i like candy corn. sue me.

The worst thing about quitting smoking is not the cloudy head, dry mouth, or desire to consume four Zams Deluxe Tozt Sandwiches for lunch. It is those moments when you think Ooh! I know what will be awesome right now! A cigaaaaawoops I forgot. Shit. Godfuckingdammit. While this is probably the fourth or fifth time that I have nixed the cancersticks for more than a couple days, it is the first time that I've actually believed it might be for good. I am now 62 hours into this little endeavor. Supposedly, after 72 hours I am physically withrawn. Then it's just a lifetime of recalling how great cigarettes go with coffee, or on a walk home in the dark, or while waiting for a late friend, or with red wine in a cafe in Paris/sitting alone in front of your computer. So I just have to also recall how 94% of cigarettes do not fall into those categories, and also that one time I gagged on a swollen tonsil and coughed up a little blood.

Since I'm still within my 72 hour withdrawal phase, I will take this opportunity to bitch guilt-free about things that piss me off:

*Self-righteous, insecure Christians. Some people need to remove the gourds from their asses and just let kids wear fake blood, bring black and orange cupcakes to school, and run around the neighborhood in the dark collecting as many funsize chocolate bars as possible. Not everything is about Jesus! [via The Morning News]

*How right Maureen Dowd is.

What I didn't like at the start of the feminist movement was that young women were dressing alike, looking alike and thinking alike. They were supposed to be liberated, but it just seemed like stifling conformity.

What I don't like now is that the young women rejecting the feminist movement are dressing alike, looking alike and thinking alike. The plumage is more colorful, the shapes are more curvy, the look is more plastic, the message is diametrically opposite - before it was don't be a sex object; now it's be a sex object - but the conformity is just as stifling.

This article is really quite depressing. The guys who shun smart, interesting women to protect their precious manhood are sad. The girls who flash their boobs willynilly to get attention from the aforementioned guys are sad.

I guess what keeps me going is that there are still penty of rational people in the world. And also the image of someone taking Cosmo's Fourth "Most Famous Sex Tip" to heart:

Sex Trick 4: Place a glazed doughnut around your man's member, then gently nibble the pastry and lick the icing . . . as well as his manhood.

Aaah, nothing sexier than partially chewed donut mush. I would pay someone to try that and report back to me. I would also kill for a devil's food glazed with shaved coconut on top right about now.

not a hater

That does it. I love cats. I'll always be a "dog person" but watch this video montage of cats being funny and just try not to cry tears of joy. [via You Can't Make It Up via Cityrag]

In other animal-related fun, this page devoted to the life and times of a handicapped duck named Sebastian is at once touching, inspiring, and hilarious. It's left me quite confused, emotionally. Apparently, a commenter is a little confused also:

Why have you a Duck there are Handicapped? The Duck looked fine, but the legs looked not fine. What are there matter with the Duck s legs?

And did you know ducks had testicles? (this one's for you, FAB)

I had a male duck who I named Daffodil thinking he was a she, but we kept his name since he knew it and I liked it. He also had a great personality, came when I called him and would quack to me to tell me where he was and what he was doing. Daffodil passed during surgery to biopsy a cancerous testicle at age 6.

chairman, president, and ceo

You're getting zilch from me today, as I am tied up with the task of removing my OCD Boss's business cards from his FOUR jam-packed rolodexes and putting them in little rubber-banded piles so he can "take them with [him.]" After four hours of fairly consistent labor, I am up to the P's. I can't wait for the part where he realizes that taking eight three-inch-thick piles of cards around with him is not really a practical option, and I get to spend the next three months entering all the names and contact information into some sort of digital device.

Anyway, Perplexa claims that the online 50th Anniversary Edition of the Village Voice is awesome, if you want to get your learn on. I, of course, have not had time to read it. Employment cramps my style, yo.

faux paux

*Oh, Wisconsin, you never disappoint me. If you have to register and sign in, it's worth it, I swear to gosh. [via themorningnews]

*Lenny Kravitz's potty is at it again! That reminds me, I'll be needing a new haircut soon... [via cityrag]

*Perhaps this is the big break I need! [via cityrag]

*Woman with one leg completes Ironman Triathlon. Gina completes 40 minutes on elliptical machine and rewards self with burrito.

*This chickadee has the same first two names as me, including the Italianized version of Michele. Something tells me our similarities end there, though I do admire her ability to wear skirts in a variety of ways.

paging john hughes!

Is it just me, or is the New York City media landscape starting to resemble a maze of locker-lined hallways smelling of pubescent body odor? Prom Queen befriends uglier, funnier smart kid to get free homework help. Funny smart kid talks behind Prom Queen's back, because Prom Queen and her friends are the laughing stalk of the nerd contingent. Prom Queen ditches smart kid, while smart kid kicks self for losing popular kid perks and nerds wage war on the popular kids. The popular kids, of course, are smug and don't give a darn, because they'll stay popular no matter what. (Meanwhile, I sit in the back silently observing and hunched over my desk playing the "try not to stab your fingers with the pocketknife" game.)

keepin' my babaaay

Although her recent bids at remaining relevant in contemporary pop culture reek of desperation and Wensleydale, Madonna will always have a sizable place in my heart. Sometimes when I was 13 I'd fantasize that one day I'd fall asleep and wake up Madonna, instead of my unibrowed, socially-awkward, profoundly depressed self. Oooh Madge, how I miss the days in which you would only do interviews with Kurt Loder. Nevertheless, what I wouldn't give to have been a fly on the raspberry pink wall at the latest Misshapes. Make that an anorexic, elfin, overly-eyelinered junkie fly, of course.

um...uhhh....errrr....

What makes teeny bopper Christian rock seem cooler than the Velvet Underground? How about some teeny bopper white supremacist rock! I guess I'd willingly forgotten that white supremacy still exists until my sister forwarded me some links about the band Prussian Blue, a team of 13-year-old twins named Lamb and Lynx who sing bubblegum tributes to Nazi leaders. Perhaps more disturbing than the twins and their family, that includes a grandfather who brands his cattle with the Nazi swastika and a baby brother named Dresden, is the man behind "one of the nation's most notorious hate music labels" and the bands he's signed. From the ABC News article:

"Eleven and 12 years old," [Gliebe] said, "I think that's the perfect age to start grooming kids and instill in them a strong racial identity..."

Gliebe says he hopes that as younger racist listeners mature, so will their tastes for harder, angrier music like that of Shawn Sugg of Max Resist.

One of Sugg's songs is a fantasy piece about a possible future racial war that goes: "Let the cities burn, let the streets run red, if you ain't white you'll be dead."

And now for some bang-your-head-into-your-keyboard idiocy:

"I'd like to compare it to gangsta rap," explained Sugg, "where they glorify, you know, shooting n****** and pimping whores."

Sugg shrugs off criticism that music like his should not be handed out to schoolyard children, arguing that "it's just music, it's not like you're handing out AK-47s."

Just in case anyone else needed somewhere to direct anger this fine Monday morn other than the file cabinets that keep banging into your shins and turning them lovely shades of purple. (Would Lamb and Lynx ostracize me for my non-white shins??)

feral pigs

An Assortment of Headlines From Today's Local Paper

• Guns affect domestic violence
  
  
• Invasive wild pigs seen in central Wisconsin
  
  
• Ice cream then, beer now
  

I would like to note that the object of my seventh grade affections is quoted in that last article. If he'd married me as I'd planned, I could be spending my evenings drinking a nice microbrew, hitting invasive wild pigs on my way home in the minivan, and taking care not to get in any drunken-domestic-dispute-fueled gunfire. Sounds not that dissimilar from my current life, only replace "microbrew" with "$8 vodka tonic", "hitting wild pigs" with "puking out cab window", and "drunken domestic dispute" with "accidentally sleeping with inappropriate people." Only, in Wisconsin it would all be a hell of a lot cheaper AND Nascar t-shirts are respectable fashion choices.

(Yes, I am finally trying to learn some basic html, and I am a little too excited about it, so expect lots of bulleted lists and other such fancy things. Shut up.)

neato mosquito

The Morning News has a lil' interview with photographer Douglas Levere and a gallery of photos from his book New York Changing. I can't think of anything profound to say about it at the moment (see last post,) but it is pretty freakin' cool.

does the nyt's smell like roses?

I love it when higher powers mess up. Okay, too general. I love it when higher powers mess up resulting in no death, destruction, or other disastrous consequences. Anyway, mistakes are bound to happen in a massive daily newspaper like the illustrious New York Times, but an entire article based around an obvious error is like crack to those of us who love a little journalistic Schadenfreude.

Correction: Oct. 13, 2005, Thursday:

A CD review on Monday about the band Broken Social Scene and the album bearing its name misidentified its home city. It is Toronto, not Montreal.

Misidentified? Nice try. The basis for the whole review is BSS's place in the Montreal scene--proof that so many music reviews are nothing more than verbose bullshit. They are that one kid in AP English class who constantly "contributed" to discussion with big words and stupid questions that impressed the idiot Jehovah's Witness teacher who was shocked when said "brilliant" kid only got a 3 on the exam. Sucker. To wit:

Broken Social Scene is an alliance loosely led by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning; its members, now about a dozen, are also active in other Montreal bands. The sound of 21st-century Montreal is coalescing as upbeat anthems overstuffed with instruments and eccentricities...

But "Broken Social Scene" refuses to ride on Montreal's momentum...

...Broken Social Scene doesn't tamp down its Montreal exuberance...

I believe the correction should read:
A CD review on Monday about the band Broken Social Scene and the album bearing its name was a morning thunder poop (i.e., that which occurs after a long night of imbibing spirits) of reviewer Jon Pareles. He will be fired immediately and replaced by Gina, who has been dazzling tens of readers with her McBlog for the past year and a half.

The Toronto Star weighs in on the crap and says basically the same thing as me, only with more hometown pride. Canadians aren't really on my good side right now (except you, R.)

are you feeling jubilated?!

Last week E and I attended the Antony and the Johnsons show at Carnegie Hall. I'm usually not so into the more somber side of the indie scene, but E twisted my arm (i.e., "Eric said it's good") so I purchased two center orchestra seats. Then I bought the CD and, as per usual, let it collect a goodly amount of dust before listening. Listen Number One involved a lot of brow-furrowing, "hmmmms," and "that's...differents" as I pondered the cover photo of a drag queen in a hospital bed and the list of really really famous contributors in the liner notes. Well, it'll be fun to go to Carnegie at least... I gave it another shot the night before the concert as a background for the monsoon and perusing my new self-help book. This time it sounded kinda beautiful, and I was more than kinda looking forward to the show. Turns out, unexpected concert nirvana was achieved. The best things are always unexpected, it seems.

I'll stand when I wanna stand
After an overpriced steak sandwich and a $28 bottle of cheap shiraz, E and I arrived in time for the second number of the opening act, a brass band from Brooklyn consisting of Reverends and Deacons and Elders and whatnot. For 30 minutes, Carnegie hall was a Baptist church in Dixieland, and the aging drag queens in the audience were most definitely havin' it. Despite the head Holiness's demands that we "stand UP for The Lord" and "be jubilated," E and I remained seated, looking around in awe and contemplating the juxtaposition between this vibrant band of righteous ones and what was to come--a 30-something gender-bending dude whose songs are more likely to make you cry.

Dangerous Dentyne
After an intermission just long enough for a cigarette and a tallboy, Antony and his Johnsons took the stage. His warbling, falsetto-esque voice that was off-putting at first worked wonders in person. The audience was silent and fixated into the third song--something to the effect of "I Am So Filled With Loneliness." And then I choked on my gym. Like, one of those chokes that leads to an uncontrolable coughing fit that leads to a coinciding uncontrolable laughing fit because you're so embarrased about the coughing. Woops. After a couple minutes I regained composure and pretended the tears in my eyes were a result of the deeply emotional music (and I say that sans sarcasm, believe it or not.) Antony then addressed the audience: "Um, I know I've just played these depressing songs, but I'm really trying to cultivate a sense of joy."

Who?
Antony took a break for a bit and introduced singer Jimmy Scott, who walked on stage to uproarious applause. E and I simultaneously made the "are we supposed to know who this is?" face, and now I feel better about that because the Times described him as "perhaps the most unjustly ignored American singer of the 20th century," so at least we weren't the only ones. Jimmy's got quite the interesting bio, if you feel like a little learnin'. Then E and I had to take a piss. Apparently, so did somebody else.

I peed with Lou Reed
We'd already seen Rufus Wainwright in close proximity twice, so we were content with the night's celebrity quotient. But when E and I were deciding when to go pee, and Lou Reed walked past us toward the exit, I knew that it was time. Sure enough, Lou entered the men's room as we approached the ladies'. Perhaps he had a tallboy during intermission too? Then in an USWeekly-"Celebrities! They're Just Like Us!" moment, Lou, a few other bladder-control-challenged individuals, and E and I waited outside the door until the current song was over. We were absurdly giddy about this, and probably very conspicuously so. Sorry, Lou, you're just too fucking cool.

I wanna dance with Shania
The most amazing thing about Antony's voice, E pointed out, is that at times it is so high-pitched and fragile that you're just waiting for it to break, but it never does. Without changing his vocal style, Antony gave a late-in-the-show shoutout to his faves in a cover of Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," and replaced "somebody" with "Shania" and "my neighbor" in later verses. (I think you had to be there, but it really was hilarious.) He, like, Jimmy, has clearly been through a lot of shit in his life, and his songs are so personal and sung with such humility that seeing him get four standing ovations to a sold-out Carnegie Hall was just heart-meltingly beautiful. There are very few times when I get this sappy, but Antony turned me into a big ol' maple tree.

A sense of joy and jubilatedness was officially cultivated.

"just some minor enticements"

Lots of apartment talk going on lately. Rents in the ol' NYC are certifiably reeeediculous right now, and it makes me appreciate my good fortune in finding myself a rent-stabilized studio in a "soft market" and hanging onto it for three years, even though I'd rather live downtown in a place that is not smaller than each of my college dorm rooms. My bubble will soon be burst, since my building is "going co-op" this month, and when my lease runs out in May I'll either have to buy my little box in the sky (ha!) or, I'm guessing, pay the real rent (who would buy a 144 square foot apartment, even though it is really quite a charming lil' abode if I do say so myself,) which is 30% more than what I'm paying right now. Given the career path to which I am aspiring, I fear my options will be limited to da Bronx, the uncool parts of Brooklyn, or something like this. Or worse yet, this. Lord have mercy.

dictionary.com rubs it in

Word of the Day for Friday October 14, 2005

sinecure \SY-nih-kyur; SIN-ih-\, noun:
An office or position that requires or involves little or no
responsibility, work, or active service.

Something tells me I won't be forgetting this one.

pass the camel toad

Poor parents. It's just so hard to keep up with the youth these days! What with their Internets, and that awful heavy punk metal music, and, jeeminychristmas, their language! They must all be on drugs!

Recently, the Local Paper published this editorial in response to the 2005 updated Collegiate Dictionary and the confounding new words it now contains:

They get into the dictionary because they first get into conversations.

RD, whose column runs in a newspaper in Port Huron, Mich., came up with his own list of words to add, fo'shizzle.

To the hip, or at least to those acquainted with the work of rapper Snoop Dogg, fo'shizzle means for sure, as in, "These are the best deep fried cheese curds I've ever had, fo'shizzle."

This article caused great distress among local citizens who do not yet have a close personal relationship with the D-O-double-G.

New words in dictionary difficult to understand

Editor: Re: "Dictionary misses mark, fo'shizzle" (Oct. 7, 2005)
It's hard enough to understand kids now without adding more words to try and figure out. What other words are they going to add? As parents we are going to need a dictionary in our hands everytime we talk to our kids.

RR
Colby

Those crazy kids! Perhaps RR can commiserate with this concerned godmother [via Gawker]:

dork!

Scene: Last Night at the Mediabistro office in Soho

Gina walks up to her classroom on the 4th floor. It is occupied by the wrong class, so she shuffles over to the room full of cubicles, lingers for a while looking confused and hoping for her class to magically materialize in front of her. Finally, she works up the nerve to ask the nearest person in the office.

Gina: Hi, um, do you know where the women's magazine class is?
Elizabeth Spiers: types away at her computer, barely looks up I think it's over there.
Gina: Uhhh...
Laurel Touby: No, it's been moved downstairs.
Gina: runs toward the exit Okaythanksbye.

I can't decide which is nerdier: my social awkwardness, or the fact that I even know who these people are and am fazed by their "fame." Upon finding my class and engaging in pre-class chat, it was revealed that most of the other writer wannabes don't even know what blogs are yet, and wouldn't know Nick Denton if he hit them over the head with, uh...his ginormous head. So I'm thinking it might just be the latter. Reality check!

soul- and brain-free

Why I would rather pick up dog poop for a living than be a publicist. (Come to think of it, there are quite a lot of careers I find more repugnant than picking up extreme quantities of dog poop for $10 an hour.) From GawkerStalker:

I just wanted to let you know that last week David Bowie and his beautiful wife Iman were spotted dining at the new Chemist Club Grill located in the Dylan Hotel the two were both eating chef John Kaunas’ Grilled Filet of Wild King Salmon Tarragon & Mustard Glaze, topped with Mango-Cucumber-Red Onion and Tomato Relish and a side of Lobster Home Fries. [Ed: We’re running this because this is a BLATANT EXAMPLE of why we don’t want your publicist to send us stalker sightings. Mango-Cucumber-Who-Gives-a-Fuck — for shame!]

one light stand

Why I love China's Next Top Model.

weird, weird weekend

No energy for sentences.

The Really Ridiculously Good
*Rowing in the rain at Crew Alumni Day and being reminded not only of how out of shape I am now in comparison to college, but how important those four years were for me and why.
*The assortment of fried appetizers at Cafecito.
*The bloody mary at Balthazar.
*The polenta with gorgonzola cheese sauce at Piadina.
*Seeing the Canadian for the first time--outside my door at 4:30 a.m. on Friday night/Saturday morning.

The Really Ridiculously Bad
*Pretty much everything involving interaction between me and the Canadian thereafter.
*Watching a chocolate labrador get run over by a taxi cab on 75th and Broadway because its owners were walking it OFF THE LEASH, DOWN THE MEDIAN, ON ONE OF THE BIGGEST STREETS IN THE CITY. Wanted to punch their yuppie faces in.

The Just Plain Ugly
*The meatheads, fat-free go go dancers, hordes of JAP's, the one-armed guido, the 400-pound black man who tried to hit on me, and the cheeseball music at a crowded club somewhere in the wasteland that is the area north of Madison Square Park.
*Being lectured about Frank Sinatra, that horrible punk rock and heavy metal music, and the compatibility of certain zodiac signs by a drunk elderly man who had just peed his pants. Guess where?

this post makes about as much sense as a pitchfork review

Tonight I am (was?) in the funkiest of funks. My eyelid is twitching because it's Friday and I stayed up too late every night this week, the ol' hormones aren't doing so well without pharmaceutical support, and the world is apparently coming to an end. Also, the Canadian had to choose this weekend to come visit. Things rarely go smoothly in the planning and execution parts of that department. So as I tend to do, I'd convinced myself that it was all going to go to shit for the super-rational reason that he must hate me. Uh huh. He demonstrated his intense hatred by calling tonight and asking me to come to dinner later. Now, as everyone who's ever remotely befriended me knows, I always like to be right and will do anything to prove my rightness. Boys I like get the brunt of this. So I acted like a total ass on the phone, as if it is his fault that I'm exhausted and I have to get up early tomorrow to go row a boat and it would be a very bad idea to stay out late and get drunk (note that the current time is 1:01 a.m.) Let's just say I don't think he's exactly dying to see me tomorrow, and for once this isn't a "telling myself I'm getting a C just in case I don't get an A" scenario. Ha! I sure showed him.

So the funk turned into a superfunk after that. I couldn't do anything but lie on the futon staring at the impressive amount of dust on the ceiling fan, so I decided to at least give my sulking some ambience with the new self-titled Broken Social Scene album. I worship at the altar of their album You Forgot It In People, and like that one, you need to listen to the new one a few times while doing nothing else to really get into it. Also like the last one, there are only two songs that stood out immediately for me. "7/4 (Shoreline)" (yeah that's the title) I'd downloaded a while ago and put on my "September" and "October" playlists (I am nothing if not deeply creative.) And "It's All Gonna Break" first charmed me when they finished their Central Park show with it and I sat alone outside the venue against a tree. The latter is a nearly 10-minute endeavor, and it's crazy and all over the place and, quite frankly, rocks. I could feel the rain cloud in my head start to lift somewhere around minute three, and then a few minutes later there's this buildup with the lyrics "you are the one that loves the music to save your life" and then I started sobbing the rain cloud right out.

I was moved to check the liner notes to see if there were lyrics (sometimes I don't think they even know what the lyrics are,) and instead there are scribbles of notes made, presumably, during the recording process. The notes for "It's All Gonna Break" include "Wheres charlies Solo?", "make sure ghosts doesn't sound like goats," "call [band member] Crossingham and thank him," "try to make it sound like Bob Seger on acid," and "Forgive your heart (don't spend too much time on that.)" I believe that the brilliance of this band is captured by their ability to end the album repeating what really sounds like "Why are you always fucking goats?" and it's the most beautiful thing in the world, at the moment.

Now that the rain has moved from my head to the torrential downpour outside, I am going to go to bed and listen to that. During the day I hate it, but I've always loved the rain at night.

exploding subways, bird flu, and a hurricane have a great weekend!

*MJ Garrett, he of the Real World: Philadelphia, clown hair, and eyes wonkier than Paris's, graced my hometown recently with his tales of post-college woe. He advised the star struck high school students against banking on a career with the NFL, recommended Reality Television Star as a viable alternative, and enlightened them about the nature of those scary gay people: "Now, I let my other friends know, it's nothing like they think. They're not out to get you." Thanks for sharing, MJ.

*Blagg sticks it to American Apparel: "Oh, I know. The clothes are 'sweatshop free', made in America. Not just America, either - Downtown LA. That's where the cool, socially responsible shit is all going down. That's great, really it is. Be sure to pat yourselves on the back while enjoying all your Asian manufactured electronics, and strolling around in your Underpaid Malaysian Child-crafted Nike Dunks, you fucking morons." Truer words... American Apparel is kind of like Paris Hilton--the right gimmick at the right time garners instant fame for no inherent reason, and before you know what happened you're sitting at home in your 100% cotton 70's style gym shorts wondering how Mary-Kate must be feeling about those Hilton biatches right about now. People are simple creatures.

*If only she were right:

Because You Red States Don't Smell So Good
Tourist woman #1: This is a really quaint neighborhood!
Tourist woman #2: Yeah, but it's really expensive. A small one-bedroom apartment is like $1,000 a month!
Tourist woman #1: Oh, my! Why would someone pay that?

--Bleecker & 11th

*Last night E and I were at my over-$1000, 144-square-foot one-room apartment in an uncool neighborhood to watch her friend Brendan charm the audience on Jeopardy. Brendan put forth a valiant effort but was ultimately beaten handily by Jason Richards, who is the next Ken Jennings and also an extraordinary toolbag. Nice work anyway, Brendan, and even my cold stone heart fluttered a bit when you mentioned spending a month's rent on lunch with your girlfriend in Paris. Sigh.

saag paneer and a talking penis

Last night, E and I had tickets to the Decemberists show at Webster Hall and decided to get our little party started early with Whole Foods Indian buffet takeout and Bud Light tallboys in Union Square. Though I'm not such a fan of the surrounding area, that park brings out every kind of loonybin you can imagine and, therefore, I love it.

We sat on a bench outside the dog run and amused ourselves for hours with curry, beer, and a constant stream of interesting people to stare at. Our favorites included a couple silently caressing each other on a nearby bench for an unreasonable amount of time, a girl walking around while playing what was essentially a single-stringed harp (not a lot of melody, beat, or anything resembling music going on there,) and a dude who accosted us and declared, "you two must be together since you [me] finished her [E's] sentence [something to the effect of 'go talk to the girl with the one-stringed harp']." Congratulations to him for having high enough self-esteem to assume that any girl that doesn't engage him in conversation must be a lesbian. Anyway, then we saw Wendel.

Wendel was clad all in white, including the signature crown and clown collar. Shortly after he established himself near that weird statue on the south side, another conspicuously dressed gentleman entered stage left. This guy sported a long black trenchcoat, black pants, and a black Charlie Chaplin type hat, only it was a helmet. From what we could tell, neither acknowledged the other, and their close proximity may very well have been a coincidence, but I prefer to believe that we'd somehow warped into an urban comic book and Good and Evil were about to have it out.

Oh yes, and the Decemberists were good, but concert nirvana (TM) was not achieved. Webster Hall is not my favorite venue. It's hard to feel connected to the bands, and it feels like the floor is going to cave in from violent head-bopping. Also, the band came on late, we were stuffed with spiced grease and alcoholic water, and full-time jobs are, like, tiring. We declared ourselves old fogies and headed home, where I somehow found a clip featuring Amy Sedaris as a cartoon penis talking about puberty. And then I went to bed. Not bad for a Wednesday.

two outta three ain't bad

I had a major epiphany late freshman year in college, and it had nothing to do with mind-altering substances or any part of Aeschylus's oeuvre. During some unremarkable gathering of troglodyte boys and large-sized girls who rowed boats, someone mentioned the Rule of Two-Thirds: of the three things you can do with yourself in college--have a life, play a sport/do a time-consuming extra-curricular, get good grades--you can only have two, sucker. I realized immediately that this person with overly developed back muscles was correct.

For the first time in my life, I regularly went out and partied and hooked up went to museums and for long walks in the park with a range of different and awesome friends! For the first time I was not terrible at a sport and was motivated to actually, like, practice! And for the first time since that D- in eighth grade religion class, my grades were bad ("bad" like I'm "fat" right now, that is) and I didn't really care. Okay, that's a lie, I did care (and I want to lose five pounds,) but not enough to do anything about it (ditto.) Upon examination of my peers--the kid who went to the bars, kicked big league journalism's ass, and was on academic probation; the kid who was class president, slept in the library, and, presumably, never got laid; the hordes who partied their asses off and got straight A's but didn't do much else--I knew that I was normal. The Rule of Two-Thirds validated my existence. Looking back, I know my life now would be no different had I graduated cum laude. If I'd thought about what to do after college and gotten the requisite internships, then yes, things would be a little different. But that's not the point.

The Rule of Two-Thirds, while at first disconcerting for your standard ambitious, upper middle class kid, is a reasonable standard for college. Do a couple things well, get as much as you can out of them, and do what's necessary get by in your chosen neglected area. (Actually, just get a couple of internships. Nothing else really matters. Anyway.) Upon an IM conversation with Expat Perplexa this morning, I realized that the Rule of Two-Thirds is also relevant for 20-somethings. If you keep "have a life," replace "sport/extra-curricular" with "emotionally and sexually fulfilling relationship," and replace "good grades" with "job you might not kill yourself for still having in five years," you have a nice little Rule of Two-Thirds paradigm. While we all want all of those things, after being chewed up and swallowed and puked back up by life after graduation, we are not deluded enough to expect the whole kit 'n caboodle. We just want our Two-Thirds, damnit! But with friends coming and going, confusion and lingering immaturity hindering the relationship thing, and minimal career preparation, it seems like One-Third is the word for now. And it sucks!

Alright, I suppose it's not that bad, even though we're all dirt poor (again, not the point.) I've had some awesome and awesomely-bad experiences in the last two years and have more social engagements than I can handle, Perplexa has a wonderful relationship with her Deutschem Mann, and Drone is well on his way to job nirvana. I'm guessing that the next two thirds will come along for everyone, slowly but surely. And we should all just love ourselves unconditionally anyway, because my favorite psychologist says so.

in the red

Not much doin' this weekend. I've been in a little funk lately, but nothing a little sulking, drunk-dialing, Food Network watching with Drone, and speed reading (i.e., active procrastination) couldn't fix. I did happen upon a certain Blogebrity, however...

Based on a very cursory perusal of her blog, which is all I could ever stomach, I deduced a while ago that Stephanie Klein lives very close to me. On my way back from Love's Drugstore to buy Hanes underwear since the washing machines in my building are broken and the landlord refuses to fix them because it's going co-op in a month and therefore no longer his concern, I brushed by Stephanie coming out of the building across the street from mine. Naturally, I did a nice long double take, and I would comment here on the surprising magnitude of her ass, but that would be juvenile and mean and evidence of my seething jealousy of her $500,000 book deal and luscious copper curls. On a side note, what's up with the sizing of mass produced women's underpants? I was forced to get a package of brightly colored undies in polka dot, paisley, and polka dot AND paisley patterns because that was all they had in my size, which is the smallest size available. Now I'm no Stephanie Klein, but in no universe should I be the smallest size in anything.

Lest you think my heart is made of steel, I'd like to point out how much I love my lil' sis. She went to a party recently dressed up like a fairy (I do not know why) and then made out with a boy who looks like Jesus (her college is just a TAD on the hippie side) who told her she's "spectacular." Rock on, sis.