I taught Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols” yesterday. <3<3<3<3
Imagine a universe in which, when everyone else sees a picture of “an idyllic landscape with rocks on a hillside and an old cart wheel hanging from the branch of a leafless tree,” you see this:
(i.e., I'm sort of restarting my blog!)
Filed under: dithering, thank you | Tags: inspired, john kilduff, multi-tasking, where are we going?
you know that feeling like you’re consuming heaps and expelling heaps, taking and wasting and all without a coherent brass ring? and the ones you try to cast and hammer out for yourself just seem self-serving and insular, and everyone else’s nowadays seem equally trivial? and so you pick at your split-ends and listen to your radiator’s unfailing ambient exhale? here’s a new religion: john kilduff.
you can do it all! we are in the 2000s! this is brilliant on several levels. but i can’t explain them now because i’m brewing ginseng green tea and crafting a pop-up birthday card and doing the downward-facing dog and filling out my tax return. “baby genius” is so 2008; next up is “baby multi-task.”
Filed under: dithering
1986
The only movie (movie?) I’ve ever memorized from first scene (scene?) to last. (Although the 1933 Little Women with Katherine Hepburn is a close second. I am Beth March.) I popped it in the VCR daily during the summer of 1993: orange juice, Eggo waffle, and leg-pureéing aerobic moves. Watching clips on YouTube, I got that uncanny time-warp feeling, a sinus sensation like the strike of a tuning fork. You know, that laughable cultural artifact snuggly tucked into your brain goo; too close, too deep in your history to ignore.
First, drawing you in and setting the tone: the spookily long FBI WARNING. And the beautiful, resonant Karl-Lorimar Home Video logo animation and music.
Jane knew that not all exercises are suitable for everyone — AND knew how essential comic relief is to mothers aiming to lose those thirty pounds after bright-pink baby number three. So, I introduce to you: “the new guy.”
Some background on this wayfarer from Jane-Fonda.net:
‘Peter Sprague “wanders in to the studio during taping.” His foolishness is not to be missed.’
I would disagree. Even my age six self would be happy to miss his foolishness. I.e., it’s far too easy to identify with Peter Sprague. Peter grins idoitically, flung his arms wildly, and emits monkey whoops (prompting the above still). Everyone in the studio hates him. While they’ve all got their spandex onesies and side ponytails and straight teeth, Peter’s a Screech precursor with a Hawaiian blouse. From whence did Peter come? Who are Peter’s friends? What does Peter do on his weekend nights? Why is this guy the saddest man in the universe? But I kept coming back to the tape all summer long — perhaps for the chance that, with the next viewing, I’d leave without feeling like the Peter of my life.
That’s the most tragic part: no one will do the “yeah! great job!” post-workout schmooze with him, and then he gets locked in the studio. What is more terrifying to a six-year-old than being left behind in an institutional space and forgotten about for, say, eternity? This, my friends, is a horror movie.
In conclusion, the fake sax is refreshing, but the ultimate effect bone-chilling. My life goal is to post-workout schmooze with the Peter Spragues of the world. Jane Fonda’s Low Impact Aerobic Workout and falling down teeth-first at a roller skating rink is all I remember about being six years old.
i’ve realized that too often i dedicate this blog to making fun of germany — which more than likely betrays my insecurities with being a foreigner here — so, instead, here’s a blow-your-mind video about objectum-sexuals’ love affairs with fences and tourist attractions.
if you’re a frau:
- h&m short leather jacket
- h&m scarves, impossibly draped
- h&m jeans tucked into h&m/gortz boots
- amy winehouse ‘do (assuming you’re from the ruhrgebiet)
- your weight in make-up
- comb-over bangs
- a long-term boyfriend since 7th grade
- a mini-cactus
- a nanu nana bag
if you’re a herr:
- amorphous curves of camper shoes OR adio club foot shoes
- jack wolfskin parka
- face-framing zac efron hair
- black brown black gray brown
- DAKINE backpack with hawaiian floral design
- low-crotched jeans
- gel, bleach streaks, lazy mullet, acid wash stripes jeans with unusual zippers, special patches and doodads, black trucker hat, discount h&m murse, cologne over BO (if you’re a zigeuner)
if you’re an oma:
- basket
- stockings
- lots of time on your hands
if you’re a little mädchen:
- a unicycle
with help from j.ho
Filed under: dithering, jamz, wagons ho | Tags: jamz, ra ra rand, wagons ho
i just returned from trip #3 to los angeles- the huggy, write-me-soon farewell tour. this summer’s visits have endeared me to the gangly, bizarro city, probably because i never once touched foot to a gas pedal. my besties faced off with the 405 exhaust and crunch, knots coagulating on their backs, while i curled up in the passenger seat with a popsicle and watched palm trees, mid-century car washes and taco trucks sail by.
now i’m packing and packing for my stint as a hapless english teacher in germany. a ten or eleven month stint. owning twice my weight in begonia-print dresses with lingering goodwill odors, i’m ensnared in a luggage space swamp. after a “packing tips” google search, i decided to take some strangers’ advice: stacking my clothes in manageable, flat piles and rolling them up, taquito-style. this shape supposedly requires less room than the unadventurous folding method. my suitcases will be composed of giant fabric bratwursts. even my wardrobe is prepping for germany.
which is all to say: post-LA, i’ve been rolling up and shoving around and getting down to this song in my head:
farewell, LA! don’t have any historic, freeway-rupturing earthquakes while i’m gone now, you hear?
Filed under: dithering, edible derangements | Tags: dithering, edible derangements
I don’t much like to cook. It’s just pretty boring. I end up all sweaty and annoyed, and I usually have to change my shirt. When left to make dinner alone, I generally stand in front of an open fridge and start grabbing food. Blueberries, dried cherries, a whole tomato—I’m inadvertently a raw-foodist. Sometimes I’ll just eat four bananas, a tablespoon of Nutella, and call it a night.
One exception: the rare occasion when I cook for company, because then I can fish for compliments. Isn’t that the best chocolate-chip cookie you’ve ever tasted? Yeah, I thought so. Used a recipe from a Nestle Tollhouse bag. You’ve tasted that ingredient combo dozens of times before. Now chop those three onions, and I’ll make myself a whiskey sour.
So, when invited to a recession-themed potluck and soiree in Los Angeles, I dusted off the ol’ cookbook laptop and set to work. This night had to be perfect. I had to make these people like me. At first I chose a platter of Pigs in Blankets, but found that mini wieners are difficult to locate (adjflksjfk). So I settled on some Midwest favorites, culled from 5 o’clock Mennonite suppers: Jello mold and a cheese ball.
The Jello mold was a piece of cake (I mean, it was a Jello mold):
-Boil 2 cups of water.
-Remove the pot from heat and add a packet of lemon or lime Jello.
-Mix in a can of frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed.
-Put in the fridge while you try that new burny stuff on your Plantar warts.
-Take out the sludge and add a frozen container of Cool Whip, thawed. Mix!
-Pour into your favorite mold. Pop in the fridge and let it solidify overnight.
The CW ended up rising to the top, iceberg-like, so, once the guests thoroughly enjoyed the dessert, I excavated to the bottom and ate the gelatinous yellow sugar. Treatsville!
But I’m most proud of the cheese ball. I used Amy Sedaris’s Lil’ Smokey Cheese Ball recipe – but, unwilling to cough up the cash for gouda (I mean, this was a recession party), I made my own alterations:
-mix one container of cream cheese with ¼ cup BUTTER!!!
-stir in a cup of shredded cheddar cheese, some chopped chives, lemon juice, garlic salt and oregano.
At his point, the concoction looked thusly:
A little drab. I wanted to find a secret ingredient, and hit on just the thing:
With a few shakes of the Kraft Blue cheese packet:
Presto-chango! A new family favorite! But would my friends like it? Sort of! Despite the nay-sayers and sidelong glances, the cheese ball enjoyed a warm reception. At least from Jon:
Now, kind readers, it’s time for a nightcap of cough syrup. Bon appétit!
Filed under: dithering, shopaholism | Tags: encino man, etsy, homemakerism, vomit
i just spent upwards of two hours browsing through button-cute widdle tchochkes at etsy, my latest only online handmade merch store of choice. yes, it’s sickeningly twee (the cupcake pins and silhouetted raven brooches are affecting my tummy like too many marshmallows). and, yes, it’s like the DIY, organic QVC for the sufjan-listening, nouveau-knitting, pilated wifey . . . but check out these gems amongst the sugar and spice!
print set of mr. and mrs. cardinal, the most endearing fuddy-duddy married couple on the block. this artist has a whole winesburg, ohio collection of animals-as-suburban-stereotypes portraits. i purchased five.
for those chillier nights, a set of wool log pillows. cuddle by the fire, and cuddle with the fire. romantic!
sifting through the bakelite salt and pepper shakers, screen-printed owl aprons and embroidered ephemera makes me wish i had a place of my own to decorate. a place with a breakfast nook, a tea cozy, and a mutt with an adorable crocheted collar. well. here’s a horrible secret: about one third of me wants to be the bougie but environmentally-conscious homebody of the 21st C, vegan macaroons and hollyhocked tea towel at the ready. ick! my dream, exposed!
well, the fantasy won’t come to fruition any time soon. for one, i’m remarkably incompetent in domestic activities. i can clumsily hem a skirt, but those chanterelles will simply have to saute themselves. june cleaver i am not. and i’ll never have the dough for this etsy lifestyle; i’m stuck with salvation army’s polyester linens, blood stains and all. and, finally: i’ll be living the ol’ itinerant life for at least 12 more months. possibly 12 more years. what’s german for “100% soy ink”?
now i have a date to watch encino man, in belated honor of my la brea tar pits bday trip. oh, yeah, btw, i just came back from los angeles; more on that to come.
Filed under: dithering, duh, who am i this time? | Tags: destruction, hair-cut, make-over
hey dudes! i cut my own bangs! here’s a mini photo diary documenting the transformation:
before
gosh, this hair makes me feel so unattractive! limp, lifeless, tyra-forehead revealing – but who wants to spend a reasonable sum on a quality haircut by an experienced professional stylist when there are so many Nancy Drew mysteries to purchase, nickel milkshakes to guzzle down, and precocious faces to make? (N.B. chronicle books now sells nancy drew merch.)
what i really need is a new look to wow bobby and to add some pizzaz (razmaraz) to my life. so: i’m going to get . . . MY BANGS CUT.
after
whoaoaoohoa! what have i done! guess i shouldn’t have used dad’s cuticle scissors.
in the long run
eventually, i’ll come to accept the hair snafu. the short, stiff bangs + glasses look perfectly accompanies the m.a. in library science i’ll bitterly take out student loans for when all my other plans fail. and, hey, with my fun-loving antics, accidents are bound to happen. when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!!
in conclusion: an homage to the hairdresser
tease-a-louise!
