been like an unintentional nudging to keep up this blog. Maybe I'll do that now.

Romping

2009-12-25T07:17:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting to find the time to do a follow-up post about my European adventures, and it seems that the morning after Christmas, while the rest of my family is still slumbering, is the perfect time to do so (at this point, it's actually afternoon in New York, but god bless their little hearts for being such sound sleepers).

I'm now back in New York, still reeling a bit from my trip and trying to figure out how I can save up enough money to go back to Europe in the not too distant future. It's impossible to summarize all that I saw, did, felt, and experienced while I was traveling, and I'm not going to attempt to do that here, only share some impressions and images from my trip in hopes that they will be interesting and meaningful to you. Hold onto your seats, this is going to be a long one.

Paris:

Although I had visited Paris several times before with various permutations of my family members and friends, my impressions of the city had always been quite mixed. As someone who never learned the French language (now I can say a precious few key phrases and understand a bit) and, doubly, as an American traveling abroad, I had always felt a certain self-consciousness while visiting Paris because I felt that the Parisians I encountered were (stereotypically) not exactly thrilled to have yet another American attempting to communicate with them in a language not their own. Although I had always admired the city for its beauty, grandeur, and history, I felt, like I did in some ways when I first moved to Los Angeles, that the city was impossible to penetrate. You were either a tourist or a local and there was nothing in between.

I am happy to say that on my most recent trip to Paris, however, my feelings about that city changed quite a bit. I'm not sure if it was being there with my sister who was living there for a semester (and thus speaks a bit of French and knows her way around the city quite well), the fact that George Bush is no longer the president of my country (and I suspect this makes the rest of the world resent Americans at least a dash less), or that I had just had more traveling and experiences as an outsider/tourist under my belt and so no longer felt so burningly self-conscious about my inability to speak the language of the country or know exactly where I was at all times. Whatever it was, though, this time around, Paris had a magical effect on me. Between the cool weather, delicious food, architecture that brought me back to my days in Buenos Aires, and cultural happenings, I finally felt that the good things about this city truly outweighed the bad. Like all good cities (with the exception for the most part of Los Angeles), I mostly enjoyed just wandering around the streets of Paris, stopping into cafes when I felt the urge for a gran creme that would cost me four euros, as well as more typical museum-going tourist stuff.

Not ones to waste time, our first purchase upon arriving at our Parisian apartment for the week: pastries, of course.

Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature

Rome:

My previous post I think sums up my trip to Rome nicely, so I'll just include a few photographs here for some sweet visuals.

Istanbul:

Visiting Istanbul was like an explosion out of the often very familiar feeling induced by Western Europe into a world where everything felt much more distant from my home in a dazzling, beautiful way. As a city, Istanbul is endlessly fascinating, built on two continents with the Bosporus snaking through the middle of it. Turkey, as an Islamic country, is full of outstandingly beautiful mosques, and five times a day the skies ring out with the call to prayer and folks make their way to the mosques to pray. There was no end of beautiful architecture, good food, and rich cultural history here. Of course, to make my visit exponentially more wonderful, I was staying with Courtney, my little chowrita from California who I hadn't seen in over a year. Needless to say, it was so good to see her and to spend some real life time with her (as opposed to video/non-video chatting, which is good, but not quite the real thing, ya know?) and see what a wonderful, brave job she is doing of incorporating herself into the Turkish culture and lifestyle while still carving out a unique niche entirely her own. My friend from high school, Truan, also joined us in Istanbul, staying in a hostel in Kadikoy on the Asian side of the city a ten minute bus ride from Courtney's house. It's remarkable to me that two people from such different times and places in my life could have converged in another entirely separate place in the world and get along so famously. The three of us were quite a tour group, making fun of the strange (and quite dumb) Australian author of our guide book, enjoying a few drinks and meals together, and otherwise keeping each other laughing.

Having a tour guide like Courtney was an invaluable gift for communicating with folks in Turkish, taking us to all the locals-only spots, and directing our public transportation excursions. Without her, Truan and I would have figured it all out eventually, but we would have missed so, so much (like a delicious fish dinner right on the Bosporus, fifty-million bars in Taksim, Whirling Dervishes, raki drinking, live Turkish music... come to think of it, we wouldn't have made it very far at all).

I'm not going to detail all the specific activities I did while in Istanbul, but I'll summarize it by saying I visited some amazingly ancient sites, drank a few Effes beers, was introduced to ayran (a delicious yogurt drink), took many a boat ride, met some cool dudes who ran the hostel where Truan was staying, got to spend some quality time with Courtney, and did a lot of up-hill walking. Now I'm thinking about how amazing it would be to go back to Turkey in the summer and head out to the coast for some seriously beautiful beach appreciation...

Berlin:

Although I was only in Berlin for 2 1/2 days, I totally fell in love with this city. This love was definitely aided by hanging with some amazing people while I was there, several hours of big, wet snowfall, and fact that I had more or less expected to be alone and freezing cold the entire time I was there which was not the case at all. In terms of sight-seeing, the thing I enjoyed the most was this amazing contemporary art museum called the Hamburger Bahnof where I spent a sizable chunk of my first day.

Through a serious of coincidences, I ended up meeting the friendliest and most interesting group of international folks, including a Swiss boy named Ulysses and his housemates who welcomed me into their home for some menorah lighting, delicious food eating (I can only take credit for being the sous-chef), and all around good company. I also got to see my friend, Harri, who I met while I was in Argentina, and was treated to a delicious beer by him and his husband, Alberto, in a very cute cafe where we indulged in wonderful conversations about all of our favorite cities (they're one of the few people in my LIFE who I've met who actually claim to love LA!).

After this experience in Berlin, my newest dream world plan began to form: begin learning German when I get back to LA so that I can move to Berlin in a year's time. (Other experiments in dream world living -- some of which were realized and some of which have yet to be-- have involved: moving to California, moving back to New York, living in Argentina, leaving LA and moving to San Francisco, living in Portland, working on a farm, moving in with my sister... Mostly my dream worlds involve living in places and not so much what-am-I-going-to-possibly-do-when-I-get-there planning. Courtney and I have had many discussions on this philosophy).

Ulysses catching snowflakes face-first outside the closed Bauhaus Museum

Hamburg:

Although I had initially planned on going to Hamburg only to visit my friend Carsten (yet another German friend I made while in Buenos Aires!), without much regard to the city of Hamburg itself, I ended up discovering quite a beautiful city there entirely unintentionally. Carsten was a wonderful tour guide, taking me on several walking tours of the city to explore the canals, storehouses, and Christmas markets of the city. He and his housemate Felix also welcomed me into their home so generously, feeding me well, putting me to bed happy at night, and waking me with lovely conversation.

Although when I was departing on this trip, I felt the experience was really going to be more about myself and my traveling and exploring and getting to know myself better through this exploration, the main thing that this trip cemented for me was the realization of how lucky I am to have such wonderful and beautiful friends living in so many corners of the world. Although I was more than a bit sad to return to the the US, thereby making myself impossibly far away from all of these incredible people again, I am so glad to know that they're all out there, being wonderful each in their own ways.

But of course, let's not forget the incredible friends I have here back in the States! I've been enjoying seeing the New York branch of these friends while I'm here and am excited to get back to LA to see the west coast ones as well (even though I'm dreading going back to work and getting back into the grind that life can sometimes be wherever you're calling home).

The other thing that this trip made me realize is that no matter how many times I hop on a plane and make my way into some foreign city, I'll always have that urge to explore new places, to meet new people, and to otherwise live (if only temporarily) outside of my day-to-day life. So rest assured, folks, this is not the last travel blog post you'll be reading from yours truly. Not in the least.

Paree Holds the Key to Your Heart

2009-11-24T09:58:00.001-08:00

Blogging to you from Paris, my darlings, and boy is it gay. Even though the weather hasn't been terribly cooperative (temperatures in the 40s and lots of that infamous rain), it's still been great to be here. After a week here wining and dining with the folks, we took off to Rome for 5 days which was fantastic. I mean, the food in Paris is great, don't get me wrong, especially when you're eating with a bunch of foodies, but the. food. in. Italy. Full stop. Zoe and I made a promise to each other before we left that we would eat pizza and pasta every single day we were in Rome, which we accomplished easily (almost too easily) as well as incorporating into our daily regiment gelato and cappuccino. DAILY. Amazing.

I loved Rome, it's such a cool city -- it's like all these modern Romans living in and amongst these ancient ruins upon which our (Western) entire civilization is essentially founded on. And everyone is just going about their business like "oh yeah, the coliseum, NO BIG DEAL." It's so awesome.

This week in Paris has been really nice -- I've had a bit of alone time with my sister as well as a bit of straight up alone time. Unfortunately, the public museums in Paris are on strike right now (check it out, thanks Sarkozy: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/arts/design/03arts-MOREPARISMUS_BRF.html) which meant museum-going was pretty much out of the question, although Zoe and I did manage to make it to the Musee de la Chasse e de la Nature which I would rank in the top 5 coolest museums I've ever been to. It's essentially a museum about hunting, so there's tons of really cool taxidermy animals, ornately decorated weapons, and these hope chest things (there's surely a more correct term for this but I can't think of it at the moment) for a different animals and you can open the drawers and come upon footprints of the animal, legends about it, petrified dung, and all sorts of other cool things. I did take some photos but I don't have my cord to hook up my camera to my sister's computer, so you guys are just going to have to trust me on this one.

Tomorrow morning (in a mere 7 hours or so) I leave for Istanbul! I'm so excited to see my chow Courtney and to re-explore that city (I was in Istanbul with my family when I was about 10 years old but remember very little about it). I'm excited for quality time with my girl, more delicious food, mosques, and a bunch of other things I don't even know about yet (there's a rumor we might go see some whirling dervishes!?). Also, Truan, a friend from high school, is going to be in Istanbul at the same time as I am so I will have someone to hang/sightsee with during the day while Courtney's at work. So. Excited. Also, even though evidently it's going to be a bit rainy there, it's going to be considerably warmer which will be a nice respite between cold, cold Paris and what's sure to be even cold, colder Germany.

Missing home a bit (mostly the folks I love there, but what else is new -- thanks to my widely-spread diaspora of friends I'm always missing someone), but still so excited about the travels ahead. Been glad to get a lot of good writing and thinking in before I return to the busy life in Los Angeles. Promise to post lots of photos as soon as get back to my camera cord in the US.

Sending love love love from across the seas.

Embarking

2009-11-19T18:09:00.000-08:00

I write to you from the Admiral's Club of JFK International Airport, friends. Yes, my parents (with whom I'm flying to Paris and Rome) are flying business class (my father is rather tall and gets cramped in us regular-people coach seats) and my mother, well, my mother is short. BUT she's the wife of my father, so she gets to ride up front too. Me? Well, I'm riding coach with my fellow man. Luckily, the nice lady at the front desk of the Admiral's Club allowed me to slip into the fancy waiting lounge under the auspice of being a "very mature 12 year-old." Excellent.

So the first part of my journey (my journey to New York, that is) is over. Paris, here I come. For those of you looking to be less confused, here is my general outline for then 5 weeks (eek! It's down to 5 weeks already!).

Tonight I fly with Mom and Dad from NY to Paris after several lovely days of seeing almost all of the friends, family, loved ones, museums, artist collectives, and movies I wanted to (Fantastic Mr. Fox -- fucking incredible and hilarious and magnificent), then from Paris we rendezvous with my sister who is currently taking a semester abroad there, then the whole gaggle of Kerrigans moves south to Rome for a few days, then it's back to gay ole Pariee with Zoe, eastward to Istanbul to see my Burrito Baby, Berlin for a quick stop, Hamburg to see Philosopher Carsten, back to Paris for one last look around, New York for the holidays and finally back to Los Angeles in time to ring in the new year in the town's that's going to be my home for another year, it appears (at least that's what my lease says anyway).

I've been looking forward to this trip for so long and I can't wait to get some explorin' done! I feel so lucky to have friends all over the world, nearly every stop of the way, and have the time and the sorta finances to foot the bill. I'm getting excited about this trip in stages. First, I was terribly excited to be in New York, see my lovely ones, take in the city a bit before the holiday madness sets in, and see some friends I hadn't seen in far, far too long (finally, in person, che!). Now I'm excited about getting to Paris, getting some face-to-face (or tete-a-tete should I say) with the Little One, being in a big, beautiful, old city (Los Angeles is so NEW it boggles my mind sometimes when I come east and then keep going east and east). But yes! Life! Traveling! Adventure! New friends, old friends, family, etc. It's too bad I'm not going to a Spanish-speaking country on this trip as I could definitely stand to brush up my castellano (as los argentinos call Spanish), but alas, that will have to wait for next time.

So, here's to travel and here's to a new year. Even though it's not quite 2010 yet (what a bizarre year for it to be), this trip, I feel, is going to start me off on a clean, fresh, revitalized slate for the upcoming year. Yes, I'll be returning to the same city with the same friends and all the people I have down there who have become so important to me, but I'm going to be starting new, too, in a way. An independent woman in a sort of new job (I'll be with the same company only now I'll be working in the fashion department -- it's a long story involving me quitting my job when I thought I was moving to San Francisco and then begging on my hands and knees for my job back or A job ANY job) in a new part of town (also a sort of -- Echo Park from Silver Lake, but STILL, just go with me on this one), essentially a BRAND NEW ME. Not really, but for the sake of this post, everyone just nod your heads and smile. Even have some new projects I've been brewing up in my mind, all those things I've been wanting to do like... get serious about my writing, learn to play the piano, get involved in my community, explore, explore, explore (explore the world, explore my brain, explore my capacity for growth, explore my interests, you get it...).

So, cheers, here's to it all. Thinking about you all and know that although I'm about to go off on this trip, I miss you all terribly! Even those of you I was with only hours ago!

Ciao (as they say in Italy) /chau (as they say in Argentina) / farewell (as they say in the US of A).

Forever Ago

2009-10-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this event passed several weeks ago, but quite frankly, I'm still kind of trying to wrap my head around it and put into words the amazingness that I witnessed.

Let's start with a sketch, shall we? Bon Iver -- beautiful music makers, indie darlings, and composers of many a best of 2009 album lists -- played the Hollywood Forever Cemetery right here in my newly adopted city of Los Angeles. First of all, let me explain that the Hollywood Forever Cemetery is this enormous, beautiful cemetery in East Hollywood, and often they have events here-- there is an indoor venue that acts as a concert hall and a big open grassy space (where there are not yet bodies buried) where they project movies during the summer. So, Bon Iver plays the cemetery. But not only do they play in the big, grassy field, they play at sunrise. That's right, you heard me, sunrise. What does this mean, exactly? It means that at midnight a bevy of hipsters and sad music-listeners began trickling into the cemetery to stake out a good spot on the grass for a show that was to start about 6 hours later.

I arrived at the cemetery around 3 o'clock in the morning. The field was covered in sleeping bags and people in various stages of sleeping. It was quiet, but there was a buzzing feeling hovering over the crowd. We had all gathered here to brave the dark, cold night, and wait for the morning sun which would bring us warmth, light, and beautiful music. Up on the wall of a nearby building, an episode of Planet Earth was playing (you all know from my previous posts how I love this show), by a clever twist, the show had been stripped of its narration and replaced with ambient music, making it the perfect backdrop for wine sipping, cigarette smoking, a yummy food chowing.

Just before the sun began to rise, a Buddhist monk took the stage and announced that the audience was about to be blessed by a group of monks. They light candles and proceeded to chant to/with us for a good fifteen minutes. It was a pretty touching experience to be in this large group of people -- people who were friendly, community-minded, open folks -- and then to have these monks chanting to us. However, the chanting kind of only made people more anxious and excited for the band to come on.

And then, suddenly, there they were. Emerging from the still-darkness, Bon Iver took the stage. Getting to see this band perform live was privilege enough, all the members of this band are intensely talented musicians, I think nearly all of them picked up two or three different instruments during the course of their set, but getting to see them play while the sun slowly rose was an experience that I truly cannot describe in words. The thing about the sunrise that's so amazing is that when you're sitting out somewhere, experiencing the sun rise (not necessarily literally watching the sun rise from behind a hill, but just sitting somewhere as the world begins to get lighter) there is that special kind of soft, morning light that you get first thing in the morning. It's like the first rays of sun that rise are still sleepy and gray, groggy-headed things that haven't yet reached their fullest potential brightness. Moment by moment, the things around you become more and more visible. One minute you're sitting on a dark field with hundreds of sleeping bodies, the next you're covered in a thin, misty light. Every few minutes or so, I would turn around to take in the crowd behind me. The sun rising over this crowd was like watching a curtain being slowly raised-- every time I turned around, the audience seemed to grow.

Aside from the overall experience of witnessing this show, the other remarkable thing was how well Justin Vernon, the lead singer of the band, handled it all. When some people in the front started to get a little pushy, he just said "Hey, guys, everything cool?" and immediately the tension dissipated. He was humble and modest in the most beautiful way. Before finishing the set, he announced that although most bands often play encores, Bon Iver would not be doing that this morning. "We're a very young band, and we are literally playing all the songs we have. I know it's totally inadequate, but I hope that you all understand, I wish we had more songs to play, but we don't." Frankly, I wouldn't have liked them to go on one minute longer than they did-- the beauty of a good show is that the band can satisfy while still leaving you wanting more. They play all the songs you wanted to hear without playing a two-hour set that leaves you tired and achey. I appreciated this about Bon Iver. I hope that as they continue to write and record music, they keep this philosophy in mind of satisfying the audience without exhausting them.

Upon leaving the cemetery at around 7:30 am, my friend and I went out for coffee and waffles at a nearby diner and then went home and slept until 3 pm. Even though this show took up my entire Saturday night and all day Sunday, I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

All photos from Brooklyn Vegan.

Pre-dawn:

Post-dawn:

Old Time is a Good Time

2009-09-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

I've been on kind of an old time kick recently, although it's not just because of Frank Fairfield, I swear. On Sunday night I dragged Sami with me to go a square dance somewhere in the heart of the warehouse district that literally took us a half hour of driving around to find! We were like "oh, hey, Skid Row, how's it going? We're looking for a square dance... Know where we could find one?"

But seriously, kids, the square dance was AMAZING. Even though I specially requested the Zodiac square dance which they did not do (this dance basically consists of you pretending to be a big fat man from Tennessee, doing the camel walk, and sashaying down an aisle of people-- thanks Farm & Wilderness summer camp for teaching me this gem!). But yeah, Sami and I danced the night away, do-sa-doing, swinging, trying to avoid running over small children scattered about the floor, etc. Afterwards, we drank a hoppy IPA (for you, CPA!), ate a brisket sandwich and otherwise gorged ourselves. I couldn't stop smiling all night, I've been dying to go to a square dance since I moved to LA, and I was finally able to. I had even considered trying to throw one for my birthday, but it just didn't work out.

I also wanted to share this old timey video with you guys. It's pretty awesome/crazy/cool/weird. Filmed sometime between 1928 and 1935 -- that's some old shit! Pretty cool, though.

Candlelight

2009-09-16T16:47:00.000-07:00

Came across another wonderful word the other day thanks to Sasha's recommendation to sign up for Dictionary.com's word of the day list (you should do this immediately, by the way). My new favorite word is lucubration. Look at it again, I know, I know, it looks like lubrication, but I assure you that luCUBRAtion is a much more interesting word.

Lucubration \loo-kyoo-BRAY-shun; loo-kun-\, noun:

1. The act of studying by candlelight; nocturnal study; meditation.
2. That which is composed by night; that which is produced by meditation in retirement

ex: One of his characters is given to lucubration. "Things die on us," he reflects as he lies in bed, "we die on each other, we die of ourselves."
-- "Books of The Times," New York Times, February 7, 1981

So romantic, isn't it? Just think back on the old days when you would actually need a work to describe the act of studying by candlelight. My, my how things change.

You're lookin' at me, you're lookin' at country

2009-09-10T11:27:00.001-07:00

Can't get enough of Loretta Lynn these days. She's such a bad ass, singing about beating up girls trying to steal her man with nothing but smiles on her face. I love her lyrics, they're so cutting and no-nonsense, she's basically just singing "you better not mess with me" in a million different ways. And let me tell you guys, I would not like to cross Miss Loretta. I bet she can shoot a gun, birth a child with one hand and drink a whole bottle of whiskey all at the same time. Also, her hair is amazing.

With Bill Monroe playing back up guitar!

Hometown Pride

2009-09-02T17:04:00.000-07:00

As I begin to think about moving out of LA, there are suddenly all these things I really like about it. Saturday night at the Getty Center, the Short Stop bar in Echo Park, Echo Park in general, Angeles National Park... the list goes on. One thing I especially appreciate about LA is the amount of hometown pride there is here. As an outsider, folks born and raised here can sometimes feel overwhelmingly obnoxious, but as a New Yorker, I really can't say anything. Case in point about Angelinos loving their city is this amazing photo I took of my co-worker, Mark, a 40-something year-old native son. Notice how the LA sign is made from a sexy lady's hands with long fingernails. If there was an NYC equivalent of this tattoo, I think I'd get it in a second.

Snack Attack

2009-08-26T11:50:00.001-07:00

My company just moved offices. The new office has a vending machine. The vending machine has Doritos. They cost sixty cents. It's 11:30am and I've already had my first bag.

Tunes

2009-08-05T21:34:00.001-07:00

I have been listening to the Discovery album compulsively since a little bird named Zoe told me about this band featuring one dude from Vampire Weekend and one dude from Ra Ra Riot. It's basically what I image it would be like if a tall and skinny white dude with glasses, a couple tattoos, and a pair of Cheap Mondays got together with a hot black girl with a name plate necklace, Nike dunks, and neon orange jeans from Joyce Leslie and they had a baby: fucking indie hip-hop dance pop beauteousness. Here are two of my favorite tracks:

Style Like YOU

2009-08-05T10:15:00.001-07:00

Sawdust & Diamonds' favorite NYC fashionista is featured on the lovely Stylelikeu.com this week. Check her out here:

Legacy Russell

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Gal Pals (and Guy Pals)

2009-08-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

I'm certain I won't have been the first to observe this, but I felt it was important I put it in writing anyway. Also, I working from home today and working from home is hard! There's too much freedom to fuck around on the internet, eat all the food in the fridge, and sit around my house naked, so I decided I would take a break, write a little blog post, and come back to work afterward (these days I'm working as a copy writer for an online store trying to get the idea of sizeless shopping to catch on. It's actually a pretty cool site, you should check it out if you're a girl and have some extra bone$ to spare. Just go ahead and click on any of the articles of clothing and there's a 50/50 chance I wrote the little description next to it, like this little gem: If Aphrodite had been clothed when she emerged from the sea, she would have been swathed in this silk dress with its aquamarine color, plunging V-neckline, and ocean-colored brooch gathered at the bust like so many pieces of sea glass. Truly a stunning piece of construction, this dress is designed to hit above the knee. Flatters proportional shapes.).

But I digress...

I've been thinking about friends a lot recently. Not so much the TV show, but more like how one comes to make friends and what all goes into having a successful friendship with someone. I've basically concluded that it takes 6 months to a year to really cement a friendship with someone unless you meet the potential friend in one of the following situations:

- summer camp
- studying abroad
- freshman year dorms
- you start dating someone
- life or death situation

Basically, the one thing that connects all of these potential friendship-making scenarios is that you don't really have 6 months to a year to slowly develop a friendship with someone. Plus, you're seeing that person at their best and their worst, when they get out of the shower and when they're all dressed up at the club, all facets of a person are revealed very rapidly.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of all this, but I was thinking it, so I'm just putting it out there. I guess I'm kind of wondering if there's a way of fast-forwarding into a friendship with someone without having to survive a train wreck with them or romp around Prague. I kind of feel like I'm 23, I'm living in a new city, and I want to just have a fat group of people to hang out with, and while I'm slowly developing relationships with people, I just don't feel like I have the time to just sit around Los Angeles waiting to slowly develop friendships. I'm young! Time is of the essence! Anyone out there with me on this?

Babies

2009-08-03T22:31:00.000-07:00

Maybe this is completely indicative of how immature I am and how unadult-like, but I think pregnancy is the fucking craziest, weirdest, scariest thing. YOU GUYS. Your body like becomes a weird balloon, you gain like 50% more blood (thanks Female Physiology 101), and you barf all the time. Pregnancy is completely out of control and even though I maybe might want to have a kid one day, I need to come to grips with a lot of things before then. Also, when I saw the birth scene in Knocked-Up I fucking bawled like a little girl.

More Regarding the Magic of Words

2009-08-01T23:56:00.000-07:00

One thing that I love more than anything is listening to someone read out loud. One thing that I hate more than anything is being stuck in traffic at 9am on my way to Santa Monica. After some time, I finally put two and two together and ended up in the Los Feliz Library checking out To Kill A Mockingbird on CD read by Spacey Spacek. I can not say enough to properly explain how amazing listening to this CD has been. Not only do I get to relive the utter brilliance of Harper Lee, but I get to live it through the soft, sweet Southern accent of Ms. Spacek. Combined, these two ladies do an absolutely brilliant job of describing the restless summer days of childhood. It's actually amazing to me that having no children of her own, Ms. Lee is able to so accurately capture the way that young children can be so remarkably smart and yet so naive at once - she writes from a perspective of utter innocence and purity.

I highly recommend that you go out and get your hands on a copy of this masterpiece. This website has a couple of little excerpts from the book just so you can see how truly wonderful it is - try to ignore the annoying commentary in between.

Michael

2009-07-03T16:56:00.001-07:00

I miss Michael Jackson, you guys. I mean, I think it's really sad the way his whole life got turned into this creepy weird spectacle, but now that he's gone, I just want to listen to "Man in the Mirror" and "PYT" on repeat. Being in L.A., some friends and I decided we'd do the next best thing to camping outside of Neverland Ranch, and go down to the Hollywood strip to pay our respects to the man who invented pop music as we know it today. Here are some photos of us hanging out at the mob scene surrounding his star on the walk of fame. As a side note, when we got there, the guy at the front of the line (yes, there was a line to go up to MJ's star and spend some quality time with it) was on his hand and knees, delicately touching MJ's star, with his eyes closed, and was there for probably a full five minutes. Obviously those two had some deep connection that I was not hip to.

(Guy having a moment)

(Flowers in the shape of a white glove)

(Pile of stuff that will surely be useful to him in the afterlife)

More Frank

2009-06-20T19:37:00.000-07:00

Can't get enough of Frank Fairfield...

Here are a few clips I took of him performing on the back "porch" of the Echo in early May. The crowd's a little rowdy during his banjo performance and the quality's pretty horrific, but I enjoy watching these clips just the same.

Also, this clip from youtube is amazing. I love this song, he played it when I went to see him at Stories a few weeks ago. It's called "Old Paint" and it's about a cowboy and his pony named Old Paint who he's saying goodbye to. I <3>

Intelligent Drunks

2009-06-05T15:46:00.000-07:00

Ever find yourself really craving some excellent educational television programming, but it's Friday night and you can't deal with not partying in some way, shape or form? My friend, have I got the perfect plan for you. Sean and I have come up with an amazingly fun drinking game that we like to call the Planet Earth Drinking Game. Ingredients required: the British version of Planet Earth (one to three episodes, and no, the American version will not suffice) and a couple of cheap beers.

The rules are as follows: every time something on the list below occurs, you must take one sip of your beer. Pretty simple. At first, we tried to make the game much more complicated by varying the number of sips you had to take for each item, or singling out only certain people to drink, etc., but we think this basic way works pretty well and we're sticking with it. Here are the drinking set offs:

1. David Attenborough saying "vast" (pronounced vast like the beginning of pasta)

2. When a mother animal and her child are separated

3. Every time lapse photography sequence

4. David Attenborough saying "rare"

5. Any mention of Patagonia

6. Whenever carnivorous eating takes place

7. A shot taken from space

8. Animals head butting

9. A country or place where you've been

10. Animals cuddling, showing affection, mating, or attempting to attract a mate

11. Any slow motion sequence

12. An explicit mention of death

13. Whenever something is declared the most in the world (ex: the biggest mountain range in the world, the largest population found on the planet, the most dangerous cave to spelunk in, etc.)

Seriously, you guys, this game is fucking fun. Try it.

Rainy Nights

2009-06-03T21:23:00.001-07:00

As far as I'm concerned, the best way to spend a dark, wet, and thundering night by yourself is to put on some Bob Dylan, make yourself a sweet cup of tea, and make something with your hands. Right now I'm listening to The Times They Are A-Changin' and making a little gift package for my pen pal, Jillian. I love nights like these!

Lost and Found

2009-04-22T12:05:00.000-07:00

No I didn't find my lost Anna Karenina, I just bought another copy. But I did find the amazing Okie banjo/fiddle player I posted about below on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/frankfairfield. There is only one half of a recorded song up on his myspace, but Frank Fairfield is awesome and I can't wait to see him play next Friday. Pick on!

Okies

2009-04-13T20:53:00.001-07:00

Today I was walking home from work and came upon the most wonderful and amazing guy who was playing the fiddle and looked like he walked straight out of the dust bowl circa 1935. He was wearing worn slacks that were a little bit too big for him and belted high up on his waist, scuffed up Sunday shoes, and he had his hair nicely slicked back with hair wax. He was SO talented, I ended up sitting down on the sidewalk and listening to him play for the better part of an hour. It reminded me of being in high school, just sitting on the pavement, getting really excited about music. Here's a sideways video I took of him on my cell phone. The tapping sound is him keeping time with his foot. I asked him for his name so I could find him on the internet (apparently his friend keeps a myspace page for him), and I thought he said his name was Frank Fairful, but I can't find him online. If anyone knows of his URL whereabouts, please let me know!

Me and Anna

2009-04-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

I know I post about reading and books and words a lot, but here's the thing: reading and books and words are probably the top three most important things to me in my life right now. Those and this fucking awwwwesome dress I got at the Goodwill that has a denim top and a floral printed skirt (see photo taken by Zoe below). Top four things in life.

Okay, BUT. Even though I post about those things quite frequently, I'm going to go ahead and do it all over again right here, right now.

In December, I finally got up the courage and the patience to burrow into Tolstoy's Anna Karenina after listening to Nina's dad talk about how awesome it is for like the past 25 years. I swiped an old, beat up copy from my parent's house and become totally enamored with it. But, between work, looking for a better (read: higher paying) job, and watching every episode of the Colbert Report, I haven't been zooming through it as quickly as I should be. However, I had finally gotten down to the last 250 pages of this mammoth book which had fallen apart into at least four sections during my tenure with it. So I brought my last little section of the book with me to work, went for a coffee with a friend afterward, got home all set to curl up with it, AND THE BOOK WAS GONE. I lost Anna Karenina. I lost her, and I don't know how to get her back. The only thing I could think to do was post an ad on Craigslist for it in hopes that whoever found it is a huge Craigslist freak like me. But when I looked in the lost and found section of the website, I saw mostly ads looking for missing family members, and that kind of makes me feel like my stupid little lost book isn't going to make its way home anytime soon. I know how Anna Karenina ends, so I guess I shouldn't be so beat up about it, but I really liked that book and I really liked my copy, too. Dang it.

Desert/Dessert

2009-04-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

I want to go to Joshua Tree so baaaaaaad

Check out this amazing article and slideshow from yesterday's Home section of the NY Times about this artist who built this incredible house of found and recycled objects out in the desert.

Amazing things coming from amazing people

2009-04-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

Photo from contactproject.net

So you guys know about Sasha's awesome and beautiful online music magazine, Halcyon Magazine, but do you know about Legacy's website for her recently birthed Contact Project art collective? I had the pleasure of checking out their TUMBLR site for the first time today, and it is definitely worth a look. Contact is an art initiative started by Legacy, Maddie, and Miatta, which seeks to explore all meanings of the word contact: as a place where things meet and touch, as a center of collision, a point of intersection, and a space of pause just before a reaction.

These ladies are onto something extraordinary as their budding site indicates. Currently, the TUMBLR site is featuring amazing photos and mixed media works from Legacy (including her photograph of me on our roof in New York that I've used at the top of this site), and I'm sure that more phenomenal works are forthcoming from Maddie and Miatta.

As the site says, "the initiative takes a honest look at the world which continues to operate in flux around us; in an age of much disconnect, we encourage touch," and I think their timing couldn't be more poignant. Check them out here and follow the link to their TUMBLR page: http://www.contactproject.net/

New blogging opportunities!

2009-04-05T15:21:00.001-07:00

So the world famous Sad Horns crew/May House in Exile/some of my best friends who I used to live with in Santa Cruz
have officially started a blog!

http://sadhorns.blogspot.com

CHECK IT OUT

We're coming after you, Brown Mastodon.

Sometimes you hit a car and scratch the bumper and don't leave a note.

2009-03-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

The other night I hit a car. A parked car. I was attempting to execute a three-point turn and I smacked right into the Jeep parked behind me.

"Shit, what do I do?" I asked Sean who was sitting in the passenger seat. He hopped out to survey the damage.

"Just go," he encouraged me, "jam out of here. It's not bad. Their bumper's all fucked up anyway, let's just find a different street to park on." I had no intention of leaving a note for the owner of the car who I had hit, so I booked it.

A few days later, I found an ominous looking note tucked behind the windshield of my car. Oh man, they totally busted me. They matched up the scratches on their car to the scratches on my car (my bumper had gotten pretty noticeably banged-up) and now I'm going to get arrested and have to pay to replace their entire bumper even though it was already all messed up to begin with.

I slowly opened the note and read the following:

To whom it may concern,

I may have scratched your bumper pulling out this morning. If I did (and it was not already like that)

please call me at (number here) so I can have it repainted.

Thanks. I just hate when people do it to me so I feel obligated to let you know if indeed it was me.

Woah. I'm pretty sure that was a sign from the god of driving telling me that I fucked up big time and that I'm a horrible, shitty person. Why can't you be more like that guy?, the god of driving scolded me. He's a good soul and he's spreading peace, love, and justice in the world. You're a bad person and a crappy driver. Kind of heavy, you guys.

Do I ever cross your mind? Anytime?

2009-03-07T19:28:00.000-08:00

Look a little closer those aren't cherries you're seeing. Nope, that's a mini hot dog pie.

Do you ever lie awake at night wondering why people are so fat? Well, I think I've found your answer right here: Thisiswhyyourefat.com.

This website is entirely dedicated to the stupid concoctions that Americans make with their food. It has everything on it from the bacon explosion to a pizza topped with mini pizzas and ridiculously high-stacked sandwiches. Pretty epic.

Oh man, do I love the New York Times

2009-03-05T21:41:00.001-08:00

The NY Times website is currently doing a series of short interviews accompanied by beautiful black and white photos showcasing different New Yorkers. It's fucking phenomenal and runs the gamut from old immigrants who have been making mozzarella for 25 years to young people just kind of chugging along. It's beautifully done, you guys should definitely check it out: 1 in 8 Million

Beet-le Juice

2009-02-27T13:46:00.001-08:00

Photo from http://fuckyeahryangosling.tumblr.com/

As my book deal about the life and times of working in a juice bar is pending, I decided to give you guys a taste of some of my experiences cutting wheatgrass and weighing nutritional yeast. Putting aside Miranda July's and the singer from the Donnas' visits (we chatted for like ten minutes, pretty sure she's my new best friend), some other interesting things have happened to me during my short stay at The Juice Bar.

A few weeks ago it was a cold, rainy Friday in Los Angeles. I was working with two of the other girls and one of our regular girls/friends came into to get her daily mate fix. Because of the rain we were all feeling a little stir-crazy and the store was deadly quiet, so we were just kind of rocking out to the music playing from the speakers and being silly, gossipy girls.

The first customer we'd had in a hour entered the store. He ordered a juice and chatted all of us up. I noticed that he was kind of giving the eyes to one of the girls I worked with and I got excited for her since the guy was pretty cute. Suddenly, one of the other girls noticed another guy standing outside of the store, talking on his cell phone.

"Isn't that that actor dude?" she exclaimed.
"Yeah! That's Ryan Gosling," one of the others answered.
"Oh man, he is such a babe. I'm so glad he shaved off that ugly-ass beard," one girl responded.
"Didn't he used to date Julia Roberts?"
"Ew, Julia Roberts has a face like a horse!" The store erupted in giggles as the conversation continued on this way for several minutes. The gaggle of girls scrutinized Gosling's entire public life, giving full and unfiltered opinions on his love life, facial hair, acting career, and style. With her back turned to the door, our regular/friend was engaged on a long rant about how much she hated Julia Roberts when Gosling began to enter the store. I quickly performed the international sign for ix-nay and the regular/friend stopped mid-sentence. As Gosling entered the store, us girls couldn't help but erupt in another fit of laughter, making it painfully obvious that we had just been having a lengthy conversation about the celebrity who had just entered the store.

Gosling glanced over at us, smiling, obviously aware that we had just been talking about him, and approached the man who had formerly been flirting with one of the girls, and had stood silent for the past several minutes. "Sorry, I had to take that call," Mr. Gosling addressed the cute guy. "What did you get?"

Oh my god. They're friends! We all realized simultaneously. Another fit of laughter and awkward eye contact took hold of the room. Gosling's phone rang and he stepped outside to answer it, leaving his friend alone at the juice bar. The room was silent.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," the regular/friend finally addressed the celeb's friend. "Sometimes I say things without thinking about them."
"No worries," he reassured her awkwardly.

Gosling entered the store again, ordered a juice, and a few minutes later, the owner entered.
"Hey! How are you?!" the owner greeted Gosling.
"Long time no see!" Gosling replied as they shook hands. The two chatted for a few minutes until Gosling's juice was ready.
"You know who dat izz?" My boss whispered to me in his thick Israeli accent, absolutely beaming. I nodded quickly and stepped aside in order to charge Gosling's card.

Finally the two went on their merry way. As soon as they left, us girls found ourselves laughing so hard we were squatting on the floor, tears rolling down our ashamed faces.

A few minutes later, still recovering from our immense laughter, another regular entered the store. "Oh man, did that Ryan guy just come in here? The girls up and down the street are all flipping out!" he exclaimed.

For the record, I never would have recognized Gosling if it hadn't been for the other girls. Regardless, he's every bit as attractive in person as he is on film, in case you were wondering. Just for the record.

Growin' Up

2009-02-20T14:23:00.000-08:00

I've never been one to exercise, but the one semi-athletic thing I've been known to do on occasions when I'm feeling extremely motivated is yoga. I've probably taken less yoga classes in my life than I could count on both hands, but I like to consider myself a partaker of the yoga nonetheless. Here in LA, people take exercising just about as seriously as they take Defamer's word (which is to say absolutely 110%), and they take yoga even more seriously than that. Lucky for her!, you would think to yourself upon reading this, wouldn't you? Not exactly. While LA's unhealthy obsession with yoga does mean that there are a plethora of classes at various times and locations, Angelinos ask a lot from their yoga classes. Most importantly, they ask that their classes be exclusive and devoid of all the free-loading yoga hippies out there. In order to ensure their elite classes continue on the desired trajectory, most yoga classes in this city cost upwards of $15 a class. Fifteen dollars a class! That's like five meals at In N Out, which I prize way more than my ability to touch my toes, thank you very much.

However, recently, I believed I had found the loophole in the LA yoga oligarchy-- yoga classes held at my local rec center FOR FREE. That's right people, our taxes do go towards something good, namely yoga classes for free. I was ecstatic, dizzy, giddy, and gay. Free yoga classes felt like my own little personal ray of sunshine shining down from the heavens above and landing squarely on my head and bad-posture shoulders. Waking up early one morning before work, I donned my 100% American Apparel stretchwear gear, rolled up my yoga mat, and made my way over to the rec center.

I was running a bit late, and as it was my first time visiting this particular rec center, a little bit confused as to where I was supposed to be. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a fellow spandex-clad lady with yoga mat in hand slipping behind the door to what was clearly the yoga room. I caught the door just as she began to close it, and she turned as she noticed the resistance on the door, looking me blankly in the face. Getting a view of this lady from the front, I suddenly realized that although she had looked young and limber from the back, she was actually probably close to seventy years of age. I faltered for a moment, but quickly bounced back, reminding myself that I had been in several yoga classes with older folks who were by far the most limber and flexible of the bunch. I quickly continued into the room, hurriedly unrolled my mat and lay down on my back in order to join the already-started class.

After a few minutes of lying on my back and concentrating on my breathing, the instructor asked all the students to sit upright and face into the circle. As I slowly lifted my head and opened my relaxed eyes I noticed the seventy year-old woman sitting off to my left and realized that surrounding her were sitting her thirty best seventy year-old friends. The reality of the situation suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks: I had just crashed a senior citizen's yoga class.

As I sat there, staring dumbfounded at the abundance of varicose veins and salt and pepper hair around me, I noticed that everyone in the class was staring right back at me. I felt how Woody Allen must feel if he stumbled into choir practice only to realize the choir was for a Southern Baptist church in Alabama. Awwwwkward.

No matter, I thought to myself, I'm already here. It will be more awkward if I get up and leave and let the old people get the best of me. So ignoring the blatant stares from the old fogies around me, I prepared to enter cow pose.

Halfway through the class, the instructor (who, by the way, was herself also a golden ager) allowed a ten minute break (seniors often have weak bladders). During this break, she approached me to welcome me into the class. "Even though this class is geared toward older folks, I'm sure they'd be delighted to have you!" she optimistically confided. Yeah, right, I thought. They'd be about as glad to have a spry young thing like me join them as much as I'd enjoy running into my ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend in a sensual massage class. Oh, you're just going to go ahead and do that pose and it won't hurt your aching back or swollen feet? Oh, you're just going to practice that massage move so you can use it on my ex later? Great. Thanks.

I forced myself to stay through the rest of the class, although I decided I would never come back again. My ditch this class forever had less to do with my fear of over-the-hillers (I hear they're actually quiet nice if you don't mind sitting with them for a few hours and listen as they tell the same three stories about their childhood over and over again), as much as it had to do with the fact that the class actually cost $5! Lucky for me, my trial session was free, but after that, it was time to pay up. Fuck that, I told myself as I eased myself out of my last child's pose and prepared to roll up my mat and leave.

As I was walking briskly out of the rec center, I noticed a schedule posted on the wall. Inspecting the schedule more closely, I realized that if I had had the great insight to actually read the description of the class before recklessly throwing myself in the groaning moaning old people pit, I could have saved myself a lot of humiliation. But something else caught my eye: another yoga class at the same rec center on a different morning that was actually offered for free! Scanning the class description, I saw no mention of the elderly, moving slowly, or rheumatoid arthritis, and promised I would return for this class the following week.

But, all ye readers who know how the classic novel works: that's right, there's a plot twist. When I entered the yoga room the following week again decked out in my spandex, I came upon not only another yoga for the elderly class, but a yoga for the elderly class where the people were so old they didn't even need to use yoga mats; it was essentially a sit around and be old class with a little bit of stretching on the side. Holy Jesus. I turned an about face, and I have stepped foot in that god-forsaken rec center since. Now I just want to know if there's any way I can get a refund for the part of my paycheck that goes to paying for another exclusive and agist yoga place in LA.

Reading's a whale of a time pt. 2

2009-02-15T20:17:00.000-08:00

William Faulker or Hunter S. Thompson?

A few months ago I read William Faulkner's Light In August, and it was phenomenal. One of my nerdy lit student habits I've taken on over the years is to mark my favorite passages in books as I'm reading them. Afterwards, I come back to them and compile them. For your reading pleasure, here are some of my favorite passages from this categorically beautiful book. I love when Faulker just makes up words by pushing two (or more) together; check out his "diamonsurfaced" and "thwardfacecurled." Although he's clearly adept enough to use lofty, poetic language, he's smart enough to use simple, efficient wording, too, especially when he's trying to get something complex and nuanced across, which is sheer genius. I hope you enjoy these tidbits:

"At the cigar counter McEachern paid the brasshaired woman. There was about her a quality impervious to time: a belligerent and diamondsurfaced respectability. She had not so much as looked at them, even when they entered and even when McEachern gave her money. Still without looking at them she made the change, correctly and swiftly, sliding the coins onto the glass counter almost before McEachern had offered the bill; herself somehow definite behind the false glitter of the careful hair, the careful face, like a carved lioness guarding a portal, presenting respectability like a shield behind which the clotted and idle and equivocal men could slant their hats and their thwartfacecurled cigarettes."

"'I had seen and known Negroes since I could remember. I just looked at them as I did at rain, or furniture, or food, or sleep.'"

"Now the final copper light of afternoon fades; now the street beyond the low maples and the low signboard is prepared and empty, framed by the study window like a stage.

He can remember how when he was young, after he first came to Jefferson from the seminary, how that fading copper light would seem almost audible, like a dying yellow fall of trumpets dying into an interval of silence and waiting, out of which they would presently come. Already, even before the falling horns had ceased, it would seem to him that he could hear the beginning thunder not yet louder than a whisper, a rumor, in the air."

"She was the daughter of one of the ministers, the teachers, in the college. Like himself, she was an only child. He believed at once that she was beautiful, because he had heard of her before he ever saw her and when he did see her he did not see her at all because of the face which he had already created in his mind. He did not believe that she could have lived there all her life and not be beautiful. He did not see the face itself for three years. By that time there had already been for two years a hollow tree in which they left notes for one another. If he believed about that at all, he believed that the idea had sprung spontaneously between them, regardless of whichever one thought of it, said it, first. But in reality he had got the idea from a book. But he did not see her face at all. He did not see a small oval narrowing too sharply to chin and passionate with discontent (she was a year or two or three older than he was, and he did not know it, was never to know it). He did not see that for three years her eyes had watched him with almost desperate calculation, like those of a harassed gambler.

Then one night he saw her, looked at her. She spoke suddenly and savagely of marriage. It was without preamble or warning. It had never been mentioned between them. He had not even ever thought of it, thought the word. He had accepted it because most of the faculty were married. But to him it was not men and women in sanctified and living physical intimacy, but a dead state carried over into and existing still among the living like two shadows chained together with the shadow of a chain. He was used to that; he had grown up with a ghost. Then one evening she talked suddenly, savagely. When he found out at last what she meant by escape from her present life, he felt no surprise. He was too innocent. 'Escape?' he said. 'Escape from what?'

'This!' she said. He saw her face for the first time as a living face, as a mask before desire and hatred, wrung, blind, headlong with passion. Not stupid: just blind, reckless, desperate. 'All of it! All! All!'

He was not surprised. He believed at once that she was right, and that he had not known better. He believed at once that his own belief about the seminary had been wrong all the while. Not seriously wrong, but false, incorrect. Perhaps he had already begun to doubt himself, without knowing it until now. Perhaps this was why he had not yet told them why he most go to Jefferson. He had told her, a year ago, why he wanted to, must, go there, and that he intended to tell them the reason, she watching him with those eyes which he had not yet seen. 'You mean,' he said, 'that they would not send me? arrange for me to go? That that would not be reason enough?'

'Certainly it wouldn't,' she said.

'But why? That's the truth. Foolish, maybe. But true. And what is the church for, if not to help those who are foolish but who want truth? Why wouldn't they let me go?'

'Why, I wouldn't let you go myself, if I were them and you gave me that as your reason.'

'Oh,' he said. 'I see.' But he did not see, exactly, though he believed that he could have been wrong and that she was right. And so when a year later she talked to him suddenly of marriage and escape in the same words, he was not surprised, not hurt. He just thought quietly, 'So this is love. I see. I was wrong about it too,' thinking as he had thought before and would think again and as every other man has thought: how false the most profound book turns out to be when applied to life."

Reading's a whale of a time

2009-02-12T17:30:00.000-08:00

I recently came upon this website which claims to offer the 100 best first lines from novels, and thought it was pretty cool. I hope it's not in order, because although Moby Dick is a pillar of the American canon and all, I really don't think the line "Call me Ishmael" is that stellar. Memorable, yes. Wise beyond all wisdom, not so much. I liked looking at the website just to check off how many awesome books I've read already (and boy, do I have a long way to go).

As a side note, whales are fucking cool, man. I went to the Natural History Museum in New York with my sister when I was home, and man, the hanging whale sculpture they have is so epic. Woah.

Coolness

2009-02-10T23:08:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you just find cool shit on the internet and you realize your only calling in life is to share that cool shit with the people around you.

Some examples:

http://radduderadkidradlady.blogspot.com/ (Thanks Sasha!)

Refinery29 declares gaps to be "in"

2009-02-06T11:35:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about fashion magazines and websites who call all the shots regarding what trends are in, is when they declare physical attributes to be in or out of style. Case in point is this article I discovered on Refinery29 declaring that a gaping hole between your two front teeth is the newest must-have accessory. According to this article, "more and more (blessed be!), it seems those hideously super-sized, glow-in-the-dark veneers are being replaced by normal beautifully imperfect canines." Well, gee, thanks. While as a lady with a sizable gap myself (thanks, Dad), I know I should take this new attention as a compliment, how can I? I've never fully recovered from an incident that occurred while reading The Canterbury Tales in a high school English class when the teacher pointed out that by describing the Wife of Bath as gap-toothed, Chaucer implies that she's a lusty slut. The English teacher then turned to me and pointed out to the rest of the class "hey guys, just like Moira!"
If Refinery29 thinks they're just going to erase all the pain and insecurity I've had about having gap-teeth with one mere passing remark about teeth as accessories, boy are they wrong.

However, while doing some research for this post, I came across this little gem of a movie called Gap-Toothed Women. It's a documentary all about beautiful women who happen to have gap-teeth. And the kicker is, this movie came out in 1987, way before Refinery29 decided to bless us with their cool stamp.

So I guess now I'm finally in style. Damn, what's next? Will I be deemed cool for having bad genetics in other ways, like say, having poor eyesight?

Oh, wait.

Re: End of the World

2009-02-03T17:15:00.001-08:00

Based on my extensive research via movies, television, the internet, and this one class I took in college called Earth Science and Cinema, it's pretty clear that the world is going to end one day. Now, apparently the Mayans were talking about this a long time ago and predicted that the world would end in 2012. Ooookay that's creepy. Well, not nearly as creepy as this website that Sean and I came upon the other night: The Institute for Human Continuity. While the Mayans may not have been able to predict the internet, the IHC, if I may be so informal, has created this amazing website all about the world ending in 2012. On the site you can do a number of things including but not limited to: learning how to assemble a survival kit, register for the survival lottery which "will not save everyone, [but] will, however, give each individual an equal chance at survival," as well as watch three different disaster scenario visualizations.

Okay, let's take a step back for a second. According to the good ole IHC, their "comprehensive research has confirmed with 94% certainty that in the year 2012 cataclysmic forces will decimate our planet and much of its inhabitants." How did the IHC come up with this idea, you ask? Well, the website explains, "a small group of the world's most powerful business leaders and former government officials convened a summit in Timaru, New Zealand [where] top scientists outlined their research indicating that in the year 2012" the world would end. Now, here's my question: if the world's tops scientists are working on compiling all this research and data, how could it be possible that they don't even know which of the many scenarios offered on the website is actually going to cause the complete destruction of the world (although I'm partial to the increased solar activity scenario, myself). Is it just like all the scientists are suddenly saying "hey, you guys, I kinda have a bad feeling about the year 2012," or what?

What I do really like about these end of the world scenarios is that they're so interactive! You watch the first step of the destruction of the world as we know it and then in order to see what happens next you have to click the button that increases solar flares or adjusts the orbit of the earth so that it collides with another planet. It's like YOU get to destroy the world. Does anyone else smell a metaphor here? The power to destroy (and therefore also to save) the earth lies in your hands. Is this the Green party's newest tactic for scaring people into taking care of the environment? It's up to you, citizen, to preserve life as we know it. Well, damn, now I don't know whether I should be stockpiling filtered water in a fire-proof contained or composting my waste and converting my car to eco-diesel. Either way, these days, the future's looking pretty dim.

Characters

2009-02-03T16:24:00.000-08:00

So I've been working at the juice bar for almost a month now, and I've resisted publishing anything on my blog about the kinds of folks who come into the store. For one thing, the internet probably isn't the smartest place to put up stuff about costumers who range all over the cool vegan to crazy raw foodist and everything in between prism. The other reason I haven't posted anything about the new job is that I'm pretty sure I'm just going to write a book about all the awesome/crazy/super nice/famous people I get to meet and hang out with while I'm at work. It's going to be a masterpiece, you guys. So, to hear more about that aspect of my life, you're just going to have to wait until my first novel comes out.

Idiom/t

2009-01-24T19:45:00.000-08:00

Here's the latest from guest blogger Sean Ford. Someone tell that dude to do us all a favor and get a job writing comedy.

I left some xanax in my pocket and did some laundry. Now everything is relaxed fit.

You can add insult to injury. Or you could just add salt.

That joke shows me in my element, which is sodium.

Its important to keep your word but sometimes you should let other people use it.

If you're homesick, you miss your home. If you're carsick you're throwing up everywhere.

Your guess is as good as mine, unless you're a psychic.

Entrance

2009-01-22T11:21:00.000-08:00

Some rainy Friday awhile back, I was surfing the myspace band circuit and came upon what I would later become one of my favorite contemporary bands: The Entrance Band. It's been close to a year since I discovered Entrance and I finally got the chance to see them for the first time last Thursday night as they took the stage at the Troubadour.

Now, there is a fine line between trendsetting and trend following, but Entrance seems to be on the setting side of things. Encompassing all the important indie/1970’s throwback/hipster metal/psychedelia elements into one fucking amazing performance, Entrance provided a taste of everything including wizardry, Native American flourishes, a projector screen showing altered images of a game of cat’s cradle, and even MLK Jr. The fact that Entrance even has a song about MLK makes me realize how special this band really is.

Since I had anticipated this show for so long, I had high expectations for Entrance. Although I got a little nervous when they opened with a new song that supremely sucked, they managed to turn things around in the second song and played a great fucking set.

My admiration by Entrance is much aided by their most badass bass player, Paz Letchin of such fame as A Perfect Circle and Zwan. There haven't been many awesome female bass players in the history of good music, and while Kim Deal of the Pixies is equally as badass as Paz, she isn’t nearly as cute. Okay, I guess I have to throw Kim Gordon in there too, but now she’s old and wrinkly, so she doesn’t count anymore either.

Basically, Entrance embodies everything that I would want in a band today: they’re super melodic, they have a lady in their band, they play psychedelic music that’s sometimes heavy and sometimes downright pretty, they have a song about Martin Luther King Jr., and they play in LA at least once a month.

The next time they come to a venue near you, I highly recommend you check them out. Unfortunately, if you don’t live near LA or Big Sur, you might have to wait awhile, as I don’t think they’ve played a show outside of the state of California for quite some time. Your second best option would be just to suck it up and watch this pretty radical video of theirs:

O-bams

2009-01-20T13:10:00.000-08:00

Photo from nytimes.com

'Nuff said.

Job Gods

2009-01-12T11:50:00.001-08:00

Well, for those of you who read my blog to keep up with my life and not just to read about all the extremely interesting and funny things I know about, this one's for you: the job gods have smiled upon me and given me a job! Now I can stop bitching and moaning about not having a job and get on with my life.

The job is working at this cute little juice bar/bulk food spot right in Sunset Junction. It's not the editing job at Nylon that would have been cool, but the people I work with are super sweet, and the clients are also super friendly and awesome. I'm pretty stoked to have been hired for a job run by good people and within a five minute walk from my house. Also, Miranda July totally came into the store yesterday, and even though she was kind of unfriendly and rude, it still was kind of cool.

As a side note, I don't know if you guys noticed some of the comments my friend Sasha has been posting in response to my posts, but that chick is funny! If you haven't checked out her site yet, you should because it's great; it's all about heavy metal, bad ass mustaches, and all things 1970's: http://www.halcyon-magazine.com.

I Fucking Hate Hipsters and Other Cliches

2009-01-08T12:29:00.000-08:00

Lots of people hate hipsters. This isn't something new. People are always angry about something, and while it's no longer politically correct to direct your hate at Jews, blacks, or women, it's totally socially acceptable (and encouraged) to hate on hipsters.

The thing that I find absolutely hilarious about hipster-haters is that for the most part they really don't have any idea what a hipster is. They consider any person between the ages of 16 to 35 who sports an ounce of style to be a hipster. This fact was exemplified to the extreme last Saturday. I was at home trying to find new bars to go to that are within walking distance from my house. As usual, I turned to my ever-handy yelp.com and discovered 4100 bar literally a block away. As I began reading the reviews, which mostly gave the bar four out of five stars, I noticed a common theme: while people generally enjoyed themselves at 4100 -- they found the drinks to be reasonably priced, and dug the opium-den-like decor, almost every reviewer said something to the effect of "I would have given this place five stars if it hadn't been crawling with fucking hipsters."

I decided I had to check this place out for myself in order to assess the hipster situation. Preparing to be suffocated by a sea of T-shirts emblazoned with wolves howling at the moon, high-waisted shorts, and racing-stripe-shaved heads, I held my breath and closed my eyes as I entered the bar. Once inside the silky red curtains, I slowly opened my eyes. I turned my head to the left, turned my head to right right: no hipsters. NO HIPSTERS ANYWHERE, when 9 out of 10 of the yelp reviews claimed the place was chock-full of 'em. I was a little bit disappointed to say the least. The bar was just like any other bar: mostly slutty drunk chicks and kind of creepy guys trying to hit on them. Totally normal. It was this experiment that lead me to the hypothesis that hipster-haters just actually hate anyone who is cooler than they are.

However, upon doing further research into this hypothesis, I came upon the blog stuffhipstersdon'tlike (written by a blogger whose credibility may be at stake for failing to win the Miss Williamsburg contest). According to Lola, "You know you have encountered a true hipster his first utterance when [sic] entering a venue is 'Jesus, this place is crawling with hipsters.'"

So now I'm confused. Were all those yelp reviewers actually hipsters in denial? Were they just expressing their hipster mating call by screaming out to the rest of the yelp community that they hate hipsters and therefore actually are hipsters? Were the hipsters the bar was supposedly crawling with actually the reviewers' closest friends?

I was able to draw some conclusions from this story that I'd like to share with you all now-- a choose your own ending of sorts:

1) If you hate hipsters you are a hipster
2) if you hate hipsters you are not a hipster
3) if you hate hipsters you probably don't know what a hipster is
4) if you hate hipsters you are wasting your fucking time and you need to get a better hobby
5) who fucking cares

Last Night a Video Saved My Life

2009-01-07T12:42:00.000-08:00

Doing some online "researching," otherwise known as surfing the web and checking out blogs, at my internship yesterday I came upon these two pretty awesome videos filmed in Manhattan and Brooklyn. I think they're really aesthetically pleasing, kind of cute, and great-looking in general. Sean hates them and think they look like commercials, which is pretty true, but sometimes I cry during commercials, so, ya know, whatever.

I'm posting them in order of my least to most favorite, so if you have time you should watch both, if not just watch the second one filmed in Brooklyn.

Fifty People, One Question: New York from Crush & Lovely on Vimeo.

Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn from Crush & Lovely on Vimeo.

Got Tube?

2009-01-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

Remember back in the glorious 1990's when those Got Milk ads came out and then everyone else's ad campaigns just ripped them off super hard and we were seeing "Got" everythings? Well, the same thing is going on with YouTube now.

Spending a quiet night at home the other night, I turned to one of my favorite activities ever-- watching cute/funny cat and dog videos on YouTube. But halfway through my amateur attempt at recreating America's Funniest Home Videos, a little ad popped up on my screen. "Want to see more cute videos of kittens and puppies?" it beckoned me, "click here!" Being the sucker that I am, I totally clicked and suddenly I was face to face with GodTube.

GodTube claims that its mission is to provide a "video-driven social network where users can explore their faith and the tenets of Christianity... GodTube is unique in its appeal and in its mission to 'Broadcast Him.'"

Basically, it's a bunch of videos of Christians doing Christian things like preaching, praying, playing country music, and filming their adorable pets. If I have to admit that the sweetest little kitten is god's creature, well shit, man, I'm in.

I know I posted a video of an adorable animal in the last post, but what can I say, I guess I'm in cute animal kick right now. It's like when you have that one song that you're totally obsessed with and you listen to it on repeat for 3 days straight. So, I can't help but offer this one cute little animal video.

Lions, Tigers, Bears, etc.

2009-01-05T09:04:00.000-08:00

Being an avid reader and a self-confessed lover of words, sometimes I come upon a word I don't recognize. Recently I was reading an article which described someone as ursine, and I thought I'd like to share that word with you all.

Ursine means of, relating to, or resembling bears. Isn't that a fucking great word? I challenge you to try to use it in a sentence today.

Speaking of righteous animals, this weekend Ian and Jen showed me this awesome video about two British dudes who bought a lion at Harrod's, raised him, set him free in Africa, and then reunited with him a couple of years later. It's pretty much the most adorable thing I've ever seen.

So This is the New Year

2009-01-03T18:15:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 2009, you guys.

I'd like to apologize for what essentially amounted to a two-week hiatus from blogging. I was lucky enough to go back to New York for the holidays where I was busy catching up with family and friends, leaving virtually no time for blogging. Sad, I know. Lucky for you, now that I'm back in LA, I'm back to the job-less life, and I've suddenly got lots of free time again!

Although the first few days of 2009 have been pretty uneventful thus far, I'm trying to keep my spirits up about the year to come. I'm thinking that things can only go up from here and one day, hopefully in the not too distant future, the sun is going to peak out from those clouds, and someone is going to smile at me and say "Moira, you're awesome. Let me give you a job."

I've never been one to make New Years resolutions, and I'm certainly not going to now, but I do have some pretty high expectations (totally different than resolutions) for the second-to-least year of the aughts. Where are the flying scooters, where are the teleporters, and where is the TV with smell and taste effects? People, this stuff should have been invented in the year 2000, and now it's 2009 and we're not even close to anything like that. Let's just make the promise to really put our heads together this year and get all that futuristic high-tech shit that we've been seeing in movies so long actually out there and out on the shelves. Deal? Deal.

In the meanwhile, for inspiration, check out ABBA's "Happy New Year." It's a classic.

Tut Tut, It Looks Like Rain

2008-12-22T09:52:00.000-08:00

While I've been thinking about the amazing snowy weather in the east, guest blogger, Sean Ford, has been thinking about the rainy weather in the west. Here's a post from him, philosophizing on the connection between nature and music.

I think about music a lot. And as we get into the winter months and find ourselves more often at the will of weather’s whims, I am often stuck indoors to think about music even more. Now, as the sky darkens and the winds blow back into town, I find my stereo undergoing a seasonal change of its own. The same rainy day records are selected almost instinctually and it makes me wonder how much of an influence the weather has on our choice of music. It seems like some records are simply better suited for different season but it is kind of interesting when you think about it. What makes an album so rainy?

Perhaps it’s simple. Nice weather is said to put us in a better mood and thus it may attract us to music in a major key. Heavy weather, which could dampen our spirits, would then positions us to identify with a minor key. But I think it’s more complex than just that. Could there be a relationship between the weather and the types of voices we would prefer to listen to? Is there a relationship between the environment outdoors and whether we're listening to acoustic or electric instruments indoors? How about swaying somebody towards ambiance or nature sounds? Simple or complex compositions? Music from the past or contemporary?

While pondering this during some free time (all day at work), I made a list of my favorite winter records. Artists such as Margo Guryan, Missispi John Hurt, Yma Sumac, Doc Watson, Richard Einhorn and Neil Young were quite justifiably near the top. While their pertaining genres and styles may not correspond, I was able to find certain common dominators when analyzing the various moods reflected in these recordings. After reading several reviews and essays on these records it became apparent that certain adjectives where used for almost every one:

Earthy, organic, ethereal, melancholy, whimsical, reflective, earnest, bittersweet, intimate, and amiable.

That's so true about rain, too. Those words themselves are so rainy to me. If they were used to describe a person you could probably gather that this person is also quite nurturing, perhaps even motherly. Maybe it's not my own taste that changes at all, perhaps these are the records subliminally selected by mother nature herself, a sort of seasonal soundtrack for the highly attuned naturalist. "Hey DJ, play something I can drip to."

It's interesting that something about the presence of rain compels us to reconnect with nature through more organically produced music. The rain reminds us that we live in a natural world and as a result the more constructed, big-budget studio productions tend to stay on the shelf. It's almost as if the rain entices you to momentarily withdraw from our noisy, boisterous society and invites us to enjoy the pleasures of simple sounds as they occur naturally. In a way, it’s like a musical lesson, bringing us back to the roots of popular song and reconnecting us with our earliest relationships to sound. The influence of rain could be so strong in fact that it might entice the active listener to rethink what music really is. The flurry of drops on your roof top, couldn't that be music—drizzling through the overture and ending with a thunderous crescendo. Is there anything more soothing or cathartic than listening to the rushing sound of a river or the abysmal whoosh of the ocean?

I think it's that same naturalistic, almost minimalist mentality that makes acoustic instrumentation so rainy. Soft, rustic voices are especially rainy with even more precipitation points scored for a capella music. Folk music, cultural music, classical music, all appropriate in a downpour. I read a review of Neil Young's After the Gold Rush which described the sound as autumnal, meaning simply that is sounded like autumn. Isn't that a great word for music? Way better than scarf-rock.

Bittersweet is an especially good word for rain and likewise that may be the most pervasive quality projected by my torrential turntable. Rainy records exist at the point where gloom meets beauty and where sadness finds rejuvenation. There's nothing more cleansing then a good rain and likewise there is nothing like a good record to really purge your soul. So as the skies unload on us the burden of this years atmosphere, take a look at the music that you find yourself returning to. Nature could be trying to tell you something.

Snow Falling on Cedars

2008-12-21T14:06:00.001-08:00

My only wish for this holiday season was that it would snow while I'm back in New York. I've only been home for four days and my wish has come true tenfold! On Thursday night there was a big snowstorm of the most beautiful, soft, and silent variety, and today it's been snowing big wet rain-flakes all day which are also lovely in their own right. I couldn't be happier to be walking slowly down the sidewalk, trying desperately not to slip, and brushing cold wet stars from my hair and eyelashes. I can't explain the most wonderful way that snow makes me feel now that I live on the west coast and can't have it ever. It just makes me feel like sitting inside, drinking coffee, and reading Anna Karenina, which I am. I do miss the seasons these days.

Underwear

2008-12-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

The other night as I was coming home from my internship (still no paying job, thanks) I was confronted with the worst kind of moral dilemma I've had to deal with in quite some time. As I was walking up the steps to my little complex I was greeted by a giant white pair of underwear in the middle of the path. From my detective skills I was able to discern that the underwear belonged to my neighbor across the way, a rather hefty and mildly unfriendly lady. Now, as the newest kids in our small 4-apartment complex, Sean and I are always trying to be friendly and chatty whenever we run into our new neighbors, but this neighbor in particular is the kind of neighbor who pretty much avoids us and ignores our friendly waves as she zoomed away in her Mini Cooper. Regardless, Sean and I have still been trying to be as friendly as can be. I guess we feel like we owe it to her because we're stealing our internet from her anyway.

Immediately the thought crossed my mind: should I tell my neighbor that her underwear (presumably a clean pair that had fallen off a load of freshly-washed laundry) was impeding my path and protect her from further embarrassment as our other neighbors began coming home from work? How should I go about telling her about the underwear? Should I pick them up and bring them to her door? Should I knock politely and then point at them? Would this underwear incident bond us? Would it crack the ice on her cold, cold heart? Or, on the other hand, should I save her the embarrassment of having to talk directly to me about her large pair of underwear and just leave them lying there to find for herself? When she did discover them she would surely know that I had arrived home since my lights were on and know that I had walked past them and ignored them. Would she be angry with me? What was the proper friendly-neighbor etiquette in this situation?

After a few seconds of standing in the path, staring blankly at the underwear, I delicately stepped over them and rushed into my own apartment, totally chickening out of any confrontation with her.

Did I do the right thing? Lord knows.

Carnivores galore!

2008-12-12T13:03:00.000-08:00

You guys, I hate to admit this, but I was a vegetarian for a long time. Like, a really fucking long time. Six years to be exact. I guess I decided to stop eating meat because I thought it was cool to be different, but then I moved to Santa Cruz and everyone was a fucking vegetarian. Or they said they were vegetarians because they didn't eat red meat (come on, you guys, you're obviously not a vegetarian if you eat chicken). Anyway, after choking down tofu sandwiches and veggie wraps for six years, right around the time of my 20th birthday I decided to take the plunge back into the great wide world of meats. Let me tell you, I have never looked back.

You can probably guess all the amazing things I was missing out on while cooking up a pot of bulgar and kale stew: steaks, bacon, prosciutto, Thanksgiving turkey, etc. But honestly, out of all the things I've come to appreciate in my reformed-vegetarian years none has been more important to me than beef jerky. That shit is just delicious! Sean and I bought a giant pack of the stuff from Costco and we're going through it like the broke, post-graduate, recession-time children that we are and I am LOVING it. If you're reading this and you're still a vegetarian or you're considering becoming one, I highly recommend that you try a little stick of beef jerky to bring you back to your senses. Maybe you can just be that vegetarian who eats beef jerky. Awesome.

Fear Street

2008-12-12T12:21:00.000-08:00

You know what's the fucking scariest thing ever? Middle schoolers. Large groups of middle schoolers. You know exactly what I'm talking about, too. Why are middle schoolers so scary? Because they've got nothing to lose. Just think about it: when you were in middle school the most important things in your life were figuring out how to be cool, going to all extremes to be cool including alienating your friends and painting every one of your nails a different color, and trying really hard to not do anything that would result in you being made fun of. If someone accidentally farted at the lunch table, you made fun of them relentlessly, if you knew a secret about someone, you would willingly spill the beans to the first person to offer you the best parts of their lunch, and if you did something cool you might just score the biggest prize of all: a boyfriend.

I think middle schoolers are so scary because they're just so insecure and awkward that you have no idea what they're going to do next. They're still "figuring it out," they're incredibly angsty, and they're bitter at their parents and at the world as things happen to their body that they can't explain. Middle schoolers are prone to sudden and unpredictable movements and they sometimes wield skateboards or other instruments like LipSmacker which could be used as weapons.

As a general rule of thumb I avoid middle schoolers at all costs in order to prevent my pride from being severely damaged and/or my huge pog collection from being stolen.

Is there life after college?

2008-12-10T21:05:00.000-08:00

This is a question I have found myself asking a lot over the past few months. I never was the frat-type who was totally obsessed with college and thought it was the be-all end-all of my young adult life. Actually, I felt quite contrarily. I spent a good amount of my time in college complaining about being in college and about how annoying college kids can be (I still hold this to be true). Anyway, now that I'm out of college, I have no job, I have no money, and I live in a city where I know a total of five people. Some days these statistics can kind of suck. So today, I turned to my handy ole google.com for some reassurance about why I should continue to live life after college and not just pull some Van Wilder shit and take another couple of years to finish up my undergraduate studies.

The first website I came upon, www.first30days.com, didn't exactly help to cheer me up. The entire website is dedicated to the first thirty days after graduating college and how scary that can be. Thirty days? The site makes it seem like July was a really rough month for college grads. I'm pretty sure that's not true, I mean, I don't know about you guys, but in July I was still living with my best friends, getting drunk, having dance parties, and having zero responsibility whatsoever except to waitress in a joke of a diner a couple days a week. The first thirty days?! That's nothing! I graduated a hundred and fucking fifty days ago and I still have no idea what's going on.

This website proceeded to tell me the most cliche bullshit I've ever heard interspersed with stories from "real" college graduates like Ian Aman. Ian Aman? Yeah right. Who even has that name. According to Ian, it's normal to be confused about what you want to do after college. Ian says: "I majored in education and quickly realized that teaching just wasn't for me... I used the first 30 days after graduation to explore my options and see what I could do with my major beyond teaching." So in thirty days this Ian character realized that he just wasted four years of his life studying something he didn't give a shit about and then figured out what he really wanted to do and then presumably secured a career with a Fortune 500 company.

The only other advice I got from this website was to reward yourself for all your hard work during the last four years by taking a trip to the beach... or to Europe! And to enjoy "the journey along the way." The journey along the way to what? The poorhouse?

Thanks, to all the great guys and gals over at www.first30days.com. You've officially made me hate my life even more than I already did.

I decided to take matters into my own hands. Instead of "fine-tuning" my resume or "networking," I'm going to sit down, have a beer, listen to some Black Sabbath, and learn to appreciate the lifted pressure of writing papers, dealing with Santa Cruz hippies, and sharing my space with messy dudes. Luckily, there's enough cool stuff going on in LA to keep me occupied until I head back east for the holidays. Maybe with the new year I'll find a new appreciation for the way things work in my post-graduation world.

Pictures vs. Words

2008-12-10T16:42:00.000-08:00

Some days you don't feel like reading any more about "Candidate 5" and just want to look at pretty pictures.

I would recommend these two websites:

FFFFOUND! and LOOKBOOK if you want to give your reading-eyes a rest and let your staring blankly-eyes some exercise.

On Interviewing

2008-12-09T18:30:00.001-08:00

Last week I had an interview for this sweet editorial press agency and I was pretty sure I blew it. When the woman interviewing me asked me who my favorite fashion designer was I had a moment kind of like at the 7:30 mark of this video from Wet Hot American Summer below. Uh, I totally know this one! Uh, uh. Luckily, the other people who interviewed for the spot must have sucked harder than I did, because I spent my first non-paid day in the office today! I did want to share this video with you guys anyway, because it's all-around stellar.

Anyway, I have a meeting with Jim Stencil right now. So I'll talk to you later then!

Personal

2008-12-06T20:22:00.000-08:00

Twenty-two-year-old WF seeking other 20-something F in LA area to go to shows with. Must like music and going to shows. Willing to work around your schedule. Sublime fans need not apply.

Parallel Universe

2008-12-05T09:41:00.000-08:00

I just realized that Chloé's spring ready-to-wear collection includes a couple of pairs of genie pants á la the genie pants which were so popular in Argentina that I abhorred! This kind of concerned me at first, until I realized how much better Chloé does these pants. In Argentina the genie pants were made of sweatshirt material and they mostly came in black and gray. Chloé, on the other hand, does them in ever-popular gold lamé, amping up the American Apparel look times a million. I definitely prefer lamé pants to sweatpants, but I can't say if I'd actually leave the house in these pants or not. To each her own, I guess!

(Photo from style.com)

Prop 8: The Musical

2008-12-04T16:26:00.000-08:00

It's really sad that this video had to be made in the first place, but you should watch it anyway because it's brilliant and funny. Also, who doesn't like musicals?

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

The Dude

2008-12-04T15:58:00.000-08:00

(Photo from NYTimes.com)

Okay, so everyone loves The Big Lebowski, I know, I know. But here's the thing: I fucking love The Big Lebowski. If you live in New York City and you DIDN'T go to the Lebowski Fest in November, shame on you! Additionally, I love White Russians. AND to top it all off, I love The New York Times. So what do you get when you add The Big Lebowski, White Russians, and the New York Times together? This fucking a-may-zing article about the NYC Lebowski Fest and White Russians. Yeah, I know.

Only The Dude knows when the next Lebowski Fest is going to be so I can't give you any updates yet. But you can bet your ass that come hell or highwater, I'm going to be all over the next one in LA. I'll be the chick in the bowling alley guzzling White Russians, shouting "No Walter, you're not wrong, you're just an asshole," and rocking out to CCR.

Spirit Animal Collective

2008-12-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

I was talking to Sasha and Fred a few weekends back and we got into the topic of spirit animals (you know how that just comes up sometimes). Both Fred AND Sasha knew what their spirit animals were and I was like "woah, dude. That is definitely something that I need to know about myself." So I took this online quiz to find out this obviously really crucial thing about myself.

According to this quiz, which I think is totally valid by the way, I am half hawk and half swan which is a pretty awesome combo if you ask me. My hawk side means that I have the power to communicate with the divine, discern powers in others, and I have a photographic memory (this is actually not true, but let's just go with it for now). Apparently, hawks are the messengers of the spirits. I'm adept with language and I'm able to assess situations impartially which means that people often seek my guidance before making decisions. I'm also a brilliant visionary (no biggies). As a swan, I'm able to foretell the future through dreams, I'm idealistic, open-minded, and passionate.

Pretty right on for the most part (minus the photographic memory thing). You guys should totally check out what your spirit animals are and let me know! This website also lets you know which animals you're compatible with and which ones you should watch out for, so this will be the true test, you guys.

Karma's a bitch

2008-12-03T13:32:00.001-08:00

Last night that website I mentioned awhile back, Losanjealous.com, in tandem with another website called Shockhound put on a free (but RSVP only) show at the Troubadour for this band called No Age and, being a newly inducted member of the fold, I was able to secure my name on the guest list. But not just the regular old guest list, mind you-- the VIP guest list. Yeah, that's right.

Strolling up to the Troub, as it's affectionately known here in LA, I was like, getting a little nervous, ya know. I went to the show alone (only so many people can be allowed on the VIP list, folks) and I was going to try to creepily/awkwardly find this crew of los anjealous folks who I had never even seen a picture of before. I didn't even know what VIP guest list status meant! I was like, am I going to be hanging out with Jay-Z? Bottles full of bub? Poolside bar service?

When I got to the front of the line, I shyly asked the girl putting my wristband on what exactly it meant to be VIP. Oh, you get to go upstairs to the cool exclusive LOFT and there's an open bar. Sweet! I made my way upstairs, awkwardly texted the dude from los anjealous asking what he was wearing (I really couldn't think of anything better than that, you guys) and got myself a free Budweiser. Finally figured out who the virtual crew was and they turned out to be a really nice group of dudes. Chatted with them for a bit and then went downstairs to catch some of the show.

I was feeling pretty good about myself at this point. I got into the show which was supposedly free-sold-out but then my new crew hooked me up with a spot on the VIP list. So that was free. I had enjoyed 1 1/2 ice cold Budweisers for free. And I was just feeling generally pretty good. Like, yeah! Thank you free gods! There's not a whole lot in this life that you can get for free (besides like unconditional love and kisses from your dog and small-time stuff like that) and I was just like, yeah, nodding my head a little bit, feeling pretty content.

After the show was over I walked back to my car with a big ole smile on my face, humming a little tune to myself, when suddenly I see a big fat PARKING TICKET on my windshield. $45, you guys. Like, FOR REAL. So, basically, this free show, making new friends, and a couple of free beers actually cost me 45 big ones. Dude. Talk about karma. That shit works way faster out here in LA.

Youtube Frenzy

2008-12-02T17:02:00.001-08:00

I know I've been posting a lot of videos these past couple of days, but you kids are all into multimedia and multitasking and multiplying and all that stuff, right? Anyway, this video isn't really a video, it's just a series of still photos, but this song is pretty right on.

Dizzee Rascal covering the Ting Tings' "That's Not My Name"

You've probably seen this

2008-12-01T16:15:00.001-08:00

But I had to post it just for good measure.

It's so fucking GOOD.

On Dating A Film Snob

2008-12-01T09:34:00.000-08:00

As you may or may not know, my boyfriend studied film in college and thanks to him I've been able to find out about a couple really, really awesome movies that I never would have come upon myself.

His latest find is Fellini's first color movie, Juliet of the Spirits, released in 1965. As Fellini had never used color before, he went pretty overboard with this one, saturating everything with bright reds, golden yellows, and deep blues. The movie follows Juliet, a getting-older wealthy housewife, who believes that her husband is cheating on her. Juliet has been haunted her entire life by strange fantasies/dreams/hallucinations which, although outlandish and bizarre, become almost normal when seen next to all the crazy shit her and her friends are doing. The film is surrealist, but Fellini manages to keep it anchored to reality just enough that you actually do understand all that's happened by the end of the movie.

I highly recommend that you watch this movie immediately because it's beautiful, strange, and really just fun to watch. (Not to mention the amazing costumes and hats everyone is wearing.) Below is a clip from the movie where Juliet brings her neighbor's stray cat back to her and gets to explore the luxurious life of the busty blonde girl next door. This clip doesn't have subtitles, but the music is pretty great and Italian is beautiful to listen to anyway.

Food For Thought

2008-11-26T14:04:00.000-08:00

I know the elections are over and the McCain/Palin ticket lost and everyone is sick of hearing about those two douche bags and all, but here's the thing: Sarah Palin used to be kind of hot. Yeah, that's our little Warrior there on the right with the fucking sweet knee socks. So, even though Michele's a way tighter person and has a really beautiful and sophisticated style, I'm pretty sure Sarah takes the cake for the most awesome haircut ever.

(Photo from NYTimes.com)

Who is this small child?

2008-11-25T13:07:00.000-08:00

This girl is literally 12 years old and has a better sense of style than I do. WHO IS THIS CHILD AND WHO LET HER LOOSE ON THE INTERNET. The thing is, she's really fucking articulate and she's kind of sassy, too. Plus she has cool photos. Anyway, check it out. But don't check her page instead of checking mine. I'd be pissed.

Hollywood it feels so good

2008-11-24T09:56:00.000-08:00

On my plane ride into LAX I was standing in line waiting to get on the plane and I heard a familiar voice. I look up and I recognize that girl from EuroTrip . I was fucking stoked! I hadn't even gotten to LA yet, and I was already spotting celebrities. Even though this chick was kind of a small fry, I was looking forward already to lounging by the pool with a margarita chatting with Lauren Conrad and Perez Hilton.

Now that I've spotted my first celebrity here, however, I've gone a little celebrity crazy; now I keep thinking that I see celebrities everywhere. I thought I saw the guy from Prison Break at The Coffee Table on Monday, Michael Stipe from REM at the O'Death show on Saturday, and Vincent Gallo in the parking lot at Von's last night. I don't know if I'm just expecting to see celebrities everywhere because that's what LA is famous for, or if I'm merely going crazy, but either way, it's kind of messing with me. It's also a really bad way to make friends in a new town because when I think I see someone famous I just stare them down really hard and creep them out until I realize they're just some average Joe the Plumber like me.

But, here's the thing: I'm pretty sure everyone in LA is at least a little bit famous. Like, look at me, I'm practically famous for having this blog. I mean, I probably have at least 3 loyal readers which is huge in the blog world, I'm pretty sure. No, but actually, I'm going to start (have already started) contributing to a more legitimate blog than this one (it has ads and stuff, so I think that's legit), if you're interested in following my internet thread further. The blog is www.losanjealous.com and so far you can check out my review of the O'Death show I went to on Saturday. Just another site to distract you while you're supposed to be crunching numbers at your desk, compliments of me.

Don't Cry For Me, Argentina

2008-11-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry, but I just couldn't help but use that title. I've been thinking about that one for a while, you guys, and there just isn't a better title for this post.

So, I spent just shy of 3 months in Argentina. I ate my weight in bife de chorizo five times over, I made at least 20 new Facebook friends (not to mention all the new photos tagged of me), and I guess I did some other cool stuff like improved my Spanish and learned about myself or whatever.

Seriously, though. There is no way to write a wrap-up post condensing all that I learned in those three months into a little fart in virtual space. You guys have been reading my blog all along (or have you?), you know what I've gotten out of this experience.

My last few weeks in BA were a whirlwind. I went out almost every night with friends and celebrated... a lot. My folks came down to visit me and I had a really good time showing them around the city that I had only just begun to get to know. It was funny having them there, because after two months of trying so desperately hard to not be a tourist and to try to speak the language and blend in, my parents came down and kabamb! We were in tourist heaven. But, in a way, it was kind of nice to just admit to being the tourist that I was. I was surprised to find out how many more people spoke English, and it was pretty nice to live in the lap of luxury for a few days, exploring the more posh side of Buenos Aires. Talking with my parents and hearing their opinion on the city also helped me realize a lot about my own personal view on the city. When I got down to Buenos Aires, the first thing I saw as the cab was pulling up to my (wrong) apartment was a little boy freely pissing in the street. Like, literally, that was the first image that I had of the city: the act of public urination by a small, skinny child. But by the end of my stay, the most lasting images I have of the city are the bright lights of the obelisco at night, the gorgeous interior of my favorite bar, and lots of faces of new and unforgettable friends.

Traveling to Buenos Aires is like seeing Superbad for the first time after it's been out for two years or whatever. Everyone keeps telling you how awesome it is, and how much you're going to love it. It's perfect for you! they exclaim. There's no way that you can't like it! But then you put it on, and you're like, yeah, this movie is pretty good, and it's funny and all, but like this is it? I mean, it's enjoyable and all, but really? This is what people are flipping out about? It's kind of disappointing. Then you watch it a couple more times and you realize that it actually is pretty good, and after two and half months of watching it all day everyday you realize that you fucking love it and couldn't live without it. (Disclaimer: I only saw Superbad once and I didn't even make it all the way through, so I can't really say that I came to love it in the same way that I came to love Buenos Aires). So, cheers to giving things another shot.

I arrived back to the US after fourteen long hours of traveling on Sunday afternoon. I am still getting over how easy it is to communicate with people here. If there's a problem, you're just like "yo, what's up, there's a problem here." I'm not worried about offending waiters in restaurants because I'm not using the most polite form of asking for a menu, and I even know what it is, exactly, that I'm ordering. I'm no longer worried about standing out because of the way that I dress or because of my obvious American accent. But, at the same time, I do miss speaking (or attempting to speak) Spanish every day (although, living in Los Angeles, it shouldn't be too hard to keep up on my Spanish), and I miss having to figure things out on my own. In Buenos Aires if I didn't get how something worked, it was pretty much trial and error. Here in the US, there are very few things that I don't understand, and it's way less intimidating to try to figure out where to put my change on the bus here than it was in BA.

But now I'm slowly getting into the swing of things here in Silver Lake, where Sean and I just moved in together. We've got a super cute little apartment right in Sunset Junction, which is walking distance from lots of cool coffee shops, restaurants, shops, etc. (it's pretty much unheard to be able to walk anywhere in LA). Now I'm just lounging around the house all day in my bathrobe drinking dirty martinis and reapplying my lipstick (just kidding about the martinis, Mom). No, but seriously, I have to find a job or something.

The good thing about not having a job, however, is that I have lots (and I mean LOTS) of time to blog all day. So you guys can expect to be hearing from me a lot more often. Sweet.

Epic Battle Over the White House

2008-11-06T20:58:00.000-08:00

The title of this blog is an abbreviated version of a REAL headline from the NYTimes on Tuesday morning. Pretty apocalyptic.

So, obviously I'm stoked. Everyone is. Tuesday night was just ridiculous. I went with a bunch of friends to this bar called Sacramento to watch the election coverage and the place was completely packed, but not just with Americans! It was full of lots of folks from the international scene here in BsAs (which is thriving, let me tell you!). It was so cool to be eagerly awaiting the good news with friends from the US, Argentina, England, Australia, Germany, you name it. Everyone flipped when CNN announced that the democrats had won Ohio, but when they announced that Obama had won the presidency everyone went mad. We were packed like sardines into this bar with no air conditioning, sweating like pigs, but jumping up and down and hugging each other. All of my friends who aren't American kept saying how awesome it was to see a group of young Americans come together and be so enthusiastic about politics. It was such a special, amazing night. I'm still getting over the fact that someone who I trust to do an excellent job will be in the White House for (at least) the next four years. It's such a relief to say the least.

It's been really interesting to see how this election coverage has been such a big part of Argentine life, too. The day after the election, Obama's face was on the cover of every single newspaper here, and people were talking about his election in the streets. That is something that I think is not just a symptom of the US being such a well-known country, but also the fact that Argentines are so interested in and aware of politics; that is probably one of my favorite things about the people from this country. Where as in the US, most average Americans don't think that they're smart enough or well-educated enough to participate in politics, in Argentina, the people think it's their right and their duty to participate. Voting in the elections here is mandatory and there are multiple protests going on daily in the city (this is not an exaggeration!). Even though Argentina does have a history of an incredibly corrupt government, the political system here is getting back on its feet, and people are demanding that they be allowed to be active participants. Everyone that you ask on the street from professors to cab drivers has an (very well-informed, might I say) opinion on the state of politics in the world today. Young people, old people, it doesn't matter. It doesn't seem that apathy towards politics really exists here, which is so refreshing and wonderful to see.

But Tuesday night did really restore my (and I think the world's) faith in the American people. We proved that we are not afraid to change, we are not afraid to have someone of color in the White House, and we are smart enough to know that we simply cannot continue on the broken trajectory of the past eight years. For the first time since I can remember, I feel proud to be an American again.

For your further reading pleasure, here is a really interesting article I found in the NYTimes (what other newspaper is there?) about reactions to Obama's election around the world. The bar where I was watching the coverage is mentioned briefly as well!

Oh yeah, that whole voting thing.

2008-11-04T13:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had a pretty awkward encounter with my building manager. The manager is this kind of sweet but slightly crazy old woman who I always run into in the elevator. Every time I see her she always tells me that even though she can't speak English, she understands it, and I'm always like "oh, well, that's okay because I speak Spanish." And then she just smiles and mumbles and is kind of weird.

So I get into the elevator just like any other day, and the manager happens to be in there. We do a little small talk like "oh wow, it's really hot today, isn't it? Yeah, and it's only going to get hotter!" share a few laughs, whatevs. Then she asks me if I'm going to vote to which I respond oh yes, I've actually already voted. Actually, I'm going to try to reenact this encounter through text. Okay, this is a literal transcript of what happened (with translation):

Manager: "Vas a votar manana?" Are you going to vote tomorrow?

Me: "No, ya vote por correo." No, I already voted by mail.

Manager: "McCain?" McCain?

Me: "No, Obama." No, Obama.

Manager: "Pero, porque? McCain es blanco." But, why? McCain is white.

Me: "Si... pero, Obama es mas listo." Yeah... but, Obama is smarter.

Manager: "No me importa. Es black." I don't care. He's black. [She actually used the word "black" in English, not the word for black in Spanish, negro.]

This is where we reached the ground floor and exited the elevator. As I walked out the door she gave me a huge smile and exclaimed "Ciao!" just like nothing had happened.

So, that made me pretty uncomfortable, but it was a pretty interestingview into the mentality of a crazy old Portena. Anyway, here's to hoping that Americans have more respect for people of all different colors. I guess we'll find out in a few hours. These might be the longest hours of my life, though.

Photos from the underground

2008-11-04T12:59:00.001-08:00

Here are some photos I've taken over the past few weeks. The highlight, I think, is definitely my trip to Tigre. Tigre is a collection of delta towns/a delta town just about an hour to the north of the city. It's right on the Rio de la Plata so it's kind of like the South American version of Venice. I had heard some good things about Tigre, but as I've heard lots of good things about lots of stuff that I don't necessarily think are tight, I was a little weary heading up there, and I must say delightfully surprised! We took a boat/bus (in Spanish it's actually called a boatbus, pretty clever, Argentines) to this one little area of the delta where you could walk around on land and there were one or two places to eat. I thought Tigre was like a land from a fairy tale, a complete mix between the Hamptons and the It's a Small World After All ride in Disneyland. Most of the houses in Tigre were pretty modest, but you could tell there was an obvious presence of Portenos who use their Tigre houses as summer homes in contrast to the Argentines who live there year-round and ride their canoe or boatbus to school everyday. And even though I like to think of myself as a city girl through-and-through, it's always nice to get away from the exhaust and fumes once in awhile.

The view from my balcony at night. El obelisco is Buenos Aires's Eiffel Tower/Empire State Building.

Creeping on my neighbors across the way.

Carsten, Claire, and Teddy on our way to Tigre.

Ree dressed up as cat woman for Halloween. I couldn't take her very seriously with this mask on.

Jillian as the most popular costume of the night: some variation of a cat. Me as the only American with the crazy idea to make myself look unattractive on Halloween by drawing on a unibrown for my Frida Kahlo costume.

Natalie, Ree, and I take the short flight to Paris for a day.

My new room, my new balcony!

2008-10-26T13:27:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, our roommate, Benson, moved out and I took his room with this sweet balcony. Now that the weather's finally nice, I basically just sit out there all day and watch my neighbors in their apartments across the way and people on the street below (spying on/observing people in your neighborhood is definitely up there in my personal top ten reasons to live in a large city).

I won't tell 'em your name

2008-10-26T13:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I've done something terribly wrong and perhaps unforgivable. I've got this huge chip on my shoulder because it's been hard for me to talk about this... issue that I've been having. I did something bad, and now I'm going to share it with you all: I mispronounced my own name.

I know! I know! It's blasphemy, and believe me, if I could go back in time and change it, I would. But it's too late now; I'm in too deep.

As many of you know (those who know how to spell/correctly pronounce my name, anyway), reconciling my orally pronounced name with my written name can sometimes be confusing and lead to some awkward situations. This time, though, I totally brought all of the mispronunciation upon myself, and I'll take full responsibility.

So, in Spanish classes that I've taken through high school up until college, my Spanish teachers have always called me Moira with the "i" pronounced, so it sounds like "Muy-rah." For a long time I thought that this was just the Spanish pronunciation of my name, so when I got down here I thought it would be easier to introduce myself as "Muy-rah" in Spanish and plain old "More-ah" in English. Lots of people use Spanish translations of their names, especially ones that are hard to pronounce or uncommon in Spanish. For example, my roommate, Natalie, goes by Natalia in class, but everyone knows that she goes by Natalie in English. Well, I haven't had the same such luck.

Because I started introducing myself as Muy-rah in Spanish class, all of my English-speaking friends have started called me Muy-rah even when they speak to me in English! Anyone who had meant to continue calling me More-ah has since changed to pronounce the i because they've been confused and tricked into pronouncing it that way from hearing the way other people pronounce my name. Natalie does the best variation, though, which is something like Myra, a real mutt of More-ah and Muy-rah. This third pronunciation generally just confuses people even more.

Basically, I feel like I'm living a lie. Everyone is calling me by a different name and I don't really know which one to answer to. It doesn't bother me to pronounce my name as Muy-rah in Spanish because it would be too complicated to try to explain the silent i in a language that I am only beginning to speak, but in English it's a whole different story. But at this point, people here have been mispronouncing my name for so long, that it's not really worth it to try and correct them. So, not only am I living in a different country, surrounded by a language which I don't really speak, but I'm also going by a different name entirely! Now, I know that just because my friends here butcher my name every chance that they get, it doesn't mean that we aren't as good friends or that they're bad people. I'm still the same old person inside whether you call me More-ah, Muy-rah, Myra, or Whosiwhatsit. The point of the matter is that at this point I think people may be so confused that they're just not even bothering to deal with the difficulty of saying my name anymore. So I ask of you, friends and family, that when I return back to the motherland in three short weeks (!!! can you believe it?), that you greet me with a warm, resounding, "MORE-AH."

Thanks in advance.

We never did too much talking anyway

2008-10-24T09:44:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, on Saturday night, I had possibly the best night since I've been in Buenos Aires. A couple of my friends came over for dinner and we had ourselves a little potluck. After we had finished eating, we went outside to sit on the balcony of my room and we got into a deep discussion about politics, history, and basically what our role as young people is in the world that we're living in. It was great because it was a topic that I've been thinking about for a while now, especially now that I'm a college graduate and with the fact that the election is getting closer every day. It was so nice to realize that the friends I've made here are intelligent young people who are interested in and really care about the same things that I think about all the time. The conversation was just wonderful and smart and witty and serious and funny all at the same time. I can't really put it into words very well, because there was a certain quality about the night that is completely unable to be contained in a sentence. The most I can say is that it was a thoroughly pleasurable experience, and the kind of thing that as a young adult, I feel I should be engaging in more often.

We talked until the sun came up and then I passed out and slept until 4pm the next day. Even though my sleep pattern was totally destroyed for the next few days, I wouldn't trade the world for those few hours that we spent talking about the most important things in my world.

Snippets

2008-10-17T23:15:00.000-07:00

Moda de Moira

2008-10-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

So I've been in the Southern Hemisphere for a fairly sizable time now, and I feel that I've reached the point where I can go ahead and skip through the obligatory bi-weekly updates to talk about something that has been puzzling me quite a bit these past few weeks: the style of Buenos Aires.

What exactly is the style of Buenos Aires? Some days I think I have a pretty firm grasp on it and other days I feel lost completely. In general, I wouldn't call Buenos Aires the most fashion-forward city in the world (dare I go so far as to say that Santa Cruz may even beat it out f

or at least providing something interesting to look at?). Although it's difficult to decipher an overarching theme throughout the city, there are a few key items that I've picked up on so far.

One style is the popular/trendy/border-line chic MC Hammer-style pant. Although these pants are not nearly as offensive to my senses as the original

MC Hammer pants because they're generally a solid color and they're not made from windbreaker material, they still upset me. Girls here wear them with everything from high-top Converses to high heels. I don't know, maybe I'm just of the old school mindset that you shouldn't wear sweatpants outside the house just like you shouldn't wear pajamas to class. I mean, come on people, you're already awake, you might as well put some jeans on. They don't have to be clean, but at least show some respect for my eyes by taking off your fuzzy slippers and putting on some fucking sneakers. I mean, even flip flops would be better than slippers. The next step in waking up for the day is to take off your I Love Genie pajama pants and have a cup of coffee. Then I think we'll be good.

Apparently there is also another huge fashion trend here which is centered around a nation-wide obsession with the Rolling Stones. The followers of this trend are called Rolingas and they have Rolling Stones tattoos and patches on their backpacks. I keep asking my Argentine roommate to point one out to me and she always directs be to pretty normal looking teens. Apparently they're infamous for having bangs (I probably get mistaken for a Rolinga daily) and wearing checkered scarves. As far as I can tell, that could pretty much be any 13 year old kid who knows where the nearest H&M is.

My friend Teddy had heard rumors about another style gang (Argentina is pretty much like West Side Story except instead of modern dance, violence in Argentina is portrayed through tango) called Floggers. After I tried Googling them a few times and only came up with whips for flogging, we finally spotted some this past weekend in Mendoza. They're pretty much your typical tweens who have got too much money and too much time on their hands to style their hair. They're the only people here who wear high-waisted shorts as a style (not an accident), but they're like the kind of high-waisted shorts that you buy for $30 at Forever 21, not your good old classic thrift store shorts. I think these kinds of kids are pretty ubiquitous (it's actually reminiscent of that Japanese mullet style that's super popular in Tokyo. Like a glam rock thing), although they're definitely not as commonly seen in the US.

I have spotted a few (less than 10) American-style hipsters since I've been here. I don't think American Apparel has made it this far south yet (tragic), but they've still got V-neck T's and Ray Ban's. Boots are extremely popular here (my super not-hip 45 year old teacher wears pirate boots almost everyday), so you can't always spot a hipster by the boots, making hipster hunting more difficult here. Even though Argentines generally love anything from the US (the Simpsons, Katie Perry, MC Hammer pants, etc.), they're a little bit slow on the uptake.

This may go without saying, but I'm going to go ahead and say it anyway: I pretty much have no idea what to wear ever. One of the factors impeding my process of getting dressed every day is that I only came to South America with so many options. The other major hurdle that I face everyday is something I like to call the dress question. Now, although upon first read, it may appear that I am contemplating whether or not I should get dressed at all every morning, I can assure you that this is not the case. Instead, I contemplate wearing one of the few dresses I brought with me. The weather has finally started to warm up a bit, so a dress would be totally appropriate weather-wise. However, even though it's technically been spring for almost a month now and the sun is shining and it may well be 70 degrees Fahrenheit, everyone is still dressed like it's winter! While I want to show some skin, people on the street are bundled up like it's the second ice age. Then there is the ever-pressing question of how much skin to show. What would be totally tolerable on a college campus in the US is practically naked on the streets of Buenos Aires. And unless you want to get a very large dose of that infamous Latin male attention, you best put on your burka before you leave the house.

To add insult to injury, the one universal trend that I can detect here is anything black. This coupled with the fact that they're still getting over low-rise, flared jeans here indicates that bringing my pink high-waisted short-shorts probably wasn't the most thoughtful decision I've ever made in my life.

Although you wouldn't catch me dead in a pair of MC Hammer pants, I can't promise anything as far as the Argentine mullet goes. No, but really.