September 2009
31 posts
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I made a "Family Circus" joke in my first class.
Nobody laughed. I’M OVER THIS GRAD SCHOOL SHIT.
August 2009
20 posts
1 tag
It is a Sunday afternoon and I am looking at...
This is only happening because I followed the link to these pictures provided in Hortense’s excellent post on Jezebel. I do not understand the phenomenon of the Gosselins, because I do not have a TV; everything I know about this bloated, unevenly tanned man, I have learned from the internet. Maybe if I had a TV, things would be different, but right now when I look at these pictures of Jon...
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Close Readings of Song Lyrics: "If You Wanna Be...
Theory: Happiness in life is directly correlated with the attractiveness of a man’s wife; i.e., in Mr. James “Jimmy” Soul’s personal point of view, it is dependent on never marrying a pretty woman.
Without quantitative evidence to support his theory, Mr. Soul makes a number of somewhat egregious claims as to the effectiveness of attractive women as marriage partners. A...
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A Hypothetical:
You have this boyfriend, you see, and to inaugurate his graduate school career, he is growing a beard. He is growing a beard based on your recommendation and urging, because you really wanted to see what he’d look like with a beard. It appears his beard is going to be an impressive one. What beard-related nickname do you bestow upon him? Because Beard-O is pretty unoriginal?
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And:
Last night I dreamed that I was playing Moonbeam McSwine in a high school or college production of something that was not L’il Abner—the plot of the play resembled, if anything, that of the film Bring It On. This dream featured, and I don’t think this is an overstatement, everyone I have ever met in the course of my entire life. People with whom I went to grammar school, high...
The buses in Pittsburgh are oddly narrow and standing in one on a Monday mid-morning means jostling against your fellow students, making apologetic faces at each other. I don’t mind it, really—my one week on the spacious sidewalks of Pittsburgh have already made up for the five-year-long invasion of my personal space I suffered in New York. I also don’t mind standing on buses;...
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Watchnoonish:
Little Diamonds Everywhere extended cut, starring Peter.
Amazing.
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Once upon a time one year ago
The lights went out in your living room and I kissed you.
Dispatches From Pittsburgh
I got electricity yesterday. To celebrate, I drank a Sparks and cooked some pasta in my closchen.
This morning I pumped gas for the first time in my life. Anyone who happened to witness the event would surely testify that I performed the act with all the feminine grace and clear-thinking efficiency as an episode of “Rhoda.”
I’m going to the library now.
Things I Do Not Have in My New Apartment:
Electricity
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Dear Katie, Five Hours from Now:
It would be really nice if you could make it through your cousin’s bridal shower without getting drunk, eating all the deviled eggs, or using the phrase “the patriarchy” at any point, in any context.
You knew about the symbolic firefighter and princess rubber duck decorations (the groom is a firefighter; my cousin is a woman and thus identifies with princesses [?]) way in...
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My last day as a receptionist
began with a 25-minute dramatic monologue performed by the woman I am training to replace me, presumably entitled “Friends of Mine With Whom I Am No Longer Friends, And Why,” which included the sub-monologue “Back When My Husband Was Briefly Deported.”
Three co-workers have said, “Katie, you look nice today!” with utter surprise.
Farewell, corporate America.
This outpouring of love in the wake of death
I don’t know why I can’t just replicate this feeling constantly without the element of loss. I don’t know why conversations like the one my high school locker buddy and I just had via text message (“I want to know you when you’re old and gray”/ “We’ll have lockers next to each other in the nursing home”) can’t happen bi-monthly, at the...
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Dear friends, a note about Peter. →
noonish:
Two days ago I lost my brother. I don’t know what to say, or how such a note of sorrow is to be written but I felt that something is to be shared.
The St. Onge brothers were an integral part of my high school experience, and Nick writes really beautifully here about his brother Peter. Every time somebody I know dies, I can feel myself straining my memory for the bits about...
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Our Apartment:
I’ll light the fire; you set the traps for the dozens of mice in the walls and ceiling. Such a cozy room, if you forget the bed bugs that may or may not be in our mattresses and our clothing. Our apartment is a very, very, very fine apartment, with one scorch mark in the carpet from when my iron fell over this morning (perhaps I can convince the landlord that a mouse ran into it?). Life...
