Déja-Vu

I wrote this sonnet ten years ago. It seems a good season to bust it out.

Fall '97

Repeat the mantra: Grey Is The New Black!
Forget past flings with crimson, white, and brown
(The last, when twinned with blue, was très downtown
-- in '95! What sluts! We were on crack!)
But this time's it. This one we won't retract
(On FOX tonight: When Prada Mules Attack!)

What is there more haute and more high fashional
Than pearly leather boots from Costume National?
Perhaps it has come time to pawn the telly
To score that graphite Kateyone Adelyi?
Admit it, babe, you'd beg until you bleed
For Miu Miu mary janes in charcoal tweed --
And tread upon thy fellow fashionistas
in those knee high Ann Demeulemeesters!

[And do refrain from phoning us to whine
When fuschia's crowned as black for '99.]

Blah Blah Blah

Why does nobody know how to cut hair properly anymore? I hate my hair now. Or rather what I hate is the fact that all hairdressers feel compelled to give you shitty layers as opposed to helpful, movement enhancing layers. I have told the last 6 people who cut my hair that I “wanted to grow it all out to one length.” My hair is very thick and it is wavy. So when you cut any layers near or above my jawline, I end up with this fucking mass of hair that looks like the ears of a cocker spaniel. I hate it. Most of my hair hits mid-breast at this point, but this layer bullshit will take another fucking year to grow out, which means PONYTAILS, which means BREAKAGE at the cocker-spaniel ear zone which equals a de facto extra layering process, and I blame you, Williamsburg, for thinking somehow that every girl with long hair wants to look like Valerie Bertinelli circa One Day At A Time. Trey once said to a customer that his wife was “like Barbi Benton with a MacArthur grant:” I wish that grant was for a decent haircut. I want long, nice, Birkin-Bardot hair. It’s called HISTORY, people. It's in MAGAZINES. Look it the fuck up.

I made a veggie pot pie last weekend which turned out very nicely. But I don’t understand how anyone works with homemade pie crust! It’s crazy! The only thing harder would be to make pie crust from a ball of mercury. But I did it, and with CRISCO which is pretty scary in itself. It’s white and waxy and profoundly un-organic in appearance: astronaut butter. The pot pie had leeks, onions, shallots, homemade seitan, peas, carrots and potatoes. I made too much filling so I may make another pie tonight. Other crazy cooking projects were bruschetta from heirloom tomatoes, a chickpea salad with red onion, capers and cumin vinaigrette and everything bagels with spinach basil tofu ricotta. I am almost done with this cursed afghan, and can move on to other projects FINALLY as I think knitting it on the subway is why I am going to the chiropractor Monday.

This may be the bloggiest blog I’ve yet to blog. Over and out.

From The Flea Market In Iceland

The New York Times Can Suck It Again

"Once a magnet for immigrants and bohemians, the East Village is now gentrifying, but not without a fight." Hey, Strashbaugh! 1996 called, they want their lede back!

"Once a figment of the science fictive imagination, the 'personal computer' is now a deeply embedded part of our everyday lives." That's a free one for you, Strasbaugh, maybe you can move over into Science Tuesdays.

Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you New York Times! Namby-pamby, flaccid, presumptive mealy-mouthed addlepated Mensa-bootlicking foodie doucheriffic fucktards, all.

Please, Co-Worker, Do Not Ask Me Why The Lobby TV Is Not On Today

Because I just don't want to see all the bullshit about today. I just don't.

I still maintain that the only good writing about 9/11 is this piece by Trey and the special edition of The Onion.

This morning in bed I woke and could feel winter coming. Today's weather is particularly crappy, approaching asymptotes of "dreary" and "humid" -- a dark morning reminding me that soon I'll have to travel to work in the cold pre-dawn. Walking to the subway this morning I reached absentmindedly at my ponytail and realized that I had secured my hair pre-shower with a makeshift scrunchie from yesterday's underpants. I know I'm not the only one who's done this before, ladies! My on-train reading was an article from my mom's still arriving susbscription to Discover magazine about all the people getting sick from the dust at the World Trade Center site.

I'm sick from it too, in my own way.

Bison Song

If you know me personally you will know I like to make up silly songs. This is a song occasioned by a drive to Aspen on our way to my friend J's wedding this past June, for which Trey was the officiant and I was the "best man."

Please don't eat a Bison,
'Cause each one is a nice 'on!
And it's very sad when one is dead
For if he were my son
I'd get mad like Mike Tyson
Track you down and punch you in the head!
I'd gore and kick you with my horns and feet,
Backed up by a half a ton of muscled bison meat
(That nobody should eat!)
So don't eat the Bisons!
All of them are nice 'uns!
And it's very sad when they are dead, so
{slow down for dramatic finish}
Why
Not
Eat
A
Veggie
Patty
In......................STEAD!!!!!!?????

BISONS!!

Same Shit, Different Day

It seems women hate pooping in public bathrooms. I was one of them from a very young age, and would NEVER EVER poop at school, for fear that I would be late for my next class or that, heavens forfend, someone would KNOW that I was POOPING. Even at Wellesley, I tended to wait while other Welleslies had left before taking a you-know-what. And whenever you walk into a women’s restroom and see a pair of feet and hear a super silent silence undisturbed by even a tampon wrapper’s rustle, you know that those feet belong to someone who is waiting for you to get the fuck out of there because she’ll be damned if she poops in front of someone else.

Being vegan has changed this as far as I am concerned because I now I am a champion pooping machine and couldn’t not poop all day if I tried. In addition, I used to be one of those people who HAD to read something, anything, even the back of a can of hairspray to poop and now I don’t have the TIME to read when I go. I sit down, and in less than 20 seconds everything is all done and I get on with my day. Also, my shit doesn’t really smell bad anymore -- like horse poops more than like a port-a-john at a Garth Brooks concert.

Anyway, I felt bad today because as I went into the bathroom this morning I recognized the feet of a co-worker who will not poop while anyone is in there. I know this because one day I interrupted her attempts to poop 3 times. Each time I recognized the shoes and the silence and felt bad, wanting to say, “GO FOR IT, [co-worker’s name]! POOP AWAY!!” Instead I proceeded with my happy big old vegan horse poop, jauntily flushed the toilet with my peep-toe pump, and left her to her solitude. Hopefully she will learn that it is okay, and everybody poops. Let’s all start unabashedly pooping in the ladies’ room, and have a revolution!

Bra-ssica Oleracea

Let's all say/Hip Hip Hooray/ For the Family Brassicacae!

(brought to you by The Nullity of The Modern Workplace)