tori dot gov

How to Tell if Your Friends Think You're a Serial Killer

2012-02-11T01:13:00.000+03:00

Insecurity: the plague of our overly-self-aware post-postmodern times. How many of us have shivered beneath a pile of blankets, listening to the wind keening through the eaves and wondering what our friends really think of us? How many of us have collapsed under doubts of our own self-worth, frothing at the mouth as we scream, "Will anybody love me for me?" And how many of us have bitten our fingernails to the nub while the tears pour down our faces like blackened rain, asking ourselves that difficult, age-old question: "Does everybody think I'm a serial killer?"

Have I got a treat for you! Here are some easy ways to tell if your friends think you're a serial killer.

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Do they pretend to be deaf when you ask to meet their cute friends?

Do they give you strange looks when you mention doing your laundry in the basement?

Do you overhear conversations that go like this?:

"I want another beer."
"Me too. Grab me one?"
"No, can you grab me one?"
"I don't want to open the fridge first."
"I don't want to open the fridge first!"

When you recount tales of loves lost, do they ask, "So wh-what's he doing th-these d-days?"

Do they always, always, ALWAYS agree with you?

When they spill red wine on your pristine white sofa, do they chuckle nervously and say, "Don't kill me!"? And then do you hear another friend whisper, "Bleach will hide a whole lot of stains. A who-o-ole lot of stains..."?

Do they always arrive and leave in pairs?

When you visit, do they take you on a tour of their karate trophies, pointing out their multiple black belts and saying things like, "God help the fool that ever tries to break in and murder me! HAHAHA!"

Do you suspect that they have children--after all, there was that stray teddy bear behind the couch, those Cheerios strewn across the rug, the ghostly sound of pattering feet upstairs--but are never able to get them to 'fess up about it?

Do they panic when they get papercuts or hangnails around you, as though the scent of blood will drive you wild, like a shark?

When you say, "I'm just trying to get ahead," do they scream, "WHAT?"

When you say, "Something is afoot," do they scream, "WHERE?"

If you answer "yes" to more than one question...
...that's totally fine!
No judgment here!
GAHHH.

People Doing Adorable Things at Intelligentsia

2012-02-09T23:27:00.000+03:00

Despite the fact that our universe is hurtling toward a bloody, fiery destruction (PS: the world is obviously not going to end in ice, Robert Frost), everyone is being so adorable today and making me really happy. Here are some of my observations on people being cute and happiness in general:

As I was watching The Artist with my boyfriend and his cute shaved face yesterday, I realized that women are so much more beautiful when they smile and laugh. I was like, "Damn, his wife is ugly, too bad that hot young bid is about to steal him away," and then I was like, "That young bid isn't even pretty in a traditional way but she's always smiling!" And then I got my face permanently re-sculpted into a smile so I will always be beautiful.

Right now I'm sitting at the end of a communal table at Intelligentsia, and I just watched two sweet people, sitting across from each other, engage in the most innocent, adorable, brief flirtation. The man leaned toward the woman and said, "Do you want some of this coffee? I'll never finish it." (Intelligentsia gives you extra coffee in a little glass pitcher if you order a larger size.) She chuckled and agreed, and they proceeded to talk about everything from coffee to his acting career to their respective names. He was an actor, visiting Chicago for the week, and she kept giving him the most adorable suggestions: museums and shows and quirky little restaurants to check out. I was screaming, mentally, "GO FOR A WALK IN MILLENNIUM PARK TOGETHER!" but unfortunately their love was not destined to be consummated today and she left. Now he sits next to me, texting rapidly. Perhaps he is updating his Twitter page.

Shortly after that eligible young broad left, a pair of Irish tourists asked me to take their picture in their irresistible lilting accents. I think they're a daughter-dad pair. Dying! Now they're gushing about the flavors ("flay-vehs") in their coffee. Seeing happy people is so good for the soul. It's like gazing at a beautiful field of poppies and knowing that those poppies will one day be opium, slowly killing a modern-day Dorian Gray (question: what is wrong with me?).

My second boyfriend, the Poetry Foundation, just hipped me to this amazing project called The Modernist Journals Project, where you can download entire issues of Modernist magazines for free. I'm so excited to read The Little Review: "Its modest title notwithstanding, The Little Review probably did more to promote modernism than any other American journal, representing in its pages dozens of international art movements and the leading avant-garde figures of the day. It's also where most of Joyce's Ulysses first appeared in print." Unoriginal observation of the day: I think it's so amazing that technology (The Future) can make the past so rich for us.

Jilted actor man is now staring at his phone and shaking his head. Perhaps he will offer me some of his coffee now--no? Okay.

The Value of Books

2012-02-08T02:13:00.002+03:00

These are strange days for the publishing industry. The way books are published, sold, bought, and read is completely changing, and the oily-faced chief exec of Amazon is being, for lack of a better word, creepy: trying to cut out publishers entirely, devaluing the concept of "a book" by pricing ebooks so low. Amazon has seriously slashed our mental image of what a book is worth—we just aren't willing to spend real money on books anymore.

When you read the Yelp reviews of my favorite independent Chicago bookstores, there's always a handful of bitter Yelpers complaining about how expensive the books are at Myopic, or The Book Cellar, or Unabridged Books. These disillusioned readers love to moan, "Why should I buy my books here, when I can get them for 75% cheaper on Amazon?" (Why did you walk into a brick-and-mortar book store then, dude?) We don't think of books as something that should = a significant amount of money, and we feel oppressed or even repulsed by the idea of dropping multiple dollar bills on reading material. We won't spend $30 on books. We won't spend $20 on books. We might not even spend $10 on books. Because that's like two and a half caramel macchiatos.

Like most literarily-minded people, I couldn't wait for Jefferey Eugenides' new book, The Marriage Plot, to come out. The second I saw it in the window of Unabridged Books, I ran inside to buy it. I was so ready to get my hands on that book. I was the ideal customer, a book publicist's dream: I saw the ads (yup, ads—Eugenides has a billboard in Times Square, so let's not, like, mourn the demise of fiction or the irrelevancy of the novel just yet, okay?), I read the Paris Review interview, I talked about it with all of my friends, and I was ready to buy on opening day.

I threw open the bookstore's door, I blew inside, I picked up the shiny hardcover and—OMG. A hardcover version of The Marriage Plot at Unabridged Books was $30. I think I turned to my boyfriend and said something like, "How am I supposed to spend $30 on this? I can't afford that! I'm a writer!" (I know, I'm the antagonist in my own essay. Me and Jeff Bezos.)

I bought The Marriage Plot a month later, at Powell's in Portland, because they were selling it for 30% off. So that was nice. I read the book in a week, buoyed by expensive coffee.

Now, sitting alone in my window seat, watching the rain pummel the delicate violets, I wonder: Why wouldn't I spend $30 on a hardcover novel—and not just any hardcover novel, THE hardcover novel, the one that everyone is talking about, the one that got a BILLBOARD IN TIMES SQUARE? Why? Why?! WHY?!?! I'm the girl that's like, "OMG, I love Goodreads, you have to read more Marquez, oh this quote on my fridge? That's Neruda, gah I love literature, why doesn't anyone read The Bad Girl so we can talk about it? Yeah I own several Fitzgerald biographies. Are you, like, illiterate?? OMG, my new Paris Review is here! How do we feel about Glimmer Train?" ANNOYING, I KNOW.

Here are some things I've recently spent $30 on:

Takeout from Indie Cafe. (I didn't finish my crazy basil rice.)
A candle. (Okay, it was a really fucking fabulous candle.)
Two rounds of drinks at Hopleaf.
Ingredients to bake a raspberry-chocolate-truffle cake.

I spend $30 on ephemeral, yuppie, indulgent things, without thinking twice about it, but to see $30 as the cost of a book—a book, a book, the thing that keeps us a little higher than the animals (and a little lower than the angels, maybe, since we're all so self indulgent?)—to see a $30 sticker on a book makes me pause, turns me off, doesn't fit with my concept of the “worth” of a book. A book does not = $30 in my brain.

The only people I know who spend real money on books are poets. And my boyfriend, who is a bass player and a real artist.

A beautifully-done book is a piece of physical art—embossed cover, heavy paper. It's a piece of design work—the cover art, the typesetting, the jacket flap. It's a lot of editing work: conceptual back-and-forth between the author and the editor, line editing, copyediting, proofreading. More proofreading. Last-minute proofreading. A book put out by a major publishing house is drama and anticipation and literary gossip; a boook put out by a small press is a labor of love and a statement of faith.

A book also involves a fair amount of work on the part of the person who—what do you call them? Oh yeah, the "author." But I mean whatever.

A new, beautiful book is worth more than whatever discounted price you're paying for it.

Stop telling yourself that it's good to buy books as cheaply as possible because you're a reader and the more you buy the more you read, or whatever.

Please don't buy books on Amazon. Just don't. I don't care if that's where the future is headed, blah blah blah KINDLE FIRE. It's creepy and offensive to artists and it devalues your artistic taste. Reading full-price books is so fun (you can feel righteous and cool at the same time, which is a pretty rare feeling these days). Just go to a bookstore and drop some petty cash. You'll have a great time, I promise. Some bookstores even have entire porn sections! Food porn, that is. (Just kidding—Unabridged Books has real porn. And might I just say—yikes.)

$30 should be nothing for a book. $30 is kind of expensive for unfinished Thai takeout, but not a book.

10 Places You Must See Before You Die

2012-02-02T00:42:00.001+03:00

1. America

Known to natives as "land of the free, home of the brave," America has something for everyone. If you want to see cool buildings, you're in luck--several of America's most famous cities are full of buildings. Looking for a great local bar? Simply head to the middle of any city or town and look for a sign that says "Red Lion," "Plough," or Tiki Palace." Itching to try some of our famous cuisine? Any major American highway is lined with tantalizing options--we recommend the legendary restaurant Arby's, pronounced AR-BEEZ.

2. Ocean

Ocean is a large hole, filled to the brim with pulsing, salty water. Return to your fetal roots and take a dip in the comforting intrauterine bath that brings life to the world and allows clouds to form and whales to survive. Also: mermaids!!

3. The Moon

No vacation is complete without a long stare at the night sky. Crane your neck from side to side until you spot a mysterious, shining orb. This is the "moon," a legendary ball of rock that hangs from the ceiling of the sky on invisible threads. Please note: "moon" is often confused with "sun." One simple way to tell them apart: are your retinae burning? That is not the moon.

4. Pasta with Parmesan

King Solomon's riches. Cleopatra's beauty. Pasta with Parmesan. Often called the "Venus de Milo of the Twenty-First Century," a steaming bowl of buttery pasta, lightly salted and sprinkled with curls of fresh Parmesan, is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Please note: keep an eye out for curly small noodles in a colorless broth. Con artists have been known to trick tourists into paying good money for this sight, attempting to pass it off as pasta con Parmigiano, but it's actually a cheap knockoff called Ramen.

5. Not the Inside of a Hospital

If you have never seen the inside of a hospital, you have possibly had a great life, with the exception of--ew--your home birth.

6. Facebook's Deactivation Screen

Nobody who hasn't attempted to free themselves from the soul-sucking claws of Facebook at least once can call themselves an actualized human being. Facebook's deactivation screen is manipulative and strange--you'll be presented with a series of random "friends," as Facebook insists, "They'll miss you!" But they won't miss you. They won't miss you at all.

7. Jupiter's Core

Have you ever wanted to be crushed into an exquisite diamond by unbelievable pressure and strange gaseous substances? Nothing is better than a Tiffany's ring--except maybe a glittering rock composed of your very own body. We'll bet good money that your soul's in there, too. Book your trip to Jupiter, today!

8. A Really Spaced-Out Baby

Not much is cuter than a baby drooling on his dad's arm, totally spacing out and quite possibly high. Hello there, lil' fella!

9. Bros Talking Shop

Bored in a strange city? Catch some prime comedy by heading to your local coffee shop or gym and listening to bros talking shop! You'll split your sides wide open at lines like, "We're really taking the initiative by reaching out into formerly untouched markets," and "Can you recommend a great distributor with the skill sets I'm looking for?" A can't-miss attraction!

10. Graveyards in the Snow

If you really want to feel like an artist--or the Phantom of the Opera's next victim--take a stroll around your local burial grounds the next time it snows. The deep silence, the soft gray of the tombstones shimmering through the snowflakes, the stone angels with their temporal crowns of white, the strange snow-covered lumps on the ground that cannot be confirmed or denied to be dead bodies--it's a life-changing experience.

Salted Caramel Macaroon...or Seed Money?

2012-02-01T01:51:00.001+03:00

Disclaimer: I am financially illiterate. Are dollars the same thing as dimes? That's what a homeless man told me. He said, "Can I have twenty dimes?" and pointed to the twenty-dollar bill I held in my hand. I said, "Well now, that doesn't seem like an unreasonable request," and gave him my debit card. Don't worry! I wrote my PIN on the back of his hand, along with my phone number.

It's payday! Burdened by riches, I dragged myself to the nearest Intelligentsia and ordered a salted caramel macaroon, which cost approximately as much as a muscular pack donkey costs in Chile. If I were your average college-educated English major who didn't join a sorority but is still kind of a biddy about things like expensive facial creams, I would have eaten that macaroon in less time than it takes for me to write a convoluted and difficult-to-follow sentence. But I'm not your average Vogue subscriber, specialty coffee drinker, and obnoxious Fitzgerald fan--and so, instead of eating that macaroon, I invested it. And you can, too!

Here's how:

Purchase your macaroon with the shiniest debit or credit card you own. As they say in the world of finance, "Bling bling, baby!" Translated into everyday-speak, this means, "Shiny things = rich!"

Sit down next to the oldest and least attractive man in the coffee shop. Old and unattractive men tend to be wealthy. Is his face strangely tight around the eyes, even though he must be pushing 70? Jackpot. This man is what the financiers term your "backer."

Make sure he catches a whiff of your gardenia perfume. Spray some in his face if you must. We all know that perfume came from CVS, girlfriend. It's not like you're wasting precious elixir.

When he turns to catch a glimpse of the elusive siren who smells like lazy summer nights spent skinning coons on Tara plantation, pick up the salted caramel macaroon and bring it closer to your mouth, gently licking your lips. STOP! Don't take a bite! Sigh delicately, and return the macaroon to your plate.

Your new backer will ask, "Something wrong with your macaroon?"

QUICK ASIDE: DID YOU REMEMBER TO WEAR FAKE EYELASHES?

Gaze up at him from beneath that Amazonian jungle of lash and whisper, "I can hardly bring myself to taste it. It's so...expensive."

If he chuckles, use this opportunity to unbutton your coat, revealing the sackcloth and ashes you wear instead of real clothes. Tell him you're working on a novel if he doesn't get the hint.

Eventually, he will offer to buy you a house in the Hamptons.

Sell the house immediately. The market is bad! Good time to sell! Or--wait--is it a good time to buy? Ask the nearest man.

Invest that money in something that economics majors term the "checking" account. Basically, this means that you put your money somewhere and people babysit it for you, and you only have to pay them every time they think up a new fee. In a few weeks, you will get an even shinier debit card in the mail. That means your money is rapidly multiplying, like rabbits! I think. Now you can buy all the salted caramel macaroons your little heart desires.

Declassifying the Creeper Elderly

2012-01-30T23:20:00.002+03:00

Samuel Beckett: bleak, tragicomic, postmodernist playwright and novelist; sworn enemy of the Creeper Elderly; arguably a Creeper Elderly himself.

Working Definition: The Creeper Elderly conducts his or her illicit affairs under a halo of soft, white curls, an adorably stooped back, and a tendency to cup one wizened hand around his or her hearing aid and chirp, "Excuse me, dear?" Creeper Elderly should not be confused with members of the Beloved Grandparents genus, although a Creeper Elderly may appropriate certain characteristics of a Beloved Grandparent in order to win your heart or guilt you into paying attention to their stories.

Manic Tendencies: Should the Creeper Elderly get ahold of a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or--God forbid--an iPhone with texting capabilities, expect to receive updates from the Creeper Elderly far more often than you would from your friends.

Skulk-o-Meter: Do the Creeper Elderly skulk, or are they merely slow walkers? This question has been the subject of much anthropological debate over the years.

Economic Benefits: Befriending a Creeper Elderly is not as black and white as has been formerly insisted (see: Deconstructing the Hidden Pocketbook: Insider Trading and the Creeper Elderly of the '50s, 60's, and '70s.). While certain scholars insist that friendship with a Creeper Elderly operates on a strict 1-1 ratio (you listen to their stories, they give you money), the most deviant of the Creeper Elderly are stingy with their riches, hiding them in old shoes, beneath mattresses, and often burying them beneath their herb gardens (see: The Dirty Dollar: Hoarder Tendencies of the Wealthy and Ancient).

Fresh-Baked Cookies: Not always.

The Kennedy Assassination: Much speculation has been made about the assassination of former president John F. Kennedy. Creeper Elderly are known for collecting massive scrapbooks of newspaper clippings about the event, which has lead to a top-secret FBI file on the genus as a whole.

Nobel Buzz: In 1969, Bertram R. Sperry nominated an anonymous Creeper Elderly for the Nobel Prize for Literature, arguing that the novel-length collection of Christmas cards, captions for old photos, and to-do lists produced by this anonymous wordslinger demonstrated the "rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect" that characterized the very first Nobel in Literature given to French poet and philosopher Sully Prudhomme. That year's Nobel was given to Samuel Beckett instead, an act which led Sperry to denounce the Nobel Committee as "ageists and luddites, all of ye!" Some have theorized that this "anonymous" Creeper Elderly was actually Sperry himself, but Nobel documents are kept secret for 50 years, so scholars of the genus wait for the year 2019 with bated breath.

Timecrunch

2012-01-28T01:23:00.000+03:00

Hi friends! I'm here to talk about the wonders of timecrunch. If you only have 40 minutes to work on your story that you have to submit to writing group TODAY, you will be super productive and delete unnecessary adjectives like you're on FIRE. Timecrunch will make you feel caffeinated even though you haven't had any coffee. I love celery (and not because you burn calories while eating it, and if you supposed that, you're totally sexist). Remember that scene in Star Wars where they almost get crunched by the trash compactor? That scene terrified me. I have an intense fear of tight spaces. Sometimes I think: which am I most afraid of? Tight spaces, heights, or the ocean? Possibly the ocean because it is simultaneously a tight space (when you're on the bottom with all those tons of water crushing down on you) and a height (it's like a gazillion feet deep). My fear of oceans is deep-seated but one possible explanation (besides the fact that oceans are FREAKIN TERRIFYING BABY) is that once I read a Choose Your Own Adventure book where "I" was deep-sea diving and I came up for air too fast and got the dreaded "Bends" and nitrogen bubbles formed in my brain and I died. (That sentence has not been fact-checked.) However, when experiencing timecrunch, you may start laughing maniacally at your own jokes. And your texts will be fun to type but not necessarily fun to read.

Surrealism and Paralysis

2012-01-26T01:21:00.000+03:00

Like Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Gabo, to his nearest and dearest and superfanz like me), I have an irrational and uncontrollable fear of the dark. When I turn out the lights, everything takes on the shape of a tall stranger. The hats and purses that I hang on the edge of my bed become Druidic robes. I know that the girl from The Ring will creep out of my television so I have to turn the screen away from my bed. If I see my reflection in a dark mirror I don't even know what would happen, I am so terrified of the thought. I pull the covers over my head until I'm almost suffocated because even the night air scares me. Most of these fears can be attributed to my childhood reading habits, so think twice before you let your impressionable young daughters browse bookshelves in strange houses.

Last night, as I cowered under a mound of blankets, trying to distract myself with thoughts of fashion ("What should I wear tomorrow? Maybe a MUMMY'S SHROUD?"), I had, out of nowhere, a fullblown panic attack regarding mortality. It went something like this: My boyfriend was so adorable the first time we met. I will never be nineteen again. WE ARE ALL HURTLING TOWARD DEATH AND THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO TO STOP IT.

I wish that was a simple Tori Dot Gov exaggeration, but bitches, IT AIN'T.

I did not sleep until the wee small hours of the morning. But I discovered two things that help.

1. The Psalms, some of the most beautiful, alternately joyful and agonized poetry ever written.

2. The last two lines of the Surrealist Manifesto. Check 'em:

It is living and ceasing to live which are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere.

Reading that makes me feel better. If life and death are imaginary, why should I gnaw off my fingers in nighttime terror? And what's that, André Breton? Existence is elsewhere? Oh yeah, I can get with that. It's called writing fiction. Basically, I just need to become a little more obsessive about fiction, which is what I was planning to do with my life anyway. BRETON, YOU GET ME.

Even though André would probably die (an imaginary death, of course) if he heard me say this, I will say it anyway: I think the final lines of the Surrealist Manifesto and the Psalms are kind of saying the same thing. Which is: don't look here. Look somewhere else. It's comforting, it's inspiring, it's sleight of hand. It's everything that makes up good fiction.

How to Destroy Your Boyfriend's Socks

2012-01-20T21:55:00.000+03:00

When you hear the doorbell ring, clamp a clothespin on your nose. A safety pin will do in a pinch. (PINCH. Get it? Enjoy your pierced septum.)

Crack open the door. Peer out with eyes like smoldering embers.

Say, in a hollow voice, "Take off your shoes."

When your boyfriend stands outside your door in his socks, reach out with a long, spindly device, and pull the socks off of his feet. Suitable devices: rake, back-scratcher, those things that old people use to take down canned food from high shelves.

Place both socks in a paper bag.

Beckon him inside. As he comes through the door, shoot past him like a blur of mist, shouting these infamous words from Dwight Schrute of "The Office:" "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE SPIRITS THAT HAUNT THESE HALLOWED GROUNDS!"

You are now outside. Set down the paper bag and pull out your flamethrower.

Incinerate the bag.

Scrape the ashes into another paper bag.

Head to your nearest crematorium. Beg for an urn.

Place the ashes of the socks inside the urn.

Using my new iPhone app, FuneraLocator, find the nearest funeral. Grab a mimosa and mingle with the guests to avoid suspicion.

Ask the guests to do a round of shots with you.

Ask the guests to relive their most painful memories of the beloved deceased.

Once everyone's eyesight has been clouded with alcohol and tears, swap the urns.

If there is a coffin instead of an urn, attempt to locate a getaway vehicle before stealing the coffin. Perhaps nice Uncle Alvin would drive you? He kept you in that comforting hug for like, a minute.

Walk away casually, murmuring, "Running out to get more flowers/vodka."

Dispose of the second urn as respectfully as you can. Appropriate hiding places: the sea. A mountaintop. A trickling brook. Inappropriate hiding places: a trash can. Inside a bird's nest. Back on the shelf with the other urns.

Return to your apartment.

Now you can hang out with your boyfriend without passing out.

Register Now for "Unbelievable Failures! The True Stories of Young People Who Suck at Life."

2012-01-18T01:39:00.000+03:00

My alma mater just sent me a charming email, encouraging me to register for an event called Successful Startups: The Back Stories of Forward Thinkers. "Hell to the no!" I cried in a voice that resonated throughout seven states, several of which still hold fast to outdated laws such as "it is illegal to whistle underwater" and "speeding tickets blah blah" (I zoned out when the policeman was talking to me and then I punched him and sped away on my Vespa). In the spirit of protest upon which this great country was founded, I have started my OWN event, celebrating that wondrous tie that binds us all together: UNBELIEVABLE FAILURE. I hope all of you who have not founded an internet empire by the age of 23 will join me.

Join the Macarthur Foundation and Tori Dot Gov for a panel discussion of incredible losers and jaw-dropping idiots who have failed to make a name for themselves and sometimes avoid paying taxes! Whether you're a waitress, a homeless person, or a rich kid who simply doesn't see the need to work a 9-5 and is thisclose to being disowned by your family, this dynamic panel of hopeless failures is sure to make you feel better about yourself!

Attendees Will:
- Hear the exciting narratives of unprepared idiots who thought the only prerequisite to dazzling success was dropping out of college! Oh, how the mighty have fallen!
- Learn what effective businesspeople in diverse industries DON'T have in common with you!
-Have an opportunity to network with the catering staff! ONE LUCKY ATTENDEE scores a one-on-one interview with Rhoda, our fabulous janitor!

Schedule:
6pm-6:45pm: Check In & Networking Reception (Drinking fountain available)
6:45pm-8:00pm: Entrepreneur Panel Discussion (Private event--please do not attempt to join)
8:00pm-9:00pm: Networking Reception (Dress code: whatever. Please, no nudity--hospital gowns are available for those who cannot afford clothes.)

Panelists:
Tony McDonald, Homeless Person, Author of The Aliens are Invading from Russia and Gorillas Kidnapped my Girlfriend.
Jane Pearson, Cocktail Waitress, Ph.D. candidate '97 until she had her nervous breakdown and found that her insurance didn't cover therapy.
Jefferey Eugenideez, Professional Bike Rider, posts a poem-a-day on his blog, readership: 4.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. (PLEASE NOTE: This panel is for successful people ONLY. Please do not attend this panel or you will be escorted out of the room and we doubt anyone will care if you simply 'disappear.')

REGISTER NOW FOR "UNBELIEVABLE FAILURES!" on December 21, 2012 (because when the world ends--we're ALL failures).

Probable Reasons Why Stud4Hire52 Didn't Write Me Back

2012-01-13T22:16:00.000+03:00

His personal ad said, "send me pix of your budy," and I sent him a picture of me and my writing group.

His personal ad said, "wuts ur favorite type if u kno wut i mean," and I said, "I don't know what you mean. Type of what? I'm sorry if this doesn't adequately answer your question. The internet is such a weird medium of communication, haha! Maybe if we were staring into each other's eyes I would understand you psychically."

His personal ad said, "click here to check out my pix," and I said, "Unfortunately, I can't download the file that popped up when I clicked on your link! It was blinking and it said "CONGRATULATIONS." Would you mind sending it to me as a .jpg?"

His personal ad said, "dont forget to rate me on hotornot.com" and I said, "OMG I'M SO SORRY. I gave you a 2 out of 10 just to be hilarious, because I want to be like one of those quirkily belligerent girls in movies who are always teasing their lovers, but it totally ruined your ranking and now FabioBellisimoXXX is winning! Gah. I hope you can forgive me. If it makes you feel better, I'm sandwiched between RubyRobot08 and LeglessWonderFlexyBendyBarbie."

His personal ad said, "tell me wut u prefer ;)" and I said, "I'm not one of those long-walks-on-the-sand girls. I want the kind of man who will stare into my eyes for 6 hours at a time, literally. If you can do that without blinking, it might be love. Or it might not. It might be corneal dystrophy. CAN YOU HANDLE MINE, STUD4HIRE52?"

Hilarious Things I've Said to Meriwether

2012-01-12T01:29:00.001+03:00

If you're friends with me on Facebook (and you're probably not, because I have so many privacy settings set up that I still don't understand how everyone's mom manages to find me), you may notice that I'm always quoting my dear and hysterical friend, Ms. Meriwether Darcy-Fassbender. While I feel privileged to share Ms. Darcy-Fassbender's genius with the offspring of Mark Zuckerberg's lonely brain, the honor is very one-sided. MERIWETHER DARCY-FASSBENDER NEVER QUOTES ME. This may lead to the misconception that SHE is the hilarious one, when in fact we are BOTH the hilarious ones. I have husbands, too. I creep. I rage. I gossip. I type in all-caps. But no one gives me any recognition for it. I slave away at the business of sending my friends hilarious emails and texts, and how many times am I quoted on Facebook? Once a year, if I'm lucky.

The injustice stops here. This is a non-definitive list of all the hilarious texts and emails I've sent to Meriwether Darcy-Fassbender. Unfortunately, my phone forces me to regularly delete my texts, and believe me: when that sad day comes, I, too, cringe at the sight of all my genius disappearing into the ether.

--

I CAN'T THINK BC OF THE VOMIT

DID YOU HEAR MY SCREAM OF HORROR FROM ACROSS THE CITY?!

CARRIE [Bradshaw] IS SO AWK IN PARIS. when she falls in Dior...THE PAIN!!!

I just thought of the best idea. We get subsidized by our relatives NOT to work! grandparents give us $100/month, etc.

Me: I AM HARRY
Meri: WHICH MAKES ME VOLDEMORT

SMASH IT! WE MUST RELEASE OURSELVES FROM ALL SHACKLES. [I was talking about her iPhone.]

IT WAS COLD AND LIFELESS...AND SQUISHY. SQUISHY WITH ROT.

YOU MAY NOTICE MY TEETH ARE SMALLER.

i am seriously considering death by gin.

Yes to anti-gun coalition, YES TO MASS DIVORCE.

--

It is true: 99% of our correspondence is screaming about the apocalypse in all-caps.

If you'd like to receive regular all-caps text messages about gin, heinous fashion, or the plight of the homeless, subscribe to my automatic text messaging service NOW! Previously free, now $50/month.

Creepers I Can See From Where I Sit

2012-01-07T01:51:00.000+03:00

1. My ex-husband. He just vanished through a filmy curtain into the back of his coffee shop. Is he avoiding me? I hear his sweetly deceptive voice berating another employee for something something latte temperature something something oolong tea.

2. The woman sitting alone on the park bench outside my window. Her fashion sense screams, "NEW YORK! NEW YOOOORK! THE SARTORIALIST, BABY!" Is that a plastic bag? Oh, she's homeless.

3. The ancient man sitting at a table nearby and staring at me. If only I were in the market for a new husband...alas, the wound is too fresh.

4. The jaywalking hipster girl. It's ironic that she's walking fast because hipsters have nowhere to go in society. Nowhere to go but down.

5. The extremely fat but cute dog walking past the window. I WANT YOU! You speak to my soul! (His owner just tied him to the fence and I'm going to kidnap him after I finish this post.)

6. The young girl shattering gender stereotypes by playing soccer with two boys in the park. TOO BAD SHE SUCKS.

7. The big dog tied up next to the little fat dog. We just made 10 seconds of awwwwwkward eye contact. When I leave this coffee shop, I think he might eat me. There's no way that leash can hold him, especially not when he has a fat accomplice that can easily chew through it.

8. The old man holding his cane LIKE A CLUB. He's trying to cross the street at a very inappropriate place. I can't even tell you--OH NO, DON'T GET HIT BY THAT SEMI! Whew, he's safe. I think he's going to beat someone with that cane.

9. The lone airplane, gliding across the sky like a silent bird of prey.

10. I think we all know who the tenth creeper is here.

Income-Based Hot Buttered Rum

2012-01-03T22:24:00.002+03:00

Due to the overwhelming--OVERWHELMING--response to my last post, where I mentioned making hot buttered rum cocktails while dangling my perfect toes in the Pacific ocean, I decided to share my recipe here. But then I thought of how poor many of my friends are. How the cockroaches skitter over their ivory-and-blue toes at night. (I just read Slaughterhouse-5.) And I realized something in the core of my pulsing heart. My heart full of blood and aortas. My heart like a squishy busy anthill. Sometimes I feel that if I think too hard about my insides I will accidentally die because I will freak out so hard and somehow send signals to my brain to stop living. I realized this: I must give you not one recipe, but six.

Merely find your income level, mixologize, and enjoy! I recommend drinking this silky-smooth cocktail while watching old Christmas trees being dragged to the curb like so many kidnapped children.

Hot Buttered Rum: $60,000+/year

Mix one stick of softened butter with two cups of sugar, one teaspoon cinnamon, one-half teaspoon nutmeg, a pinch of cloves, and a pinch of salt. Drop two tablespoons of this mixture into a mug. Add a shot of rum, and fill mug to the brim with boiling water. Drink while running your bare toes through the pelt of a rare white alive Royal Bengal tiger.

Hot Buttered Rum: $30,000--$59,999/year

Mix one stick of softened butter with two cups of sugar and whatever spices you have in your cabinet, or a handful of melted cinnamon candies. Drop two tablespoons of mixture into a mug, and add a shot of rum, whiskey, or brandy. Or vodka. Warm up some water in the microwave and slosh it in.

Hot Buttered Rum: $20,000--$29,999/year

Mix one stick of softened butter with a) stale sprinkles, b) leftover frosting, or c) a Hershey's bar. Add some black pepper for "spice." The idea here is to approximate the sweet/spicy aroma that more successful people achieve through the use of rare imported goods like Myristica fragrans and cassia vera. Is that a beer in the corner of the fridge? That'll work.

Hot Buttered Rum: $10,000--$19,999/year

Do a shot of rum. Chase with a shot of olive oil.

Hot Buttered Rum: Under $10,000

Ask your homeless friends if anyone has any olive oil. Steal their rum when they're asleep--the sound of your movements will be disguised by the whirring of the subway grate. If the "rum" is actually "mouthwash," abandon all culinary pursuits and get some sleep.

Hot Buttered Rum: broke

Go to your friend Tori's house and drink her rum. DON'T BOTHER SAYING THANK YOU. SHE WILL ALSO COOK YOU A STEAK DINNER EVEN THOUGH SHE'S A VEGETARIAN. SHE DOESN'T MIND.

On Break

2011-12-23T09:46:00.000+03:00

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming because WE ARE IN CALIFORNIA. I'm trying to rep Tupac but, you know, Charlie said that if he found me in Compton with a blunt and a brew he would be very upset. So I'm making hot buttered rum and watching Monsters, Inc. instead.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! xoxo

Curating Your Future Legend

2011-12-13T00:47:00.002+03:00

When you're famous, you want your ex-friends to tell the press, “I always knew she had the light of genius glimmering beneath her skin like final couplet of that Neruda poem, “Ode to a Beautiful Nude,” that she loved so well oh and also Neruda wrote that poem for her.” You don't want your ex-friends to go on record saying, “I dunno, she seemed pretty ordinary to me...” or even worse, “Who?”

If you're planning to be famous, you need to start curating your future legend NOW. Every second you sit at a coffee shop hoping that genius will strike through something as petty as "art" is another second that you look ordinary, forgettable, and completely sane. Be sure to utilize these incendiary techniques every time you run into a fairly articulate acquaintance who may one day be giving an interview about--who else?--YOU:

Never make eye contact. Always look slightly above everybody's heads, and make sure your eyes grow misty and far-reaching. After all, you're staring into the realm of genius—or is that the infinite abyss? Only you know for sure.
When asked, “How are you?" make sure your response contains a) something controversial about art and b) a foreign word. Example: "Sturm und drang, James Joyce was a woman!"
If you run into an acquaintance on the street, say breathlessly (before they have a chance to greet you), “Can't talk now, I've been writing the last chapter of my novel in my head for the past 3 hours and I must get it down on paper.” Then mime using a typewriter or a quill pen and shout something mysterious and irrelevant like "Shark moon!" It's great publicity and you'll sound like a mad poet.
Don't dance like nobody's watching. Dance like EVERYBODY'S watching.
Never underestimate the power of quirky makeup.
Pepper your conversation with confusing anecdotes featuring common first names. Example: "James and I were down at the fishing hole talking about quarks the other day..." People will wonder which James you mean. James Smith? James Franco? JAMES JOYCE?
Wave people away impatiently. Then mime using a typewriter again.
When attending any sort of public artistic performance (concerts, plays, movies), yawn a lot, look aimlessly around the theater, and write furiously in a Moleskine. It's very important that you do not support any other art form. This is a dying economy, people! EAT OR BE EATEN.
Sing in the shower. Have a microphone installed in your shower.
You're not a poet, a dancer, a scuptor. Genres are so passe. Only refer to your "art" and your "craft." Threaten to feature people in your "art." But use a really neutral voice so they don't know if it's a compliment or an insult. Then whisper, "I love to capture people at their most vulnerable," and mime using a videocamera.
Draw furiously on the tablecloth. Then continue drawing on your date's face. Then gaze across the restaurant, lock eyes with a beautiful woman, and rush over to her, abandoning your date and crying, "The search for loveliness is neverending!"
Fling yourself onto EVERY CHAISE LOUNGE YOU SEE. This one is not optional.

GUEST POST: Dreams of Fascism

2011-12-12T02:47:00.000+03:00

Meriwether Clarke possesses a stream of husbands longer than the Nile and a laugh as maniacal as Mrs. Rochester's. When she's not luring men into her den of iniquity by playing the Goldberg variations on her electric keyboard, she's busy buying things for her favorite sister-wife and keeping up a passionate correspondence with her internet lover, Huevos Rancheros. When asked for a comment, she replied, "My favorite activities are crushing ice with my bare feet, looking at trees, taking down people I hate, and arguing with Zalman."

When in sticky situations, I’ve started asking myself, “What would a fascist do?”

Fascism gets a pretty bad rap, thanks to losers like Hitler and Mussolini. What most don’t know is that the vast amount of writers in the English literary canon were also secret fascists. Why? Because they envisioned a world where people got what they deserved. Imagine if Donald Trump existed in Jane Austen’s fictional world. He would NOT have been given his own TV show. He WOULD have been laughed out of Pemberley and forced to work as a wigmaker in the Liverpoolian slums.

The general tenets of my ideal fascist society include the following:

1. If you are selfish, it is against the law for people to be nice to you.

2. It is illegal for anyone to reach their thirtieth birthday without reading the complete works of Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen.

3. As a result of this social conditioning, people will want to dress well, will always have interesting conversations, will give money to people who need it, and will be nice to their children.

4. As a result, prisons will not be filled with murderers, but instead with people who don’t like to read and enjoy doing things like, if I may borrow a phrase from Tori’s latest blog post, “Thirsty Thursdays.”

5. Prisons will not include mandatory physical labor, but instead will re-educate inmates through an intense, humanities-heavy courseload taught by leading academics.

Seriously though, IT IS TIME FOR THE HUMAN RACE to be held accountable. I get that none of this really makes sense in a realistic way, but whatever, I’m still working out the kinks.

Since I’m in the mood to talk about myself, let’s think of a few examples of how my life would improve if fascism were the order of the day:

1. I would NEVER have to use Herbal Essences again. It would be perfectly appropriate to go into CVS grab all the Biolage on their shelves and say, “This is mine! I will blaspheme you in my fascist newspaper and saber you to death if you do not consent.” There would be none of this BS with the police. Why? Because the police would simply be part of my giant fascist army. Okay, this one is a stretch. If I really were a fascist dictator, I would never have to shop in CVS again.

2. At work, when people are rude to me, I could just refuse to speak to them. If they appear disgruntled, I could have one of my minions explain to them that in fascist utopia, when you are rude to people, they are rude to you.

3. It would be perfectly acceptable to approach someone on the street and say, “I saw you be mean to your child, I am reporting you to the police.” Then they would promptly be arrested, quizzed on Foucault and be placed in the according prison re-education level.

I’m working on my real manifesto, so be prepared to join the world’s least popular new political movement very very soon.

GUEST POST: Accessing the Connective Teat

2011-12-09T00:11:00.002+03:00

Ashley Keyser is a poet and fellow child-hater living in the cozy Midwestern state of Ukraine. She spends her time stroking the faces of total strangers with her icy, trembling fingers, while hissing, We cannot know his legendary head/with eyes like ripening fruit. Read all about Ashley's surreal experiences in Ukraine at her blog, beets & the bluestocking. Since she is writing for my blog, does that mean I'm famous? I paid her four imaginary dollars per very real word.

O reader, how can I connect with you? Even in real life, the life that should feel real, but doesn’t, I struggle. Whenever I cup the faces of my casual acquaintances between my palms, my eyes probing the depths of their souls, they shrink back, as if human touch burns them! Even if I dare to run my fingers gently through their hair, they can’t seem to respond to my loving energy. Rejection has embittered me. Unable to taste the sweet fruits of life, I choke on the nausea and horror of existence.

Last night, as I sipped meditatively from a cardboard box of wine, scribbling poetry with my own blood, I considered my plight. A tremulous sigh escaped my wine-purpled lips as I wondered in despair: Is there any way to truly suck at the teat of humanity and drink the milk of our shared experience?

Alas, many forms of human interaction really are just so, so stupid. For example, games. Even the idea of games fill me again with nausea and horror. For this I blame my mother, who made my little brother and me play this game called Cranium for hours when we were kids. Cranium is the most obnoxious game ever! It’s like your frenemy from college who makes you listen to her play ukulele while she poetry-slams at you in French: Cranium screams, “Look at how creative I am!!!” Playing this game is a dizzying whirlwind of doodling, pantomime, molding Play-Doh into whimsical shapes, making animal noises, and other very self-consciously creative activities. This made me, as an aspiring creative person, very anxious and insecure about my own creativity. Also, I hate poetry slams.

I do not, however, hate Bananagrams. Actually I love Bananagrams, and for many reasons. One is that its name is a type of wordplay about wordplay, which is kind of a Borges-esque mindfuck, and two is that its Scrabble-like letter tiles come in a bag shaped like a banana. But the best thing about Bananagrams is that it involves togetherness, yet zero teamwork. The words I make are dependent on no one else’s words. I can just sit quietly and make words while my friends sit quietly and make words, and our words connect only with themselves. In this way, Bananagrams is a metaphor for all language, a stream of empty signifiers pointing only to other empty signifiers. Bananagrams is my favorite game.

Spin-the-bottle is also my favorite game. I love anything that sanctions my touching people, especially people whom I only kind-of know, especially with my mouth. Recently I introduced Spin-the-bottle to a roomful of gay men, and by the end of it, they all wanted to kiss me, even though I do not have a penis! I take this as a victory not only for myself, but for all womankind.

And now comes my master plan for hardcore human connection: What if we combined Spin-the-Bottle with Bananagrams into one perfect, orgiastic game of kissing and wordplay? As I settled into a boxed-wine-inspired haze, I entertained vague fantasies of limbs snaking through letter tiles to intertwine—the tiles, spelled out in forms of an erotic lexicon (for example, “teat”), go flying as bodies sprawl against each other.

But at what point in Bananagrams could we introduce kissing? Perhaps one could use it as a tactic to slow down opponents; no one can concentrate with a mouth FULL OF MY TONGUE. Or perhaps whoever comes up with the most words gets to choose whom to kiss (potentially unfair, seeing as I would obviously get all the kisses).

I’m still not totally sure how this will work. What do you think, reader? In my arranging and re-arranging of words, have you, too, felt the tremors of desire? Perhaps in the soft breath of wind through your hair, you’ll feel my caresses. Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere with my Banagrams waiting for you.

--AK

5 Tips for Making Your Manuscript Way Better

2011-11-28T00:24:00.000+03:00

1. Copy a few pages from Love in the Time of Cholera and slip them in between your own pages.

2. Staple a $100 bill to the last page.

3. Write the entire thing on edible rice paper.

4. Delete the last line. Then delete the second-to-last line. Work your way backwards until you reach the title.

5. Using decorative craft scissors, cut your manuscript into a paper bikini and wear it while dancing to Marilyn Manson's cover of "You Spin Me Right Round." As the song ends, light the entire thing on fire (make sure to have a fire extinguisher and a bottle of aloe vera lotion on hand).

Hipsters of the Heart

2011-11-23T01:05:00.000+03:00

Today, my boyfriend and I got a very very very very very early coffee so that I could sob into his arms and plead, "Don't go home for Th-th-th-thanksgiving! I NEED YOU!"

And as a matter of fact, I do need him, because I am staggering under the weight of how truly awful my writing is. If you thought Twilight was bad, YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR LIFE! I mean, YOU MUST READ MY STORY. I know I know, I'm quoting Kafka or whoever wrote that poem--oh yeah, Rilke, sorry, that k+vowel combo always throws me--and you must think I'm all smart and literary but I AM UNWORTHY TO PICK UP THE HUMBLEST OF PENS.

Very real emotional breakdowns aside, Charlie and I were snuggled up in a corner of the couch when who should walk through the door but Hipster Husband himself, fashionably late for his shift. He walked past us, averting his eyes at the sight of me with another man (we have an open polygamous marriage) but maintaining that so-elusive and ever-appealing hipster swagger (you know the type: the my-Toms-are-too-big shuffle, the I-can't-see-where-I'm-going hangover eyes).

"That's Hipster Husband," I whispered to Charlie.

Charlie watched Hipster Husband shuffle away, and then turned to glare at me. "He's an asshole," he said.

"What? You don't even know him! He's totally shy and sweet!"

"I can just tell. It's like how you can just tell when girls are biddies." (Quick aside: Male intuition? Do we buy it?)

"Okay," I said, meekly. "I'll divorce him." I took a forlorn sip of my coffee, somehow managing to look dewy and fresh despite the early hour and the heartbreak that was ravaging my eyes.

After a while, we got up to leave. I took my mug over to Hipster Husband. "Have a good day!" I said, although my heart was screaming, I'M NOT READY TO STOP LOVING YOU!!!!!

As I walked out of the coffee shop with my cruel, cruel boyfriend, he put his arm around me and said, "Actually, that guy is chill."

I looked up at him, mute with hope.

"You don't have to divorce him," he said, and walked on, stoic and ever-cool.

He Said, She Said: A Mini Essay About Dialogue Tags

2011-11-22T00:53:00.000+03:00

There's a lot of annoyingly didactic stuff written about dialogue, and how you want active, iiiiiinteresting dialogue tags (but they can't be too colorful--no "intoned" or "bawled," please) and lots of little actions in media res, like having your character sniff a bouquet of lavender as they spout off a monologue. Apparently this will make your characters come to life--they'll practically spring off the page, hide in your closet, and leap on top of you, fangs blazing, in the middle of the night! And who doesn't want that?

First of all, I don't like writing advice--you can either write or you can't, I'm sorry if that sounds extreme but Extreme is my middle name. Second of all, I kind of hate dialogue tags in literary fiction, no matter how subtle they think they are. (I think they're necessary in children's fiction, but perhaps that's because children are stupid.) They're so distracting. Unless someone is screaming or whispering or perhaps lathering at the mouth from a bad case of rabies, I don't really care if you rasp or groan or choke out your words or whatever. I am a huge fan of the simple "said." I mean, do you really want to read something like this?

"I heard you ordered a tub cleanser, ma'am," he mumbled, peeling an orange with his teeth.
She spun around on one slender toe and gasped, "The soapier the better!"

No no no no no. I like this:

"Hi," he said.
"Hi," she said.
He was cute. She was hungry. She ate him.

Vermont + Portland

2011-11-19T23:28:00.000+03:00

Nota bene: it's impossible to look cool when taking a photo with a disposable camera.

The PARANOIA!!! Diet and Exercise Plan

2011-11-17T01:57:00.001+03:00

Tired of subsisting on lettuce leaves, of swaddling yourself in Spanx like a human sausage? Try the PARANOIA!!! Diet and Exercise Plan, the only FDA-approved way to lose hundreds of thousands of pounds in a few short weeks. The PARANOIA!!! Diet and Exercise Plan works with your body, not against it, by harnessing your skyrocketing levels of Seratonin: The All-Natural Meth (c) and using those rapid-firing neurotransmitters to melt away pounds and sculpt you into the Adonis or Artemis that you were meant to be. Of course it works. Why, did you hear something?

While we certainly can't give away all our secrets (and in fact, we'll be carrying our secrets to our graves and you'll have to pry them out of our frozen fingers because we're not vulnerable fools), see below for four FREE ways to lose weight: the PARANOID!!! way (c).

At work!!! Boss always takes the elevator, right? Dear Lord, what would happen you took the elevator--together? She'd see right through your "happy, hardworking employee" façade to the hollow, vapid, ghost of an individual that lurks inside, ravaged by self-doubt. It's too terrible to think about but you're going to think about it anyway: the awkward elevator conversation, the sudden unemployment, dying in front of your TV, your body slowly nibbled away by your cat. Sprint down the stairs with the sweat of true fear springing from your brow. Bonus!!! Scratching rapidly at your arms while sprinting can result in losing up to 3 pounds of unnecessary skin cells!

At McDonalds!!! What's the one thing on this godforsaken menu that's NOT made with rat meat? Definitely not the fillet of fish. Perhaps a salad? Oh no, the girl behind the counter is so skinny, she'll think you're ordering a salad because you want to be just like her. She'll think you're stalking her and soon you'll know everything about her and wear her face like a mask. Why did you wear the black blazer today? Nothing says "I love you so much I want to cut all your skin off" like black, black, oh, this terrible black blazer that cinches you like a straitjacket. Order a cup of water and sip it slowly. Bonus!!! When in a public place, spin frequently on your heel, keeping those glutes engaged, to see if there's anyone creeping up behind you.

On a date!!! Don't look at her mouth don't look at her eyes don't look at her hands don't look at her wedding ring don't look at her boobs don't look at the steak knife don't look at the candle uh-oh that flame is flickering really close to her wrist, her wrist that looks as delicate as the bones inside a baby chicken, stop looking at her wrist don't think about the candle is the flame actually touching her skin why isn't she saying anything? Don't think about the candle. Did you know rapid eye movement burns a shocking 300 calories an hour? Bonus!!! If she tries to leave early (and why wouldn't she, you sick unworthy freak?), you'll have to chase her out of the restaurant, pleading, "Come back! Why won't anyone love me?" That's an extra 100-200 calories right there.

On the sidewalk!!! Everyone looks so ordinary. EVERYONE LOOKS SO ORDINARY. Why is it so goddamn hard to spot them? If only they had some sort of identifying factor, like a tattoo or a colorful fez. Why are there so many people here, and why are they all looking at you? Clutch your neck and sprint down the closest dark alleyway. When you feel that telltale burn in your thighs, it's probably cancer. Ignore it, jump into the river, swim out to sea, grab onto a dolphin, and wash up a forsaken island, gasping, dehydrated, starving, bronzed, and ten pounds lighter. Bonus!!! The island's jungle is full of caloric fruits, but you won't want to go exploring once you realize how the light glints off the jungle leaves like hundreds upon thousands of unfriendly eyes.

Not the right exercise plan for you? Try the Commuter's Workout.

Children are Stupid

2011-11-16T01:16:00.002+03:00

You may have clicked on this link because you assume, based on the title, that this is some protofeminist rant about gender roles and the dated burden of motherhood. I have no idea what "protofeminist" means, btw. Is it real? Who knows.

But this has nothing to do with made-up words or feminism. Having children is not stupid. Children are stupid.

I work for eight children's magazines. And let me tell you, those little suckers are D-U-M-B. We recently put out an issue on "trees." I was like, SNORT. You idiots don't know what trees are? "Why do the leaves turn golden in the fall, Miss Tori?" "I don't know, Paulie-bear, why does your mom drink so much?" That's how I handle little kids. WITH FISTS OF IRON. With whip-smart sarcasm.

Oh wait, using sarcasm on little kids is a total waste of time. You make a hilarious joke, they drool. You do some prime physical comedy (you should see my slapstick routine--I run into a wall and then fall down. It's hysterical, and what's even funnier is how little my health insurance covers!) and they start crying. You surprise them by jumping out from behind a bush and suddenly you're off the babysitting roster. Know what I'm saying? It's a total waste of time trying to get little kids to laugh, unless you're the type of comedian that finds artistic fulfillment in putting your fist in your mouth.

Also, it's time for little kids to GET THE EFF OVER MOTHER GOOSE. Can we all just MOVE ON, PLEASE? Jack jumped over the candlestick: FIRE HAZARD. There was an old woman who lived in a shoe: SANDUSKY. I will sail my little ship: SNOOZEVILLE. Children's literature has been stuck in the decaying claws of Madam Goose for far too long, but of course kids are too dumb to seek out aesthetic innovation.

Here's the type of poem that little kids like to read:

Butterfly
Flitting by
Pretty pretty to my eye

Here's the type of poem that adults like to read:

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!

ADULTS WIN. And no, I will not cite my sources. If you don't know who wrote that last poem, you're either an idiot or you have mercifully avoided the "I'm into Beat poetry" phase that we all wallowed in for about 2 years. If you don't know who wrote the first poem, well, it was me.

Botox: Now Playing in a Theater Near You

2011-11-15T01:36:00.000+03:00

If my life were a hilarious family-friendly movie that came out around Thanksgiving, there would be a scene where I got Botox (probably by mistake, or perhaps as a misguided attempt to conform to cultural standards of beauty in order to win back my high school boyfriend. Spoiler alert: by the end of the movie, the audience's perceptions of beauty have been flipped on their ignorant little heads! Spoiler alert #2: the message of the movie is that plastic surgery is more beautiful than natural beauty. HA!). Then, the following would happen:

I would try to eat cranberry sauce but it would slide down my face. Why? I'm not sure. I don't think Botox affects your mouth. All I know is that that always happens in movies.

My adorable young cousin Tyler would scream, "TORI'S BLEEDING FWOM HER MOUFS!" Tyler is a really interesting character, see. He's about 4 years old but possesses a solemnity about the birds and the bees that would be creepy if this were a horror movie. He spends hours playing with his GI Joes, contorting their plastic limbs and burying them under the birch tree at midnight.

Someone would say something sad ("GREAT-AUNT SANDRA JUST HIT THE BUCKET!") and I would be unable to make a sad face in response. I would make a shiny, unmoving face, like the face of Ozymandias. Look on my works, ye mighty, and don't forget to silence your cell phones.

Then a slimy guy would hit on me (twist: he's my stepbrother!) and would take my frozen face as encouragment. Hijinks would ensue, culminating in a one-liner like, "Gee, Jimmy, it's not you, it's Botulinum toxin!"

I would deliver a stirring monologue about the sickening gender politics taking place in the kitchen. My monologue would include the line, "Though Mother makes the turkey, Father doesn't even bring home the bacon!" It would be a funny pun, but after you laughed, you would feel dead inside, because of the underlying truth. During my monologue, I won't notice when someone throws a vat of boiling gravy in my face.

Finally, a criminal would burst through the front door, but my frozen face would stop all the bullets.

This movie sounds terrible. Please don't take your children, and please don't take Great-Aunt Sandra. I didn't even tell you about the scene with the ice pick (spoiler alert: IT'S MY BOTOXED NOSE).

Some Thoughts on Beauty

2011-11-11T01:58:00.000+03:00

Let's talk beauty.

What is beauty? Beauty is when you look at other people and think they look pretty. The generous glow that washes over your face: that is beauty.

Beauty is shanking other girls because they look better than you. Your face will get flushed from the exertion and guys will think, "Wow, she has such exuberant skin."

Beauty is when someone has better legs than you and so you cut their legs off. Now you have the best legs in the room! Boys like the first thing they see. So they'll be all, Hey, this girl is the only one with legs. Damn, her legs are great! Just make sure you're not holding on to the other girl's legs because the boys might see her legs first and like them better. Then you'll have to say, "Oh, these aren't mine."

If policemen come into the room, please don't worry about their legs. Their pants will be too unflattering.

Beauty is when you look in the mirror and then you turn off all the lights. Now that you can't see your own face, you can imagine another face. Isn't the glass so smooth and cold? Warning: you might get nightmares.

Here's another beauty tip: though psychiatric evaluation may make you angry and belligerent, please don't pull out all your hair. Hairs take a long time to grow back.

Beauty is when you walk into a club and all eyes are on you. Damn, girl. Yeah, you in the miniskirt with the dripping severed head clutched in one white-knuckled fist. If a boy asks you about the head, just tell him you're in a local production of Macbeth. He'll be like, damn girl, I've seen several local productions of Macbeth and the severed head at the end is always disappointingly unrealistic! It's hard to keep my suspension of disbelief going, you know? Damn, girl! You just knocked it out of the park, you feisty thespian!

To Love a Hipster

2011-11-10T01:55:00.000+03:00

The saga of the heart continues. When we last parted ways, I was toying with the idea of reuniting with my ex-husband, the one who broke my heart by scoffing at my grandparents, the one who tried to kick me and his other wife out of his coffee shop a full minute before it closed. My polygamous dreamboat. I know it's been a while since I've updated you on the state of my love life, and believe me, I've heard your screams: DID YOU TAKE HIM BACK?

Faithful subjects, there has been a twist. A new husband has arrived on the scene. His name? Hipster.

A few weeks ago, my sister-wife and I went to our favorite coffee shop, as we so often do, to complain about the bourgeoisie. Imagine our consternation—picture the blushes that played over our perfectly spherical faces like the aurora borealis over the Arctic snows—envision our wrists, trembling with nervous energy, encased in their rows and rows and rows of impossibly thin Cartier chains—are you still with me?—visualize the way our hearts reverberated in our chests like the wild, untameable leopards of the Brookfield Zoo, when we saw that there was a new barista behind the counter. His hair? Curly and black. His eyes? Hidden by square-framed glasses. His feet? Encased in weatherbeaten Toms. He was a hipster. And he was ours.

To love a hipster requires two things: well-worn Converse and a laissez-faire attitude about art. Thankfully, I possess plenty of both. I knew he was mine when he said in tones that could melt the most organic of butters, “I like the state of your Chucks.”

Cell phone tour of the coffee shops of Portland, OR, provided by your faithful correspondent.

Fattening Links

2011-11-03T22:12:00.001+03:00


beignets.gov

I am far too busy and important to post a real thing right now, but I have lots to share with you--my nearest and dearest, my squishy darlings, my overheated aortas.

First: I interviewed Kirsten Kaschock, this super cool poet and novelist, for Cicada (one of the ten thousand and fifty seven magazine I work for). Check it out, brah. (Are you there, Lorin Stein? I'd make a great interviewer for the Paris Review...)

Second: Speaking of Cicada, you know you want to friend us on Facebook! Why? BECAUSE I'M BEGGING YOU.

Third: You probably hate anthologies as much as I do, but Kafkaesque is surprisingly great.

Fourth: I HAVE A TWITTER! Disclaimer: it's not a personal Twitter. I do not talk about my feelings. It's a twitter about things that are the new other things. See: Mules are the new albatrosses.

Fifth: I'm going to Portland in a few short hours!!!!! I've never been, but it's already my second-favorite city (my first being the lovely city of California). I CANNOT WAIT. I would write this entire post in Curlz MT if I could. That's the kind of joy I feel right now. PS: I'm never coming back.

Charlie's 10-Step Guide to Fabulous Writing

2011-10-25T17:48:00.001+03:00

I'm working on this long story and last night, I let Charlie read it. He is my very first reader and I was weirdly nervous and I may have curled up on my love seat with a massive intimidating book and uhhh a screwtop bottle of wine as I tried to ignore the sound of pages shuffling in the corner. Afterward, I said, "Am I as genius as David Foster Wallace?" and Charlie said no.

Then, Charlie proceeded to pace around my apartment and out of nowhere, in between mouthfuls of cookie dough, he began to spew the most genius guide to writing I've ever heard. Here it is, transcribed--and unedited--in all its glory:

CHARLIE'S TEN-STEP GUIDE TO FABULOUS WRITING

Make that shit better.
Improve that shit.
Make the writing better.
Make that shit more interesting.
Consider using a different font.
Use some bigger words. You sound stupid when you use all those fucking small words.
Choose some more fucking realistic names. I don't know any motherfuckers named "Rye."
Delete all the boring shit.
Have some better story plots.
Make that shit exciting!

Waambulence: Musings from the Desk of the Misunderstood Artiste

2011-10-23T04:17:00.000+03:00

Hey ya, there is a difference between the following:

1. Lying
2. Telling the truth
3. Hyperbolizing
4. TOTALLY MAKING THINGS UP FOR FUN

It's not that hard, people! Unless you are an evil ice queen and I am taking you down in ways as slow and mysterious and painful as that Chinese torture thing where they slice you apart over the course of 1.5 hours (thanks, Hopscotch, I learned that from you), I am probably not lying to you. I am not a troubled teen or a psychotic reality TV fauxcelebrity. I am just me. A normal person. A normal person with mad typing skills who is a little bit sleep deprived right now and eating a muffin. I hate lying. It makes me feel squeamish.

I am telling the truth if I am looking at you sincerely over a cappuccino and words are coming out of my mouth. The coffee shop is a sacred space to me. Unless we're talking about that Starbucks on Lawrence that's full of homeless people.

I am hyperbolizing the truth if I'm talking about a real-life situation in hilarious, overdramatized terms (POLYGAMY. Leprosy. Sexual grandmothers.).

Some examples of #4: The time I interviewed Barack Obama.

The only reason I'm saying this is because a few weeks ago, as my boyfriend and I left Caffe Streets, the hairy barista gave me a look and I muttered, "He totally hates me." And then my boyfriend, the person who knows me better than anyone else in the entire world minus perhaps Pablo Neruda, said, "Tori, I think you take people's reactions a little too seriously. He doesn't actually hate you. And the guy at [coffee shop where my ex-husband works] doesn't hate you or love you. He's just awkward."

I was like, "CHARLIE! I WAS F@#*$(&DTING HYPERBOLIZING! DOES JAZZ TEACH YOU NOTHING ABOUT IMPROVISATION?"

No one understands me. I might as well have taken a draft from the Fountain of Youth when I was 17 because nothing has changed since then. Also, jazz is a TOTAL FRAUD.

Miscommunication

2011-10-22T00:03:00.001+03:00

Charlie's birthday was a few days ago (happy birthday, Chazz!) and in case you've never received a present from me before, listen up: I am a really good gift-giver. I am always listening for little clues, and I am an expert at getting people that thing they didn't know they totally needed. For serious. The best present I ever gave was a small cast-iron pig--to my dad. It made no sense but it totally worked.

So a few weeks ago, like the calm cool and collected girlfriend I am, I was attempting to plunge the depths of Charlie's psyche to figure out exactly what he wanted for his birthday. Our conversation went something like this:

Tori: [in a high, squeaky voice] Soooooooo what do you want for your birthday?
Charlie: [nodding along to Brian Eno]
Tori: I AM THIS CLOSE TO NOT GETTING YOU A BIRTHDAY PRESENT.
Charlie: The only thing I want is a velvet g-string.
Tori: What?
Charlie: I want a velvet g-string.
Tori: What??????
Charlie: A velvet g-string.
Tori: Why aren't you smiling? Is this a joke?
Charlie: Why would it be a joke?
Tori: You're weirding me out! Why do you sound so serious? Do you actually want a VELVET G-STRING?
Charlie: Yeah!
Tori: Oh my gosh.

The conversation proceeded along those lines for like, I kid you not, five minutes, until the truth came to light. Apparently a "velvet g-string" is like some super awesome type of string for the upright bass, which Charlie plays.

Uh-huh.

The Random Kurt Cobain Magic Eight-Ball Answer Generator

2011-10-15T22:13:00.002+03:00

Nirvana is and probably will always be my favorite band. I think Kurt Cobain is a truly great poet--not a songwriter-whose-lyrics-kinda-sound-like-poetry poet (Bob Dylan) but a legit, put-that-shit-in-stanzas-bitch poet. But that's a subject for another post. Basically, I love him and everything he has ever written. I'm wearing converse as I type this. But my purse is from Anthropologie. I'm a walking enigma.

The Nirvana oevre isn't terribly large, and as someone who's been listening to them for like 239rfh8 years, I am very familiar with the themes that haunted Cobain over and over. And today, I have compiled this knowledge into the world's first ever Random Kurt Cobain Magic Eight-Ball Answer Generator, because why not?

My patented answer-generating formula works by combining any or all of the following elements into a concise answer to the questions that wrack your black black soul:

Synonym of “moist”
+
Destruction of a gross/odd bodily function
+
A form of medicine, whether scientific or folk
+
Something related to fish

Shake it up, and out comes the answer! Example:

Curious Babe: Do I need to lose weight?
Random Kurt Cobain Magic Eight-Ball Answer Generator: The wet fish sucks away your warts in a bath of pennyroyal tea.

I put the Magic Eight-Ball Answer Generator to use answering a few of my more pressing questions:

Me: What does "chypre" mean?
Magic Eight-Ball: Antacids ooze down the drain of your cancerous mouth.
Me: Sweet. Should I move to a large but cheap European city next weekend?
Magic Eight-Ball: A moist Pisces is thinking about you right now.
Me: How romantic! Guess I'd better stick around. Am I getting enough vegetables?
Magic Eight-Ball: Rape your tumor and a soggy lungfish swims in circles.
Me: Ugh, I know, I totally don't get enough Omega-3s. So as you know I'm writing a long story right now. Is it any good?
Magic Eight-Ball: Clammy bruised fruit displays its open sores.
Me: Great title! Wow, this is really incredible. One last question: Are you ashamed of the fact that I work a 9-5, Kurt?
Magic Eight-Ball: Drown your eyeballs in the scaly poison.
Me: Totally feeling you. At least it's Saturday, right?

If you'd like the Random Kurt Cobain Magic Eight-Ball Answer Generator to answer any of your questions, comments, concerns, or existential freakouts, let me know. It likes it. It's not gonna crack. Unless I drop it on the hardwood floor.

Second Chances

2011-10-10T23:32:00.000+03:00

Shawty, you keep playing with my heart.

Things are back on with my ex-husband. Sort of. It's not like we're getting married again--we're taking it slow, you know? Trying to make this work the second time around. We're still seeing other people, obviously, but just between you and me--things are different. As Carrie Bradshaw told her girlfriends about Big, "It just feels so right this time" or something.

Even though I swore I would never go back to his coffee shop, no matter how delicious his cortados were, something kept pulling me there. Dare I say that "something" was...love?

As I walked to the counter, lips trembling, wrists aflutter, he reached for my credit card before even asking me what my order was. He knew exactly what I wanted. Or did he? I couldn't help but wonder: was he just using me for my money?

Coy as a geisha, I plucked my card away from him. "I'm getting something different this time," I said, my voice fraught with meaning. "An iced coffee." My lips were smiling, but my heart was screaming, Iced like your soul, you heartless bastard! Why don't you love me anymore?

I arranged myself by the nearest window, letting the sun play gently over my long burnished hair. Okay, full disclosure, I was wearing a huge hockey sweatshirt and my hair was in some sort of bird's nest disarray from a long day of lying in bed and listlessly flipping through books of poetry. Kind of an off-duty model look. Off-duty unemployed homeless model, age 51. But suddenly the very air of the coffee shop was different. Electricity crackled in my fingertips. My iced coffee appeared on the table and I looked up--up--up into his dark eyes. He was smiling.

"I'll get you a straw," he said, and vanished.

By then, my heart was busier than a hive of bees when the virgin queen bees FIGHT TO THE DEATH in order to establish which one will rule. I was filled with a sudden desire to fling myself into his arms. I didn't care about the fact that he was rude to my grandparents, or the time he tried to kick me out of the coffee shop one minute before closing, or the countless times he told me he couldn't replace the blue cheese on my salad with something more palatable, or the heartless way he sneered, "We're out of croissants today." I didn't care. I wanted him back.

He brought me the straw and handed it to me with a little bow. I melted. "Thank you," I said breathily, looking up at him through my impossibly thick eyelashes. He understood me perfectly. "You're welcome," he said, and went back behind the counter to steam some milk.

Library Raid

2011-10-08T00:28:00.001+03:00

According to the constructs set forth by the Chicago Public Library, I have slightly less than three weeks to read the following (renewals are for economics majors!):

Invitation to a Beheading - Nabokov
Pale Fire - Nabokov
Selected Writings - Ruben Dario
Selected Poems - Ruben Dario (it's different, okay?!)

and first up...

Hopscotch - Julio Cortazar (I'm already preparing myself to go crazy over this one--it's supposed to be so incredible)

Recently, I realized that I toooootally copy whoever I'm currently reading when I write, which is kind of embarrassing but predictable, I guess--and the last novel I read was a painful overblown overpoetic overconstructed thing by some biddy who shall remain nameless since I ACTUALLY MET HER TWICE.

Imagine my consternation when I found myself imitating her overly conceptual, twisted phrases.

So I'm running back into the arms of those I love best: badass English-as-a-second-language dudes from war-torn lands who knock it out of the ballpark every single time.

(I'm worried that I won't finish these books in time, though, because I'm currently held fast in the clutches of a novel by Candace Bushnell--author of Sex and the City--and I DON'T EVEN CARE.)

Musings

2011-10-05T22:29:00.001+03:00

Every other twenty-something I know is just as existentially wracked as I am, so I guess I shouldn't feel bad about it. We're all trying to figure out "how to live." How to be kind without letting the bullshit of others overwhelm us. How to follow our passions without turning into one of those crazy authors who stalks me at book fairs and hands me her bright purple business cards and chirps, I'LL EMAIL YA! How to have a fabulous wardrobe full of designer clothes while living off nothing but canned chickpeas. How to drink champagne at champagne bars without being immediately shipped off to the poorhouse. How to get old men to become our sugar daddies without expecting sex or even conversation in return. How to destroy all who stand in our way. How to kill everyone else who thinks they "know" Fitzgerald so I'm the only one in the entire world who genuinely knows Fitzgerald. How to make Garcia Marquez come to Chicago and give me a private ~~wedding~~ reading. How to afford Intelligentsia coffee five times a week so I can get some f(*Q#$ing writing done. How to find people who are willing to be honest and generous with each other. How to not kill everyone I know. How to force my friends to move to the same city as me, a city called Atlantis. How to get more nineties hip-hop without paying for it now that Limewire got shut down. How to quote entire Tupac songs from memory without offending people and looking foolish. How to figure out which Nabokov novel I should read next because surely some are better than others and I can't possibly read everything in the world. How to write well. How to be a good girlfriend. How to be a good daughter. How to remember to call my grandparents. How to be a good friend despite the seemingly endless ways some of my friends let me down. How to get homeless people to leave us alone. How to get Neruda tattooed over every visible inch of my body. How to read the poetry of the Bible. How to get Botox because I have a wrinkle in my forehead dammit! How to stay in touch with my little sister before she is suddenly all grown up. How to decorate that blank wall over my bed. How to get my apartment featured in Vogue. How to guarantee I never have an apartment with mice or cockroaches. How to find a Burberry trench at Village Discount (my beloved local thrift store). How to find role models. How to walk the fine line between charming semicynic and serial psychopath.

Brit & Justin: A Retrospective

2011-10-04T23:57:00.000+03:00

If Kate and Johnny are my personal favorite It couple from the '90's, then there's no question about it--Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake are THE couple of the early 2000's. I love it when beautiful people date other beautiful people, like Hugh Jackman and myself and Pablo Neruda.

While perusing the internet for these pictures, I couldn't help thinking two things:

1. Britney looks so happy! Poor baby! Britney, I want to see you smile like that again. What's with the judgmental looks, people? I love Britney and always will.
2. Is there anything more atrocious than the fashion choices of the early 2000's? Even the '80's look classy in comparison. Be thankful I didn't show you Britney's entire outfit in the last pic. Hint: she's wearing jeans underneath that dress--and matching pale pink pointy boots.

Messy Divorce

2011-10-03T23:44:00.000+03:00

Faithful subjects, I have learned an important lesson from the slew of embarrassing memoirs with little girls on the covers currently ravaging our bookstores and that is: I NEED TO TALK ABOUT MYSELF MORE.

So I'm here to tell you a painful tale that lies very close to my heart.

I was in a polygamous marriage up until last week, and now we are getting a divorce.

Let me set the scene: a coffee shop, three blocks from my apartment. Steaming, well-crafted cortados. The best croissants in the city. A handsome owner. It was only a matter of time before we were wed. My friend--who I shall call only by her surname, which is Huevos Rancheros--was also his bride. We shared our glowing prize with the graciousness of two old French duchesses.

We went to his coffee shop at least once a week to bask in our husband's beauty and sip down his exquisitely foamed creations. ALAS! Nuptial bliss was but a fleeting dream, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, for soon enough, his darker side began to show.

He was a total jerk.

Alas, young maidens, let this be a warning to you: don't spring into polygamous matrimony after knowing someone for a mere 2 months. Most importantly, don't spring into polygamous matrimony with someone who never comes out from behind the counter to speak to you, someone who lures you in with the richness of his espresso and the adorable way he always remembers your drink order but who has A HOLLOWNESS IN HIS EYES! A HOLLOWNESS.

We gave him three chances--he struck out three times:

1. At exactly 9:59 pm one night, he looked at us, pointed at the door, and said, "Alright, time to pack up!"
2. He was rude to Huevos Rancheros' father. (I suspect he may have been jealous at the sight of his second wife on the arm of a tall, rugged, silver fox.)
3. He was rude to my adorable grandparents. YOU CANNOT BE RUDE TO YOUR WIVES' RELATIVES, ESPECIALLY MY ADORABLE, SHORT, BEEN-MARRIED-FOR-50+-YEARS GRANDPARENTS.

But don't cry for us, Argentina. Soon after the divorce proceedings began, we noticed that his lips were way too pink and he always wore Crocs. Totally gross. It's just awkward because where are we supposed to get our cortados now?

Read more about my melodramatic love life in my upcoming memoir: I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR MEMOIR.

The Vomburger: Or, a Foray into the Proletarian

2011-09-28T22:24:00.000+03:00

Reader, the path of an esthete is paved with more than glittering shards of Moët leading upward, skyward, heavenward, to the ether of sensual and gustatory delights. There comes a time when we must face the darker side of life, Reader: the recycling bin, glimmering with the lost hopes of a thousand would-be can collectors. The bathroom floor, flecked with soap scum. The lower classes.

Today's recipe does not shy away from the rot, from the filth, from that which crawls on its belly and eats dust. Did you catch my Genesis 3:14 reference, Reader? Today's recipe eyes the mist-hued curtain of the universe and screams, “Wrench it aside! Show me the world as it really is—groaning and nascent, full of Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis and death."

Reader, I give you: the Vomburger.

Do not be afraid when you read my first step, which is “Kill a cow.” Blood is meant to stain the hands, Reader. The world is menstrauting and you are the silken vessel designed to catch its placenta. I am mixing my metaphors on purpose, Reader, to emphasize the CHAOS OF THE UNIVERSE. Darkness and grief. Beauty of the stomach, lashing the eyes of the innocent. Catch me, Reader, for I feel faint...

The Vomburger

Kill a cow. (Use the finest stainless steel saber available in your price range.)
Wrench the meat from its bones with your teeth.
Maw, Reader, maw! But do not swallow. Spit, Reader, spit! Spit the blood and gristle and muscle into a bowl carved from purest alabaster.
Mix an assortment of seasonings into the fresh-ground beef. I adore rosemary.
Using only the elongated muscles of your lower back, form the ground beef into patties. The patties may bear the imprint of your spine. Simply remember that spines are a universal gift, Reader. Ah, the glory of the endoskeleton!
Start a fire with two sticks of the purest pinewood and the bones of the homeless.
Cook the burgers until the insides are the raw pink of a heart that has not yet learned to love. Allow a salt tear to season the middle of each patty.
Garnish with the toppings of your choice, such as sackcloth, ashes, food stamps, and words that do not sing with the tongues of ten thousand doves.
Consume.

Snake Oil

2011-09-28T06:46:00.000+03:00

I've been totally absent around the tori.gov wastelands lately, and I'm terribly sorry. I have been writing furiously for the past few days while fighting off airborne fiction-killing bugs like the This Totally Sucks bug and the Fiction is Pointless bug and the I'm Not Inspired bug.

Thank goodnesss for the Poetry Foundation, also known as the new DayQuil.

Tonight I ~~met my future husband~~ saw Raul Zurita read, and afterward I went up to him—he doesn't speak a word of English—and said, in English, oops, “Your poems are so beautiful,” and he smiled at me and took my arm and held it for, I'm not kidding, like two or three minutes. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE LOVES ME!

I AM SO IN LOVE.

Being this close to true greatness—and let's be honest, during the entire reading I was thinking to myself, “This is practically like hearing Neruda read,” (sexy Chilean revolutionary poet of the people? Check!)--was exactly the shot of inspiration I need. I feel so happy! Poetry is alive. No, I am not a poet. I'm just a girl, creeping on a poet, asking him to remember her next time she sees him which will hopefully be on the beach looking windblown and flushed and wrapped in my Paris Review towel with Lorin Stein on my arm. Don't worry, Raul, I'd leave him for you in a heartbeat. ENOUGH LITERATTI REFERENCES FOR YOU YET?

PS: When was the last time you were tortured for your art? North American writers are so blase and boring and overprivileged sometimes, Jonathan Franzen.

GUEST POST: Zalman's College Education in Lolcat Form

2011-09-23T01:01:00.000+03:00

What do you get when you cross a member of Northwestern's academic elite with one of the highest art-forms our current society has produced (not being sarcastic): THE LOLCAT?

You get this.

For more of Zalman's college education, go here. Oh, and don't worry if you don't recognize many of the names...STATE SCHOOL. (Kidding, I don't know who this Ahmadinejad cat is, either. But is he kind of sexy?)

Genghis Khan

Frank Gehry

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Marie Antoinette

Ferdinand and Isabella

Picasso

Copernicus

Ghandi

Dante Alighieri

Vladimir Lenin

Mastering the Art of the Subtle Creep

2011-09-17T00:36:00.001+03:00

Faithful subjects, I have exhilarating news! My two favorite literary genres are about to be combined in something that the New York Times has already termed "a semi-greasy, semi-flaky, totally EDIBLE explosion of genius." Coming spring 2012, my self-help book-cum-memoir, Mastering the Art of the Subtle Creep, is being published by Knopf! Just look at that tasteful cover. Doesn't it make you want to sidle into a dark corner and mouth-breath heavily?

As a special favor to my nearest and dearest, I'm releasing two of my professionally curated creeping tips right here on this website, FREE OF CHARGE. Consider me your Virgil, guiding you through hell and purgatory of the Divine Creepedy. And please, don't be intimidated. Anyone can infuse their day-to-day life with a little extra creep, simply by utilizing my unbelievably accessible guidelines. Thank me later, folks--you've got CREEPING to do!

The Don't-Have-a-Pen?-Here,-Use-Mine Creep
Filed under: Extraneous Touching

While a normal man might offer a pen to a lady without a second thought, you see the opportunity for what it is: a chance to squeeze in a little excess skin-on-skin contact. Instead of handing your pen to her like one of those "normal people," place the pen in the palm of your open hand and hold it out to her. Remember to keep your fingers slightly curved, like a Venus Fly Trap, so that her hand is forced to brush against them as she picks up the instrument.

The My,-Aren't-These-Aisles-Tight Creep
Filed under: Extraneous Touching

Why take the center aisle when you can squeeze down the side aisle, brushing up against all manner of nubile young things as you shimmy toward the exit? Remember to spread both hands wide in an ostensible "So sorry to be pushing against you" gesture, when in reality, you're just increasing your groping odds. Don't forget to paste on a charmingly apologetic smile, but keep your lips closed, because nothing tastes as good as creeping feels.

(c) Mastering the Art of the Subtle Creep, Knopf 2012. More TK!

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming to Bring You This Small Freakout

2011-09-16T00:56:00.000+03:00

Everybody, it’s time to freak out. Ready, set, AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HELP HELP HELP WHY ME NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WHAT IS THAT THING ON THE SIDEWALK?!?!?!?

Why are we freaking, you ask? Because September is halfway over! Next it’s October! Then it’s winter, known in some cultures as “the annual destruction of my will to live,” and then it’s summer and before you know it we’re all dead and the earth is being sucked into the sun.

One more time: AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH FREAK OUT LE FREAK C’EST CHIC FREAK OUT!!!!!! PSYCHO KILLER, QU'EST-CE QUE C'EST! PARIS JE T'AIME! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Bitches are going back to school right and left (like all my siblings—those hos) and meanwhile you and I are frozen in time, one hand clenching our very expensive pink Anthropologie wine glasses that we got on sale for like $2 because our friend works there, the other hand holding a pen over a sheet of paper and listening to the only sound in the house: the slow drip, drip of the ink of the pen onto the white sheet of paper and the dripping sounds like our heart’s own blood leaking onto the floor AND YET WE CANNOT MOVE.

My friends, gather round. YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR LIFE. I have decided that we are all adopting the following life goals. If you think they sound freakishly similar to the life goals I hold for myself, you’re crazy.

Read Living to Tell the Tale.
Get better at writing through whatever means possible. If you see a serious crime take place in the near future, I didn't do it.
Moisturize. Cold winds are coming from the north. The horses are restless.

(If you’ve been wondering why I haven’t been writing much lately, you are not alone. The folder on my computer entitled “STORIES” is wondering the same damn thing. If you must know, I've been busy trying to find fall boots.)

Raccoon or Husband?

2011-09-10T00:52:00.000+03:00

Look at this crazy note I found outside my apartment. It poses quite the philosophical conundrum, does it not? WHICH WOULD BE WORSE?

On Spiders

2011-09-07T01:06:00.000+03:00

I think it's time to talk about spiders.

Why are spiders so terrifying? I have no answer. But if I had a dime for every time I almost walked through a gigantic spiderweb inhabited by a huge, lurking, ravenous spider, I would have at least a dollar.

Here are some terrifying facts about spiders:

1. Somehow, spiders have the ability to construct webs--across sidewalks. This means that romantic moonlit strolls with your lover will often be interrupted by screams of horror and sudden, spine-shattering ducking motions. Ladies, there's nothing like a sporadic duck-and-scream to really emphasize your curves. It's kind of the new bend-and-snap.

2. Sometimes, your smoke alarm goes off, and while you frantically wave a dish towel at the screaming siren, you will disturb a spider from its rest.

3. There is something so hideously pregnant about fat spiders. As anyone who's taken Biology 101 AKA Charlotte's Web knows, the insides of spiders are fairly bursting with silk and mini spiders. Their bodies are so horribly bulbous, and yet their legs are so spindly.

4. As anyone who's ever read Lord of the Rings AKA been homeschooled knows, in certain parts of the world there are evil female spiders who live in caves and are more than happy to eat you.

5. When I was a child, my siblings and I loved playing this game outside where my dad would hide in the darkness and do his best to scar us for life by leaping out of crevices, bushes, trees, trash cans, etc. Unfortunately, his scare tactics paled in comparison to the night when I ran through a giant spiderweb.

6. Why is that spiderweb moving? Oh, maybe because there's a half-paralyzed bug stuck in the middle, thrashing in agony as the bulbous hunter sits and watches and waits for it to die.

7. Whoever started the rumor that you eat eight spiders a year in your sleep deserves to be force-fed nine plump, juicy spiders, preferably the ones with the red hourglass on their back. If you tell me that it's not a rumor, I'll say, "Hey girlfriend, what's your address?" and a week later you'll get a pie in the mail. THAT'S ALL I'M SAYING RIGHT NOW.

8. Did you know daddy longlegs are harmless? Except they're not. Their poison is strong enough to kill a man, but their pincers are so weak that they can't puncture your skin. The only place thin enough for them to puncture is your lip. Oh, remember that time I was relaxing in North Carolina with my bestie and A DADDY LONGLEGS CRAWLED ON MY FACE? (Note: I don't know if any of the science in this "fact" is true, but I really don't want to look it up and come face-to-face with a stock image of a spider. That's why I've given you an image of a puppy.)

Shattered Life Goals and a Brand-New Wardrobe

2011-08-31T23:20:00.001+03:00

As you may have noticed from my last post, I've been thinking about starting an Etsy shop filled with vintage beauties. (Yes, vintage beauties. Well-preserved corpses, captured grandmothers, etc.) Why, you ask? And I reply: does a girl need a reason to fling her savings into a dubious and highly unprofitable career move? Not at all! I even went so far as to wrap a hanger in raffia in order to better photograph my clothes. That was a really fun night.

But then I realized that I don't want to start an Etsy shop after all, because people who have really great Etsy shops really know vintage, and I don't, and I refuse the clog up the slush pile of the universe with needlessness. Plus, I have better things to do, like secretly look through the Kim Kardashian Wedding Special People Issue Thing while standing in the checkout line and acting full of ennui.

What does this mean? This means I am stuck with the following items, which I MUST work into my wardrobe if I want to make all the money I spent worth it:

1. a pair of high-waisted green-and-white mom jean Gloria Vanderbilt shorts from the 80's.
2. a truly hideous shiny floral poncho...WITH MATCHING HAT.
3. a slinky blue green, cocaine-in-the-eighties velvet dress with an embellished neckline, perfect for someone who's "built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht"--unfortunately, that someone is not your faithful correspondent.
4. a voluminous yellow pirate shirt that makes my abnormally small head look like the head of a pin.
5. a rabid coonskin hat, still a-kickin'.
6. the skin of Ernest Hemingway.

One word comes to mind: haute.

Hey ya, I'm off to Vermont for some much needed crawdad huntin'. Those little critters shore taste good when you fry 'em up in a barrel of rum. They taste good and true. The light shone into the river and the stones at the bottom were bright but when he looked at them he felt a bad thought inside his head and he chose to put the bad thought away and instead focus on the stones at the bottom of the river. I DON'T KNOW, was that a good Hemingway impersonation? Okay, okay, I'm going!

Swooping Things

2011-08-31T00:26:00.002+03:00

My mind is full of swooping things. Perhaps this is why all my short stories have ghosts in them. Here are some titles I think are really great for my short stories with ghosts in them: Ghastly Ghouly Ghosties. Ghostess With the Mostess. HalloweeGhost. Say Hi to My Ghost or Die. The Indentured Ghost. Ghosts on Toast. What do you think?

But above all, two thoughts are occupying my mind. Two thoughts concerning things that swoop.

Thought #1:

"MY PARIS REVIEW TOWEL CAME! THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER! WHERE'S THE MAGAZINE? I DON'T EVEN CARE! I CAN'T WAIT TO GO TO THE BEACH WITH MY PARIS REVIEW TOWEL! WHY IS IT FALL? CAN I MOVE TO CALIFORNIA? THAT GIRL IS TOPLESS AHAHAHAHA! HOW SCANDALOUS! IS THE ONE LAYING DOWN A GUY?"

Thought #2:

"Why did I buy this "vintage" dress at the thrift store? I was going to sell it on Etsy but then my plans for an Etsy shop fell through. I do not have a future as a vintage seller, nor do I desire one. But now I have to wear this effing dress myself. It's so hideous. It's like a size 18XXX. How in the world will I style it? Maybe someone online wants it! Warning, YOU MUST BELT IT OR YOU WILL VANISH. But it's a cute vanishing, you'll look all baggy and sacklike and adorable. I actually love the sleeves. MAYBE I WANT IT AFTER ALL. No, Tori, no! Don't go down this path again. You looked in the mirror. The mirror does not lie. DO NOT WEAR THIS DRESS. But I love baggy things! Do I perhaps love them too much? Is this what my boyfriend meant when he said he couldn't find me? Is this why I saw my face on a milk carton? Let us all muse over the fine line between charming and hideous (a line I like to think my blog teeters down on a regular basis)."

Traumatizing Moments From My Present, Volume Six: Like One of Those Rap Guys' Girlfriends

2011-08-25T00:57:00.001+03:00

If I had a dollar for every time someone freestyled a rap about how beautiful I am, I would have $1.

Now, if that one dollar came from a man named TUPAC, then all would be well and good, but unfortunately that dolla-rap came from a creeper of terror who was missing a significant portion of his face.

.
.
.

A few months ago, my boyfriend left town for two weeks. My pheromones must have been giving away my temporary singleishness, because lemme tell you babe, the men flocked around me like never before. Unfortunately, there were no dead rappers or Hugh Jackmans in the mix--just a savory compilation of the homeless, the very old, and the physically deformed. It wasn't an ego boost. It was a roller-coaster of terror.

During these two weeks, I had a wedding to attend. I also had a tube of brand-new Dior lipstick. Let's just say I was looking really good in my long white dress and veil--what? The invitation said Black Tie! Anyway, the day got off to a wonderful start--I almost missed my train, I screamed at my absentee boyfriend on the phone, and then I got a free iced soy chai due to my tremulous, fragile beauty aka panicked shrieks of I'm-so-late-for-this-wedding. The wedding was lovely (hi David and Emily!) and as I sat in the train station, waiting to return to the city, I was aglow with happiness and well-wishes. And I thought to myself: I totally want to buy a tabloid for the ride home. So I walked up to the only other person in the station and chirped, "Hey, is there a gas station or something around here?"

He began to turn around, and the moment I saw his smile I knew I had made a huge mistake. Ladies, you know exactly the type of smile I'm talking about--the OMG, a girl is talking to me, yessss smile.

And then he turned all the way around.

And he only had one eye.

OMGAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH)Q#(IRUD.

The space where his eye should have been was a twisted mass of hardened flesh but what was I supposed to do? You can't run away from someone just because they're missing an eye! He told me that there was a Jewel down the road. I said thanks, and started to walk away. He offered to ride his bike there and buy me a tabloid. I almost died but declined his generous offer. He offered to walk with me. I said, "You know what? My train is almost here...I think I'll just stay."

So I walked over to a bench and sat down, and like any normal guy would do, he FOLLOWED ME. He then proceeded to tell me about his burgeoning career as a musician. He creates beats. Did I want to hear one? He pulled out his phone and started playing some sort of insipid fake-boom box thing as I smiled tightly. And then he started rapping along while gazing deep into my eyes as I tried not to laugh/scream/stare at his missing eye. He sung the lyrics that were in his heart, lyrics that have been burned into my memory forever, lyrics that were vaguely reminiscent of a serial killer-type obsession: You're so beautiful. What I gotta do to get with you.

Then he told me that despite being 30-something, he lived with his parents, but he was thinking of going back to community college. I encouraged him to do so, because I'm a huge fan of higher education. Unfortunately, I think he viewed my platonic career advice more along the lines of a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife because he started talking about buying a two-bedroom. I was like, Um why would you need a second bedroom NO DON'T TELL ME. Then he asked for my number and I told him I had a boyfriend and he said, "But you're allowed to have friends, right?" And I said, "Well, I don't think my boyfriend would want me giving out my number to another guy, you know?" And he chuckled and said, "Yeah, cuz then I'd call you and he'd be like "Who's that?" and you'd be like, "This guy I met on the train."" And I said, "...yeah." And then he told me I reminded him of his ex-girlfriend.

And as I got onto the train, shivering violently with repressed hysterics, he gazed deep into my two eyes with his one eye and said, "Studio vs. two-bedroom."

I just smiled and looked away because I had no idea what he was talking about, but in retrospect, I think he was asking me to move in with him.

The Hunt (A Comic)

2011-08-23T00:23:00.000+03:00

Yesterday, Charlie and I were watching Planet Earth, and I had this hilarious idea for a comic which I would totally submit to The New Yorker IF I COULD F)(@*#$ING DRAW TO SAVE MY LIFE.

So instead, I drew it for you.

Click to enlarge. YEAH I HAD TO TRACE THE ZEBRA, SO WHAT?

An Open Letter to Lorin Stein

2011-08-20T00:05:00.000+03:00

Hi Lorin Stein. I wanted you to be the first to know that I just did the coolest thing of my adult life--I JUST SUBSCRIBED TO THE PARIS REVIEW!

Mr. Stein, I feel really good about this. I feel like I am a useful member of the literary community now. As someone who also works in publishing (we're so alike) I understand how frustrating it is when people see your magazine as nothing more than a platform to get famous. When people submit and it's obvious that they haven't read the submission guidelines and they don't even know what kind of work your magazine publishes--ugh, that infuriates me. How do you work through your anger?

Also, I've been sort of haunted by this quote from Stephen King lately:

What’s not so good is that writers write for whatever audience is left. In too many cases, that audience happens to consist of other writers and would-be writers who are reading the various literary magazines (and The New Yorker, of course, the holy grail of the young fiction writer) not to be entertained but to get an idea of what sells there. And this kind of reading isn’t real reading, the kind where you just can’t wait to find out what happens next (think “Youth,” by Joseph Conrad, or “Big Blonde,” by Dorothy Parker). It’s more like copping-a-feel reading. There’s something yucky about it.

Lorin--is it okay if I call you that?--I don't want to be that writer. I don't want to be the creepy writer who doesn't care about the literary magazines, who only wants to be published. I don't even want to be a writer. I'm just a person trying to live life who happens to occasionally write ~~erotic~~ short stories. I don't want to read literary magazines as a sort of necessity of the job, gotta see what's out there kind of thing--I want to really love them and the stories in them. I want to be entertained! Entranced! Captivated! I want to fall in love! Though some might say I'm already in love...but that's a story for another day. You like stories, right?

I have no doubt that your magazine is good, I mean, I scour your website all the time for inspiration. But I want to subscribe to a lot more than just The Paris Review and I'm kind of worried that some of it is going to be terrible or artsy-intellectual in a way I can't stand. Like, I'm super controversial, I don't like a lot of the stuff published in The New Yorker. Maybe you can hold my hand and walk me through it?

I can cook, too, Lorin.

I can write you a love song.

To make you understand.

That is poetry, Lorin. I'm just a poet, who's not really a poet, standing in front of an editor who she saw once at a literary event and thought was suuuuper cute, creepin' on the internet.

Also, I'm totally stoked about the free beach towel that comes with my subscription! I'll be the coolest kid on the block (IN A SWIMSUIT!!!) thanks to you...dearest.

Bane of the Universe the Second: Them What Sings Too Loud in Church

2011-08-19T00:30:00.000+03:00

(Please read the title aloud in a cockney accent.)

You know when you’re in church, and everything's cool, just singing some hymns, appreciating their lovely vintage syntax, trying to ignore the pianist who’s pounding out chords a little too efficiently, bonding with the congregation, no big, and all of a sudden you hear someone just BELTING IT with a look of total satisfaction on their faces and their eyes closed?

Ugh, that’s so annoying!

Don’t even get me started on people who harmonize during “Happy Birthday.”

Adjective Farm

2011-08-17T03:58:00.001+03:00

HELLO WRITERS. Looking to ADD INCHES to your stories and MAXIMUM ENDURANCE to your poems? Want to BROWSE PHOTOS OF SINGLES ONLINE NEAR YOU and beef up your online profile with GORGEOUS, NATURAL-LOOKING descriptors? Visit Adjective Farm: the BEST QUALITY IMITATION online adjective provider--just a CLICK away!

"Festering"
Regular Price: $10
YOU PAY: $7
Recommended Use: The bold "Festering" pairs well with mad wives locked in attics, toenails, and the word "moist."

"Cantankerous"
Regular Price: $5
YOU PAY: $0.75
Recommended Use: Snag one for Grandpa just in time for those damn holidays.

"Coruscating"
Regular Price: $20
YOU PAY: $17
Recommended Use: Surely you know an amateur poet looking to describe the night sky as no one has ever described the night sky before!!!!

"Disastrous"
Regular Price: $3
YOU PAY: $2
Recommended Use: Slide the handy "Disastrous" between your emergency credit card and your fake I.D.

"Terrible"
Regular Price: $7
YOU PAY: $1
Recommended Use: Intended for literary editors and critics of Justin Timberlake's film oevre ONLY.

"Patronizing"
Regular Price: $30
YOU PAY: OUT OF STOCK
Recommended Use: Sorry, The New Yorker poetry section bought out the entire lot and gave 'em away to all their ethnically-diverse, calculatedly-casual, endearingly-navel-gazing poets.

"Endearingly-navel-gazing"
Regular Price: CUSTOM-MADE; MARKET PRICE
Recommended Use: Break this one out at cocktail parties. Available in greige, azure, and Instagram-hued.

Goodbyes

2011-08-12T00:29:00.000+03:00

Last night was weirdly emotional. I said goodbye to one of my oldest friends (going off to grad school), my little brother (going off to college), and my childhood home. Yeah, my parents are moving to California. I MEAN IT'S AMAZING. I can't wait to run away from Chicago every five seconds and smoke sherm on the Cali beaches. I still don't know what sherm is because no one will tell me and I refuse to use Google. I like asking questions. Questions without answers. Questions of the soul. Questions of the soul like WHY IS MY CHILDHOOD CRASHING DOWN AROUND ME? ...and the tears fall down my face like blackened rain...

I know I know I know I'm not a child and I haven't been for several years, but I love Western Springs, the beautiful suburb of my teenage years. I love it even more because I hated it so much as a teenager. Yes, I wrote angsty poems about its "manicured lawns." And it's weird knowing that I can take the Metra to Western Springs and walk down Woodland Avenue and at the end of Woodland Avenue there won't be a house with a garage door that never locks that I can scramble into and wait for my forgetful family to trickle home while I search the fridge for something vegetarian. I guess I can still do all that, but I'd probably get put in jail. AND I DON'T WANT ANOTHER FAMILY TO LIVE THERE. I WANT MY FAMILY.

(At least this move isn't as bad as the move from North Carolina to Chicago that took place when I was about 13. I was so upset that I wrote my name in blood on the top of the chimney. No joke. My finger was already bleeding, don't worry, I'm not that sociopathic.)

We were wandering around Western Springs yesterday evening, and everything was bathed in this sort of surreal blue light, and I was like, Of course, Western Springs. Of course you pull out the poetic stops right when I'm about to lose you. Touché, Western Springs. I totally underestimated you.

My Writing Process

2011-08-11T00:27:00.000+03:00

A number of you have asked how I produce things like, I don't know, Lolita, or The Great Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Here's how last night's writing process went. Note: not everyone can function like this! Don't feel ashamed if your productivity doesn't match mine.

Come home from work.
Fall onto my bed with a plate full of toast and a ginormous biography of Hemingway.
Drift asleep for a few minutes.
Wake up to the dulcet voices of the men who work at the tattoo parlor next door and often smoke weed/argue/TRY TO TALK TO ME THROUGH MY WINDOW.
Go to a coffee shop to “write” (AKA buy expensive pastries).
Leave coffee shop because the internet isn't working (Microsoft Word? Huh?).
Get struck by an intense craving for licorice.
Weigh pros and cons of traveling 40 minutes round trip to get my favorite brand of licorice from Trader Joe's.
Sit on my rug in pitch black darkness and scream, “How do I become a writer?”
Writhe on the floor.
Remember horrifying centipede creature.
Turn on a light.
Turn on my computer.
Squelch feelings of inadequacy.
Start writing.
Ice cream break.

List: Ways McSweeney's Hurt My Feelings

2011-08-08T22:23:00.002+03:00

“Appreciate your giving us a shot with this one, but I'm afraid we're not going to use it.”

“I'm afraid I'm going to pass. Thanks for the look.”

“Also, we are returning the lock of hair you enclosed.”

“OMGAWD TINA FEY! THIS PIECE WAS AMAZ—whoops, sorry, wrong email address.”

“That color isn't really working for you.”

An Open Letter to Boys

2011-08-05T23:16:00.001+03:00

It's totally fine, keep dressing like a slob. Whatever, bro. It's your life.

You'll just never know the avenues of wonder that almost opened up to you when you considered buying that slim-cut, well-fitting suit. Do you have any idea what girls think about guys in suits? No? It's probably better that way.

UPDATE: Just go here. Always.

Relationship On the Rocks

2011-08-05T05:42:00.001+03:00

Charlie and I are at an impasse.

In general, things are great. He likes to wax on about jazz, I've perfected the art of half-listening, half-reading The New Yorker. I like to rant wildly about the problems plaguing the publishing industry, he nods supportively while downing a bottle of red wine. Our delusions of grandeur are perfectly complimentary. We both survived about 16.5 Bikram yoga classes without breaking up over the sight of each other drenched in sweat and wracked with agony. We have wildly different tastes in Ben & Jerry's but he always lets me get Late Night Snack. He doesn't notice that when we fight, I masterfully and subtly and continuously change my argument so that no matter what happens, I ALWAYS WIN.

However, something is ripping our love apart.

And that something is bugs.

Yesterday, we were drifting around my apartment when I looked at the wall above my bed and there, with a jolt of unimaginable horror, I saw the most disgusting bug of my life. It was like a centipede gone rogue. Its trillions of legs were incredibly long, and its brown, snakelike body had more curves than Bristol Palin. And it was creeping—no, gyrating—over my bed, poised to crawl over my face while I slept, biting my eyes into a raw, swollen casserole before slithering into my mouth and breeding in my stomach.

Now listen, I try to be a pretty decent girlfriend. But when it comes to bugs, I'm willing to use every undesirable girlfriend trait in the world to make the Man kill them. I will be clingy, high-maintenance, overly demanding, incredibly emotional, passive-aggressive, cold, oversensitive, pushy, and manipulative, and I don't care if Charlie never speaks to me again, I NEED THAT BUG'S HEAD ON A PLATTER.

Unfortunately, Charlie is willing to use every undesirable boyfriend trait in the world to AVOID dealing with bugs. In his own words, “I feel no shame being a coward and a huge pussy.” I'm not saying he screamed when he saw a cockroach, but he totally did, hahahahahahahaha, and he won't admit it but you heard it here first.

So when I started screaming at Charlie to kill that multipeded monstrosity, did he spring onto his white stallion and charge into battle to save his lady? No! He started, shivered violently, and tried to escape to the kitchen. I screamed at him again: “IT HAS SO MANY LEGS IT'S PROBABLY SO FAST!” and I think it heard us because it started to move. As if it couldn't get any grosser, the thing was actually slow, as though its superlong legs were too spindly and weak to support its bloated body, ugh. While I pushed the reluctant Charlie toward the creature, he reached for my August Vogue and yelled, “Say hi to the bug, Sarah Jessica Parker!” and I screamed, “YOU CAN'T USE MY VOGUE!” and shoved a roll of paper towels in his face, and he jumped onto the bed and smashed the bug against the wall and wiped up its remains and flushed it down the toilet, as I writhed in horror and nausea and felt the first creeping stings of post-traumatic stress syndrome.

So all in all, he was a great boyfriend. But I don't know how sustainable this is. The man clearly has bug issues. If I ever see a mouse and he doesn't smash it with a frying pan within 0.5 seconds like Aleksandr Petrovsky in that one episode of SATC, but screams and tries to run away and leave me, I will start a charge account at Dior with his credit card, I don't care if that's the cardinal sin of girlfriendom. I will be the most high-maintenance girl the world has ever seen until that mouse is gone forever. But I don't want to know whether or not it's dead, I'd feel too guilty, I'm a vegetarian.

PS: When I went outside to steal internet so that I could publish this post, A GIANT CICADA FLEW INTO ME. I THOUGHT THOSE THINGS ONLY CAME OUT EVERY SEVENTEEN YEARS. THIS IS THE WORST.

I Would Like to Be an Aunt

2011-08-03T04:26:00.000+03:00

Dear Siblings,

I would like to be an aunt as soon as possible.

Why? Because I like cute babies. I really do. I’m pretty sure you’ll all have cute babies as long as you don’t marry someone truly hideous. I mean, look at us! Just eating some homemade popsicles, no big. We were so freaking cute. I was clearly the ugly one but WHATEVER. I would really like to have a baby on hand that I can squeeze and dress in cute headbands and toss around like a plump little basketball. I just don’t want that baby to be my baby, spitting up on my designer clothes, so that’s why I really really really want to be an aunt. I can give your baby writing lessons. I can read Neruda to him/her and guarantee that he/she will grow up to be an artistic young-old soul. You can pay me to babysit. I really love sea salt and vinegar potato chips oh and speaking of potato chips, the new Ben and Jerry’s flavor, Late Night Snack, is sooo good. You’ll want to keep your babysitter happy so that she doesn’t snap and toss your kid out the window.

PLEASE? I realize that I'm the oldest but I'm just not in the market for a baby. Darlings, please birth a cute baby soon so I can occasionally steal it and take it to the zoo and snap cute pictures of its chubby cheeks and then return it, hopefully unscathed, and forget all about it. If I take pictures of my boyfriend’s chubby cheeks one more time, he will probably have me killed.

My life is at stake here.

Thanks,

Your loving sister

P.S. I USED TO CHANGE YOUR F@#($*&(W*ING DIAPERS, BRO!

I Have a New Header: The Post-Postmodern Intersection of Web Design and Writing in the Evolving Consciousness of a Twenty-First Century Female Subject

2011-08-02T02:08:00.000+03:00

Look up! Up there!

Do you realize how hard it is for an English major like me to make her own header? Your reactions should range from shock and awe (minimum) to near-worship (maximum). As much as I loved my old header, it was just too big. This one won't take up your entire computer screen. I think. What are pixels? Anyway, one day I was creeping along on my limbs that have often been compared to those of a spider, especially when I'm dancing, which is fine unless I'm trying to dance sensually to the jungle beat of a bongo drum, in which case I'm like, “A SPIDER, CHARLIE? REALLY?”--I was creeping along when suddenly I came across this glorious piece of graffiti. Needless to say, one of the many paparazzi shots taken that day captured this iconic moment. Do you like it? Too much? Too erotic? Too tan?

As you can see, I've been working on my blog—excuse me, my Website—a lot lately. Allow me to point out some of the changes:

If you'll direct your attention to the right side of the page, you'll find a little icon that shows you what I'm currently reading. If you click on the book cover, it takes you to IndieBound (DOWN WITH AMAZON) where you can purchase the exact same book. This is the twenty-first century, people. Links are very real.
If you scroll to the very bottom of this site, you'll find a creepy message and a chance for you to follow my blog. I don't really understand how this following thing works. For instance, I know several people have my blog in their Google Reader, but they don't show up under Followers. I'm not trying to be funny here; I really don't get it. Can someone explain? Love, Grandma.
If you'll direct your attention to just underneath my header, you'll find that I now have Pages. Yes, Pages. I wanted an About page, and then I felt like I needed a few more pages so that the About page didn't look depressing and lonely. But my new Pages are kind of dumb. If anyone has any ideas for meaningful pages, hilarious pages, or, preferably, pages filled with propaganda, please let me know! I'm really good at making Pages now. Books have pages! The internet is not so different than real life.

Hungry for more meaningful content? Here's a picture of my mom & brother during church yesterday.

Precious, right? My sister and I looked up during the prayer and saw this adorable sight and decided to document it. Except right after I took the picture, I felt a huge, sweaty hand clamp down on my shoulder, and the obese woman sitting behind me whispered violently into my ear, “You girls need to stop whatever you're doing. It's very distracting.”

Ah, there's nothing like getting in trouble during church to make you feel like a kid again.

Vomghetti con Cacio e Pepe

2011-07-26T22:03:00.000+03:00

Reader,

We meet again. It has been a long, soulful silence—a silence punctuated, no doubt, by your thoughts of me, those endless thoughts, those carnal thoughts, thoughts of radishes and gristle, of dirt and sweet plumjuice dribbling down the chin of Time—and during this fruitful silence, this nine months, if you will, of my Ideabearing, I have borne a child. A recipe. A child-recipe. This recipe is my child. I have not actually experienced the miracle of childbirth. But the agony—yes, yes, Reader. I bring you a dish so delectable, so nuanced, that to taste it is agony. Agony of the tongue and of the soul.

Agony.

Cheese.

Reader, hast thou truly experienced Cheese? The addictive malt of fermenting cow's milk? The mouldy stench of an expensive Bleu? Notice, Reader, how I spell “blue”: bleu. That is the French spelling. French like my soul.

French.

To make my Vomghetti, you will need a pristine pitcher of creamy milk, fresh from the nipples of a cow. Allow a tomcat to lap at the milk dribbling down the sides of the pitcher—this will flavor your Vomghetti with that indescribable something known as je ne sais pas. Mix the farm-fresh milk with a pile of stone-ground wheat (ah, these stones, these ancient stones, tossed violently after fleeing Huguenots, so serene, so naïve, soaking up the sun—ah, life, life! Thou art an unpredictable mistress).

Nipples.

Using your own ten fingers or the paws of the tomcat, form the flour-milk paste into strands of beautifully imperfect pasta. Cook until done. What is Done, Reader? Done is when you Feel that it is Done.

Toss the Vomghetti with olive oil. Sprinkle with several cracks of fresh pepper and a generous helping of Parmesan cheese. Consume.

Summer Holgas

2011-07-22T20:06:00.000+03:00

To be honest, I'm sort of over my little Holga. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that something I bought at Urban Outfitters ends up being a cheap version of the real thing...

It doesn't do any of the things that REAL Holgas are supposed to do (cool light leaks, vignetting). Its charming imperfections--off-center photos, graininess--are nothing that you couldn't get from a disposable camera. And unlike a disposable camera, it doesn't have a flash, so EVERY TIME YOU TAKE A PHOTO AT A PARTY IT DOESN'T DEVELOP. Really, the only cool thing is the double exposure, uh, thing. But at least that's really cool.

Spoken like a true photographer, eh? Right? "Vignetting"? That was impressive, huh? I know, I know.

Traumatizing Moments From My Past, Volume 6: The Worst Day Ever

2011-07-19T01:02:00.000+03:00

Let me tell you about the worst day of my life.

I was sound asleep, having one of those clichéd teen nightmares (my crush sweeping me onto a white stallion and covering me with kisses), when my iPhone began ringing. Although the call was one every young author dreams of receiving (I had just won the Pulitzer for my novel Breakups and Makeup: A Tween Murder Mystery), it was totally irritating because I’d been up super late last night winning the Young Pianists of America Sonata Competition with a never-before-heard rendition of Beethoven’s posthumous Ninety-Ninth Sonata in All the Flats and All the Sharps. So I was, like, totally exhausted and when the Pulitzer people tried to get me to say something witty that they could use for my Wikipedia page, I just screamed “YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ME!” and went back to sleep.

I woke to the smell of my favorite breakfast: waffles, caviar, and crème brûlée. It was really hard for me to eat, though, because I was so nervous about the Miss Teen USA finals happening that afternoon. After my daily massage, I locked myself in the bathroom and sobbed out all the black angst in my soul. I just want to be normal, I thought. Being thirteen was really hard for me, because all my friends were covered in oozing pimples and inflamed pustules and my own skin was clear, pink, and glowed like the inner heart of a seashell. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be the prettiest girl in your class? IT’S AWFUL. Boys always want to kiss you and teachers do, too!

After mourning my perfect complexion, and desperately tugging at my thick, chestnut locks in order to make them a little frizzier (all my friends had frizzy hair! Why couldn’t I?), I rubbed a little Crème de la Mer into my cheeks and slumped downstairs. My mother/personal chef/trainer called from the hot tub, “Tori, there’s a man here to see you!” and when I opened the front door, clad in my Oscar de la Renta silk robe, Hugh Jackman was standing there with a dozen roses. I whispered, violently, “Hugh, I told you never to speak to me again!” and a look of such devastation crossed his face that I thought my heart would never be whole again. He held out the roses as a single, perfect tear trickled through his five-o’clock shadow. I took them and gently shut the door in his face. I never date movie stars; they're so emotionally needy.

The Miss Teen USA competition went fairly well, and after I accepted the crown and underwent a grueling round of publicity photos, like, the worst thing EVER happened. I saw my boyfriend holding hands with another woman! I stormed up to him and shrieked, “PRINCE WILLIAM! LET GO OF THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND’S HAND IMMEDIATELY!” and he was like “But she’s my grandmo—” and I said in this really sweet, murderous voice, “Willikins, what’s the number one rule for dating me?” and he bowed his head and murmured, “You are first above all, m’lady,” and he looked so totally cute that I forgave him immediately and let him buy me an island to make it up to me. But there were all these people in loincloths on the island and they totally freaked me out so I had them shipped to Mississippi.

And then my personal architect came to me with the worst news OF ALL TIME. He said my dream bedroom would be impossible to build. I was like, “Um, talk to the hand!” and he was like, “Tori, your design literally defies the laws of physics,” and I started crying because how was I supposed to pass physics? I was thirteen! All I wanted was a master bedroom suspended from a hot air balloon over a volcanic lake with easy access to the mall. It’s like nobody had anything to do that day except make my life difficult.

So I was really upset, obv, even when my mom poured me a glass of champagne to calm me down. There was only one thing that could make me feel better, and that was my Number Two Boo. (Don’t judge me for dating around—I was thirteen! What, did you think I was going to marry Prince William? Hello!). So I called up Mark Zuckerberg—hey, he was super cute at fourteen—and we walked around the block holding hands and it was SO romantic. When we got to our favorite park bench, I snuggled up next to him and whispered in his ear, “Marky, I wish there was a website where I could friend you and then put “in a relationship” with you and write cute things on your wall every two seconds and make my profile picture a really flattering one of us where I look just a little cuter than you, like not too much cuter because I want my friends to be jealous of how cute my boyfriend is but obviously I don’t want anyone to think you’re the hotter one because, awkward. Wouldn’t that be so romantic?” He nodded, and maybe this is just hindsight, but I swear he had a glint in his eye.

That night, as I splashed my face with Evian, I couldn’t help writing a poem that described my feelings about the terrible day. It was later picked up by the New Yorker but I mean, ugh!

A Really Exciting Career Change!

2011-07-15T20:15:00.001+03:00

My parents always told me I was a ridiculously talented piano player, and growing up in a petri dish of delusional-ego-breeding was wonderful for a little thing called my self esteem. I can do anything! I just know it! So you'll be happy to hear that I have decided to become a comic strip artist.

Writing is hard, but comics are super easy, everyone knows that. I happen to have a firm grasp on what makes a successful comic strip, which is how I know I'm gonna be a great artist. Look, I even DREW A COMIC STRIP about DRAWING A SUCCESSFUL COMIC STRIP. Click to enlarge.

I mean, RIGHT?!? I ain't writing no' mo'. This is my meal ticket.

How to Measure Out Your Life With Coffee Spoons

2011-07-13T04:18:00.001+03:00

There comes a time in an individual's life when, wallowing in the existential muck, he or she is forced to take a step back and ask in mournful tones: How many coffee spoons would it take to measure out my life?

Thankfully, I've written a handy guide to measuring out your life with coffee spoons, no disturbing the universe or scuttling across the floor of silent seas required! Simply print out the eight easy instructions below, fill in the blanks, and add the spoons up.

1. Good morning, gorgeous! Instead of an alarm clock, rig up a device that drops coffee spoons on your head at the crack of dawn. How many coffee spoons must clang on your forehead before you are fully awake?
NUMBER OF SPOONS: __

2. Late night? De-puff your eyes by gently pressing a cold coffee spoon against each eyelid. Leave until the coldness dissipates.
NUMBER OF SPOONS: 2

3. Stir cream and sugar into your morning coffee. This should require only one coffee spoon. What are you, pretentious or something?
NUMBER OF SPOONS: 1

4. Go about your daily business to the uplifting melody of a coffee spoon chime. Attach 2-8 coffee spoons to a clothes hanger using strong household twine. Hang your chime in front of a window where it will catch the breeze. The more spoons you add, the louder the sound will be. (Please note: more than 20 spoons may drive you to insanity). Vary the length and breadth of your spoons for delightful tonal contrast.
NUMBER OF SPOONS: __

5. Remember to stay hydrated by drinking 8 glasses (384 teaspoons) of water a day. Hold each spoon steadily beneath a slow trickle of water until spoon is full. Lower your lips to the spoon to avoid spillage.
NUMBER OF SPOONS: 384

6. Into each life some rain must fall. Be sure to reinforce your drugstore umbrella by binding your sturdiest coffee spoons along each spoke. If rain boots are currently out of your budget range, elevate your shoes and avoid puddles by strapping coffee spoons width-wise along the sole.
NUMBER OF SPOONS USED DURING A THUNDERSTORM: __

7. In case of emergency, insert coffee spoons between your fingers and use as makeshift wolverine claws. Should you lack the 8 coffee spoons necessary to ward off attackers because you used too many on your homemade wind chime (YOU WERE WARNED ABOUT THAT), one or two spoons should be sufficient to redirect the sun's blazing rays into the eyes of your opponent, buying you enough time to sprint away. (Please note: the latter technique is only doable with well-shined coffee spoons. Make sure to stock up on Weiman Royal Sterling Silver Polish!)
NUMBER OF SELF-DEFENSE SPOONS: __

8. It's been a long day. Before falling into bed like a patient etherised upon a table, treat yourself to a nice dinner out. Bring a strong canvas tote to carry enough sterling silver coffee spoons to pay for your meal, and a few more to bludgeon the waiter if he protests your form of payment.
NUMBER OF SPOONS: __

TOTAL: ___

Nobody Was Fooled

2011-07-11T23:19:00.001+03:00

July 8, 2011 12:58 PM CDT

Good afternoon!

Most Americans think fine Rose Moscato wines cost a fortune, but that is not the case! Exclusiv Vodka finally launched its popular Rose Moscato wine in the U.S., and it only costs $9.99 a bottle! This delicious sparkling red wine will dazzle everyone's tastebuds and is perfect for any occasion!

We have hi res images and samples upon request, and we look forward to hearing about your interest.

Cheers!

Shannah Henderson
Account Executive
Hollywood Connections PR

July 8, 2011 1:12 PM CDT

Hi Shannah,

We are doing a "Summer Party" feature on our Parents' Blog, and this drink might be perfect for the "Luscious Libations" section (titles are not final). Do you have the hi res images and samples available?

Tori
Assistant Editor
Cricket Magazine Group

July 11, 2011 1:59 PM CDT

Hey Victoria!

Here are images of the Rose Moscato wine and its maker Exclusiv. Can you share a little info about the Parents blog? is the blog live yet?

Cheers!

Shannah Henderson
Account Executive
Hollywood Connections PR

The Commuter's Workout

2011-07-08T23:34:00.010+03:00

I adore clip art. You know this was used for a presentation on Pumping Up Your Resume or How to Sprint Ahead of the Competition.

It's bikini season! Since the nearest large body of water is infested with dead bodies and invasive species of (MAN-EATING?!) fish - and since I don't know a single person with a pool - I don't spend much time in a bikini, but perhaps your life is not as gutted and sunless as mine. If that's the case, you'll be happy to hear that I've compiled a quick and easy guide to rocking your best summer bod ever. No fancy gyms or Shake Weight required! The Commuter's Workout requires nothing but the structures of the vibrant, pulsing metropolis around you.

Warm-Up

HOLD THAT TRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Core Training

The man next to you is picking his nose. No, no, no, no, no, no, no - don't put it THERE! Contract every muscle in your body and remain as small as possible to avoid touching the offending object for the duration of your commute.

Flexibility Training

The rush-hour hordes are particularly sweaty today. Loosen those hamstrings by ducking beneath the odorous underarm of a steaming tourist. Stretch sideways, engaging your adductor magnus, to avoid that harried businessman with the large, dark stains around each nipple. Stretch just to the point of discomfort. The feeling of tightness should diminish as you hold the stretch.

Cardio

OH NO. Is it? - it is! - a Save the Whales guy with a clipboard! Dash into the nearest alleyway and take a 6-block detour to avoid the slightest contact, including but not limited to eye contact, hand contact, inappropriate jokes, desperate jokes, and being forced to see the depressing way his smile falters as yet another harried American bludgeons him out of the way.

Cool-Down

That homeless person looks sad. Whatever, he's totally faking it. But his cardboard sign says he has a baby daughter starving to death at home—and is it written in blood? No, he's probably just a drug addict. Are you racial profiling? Keeping your White Guilt engaged, amble by at a pace that suggests "I'm sympathetic to your plight. Look, I don't have anywhere important to go either," while shaking your head slowly (loosening up your sternocleidomastoids) to indicate that you have no change.

Summer So Far

2011-07-06T22:19:00.000+03:00

If you forget about mosquitoes (which is quite literally impossible to do when suffering from a mosquito bite, which happens constantly if you have very prominent veins in your wrists and ankles that attract mosquitoes like crack), summer is one of the best seasons on earth. I can think of only two other seasons that rival it: spring and fall. Am I forgetting someone? MAYBE I AM, CHICAGO.

My summer has been filled with work and itchiness and irritating family dynamics. But if you go by the photos on my camera, my summer has been filled with nothing but joy and goodwill, including (but not limited to):

1. raspberry gin-and-tonics, Charlie's genius invention
2. Mexican Cokes (like coke, but better!)
3. reading and iced coffee (the past month has been a cracked-out novel extravaganza: Olive Kitteridge, The Remains of the Day, My Antonia, King, Queen, Knave, and The Boy. I CAN'T STOP READING THINGS. The sun/iced coffee/novel trifecta is not one to be messed with.)...
4. ...and more reading...
5. ...at my grandparents' farm, the most beautiful place on earth...
6. ...which we were heartbroken to leave
7. dealings in poisonous nail polish
8. and a mysterious window-washing stranger

Short and Backless: Adjectives That Are Sexy When Referencing Dresses, But Horrifying When Referencing Human Anatomy

2011-07-01T01:21:00.001+03:00

I don't actually have any content for this post. I just thought the title was hilarious and I got it from a Beyonce song. Don't kill meee!

(Okay, fine: Scoop-necked. Open-necked. Plunging neckline. Cropped. Destroyed. Double-Breasted. Clingy.)

Blueprints

2011-06-30T05:26:00.000+03:00

I don't understand these mysterious double helices that bind me to you so inescapably. Smash me against a mirror and I don't even see myself. Blood pooling around our feet and we can't tell who is who, even under a microscope.

You asked me a question I ask you all the time in my head, and when you said it I thought it was me talking. I was wrenched from the universe and grafted into you.

Traumatizing Moments From My Present, Volume Five: Death by Triscuit

2011-06-29T22:04:00.001+03:00

Last night, I faced Death. Greater men than me have gazed into her dead-white eyes and cowered, but I was not afraid. I sat on the beach under the glimmering moon and held my gasping mortality in my hands, which were coated with the dusky seasonings of Cracked Pepper & Olive Oil Triscuits.

Though the waves crashed upon the shore, disturbing the screaming gulls, my mind was elsewhere that night--turning over the same three thoughts, again and again:

1. Triscuits and cheese are so-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o good.
2. My stomach is stretched to capacity and if I continue eating them at this rate I will literally eat myself to death.
3. I DON'T CARE. I WILL EAT UNTIL I DIE.

And I was terrified--terrified at the metal of my own psyche, at my willingness to die for the causes I believed in. Thankfully I was distracted by a screaming girl who ran past me and threw a half-eaten apple into the lake. Then a mosquito got in my mouth so the rest of my night consisted of spitting violently.

Jack the Ripper and My Other Exes

2011-06-24T00:40:00.002+03:00

We were both young when I first saw you
I close my eyes and the flashback starts...

By now, everybody has probably seen the music video to Lady Gaga's smashing single, Judas. We've all held our breath as Our Lady of Art belted out the ravings of her conflicted soul: Jesus is my virtue, but Judas is the demon I cling to. It's raw. It hurts. It's blistering. (If it starts oozing or weeping, please see a doctor.) Inspired by her soul-baring and over-sharing, I've decided to come clean about the lurid affairs that clutter my own past.

First, there was Jack. Sweet, murderous Jack, with his fetish for red roses and other soft, moist, fleshy, crimson things--like organs ripped from a still-beating breast. I loved Jack despite his imperfections; I loved him for the man I knew he could be. A star! A household name! A man who would rise from the gutters of London to make the world blanch at his surgical precision! Unfortunately, before Jack's meteoric rise to fame, I broke up with him over his inability to leave the toilet seat down. Facepalm!

I had a quick rebound fling with Caligula, against my better judgment, but what can I say? Sometimes a girl just needs a crazed Roman Emperor to make life a little sweeter. I couldn't resist the way he threw audience members into the arena to be eaten by animals. His claims of divinity were so endearing, too. He was a man who knew what he wanted out of life and just WENT FOR IT, you know? It was really cute when he made his horse a member of the Roman Senate, but after a while he started paying too much attention to that animal (feeding him oats mixed with gold flake?!) and not enough to me, so I had to cut him out of my life.

Perhaps I ignored a few warning signs when I plunged into my illicit romance with Fagin, but I've never been able to withstand a man with long, sensual fingers that can filch diamonds out of the bourgiest pocketbooks. And oh, those fingerless gloves--! What a fashion icon. He was a little older than some of my more predictable inamoratos, but I found his ability to break into song and dance despite his age quite alluring. All my girlfriends swear he was getting ready to propose, but unfortunately he was hanged for thievery first. (I'll never forget the time I found out that a Mr. Charles Dickens, who wrote his biography, described him as "disgusting" to look at. I wept all night at the heartless depiction. Some people will never understand Love.)

My last mad fling? Ah, I was young, so young. Surely nobody can fault me for loving the wrong man--though I cringe at the memories. "How could you, Tori?" screamed my mother, the day I told her we were courting. My father simply wept, polishing his shotgun through his tears and muttering, "I could never use this weapon on such a pulpy, spineless boy." Even my friends railed against him. "The unnecessary falsetto!" they howled. "The watered-down lyrics! The insipid imagery!" But I closed my ears, for I thought I loved him. One afternoon, as we sipped iced tea from vintage tea cups in a field of daisies while sitting four feet apart on separate blankets that his grandmother had knitted for his hope chest, he said, "I wrote a song for you." And I said, "Ooh, what's it called?" And he said, "It was called Yellow." And I said, "Oh...that's cool." Chris Martin paused to brush a butterfly from his shoulder, then murmured, "I drew a line for you." I smiled and nibbled on a homemade biscotti because I wasn't sure how to respond. He took a deep breath and said, "I swam across, I jumped across for you." And I said, "Across what?" And when he didn't have an answer, I knew that it was over.

Thoughts on Economic Instability and the Widening Income Gap

2011-06-21T23:08:00.000+03:00

I just spent $5.27 on an iced latte from Intelligentsia. I literally don't know how I racked up that kind of total. Did I accidentally give the barista the secret signal for add shot of caviar or infuse with unicorn blood?

My cell phone is breaking down, one button at a time. No, those misspelled atrocities you're getting from me are not drunken texts, they are the desperate cries of a girl battling technology to the bitter end. As Martin Luther once said at the Diet of Worms*, I WILL NOT RECANT AND GET AN iPHONE. Except everyone I know has an iPhone and I feel myself getting sucked into the vortex of sheer lust that the iPhone provokes in even the most rational of beings. Does anyone know how much a monthly Verizon iPhone plan costs? Wait no, don't tell me! Yes, tell me! NO! YES! AHHH!

I spilled red wine on my brand new skirt. I know what you're thinking: HIGH ROLLER, BABY. Oh wait, the wine was $4.99 (I splurged, okay?) and Charlie and I were drinking it from a paper bag. The skirt was originally $4.80 but I snagged it for a cool $2.40 during my favorite thrift store's Father's Day sale. It's a fabulous vintage 1990's poly-blend.

My parents have the douchiest rich neighbors ever. They'll never say so, but that doesn't mean I can't. Blond economics majors who golf and hunt and drive vintage red convertibles look like LOSERS QUICKLY APPROACHING MIDLIFE CRISES to my untrained and prematurely cynical eye. I can't tell you what evil my neighbors are planning YET but rest assured, one day the world will know, and the swift wings of my judgment will fly like the red smoke of an apocalypse...sorry, the caffeine is k-k-kicking in.

This latte better sustain me until payday. Maybe if I take one sip an hour and supplement it with twigs and leaves, I'll make it. Until then, adieu, cruel world!

*Regarding the Diet of Worms: that's not, like, a hilarious joke I made up. It really happened. Yeah, it's a wacky title for a serious event, but also, YOU SHOULD READ UP ON BASIC EUROPEAN HISTORY, YOU COMPLACENT CITY SLICKER. I once won an essay contest on Martin Luther (you could say that was the day I decided to become a writer, but it wasn't...it was just the day I realized my intellect was a dangerous weapon that could be used to tear down as well as build up) and my sixth grade class was treated to a dramatic reading of the winning essay by moi. But I was so awkward that--WHOA this is definitely a Traumatizing Moments From My Past post, mustn't get ahead of myself.

Happiness is a Warm Weekend

2011-06-17T23:27:00.000+03:00

Betches. I am off

to drink raspberry gin-and

-tonics. Love you all.

Haiku #18

How to Fight the Establishment: For Your Body Type

2011-06-16T01:19:00.002+03:00

Pear? Apple? Hourglass? Chinchilla? Knowing your body type comes in handy while shopping for jeans, scouting out potential mates, or plotting your Kim Kardashian impersonation career. But a quick scour of the World Wide Web using the search terms "antiestablishmentarianism body shape" reveals a shocking dearth of information, a fact I find, quite frankly, rather tragic. After all, nobody would expect a Sporty-shaped gal to squeeze herself into a pair of Petite-friendly jeggings, so why do we require that ladies of all shapes and sizes trudge along to the same old anarchic, Ginsberg-fueled beat?

Thankfully, I exist. And I'm here to fix this travesty. My handy guide will help YOU determine how best to strive for the ruination of the Establishment and everything it stands for while rocking the curves your mama gave you. WORK IT, GURL! But not for a soul-sucking megacorp, please.

Apple
Finding Your Shape: According to my online Bible, bodyshapefashionadvice.com, APPLE ladies have fabulous legs and/or boobs so dressing is all about showing off those best bits and avoiding adding volume round your middle.

Fighting the Good Fight: APPLE ladies should focus on bringing down the Man by bonding with the lower classes as much possible. While big businesses sacrifice human interaction for the sake of a paycheck, the APPLE is using her fabulous legs and bust to lure the overworked and underpaid out of their shells. Meanwhile, her stylistically-appropriate, flowy-around-the-middle dresses provide the perfect cover-up for the supplies necessary to fuel a revolution. Can I get an A-R-M-Y O-F T-H-E F-O-R-M-E-R-L-Y R-E-P-R-E-S-S-E-D? I knew I could.

Pear
Finding Your Shape: The PEAR beauty should balance out your curvy bottom half with bold bright tops or tops with large collars, lapels or sleeves.

Fighting the Good Fight: The curvaceous PEAR must master the art of subtly breaking large panels of glass with a quick whisk of her legendary hips. As she struts past each soulless syndicate, swaying to the beat of her shoplifted iPod, she can't resist the spirit of the dance that begins to overwhelm her...she spins, she sashays...oops! Did she just shatter that expensive Goldman Sachs revolving door with an innocent little pop 'n' lock? The PEAR must always have a mustachioed motorcycle man on hand to spirit her away if things get too legal.

Strawberry
Finding Your Shape: If your first reaction is "WTF, Strawberry?" then I'd advise a quick attitude change, Miss! Cynicism won't get you anywhere when it comes to subverting from within. Don't forget, sassy strawberry-shaped ladies have a figure that’s bigger up top than on their bottom half because of broad shoulders and/or big boobs in relation to their waist and hips.

Fighting the Good Fight: "Broad shoulders"? Sounds like the sweet, sweet cacophony of blue-collar labor overtaking the callous upper class!

Rectangle
Finding Your Shape: Not to be confused with a teenage boy, the gamine RECTANGLE is fairly straight up and down though she doesn’t always have the boyish chest to match.

Tall and slim, the RECTANGLE should not despair over her lack of ropey biceps and abs of steel. Though she may never tear down buildings with her pinkie finger or burn oil fields with naught but her fiery gaze, the RECTANGLE may still serve many purposes in the endless struggle against The Man, including, but not limited to, the following:

Narrow head: use as a pole by simply fastening a subversive poster to the forehead.
Thin legs: use to pick the locks of City Hall.
Jutting ribcage: using a pair of soft hammers, pick out a battle-tune, treating each rib as a different note.

Novels That I or Joyce Carol Oates May One Day Write

2011-06-14T22:38:00.002+03:00

Beautiful, successful, GOTHIC.

Faithful subjects,

It has been brought to my attention that the world is crawling with people who are more wealthy, beautiful, and successful than I. This is why you've experienced such a dearth of hilarious content on my ~~free~~ ~~government-funded~~ made-possible-through-the-generosity-of-the-Macarthur Foundation website, Tori Dot Gov. WHY SHOULD I WRITE ANYTHING WHEN EVERYONE ELSE IS MORE GENIUS?

In an effort to pull my drooping spirits up by their bootstraps, I have compiled a list of titles for all my future novels (if I ever get over my contagious disease called Why Would I Ever Want to Write a Novel When There's Shopping and Facebook). Unfortunately, Joyce Carol Oates, the freakishly prolific creepürkind of the past 72 years, will probably snatch up a number of these titles before my ~~lack of talent~~ hellishly busy schedule allows me to write them...

Old People and Ghosts

Dying: A Novel

Death: A Novel About Dying

Horror: A Novel

What is Happening to Me, Where Has My Life Gone?

It Will All Be O.K.: Seven Stories Full of Lies

Hot Girl and Tragic Downfall

Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth: A Love Story

Why Are You Following Me, Where Did You Come From?

Sexual Heeling: How Marvin Gaye Inspired Me To Become a Cobbler

Pleasant Ways to Respond to Those Who Hate

2011-06-10T23:30:00.000+03:00

In a last-ditch attempt to float through life with the easy elegance of a Stephanie Meyer love scene, I have decided to alter the way I typically respond to the segment of society colloquially known as Haters.

Haters, n. people who interfere with your happiness, trample on your dreams with hobnailed boots, and rip large patches of hair (scalp attached) off your head when you're having the one good hair day that the Fates allow you every month.

In my gutter-wench days, I would respond to Haters thusly:

1. "WELL FUCK YOU TOO!"
2. "YOU HEARD ME, I CALLED YOU A PUSTULE! AN UGLY, INFLAMED PUSTULE!"
3. "MOM!"

But in an effort to be a lady--a lady who flings herself onto the nearest chaise lounge and cries in a rich, full-bodied voice--

I love him. Not because he’s beautiful or because he’s rich! I’d much rather he weren’t either one. It would even out the gap between us just a little bit — because he’d still be the most loving and unselfish and brilliant and decent person I’ve ever met. Of course I love him. How hard is that to understand?*

--(OH, STEPHANIE, THE ITALICS! YOU SLAY ME!)--I've changed my tactics. Now, when Haters come calling, I will respond graciously, expansively, with swan-like gestures. Like this:

1. "Good sir, may I carve out your eye with my knife?"

2. "Catch me, I'm fainti--" (whips out shank)

3. "Pardonnez-moi?" (infects with Black Plague)

4. "Oh, this old thing? I only wear this lush, brocaded, peacock-skin ball gown when I don't care what I look like." (breaks neck with lightening-fast sleight of hand)

*Quote taken from one of the Twilight books--I don't remember what they're all called. Half Dead? Starry Sparkle? Glitterface?

I Decline an Oscar

2011-06-08T01:12:00.001+03:00

Gentlemen of the Committee:

I thank you. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. But I cannot accept this great honor.

It was approximately 9:10 AM this morning when I received the kind of telephone call every young girl dreams of getting at least twice in her lifetime...

Dearest Tori, the voice said, rich and syrupy through the static, I am honored to inform you that you have been awarded the Best Actress Oscar for your short film, The Way You Walked to Work This Morning While Listening to Tupac.

How did I react? I dropped my martini and screamed at the cockroach that was crawling up my leg, bien sûr. And then I cried. I cried tears of searing joy and searing grief, because every human emotion experienced since the beginning of time was coursing through my body--naturally, I snapped a few quick emotive headshots--and I could do nothing but bow my head and feel.

But here, standing before you in the nude Cavalli dress I had to be sewn into, I realize that I cannot accept this gleaming signifier of my own perfection. Yes, my performance was flawless. The spring in my step and the gleam in my eye as I sung the words "smoking sherm, drinking malt liquor" under my breath will probably become an iconic Youtube clip. I am a devoted method actress and have practiced that scene by listening to Tupac on my way to work hundreds--nay, thousands!--of times. And I blush at the critical acclaim garnered by my scene in the elevator, as I prepared to face the dragons of a corporate job by "juking" to the lyrics "never leave me, baby, I'm paranoid, sleeping witchu loaded by my bedside."

But gentlemen!

Wouldst thou bequeath this honor on me, when the skies of Hollywood are bright with so many incandescent stars? Before you immortalize me, stop and consider The Others--the femme fatales who you snub tonight:

What of Angelina Jolie's immaculate performance in The Tourist, where every scene was a perfectly-executed rendition of a woman so frozen by plastic surgery that she can only look over her shoulder and blink her heavily made-up eyes?

What of Gwyneth Paltrow in Country Strong, who imbued her raw vocal talent with the gritty blues and rough-hewn heartbreak of her native Mississippi?

What of Justin Bieber in Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, whose face is destined to be the template of feminine beauty for decades to come? Who dared--dared!--to show the world what's possible "if you never give up"? Can you afford to ignore such a powerful cinematographic message of socioeconomic change?

What of Vanessa Hudgens in Beastly? The Academy has overlooked her glorious, cutthroat, breathtaking genius for too long!

But I digress--my passion gets the best of me, and the orchestra crescendos in protest. And so I place this oddly heavy statuette on the podium, gather my skirts about me, and leave. Oh, the limo isn't mine, I'd rather walk. Can someone please return it? I'll keep the bracelet. The bodyguard won't stop following me. Ugh. Oh, he wants the bracelet back. That's cool, man. Anyone want to get tacos?

Slouching Towards a High Aesthetic Standard (or People Ain't Got No Taste These Days)

2011-06-02T00:51:00.000+03:00

Here's something I really believe in: our generation should vote unrelentingly with our dollar. The systems of our country are so backlogged and creepy and laborious and unnecessarily shrouded in confusion: the justice system, the healthcare system, the stupid dual-party political system (I am a huge disbeliever in both parties), the terrible insidious advertising. People my age seem very despairing and/or lethargic about their inability to enact change. And yeah, casting votes for polished men in suits with impeccable ties and charmingly imperfect smiles feels pretty pointless.

But voting with our dollar--! It's perfect. We all have to spend money, and lots of it, so put your money where your beliefs are. If you hate Jewel, storm the farmer's market and leave no radish unturned. If you believe that clothing designers should be credited for their designs and not blatantly ripped off, avoid Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters like the plague. If you care about the environment, pitch your tent outside your favorite vintage store and join Freecycle.

Personally, I hate big corporations that lie about their business practices, so I switched my biggest expense (rent) to a tiny, family-owned apartment company. I love independent coffee shops, like any good white person, so my boyfriend and I spend a ridiculous amount of money at Intelligentsia and Dollop and Chava. I want things that nobody else has, like any first-born girl, so I buy the occasional laptop cover on Etsy. One of my favorite posessions is a little painting that my boyfriend and I bought from a street artist in Boston. It's absolutely beautiful, it's completely original, it improves my quality of life every time I look at it, and that purchase, which I wanted to make anyway, directly supported an artist. It's the perfect win-win situation, as opposed to, say, donating to a big charity. Not that donating to charities is bad, it just doesn't mesh with our hardwired survival instincts the way that purchasing food, clothes, and housing does. So it's not as sustainable; it's not a lifestyle choice, really. Does that make sense?

So yah, yah, yah, I try to be good and support the arts and spend mah hard-earned cash at places that don't make me feel nauseous. LIKE JEWEL. But today I had a realization. A meritocratic, anti-hipster realization: the kind you've come to demand from my government-funded website (tori.gov). Care to read on?

"Supporting the arts" isn't enough. "Supporting the arts" is something everybody prides themselves on doing, from celebrities who attend charity galas to white boys with rich parents who start their own zines (oh wait--that's not supporting the arts at all). "Supporting the arts" is something that sounds really nice and will probably impress your date because it showcases the tender quality of your social consciousness--but "supporting the arts" is a vapid phrase that needs to be cut from our vocabulary.

Support the good arts, dammit!

The world is overrun with people who lo-o-o-o-ove art. Woohoo, art is so great! They love aesthetic for aesthetic's sake, but have no visceral pull towards creating or witnessing real artistic achievement and no desire to delineate art into categories like good, better, best, and shit. These are aesthetes without taste; people to whom the idea of "greatness" is probably kind of terrifying; people who like to capitalize the word Art. Because nothing makes a rich white person feel better than experiencing a little Art, except maybe cocaine.

But the simple fact of the matter is that art can suck, and not all art deserves a minute of your time, much less a fraction of your paycheck. "Gallery opening" sounds glamorous, but do you actually like the art? Do you see some worth there? Some meaning? Some hip non-meaning that really speaks to you? Are you buying that chair because you truly love it or because an independent artisan made it on Etsy? Are you going to that reading because the people reading are fucking badass writers or does "going to readings!" make you feel like a cultured person?

Why are people so reluctant to admit that "art" isn't a holy word? Is it because "this painting sucks!" makes you sound ignorant? Is it because you think everything is relative? Is it because you want to be an artist and you think you have to pay your dues and you don't want people to criticize you when it's your turn to get onstage? I'm not being sarcastic; I'm being REAL, folks. Real like Coco's greatest asset.

I'm totally at fault here, too, so don't jump down my throat. There have been times when I stroke my reclaimed shade-grown aluminum neck brace and murmur to myself, "I feel like wandering around a museum for the afternoon and then soaking in a night of spoken word at La Cafe. It's fabulous being a member of the cultured intelligentsia." But I think we need to be harsh and unrelenting and admit to ourselves that amateur spoken word is probably terrible and we'd be doing ourselves and the universe a favor if we just went home and read some Borges. You know: greatness.

Supporting the arts blindly is kind of a terrible thing. Cultivating discernment? Putting your meaningful dollar toward a meaningful experience or creation or just a really beautiful hardcover? That's so hip.

Traumatizing Moments From My Present, Volume Five: Deaths and the City

2011-05-31T21:54:00.000+03:00

Hullo there. This is another old post that I forgot to post. But I think it needs to be HEARD. The part about YA, that is. The part about Chicago is shockingly bitter, even for me, so you can ignore it. But listen, I wrote it in a very cold winter month called May when I felt like I would never see a drop of sunlight again. It's finally summer, so I feel less inclined to stomp on Chicago's soul. I'm still bitter that we didn't get a real spring, though.

This traumatizing "moment" is actually a traumatizing nine years.

Nine years of living in Chicago.

Do you like what I did there? I employed a literary technique called the Young Adult Novel's Desperate Grab For Your Attention. It's when you set a sentence fragment apart from the rest of the text.

Like this.

The YANDGFYA is useful for entrapping "reluctant readers" deep within the snare of your twisted I-owe-a-massive-debt-to-Twilight genius. Reluctant readers see a big scary block of text and they're like AHHH WORDZ WILL EAT ME! But then, like a ray of sunlight breaking through a storm cloud, they see the YANDGFYA.

And they feel hope.

Hope...and the ability to read on, on past the next pun, past the next makeover scene in which the protagonist pretends to know nothing about makeup because she's a charming tomboy ("Then my bff Patricia put some sparkly stuff on my eyes. I looked into the mirror and a different girl was looking out at me. She was...she was pretty."), past the next tense scene filled with sexual innuendo intended to go over the heads of younger readers ("So," I said, "What do you want to do to me? I mean, do with me?"), past the clunky character development until they reach the next YANDGFYA.

It's beautiful.

ANYWAY, sorry for being so chock-full of literary references that I can't even talk about the weather (YES THE WEATHER) without talking about books. Ah! Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! (wipes a trembling tear from bottom eyelash.)

What I meant to say before going on a rant about YA literature is that I'm not the world's biggest fan of Chicago. It's a cold industrial city with a vapid soul. But even more than Chicago, I can't stand it when people are like "BUT CHICAGO IS SO _____" Look, I'm glad you have fun strolling around Wrigleyville with your pick of ten thousand and five different Asian restaurants and WOW, THERE'S A JEWEL! HOW CONVENIENT IS THAT? Just please, go to one of the grimy public buildings (libraries, museums, they're all gross) and drincessorize with a McDonalds coffee and I hope you feel happy pretending that there is something meaningful about living next to a fake ocean in a sea of fake art.

But I know it's not Chicago's fault that it's landlocked like this. And I do love the lake. Despite how disgusting it is. I don't think I could live without a large body of water nearby. A large body of water like the pool of tears that is my heart when I read YA literature.

GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 50% Off!

2011-05-26T23:23:00.001+03:00

SAVE ME! Now for the low, low price of $500.

Faithful subjects, gaze into the future with me.

I plan on having twenty kids minimum. What does this mean for you? This means that your future will be largely comprised of twenty baby showers and twenty baby gifts at approximately $50 each, so put this down in your planner: before the world ends, you'll have spent at least $1000 on my screaming, vomiting, irritating progeny.

OR THERE'S PLAN B!!!! (It's hard to escape the double entendre here.)

Plan B is that instead of spending $1000 on screaming babies that you really don't want to touch and gulping down a wave of nausea as you see me approaching, clad in a fetching muumuu, holding out my latest offspring and shrieking "DONTCHA WANNA HOLD HER?!?!??!"...instead of all that, you could contribute a mere half of that sum, $500, to give me the Life Fix that I currently need.

Capiche? Hugh, are you listening?

I shall elaborate. Right now, I'm sitting at Intelligentsia and trying to work on my story while keeping one and a half eyes on the clock so that I don't exceed my alloted 1-hour lunch break. This is not a sustainable model for getting any real writing done! An hour here, an hour there, a little Facebook checking in between, a long wait for a cappuccino, trying not to eavesdrop on the awkward couple to my right--yeah, the story will just not be happening today. I changed the phrase "rustling leaves" into "rustle of leaves," so that deserves a Pulitzer, but major edits? Moving great chunks of plot around? Spying gaping holes in logic? AS IF!

In the immortal words of Britney: I need TIME. I need SPACE. Ima SLAVE 4 U.

What I need, seriously, is about two weeks away from Chicago. I need to be in the country, to get inspiration pumped into me intravenously like Keats in Ode to a Nightengale. I need to be away from the Internet (though I will need a massive dictionary and maybe Wikipedia) and I especially need to be away from other "artists." (Attractive bass players? We'll talk.) When half my day is spent going through the worst slush pile in the history of the world, how am I supposed to gather my forces, think to myself "This is meaningful! This is worthwhile!" and write? I can't! I freak out at the low-grade fiction being pumped intravenously into the arteries of the universe and I shrivel and die, despairing at the lack of real aesthetic anywhere and the hipsters that overrun Chicago with their fake version of the semi-real thing. And yes, I will use the word "intravenously" as many times as I can in this post DAMMIT!

Why now, Tori? Why the sudden outburst, the desperate grab for my pocketbook that feels suspiciously like you're trying to grope me? I need this two week trip now because: I have a real project in mind. A REAL THING that I want to DO. This is really rare for me--I like to skip from story to story like a hummingbird in flight, but I finally have something I want to sit down and concentrate on and sink my teeth into. And I cannot, cannot, cannot do that at Intelligentsia, in between apartments, on my lunch hour, with the slush pile waiting for me.

So please, fund my own personal writer's retreat. I will let you read my memoir called Bumpkin: I Am What Not Self-Indulgent Tree Brooklyn Marquez--OH SNAP didn't mean to let that slip--before anyone else. All for the low, low cost of $500. Don't make me have those 20 children. Intravenously. I'm serious, Hugh.

I Don't Believe in Long Leases

2011-05-26T00:54:00.001+03:00

I have big news, folks. I'm moving! Moving, moving, moving down the river to a tiny, cheap, bright little studio in my very favorite Chicago neighborhood, close to scads of my favorite people, with its own porch AND A GRAVEYARD NEARBY! Can we say "creepspiration"? As Rebecca Black once sung so eloquently: We so excited. We so excited.

Of course, I'm also a little bit sad. I love my current apartment soooooo much. Maybe my love has something to do with the fact that I came here, freshly traumatized from the horrific Battle of the Cockroach, and my beautiful bright sunny corner apartment welcomed me with open arms, crisp white walls, tons of windows, and endless breezes. I'm going to miss my windows, fsho! I mean, I'll get more windows, and I think they might even be bigger windows, but, you know, I have a thing for windows, and I wish I could have all the windows of my entire life in one place rather than having to window-hop as I do.

AND I'LL MISS HAVING INTELLIGENTSIA RIGHT NEXT DOOR! OH, GRIEF! But I won't miss the endless Asian restaurants (I hate Asian food, sorry if that makes me less of a white person), the female stalker I recently discovered I have, and the awful mega-corporate company that owns my building. My new apartment is owned by a husband-wife team who named the building after their daughter. I know! It's too precious!

While messing around with the settings on my camera (I finally discovered how to take decent pictures that don't look heinously digital!), I decided to take pictures of my apartment so that those of you who haven't been to my wild parties of LSD-laced lemonade and blueberry boy bait can see my lair.

The meeting place of the legendary Salon. See the first publication by a member of our group in the current issue of Off the Coast.

Heartbreaking poems, our generation's best children's author, and an amazing vintage edition of K-Dawg.

Beautiful flowers from the Best Boyfriend 2011 champ.

I perch in this chair for hours...just watching.


Basil, aloe, Swiss chard, marjoram...all my best friends. MOMMY LOVES YOU!

My favorite things (books, cameras, hats, glass bottles)

Recently-read. But which one is my favorite novel of all time?!?

Secret stash of Vogue.

Tiny picture frames containing best friends. Why yes, that is a signed copy of Naeem Murr's latest novel in the background.

I don't have enough room for all my shoes in my closet, so I keep the coolest/brightest on display.

But this is real life. (Scuffed.)

My beautiful teapot. THX JG!

My desk. I never write here, don't bother to immortalize it.

Bane of the Universe the First: The Inappropriately Self-Referential Interrupter

2011-05-21T01:10:00.000+03:00

Welcome to my new series (yeah, I know, I say that every other blog post) concerning the many and varied irritations that populate Planet Earth, also known as our local Banes of the Universe.

Friends, stalkers, good down-home countryfolk, lend me your ears! I come to warn you of the most irritating individual on the planet: Bane of the Universe the First: The Inappropriately Self-Referential Interrupter.

I think everyone who went to Northwestern is highly familiar with this foul individual, because tepid classrooms of overprivileged faux-academia are the ideal breeding grounds for this kind of delusional ego. (I know lots of big words!) The inappropriately self-referential interrupter LITERALLY HAS NO IDEA WHAT ANYONE IS TALKING ABOUT, and yet sees no shame in raising their hand and inserting a personal story into the discussion, effectively killing any semblance of intelligent discourse and making people like me stare at their newly-sharpened pencil while a little voice in their head whispers but it would be so easy to stab this into your eardrum and pop it.

Example 1:

Teacher: “Can anyone rhapsodize on the themes of anguished nationality in The Dead?”
ISRI: “Well, so my dad has a lake house and one day I was on the beach with some friends, we were drinking, and they started playing the national anthem at the house next door, and we just had this moment, you know? Where we were like this is America, the sand of America. Then Katie barfed into the lake and I felt really alone and I feel like that’s what Kafka is going for with this ending.”

Unfortunately, college is a place where people--who somehow managed through the sweat of their brows!!! to get straight A’s in high school--go to have their egos stroked and their wallets filched by the Establishment, so the ISRI rarely learns his or her lesson. If the ISRI were thrown naked into the streets (as I suspect will happen in my friends' future fascist state), he or she would quickly learn how little the world cares about their struggle with their own sexual identity, their impassioned plea for human rights because like animals are people too!!, and how they "really get" James Joyce because they're part Irish. The street would crush them.

But here? In the land of self-expression and free blog domains? They flourish.

Example 2:

Hip oboist: “My favorite oboe solo is the one from Britten’s sixth Metamorphosis After Ovid.”
ISRI: “Cool. I just really like Radiohead, you know? I feel like their songs are very poignant in their grief. They make me remember...things.”
Hip oboist (sighing): “Is there something you want to talk about?”
ISRI: “I thought you’d never ask.”

Escapism

2011-05-19T01:18:00.001+03:00

The reality is that it's cold and rainy in Chicago (cold like c-c-c-c-c-cold, like should I bring my peacoat? cold) even though it's supposed to be the lusty month of May, or whatever Guinevere sang about in Camelot. It's weird how few people know about that musical. HELLO, KING ARTHUR? I'm not saying it's great, but come on, I should be able to name drop "Guinevere" without causing a traffic jam, know what I mean?

Anyway, the reality is that it's cold and rainy and a certain person called MY DARLING BOYFRIEND has decided to skip town for two weeks, leaving me shivering, vulnerable, impoverished, inspirationless, and alone. Terribly, terribly alone.

Thankfully, my week of woe ends tomorrow, because I have a fabulous string of social activities lined up, starting with Ethiopian food with L + co. tomorrow and ending with D.Ro's WEDDING on Sunday, but for now--on this cold, harsh, rainy Wednesday of deepest azure--I just want to close my eyes and redo my entire existence.

I want to be with this guy:

...and while we're at it, I'd like to have the hair I had back then, because WHY DID I HATE IT SO MUCH? It looks so fabulous in pictures! And yet I clearly remember day after day of absolutely loathing it, wanting it to curl but feeling like it wasn't curly enough (um hello it clearly was) and doubting my own self-worth. WHY DID I HAVE TO GO AND HENNA IT?! AND THEN WHY DID I HENNDIGO IT INTO AN AWFUL SHADE OF BLACKNESS? Why does hair look good in pictures but bad in real life? If someone would just EXPLAIN EVERYTHING TO ME...!


ugh!

I want to be staying here:

It's just the house that Pablo Neruda built for his mistress in Santiago, Chile, no big deal.

And I want to be drinking homemade cold-brewed iced coffee:

Smitten Kitchen-style. With mah bf. And we will be very consciously NOT talking about art, because we hate artists, we just like things that are.

And then I want to go to the beach:

Nobody will be there, because I hate people.

Except for the invisible ghosts who provide us with food, drink, and umbrellas. BUT IF THEY SHOW THEIR FACES THEY WILL BE BURNED. By the sun, of course. I'll be too happy to start a bonfire of ghostly flesh.

There will be a lost puppy looking to be loved:

Awwww, Charlie will look so cute playing with him in the waves! But when I tire of him, the ghosts will take him away. (The puppy, not Charlie.) TO A WONDERFUL PERSON WITH A HEART OF GOLD WHO LOVES PUPPIES!

These shorts won't be $268, they will be free. And I will be wearing them.

Along with a demure pair of sandals.

Yes, both pairs. At the same time. With perfect hair.

Second Holgas

2011-05-17T17:43:00.000+03:00

My second roll of film turned out jest plain awful. It's because I took another roll of completely blank film (IT'S HARD TO LOAD OK?) so I panicked and took all 24 pics on a cloudy afternoon just to see if my camera was still working. And it is. But I think one side of the lens is squished. Oops! Don't talk to me, I'm an artist.

sister in tree

a dramatic bedroom scene

sister in dandelions...looking kinda dead

both of us swinging

this was supposed to be both of us on the swings, but i think the camera got flipped...the white blur is me!

me whipping my hair

Tupac For the Whites

2011-05-11T22:54:00.000+03:00

Welcome to the premier episode of my new series, TUPAC FTW. As we all know, Tupac Shakur--the late rapper and incredibly good-looking member of the male species--held the White Man very dear to his heart. Never one to skimp on admiration, Tupac made a career out of praising the brilliant judicial system created by the White Man in order to punish wrongdoers, regardless of race or income level. Tupac held a deep and unshakable belief that the White Man was a loving, intelligent, advanced specimen, the culmination of centuries of technological innovation and emotional maturation, and that the White Man always acted out of the goodness of his own heart and generous, open pocketbook.

What is not so well known is that Tupac actually wrote a series of songs designed to accompany his entire musical oevre, entitled So the White Man Will Know. This West Side icon knew that the White Man, despite all his advancements, was still charmingly clueless when it came to interpreting lines like "flossin' a Benz on rims that isn't stolen." And so he employed an age-old technique that the White Man has utilized since the beginning of time when presented with a conflict of interest:

He compromised.

Here, rescued from the musty annals of time, is Tupac's first song off So the White Man Will Know, entitled "Imagine That I am Content." (You can listen to the original here. Oh, and you might need this.)

artist: Tupac
album: So the White Man Will Know
song: "Imagine that I am Content"

[intro]
Yeah--is this camera on the right setting?
Why do you look upset, honey?
You should be happy that I got fired, now I'm free to pursue my dreams of opening up a DIY pottery shop!
Honey, you look like you wanted me to stay at that awful ad agency!

[verses]
Imagine me, content in front of my $500 flatscreen TV,
I've got no love for my ex-coworkers, there's no need to be friends,
They've got me under surveillance, they think I was using my company card on a hooker,
I know somebody was, but it wasn't me! (Wink.)

Don't want to be another midlife crisis,
I'm on fifteen different prescriptions for blood pressure and I think I might be anemic,
The federals want to see me dead--what do you mean, I've always been a "paranoid impotent bastard?"
That's not nice!--anyway, I installed a new security system, and I feel a little better now.

Now that I'm unemployed, how will I live?
Will God--or Buddha, or Mohamed, I'm open to all religions, I'm a very spiritual person--forgive me for all the negative thoughts I let myself think about my receding hairline?
One life to live, it's so hard to be positive,
but I just saw Lady Gaga on The Ellen Show and she said she thinks five minutes of compassionate thoughts about herself every morning, so I might try that.

Mama, I put you in an expensive rest home, the world is a war zone,
my friends got promoted and/or divorced, and most of them are still dead wrong (when they say Sharon's having an affair)
I'm a little overweight, finally a man,
still scheming on ways to make some extra money--
Ooh, FREELANCING!

Just imagine that I am content,
Driving a car with 5-star safety ratings and an affordable monthly payment plan.
My dreams are censored, my hopes are gone,
I'm like a chain smoker who notices the tax on cigarettes has been raised again.
My nerves are a wreck, I have frequent heartburn, and my hands are swollen.
Is there medication for that?
Imagine me content.

GO CHAVA!

2011-05-10T22:35:00.001+03:00

Lemme tell you a little bit about myself. No, seriously, it's fine, I don't mind. Please, take a seat.

I've always loooved coffee (coffee ice cream has been my favorite flavor since I was a tiny buzzed fetus) but recently, courtesy of my boyfriend (whose mom opened her own PHENOMENAL coffee shop in Connecticut), I've been able to appreciate good coffee more and more. My boyfriend makes such incredible coffee that I can drink it black, even though I was always the typical "CREAM AND SUGAR AND SUGAR AND HAZELNUT!" kind of girl.

So, there's this adorable coffee shop called Chava Cafe in a rather bleak and sketchy area of the city known as Uptown, where my boyfriend and his gang dwell. They have delicious coffee and amazing pastries and the guys there are really nice and knowledgeable and honest and some are former pastry chefs.

Anyway, I was reading the Yelp reviews for Chava, and I came across this one star comment:

"Cha'va follows a groundbreaking biz plan called, 'Let's not give the customer what they want and see if they return.' The scripted training looks something like this.

Me: Good morning. I'll have a double shot of expresso over ice, please.
Barrista: No....can't do that. It's against store policy.
Me: Ha! Nice one.....in a small cup is good.
Barrista: It's not a joke. It ruins the taste.
Me: That's how I like it...I order it every morning somewhere else and it's fine.
Barrista: Yeah, sorry. Cafe Americano is similar.
Me: Speechless.

Bottom line: They suck! Expresso over ice is my replacement therapy for a kicked (6 weeks!) nicotine habit....and this dingbat tried to F*** it up with his petty expresso snobbery."

Sort of your typical offended Yelp post, probably by the same type of person that loves to get into online comment fights on articles about celebrity fashion. (Also, she doesn't know how to spell espresso.) But then I saw the response from Chava and I wuz like whoa. I want to post it here, and tell you all to go support them by buying fifty Nutella croissants each, because this response is so earnest and passionate and encapsulates the small business mentality that I love and want to support. And most importantly, this comment shows someone sticking unrelentingly to their standards, which is something NOBODY seems to do anymore. My faith in humanity is restored! Coffee for everyone! Yah, I bolded my favorite lines.

Hi Jennifer,
I was the person who took your order that day and I am also one of the owners of the shop. I'm sorry my interaction with you came off as snobbery as that was not my intention at all. While I may be able to understand you being upset, I think your characterization of our exchange is unfair and misleading. The first thing I said, in fact, was that I was sorry I could not accommodate your request. I then proceeded to explain why we do not make this drink. I also understand that as a consumer, you may not care. We, however, do. We would not make you that drink because we did not want to sell you a drink that we thought tasted bad. We take our jobs seriously. We have no part time highschool slackers that work here. We believe coffee is a culinary beverage and should be treated with the same care as a craft cocktail or wine, both of which are far less complex aromatically and in chemical composition. I also understand, that to you, this all seems silly and pretentious, and I am sorry if this reads like pretense. We are not some big corporation, this shop is my life's work and I take all these reviews to heart. I think it is OK that we disagree on what coffee is or should be. I just don't want to be depicted as some rude, slacker, hipster barista that does not care to treat customers with respect, because that is hardly the case. If by some chance you ever want to come back into our shop, let me make you that drink the way we prepare it, on the house. And if you are still unsatisfied, you will at least have given it a chance.

-Richard P.

Traumatizing Moments From My Present, Volume Four: The Devil’s Drink

2011-05-06T23:59:00.000+03:00

If anyone is wondering why I’m campaigning hard to get Prohibition re-installed, it’s because of what happened to me two weeks ago.

I threw a little party in my spacious abode for my main gypsy betch Chelsea. It was great. It enabled me to separate my real friends from the POSERS because my real friends brought gin (elixir of life/ primary inspirational force behind Tender is the Night) and my fake friends brought disgusting beer.

Everything was fine, until I turned to the nearest dashing young man, a Burberry model, and asked (commanded?) him to make me a gin and tonic.

He agreed.

Everything was still great.

(AND YET THE HAIRS ARE RISING ON THE BACK OF YOUR NECK…WHY?)

Burberry model returned, holding one of my delicate parfait glasses (thanks for the Christmas gift, Mom) filled to the brim with a golden liquid. I thought to myself, “Wow, I can smell it from across the room—he must’ve made it pretty strong.” But I didn’t protest. I took the drink.

I sipped.

MY LIFE FLASHED BEFORE MY EYES as something the equivalent of Drano scalded its way down my throat, tearing at my stomach lining and spiraling through my spinal fluids until I could only gasp through my charred, flapping jaw, “What was that?”

Burberry model only grinned.

Although my very lungs were collapsing, I whispered, “Is this a gin and tonic?”

“No,” said Burberry. “It’s a gin and tequila.”

The moral of the story is never, never accept drinks from Burberry models who have been left alone with the red wine. It’s simply not worth the ensuing supraglottic laryngectomy you’ll be forced to undergo due to the total annihilation of your mouth and throat.

Creepers and Philosophers

2011-05-04T23:17:00.001+03:00

I wrote this post a while ago but never got around to posting it. I still love FSCOTT though! Besties 4 lyf!

Hey friends, I have some great news. I am currently the world's foremost living expert on the life and works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Here's a list of all the Fitzgerald and Fitz memorabilia I've read:

Zelda, by Nancy Mitford (bio of his lovely wife)

This Side of Paradise

The Beautiful and the Damned

The Great Gatsby

Tender is the Night

The Last Tycoon

Scott Fitzgerald by Andrew Turnbull (amazing bio written by someone who knew him personally)

Everybody Was So Young (bio of the Murphys, my other life heros/the Fitzgeralds' close friends)

The past 5 months have been consumed with my Fitzgerald obsession, as I've read every novel Fitzgerald wrote in chronological order, bookended by two INCREDIBLE biographies and one random bio of his friends. (I refuse to read his short stories - it's my homage to his real genius.) I feel such an affinity for him. I mean, the man was a wreck. At a particularly boring party, he went into the kitchen and started boiling ladies' purses in a pot of tomato sauce. And he drank like 32 beers one day. (He didn't consider them “alcohol.” That term was reserved for GIN.) But I just love him – he was this sensitive, madly intuitive soul with all sorts of ego issues, obsessed with perpetuating his own legend, horribly depressed because his books didn't sell, but still convinced that he was one of the best writers of his time – and look! He was!

Obviously Gatsby was his best novel by FAR, and I have a theory why, but that's for another day. Right now I just wanted to say that Fitzgerald has been appointed guardian angel of all my life choices. Are there things in my past that I regret? Definitely. Perhaps I shouldn't have sent that thirty-seventh angry text. Perhaps I shouldn't have bought that tasteless camouflage miniskirt with the black netting from Wet Seal. But then I think to myself – would Fitzgerald approve of my life? Would he support my bad decisions, my mistakes, my imperfections, as someone who also made tons of bad decisions and was haunted by his own imperfections?

HELL NO!

He would slur, “Tori, you bore me to tears! I'm going to boil your purse in a vat of tomato sauce! IS THAT MAN GAY? Why won't you pay attention to me?”

Because Fitzgerald was obsessed with DRAMA. He was impatient for life, too impatient to sit around at a boring party and listen to people talk about their babies/careers/stressors. He threw the Murphys' exquisite hand-blown gold-rimmed wine glasses down the mountainside because he felt instinctively that it was the right thing to do – that somehow, weirdly, those wineglasses were so beautiful that they deserved to break, that the night was so beautiful that each drink had to be sipped and then completely destroyed. He was reaching for the poetic heart of the moment by shattering all that delicate glass.

Not to say that the man wasn't totally annoying to be around. After the wineglass incident, the Murphys banned him from their mansion for 3 weeks. HA! And he drank too much, and he was terribly, terribly unhappy once those crazy years were over.

But still, I think there's something to be said about his zest for life – his crazy up-for-anything vibe coupled with intelligence and intuition and an intense interest in people. (I am NOT talking about the repulsive and desperate up-for-anything vibe that characterizes sorority girls and self-indulgent people and bros who are like “THIRSTY THURSDAY!!!!! YEAHHHUH.” I'm talking about something way more original and exciting. Think Gatsby's fabulous, melancholy, intriguing parties verses Superbowl Sunday. What? Elitist? Blame my servants.) Fitzgerald would push a night or an experience to its limit – sometimes to its awful, broken limit. I've never seen anybody do that. But I bet most of us secretly want to do that, instead of washing our wineglasses carefully and setting them in the back of the cupboard to gather dust.

(Basically, I desperately want to live in the twenties and be best friends with Scott and Zelda and have a burning animosity toward Hemingway (I hate him so much!) and talk to Edna St. Vincent Millay while she's drunk/on morphine and go to parties at the Murphys' and swim off the coast of France with pearls on.)

Diary of a Thug Mommy: Readin'

2011-04-29T20:30:00.001+03:00

ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: Obviously Thug Mommy isn't actually a thug. Over the span of her long life, she's morphed into...well...Redneck Mommy. Is this offensive? I mean, I've seen other people joking about how a poke from your redneck mom on facebook means she wants to have sex with you and I haven't even come CLOSE to that, so I think I'm OK, right? Anyway, my dilemma is as follows: a) Thug Mommy was the original joke, so I'm loathe to change her name, and b) I don't want to call her something that sounds tooooo offensive... I'm thinking of changing her name to Backwoods Mommy or Mountain Mommy. Does anyone have any opinions/ideas? I'd be forever grateful. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS ISN'T AN IMPORTANT ISSUE???

Babies are important members of our green earth. I have five. I said I wanted one but Thug Hubby said "Woman, who's going to plow the fields when I'm gone?" and I said, "Thug Hubby, you know the bar don't open till 3 pm, PLOW 'EM BEFORE 3 PM!" and he said, "Woman, you shore are difficult," and then I had my second baby who was actually quadruplets, and Thug Hubby was happy.

Thug Hubby and I trained our kids to be honest, hard-working folk who can skin a coon faster than you can say "LAST CALL!" and who can shimmy up a tree if a bar is chasing them so's they don't git killed. I was a big reader up until the age of 15, when I married Thug Hubby, but then he accidentally burned all three of my books when he lit a match in the kitchen looking for the batch of moonshine muffins I was saving for Easter. While making 'em I accidentally drenched most everything in moonshine including my throat and stomach and so the whole kitchen lit up like fireworks when Thug Hubby tried to light the lantern. Since my books were handwritten cookbooks I kept 'em in the kitchen so they burnt up right quick. My grandmother wrote them herself. The woman could shore make a pretty sentence. I loved her recipe for Tuna Casaroll, especially the line "If you ain't too busy chopping kindling, hitch yerself down Gullywise Stream and look around the big rock across from the white oak that got struck by lightening in '46 and pick some dill and chop it up and put it in the bowl and mash."

Even after my books burnt, I knew I had to teach my babies how to read. Thug Hubby wasn't much help. He knows 3 letters: B, P, and M. Those letters help him figure out which beer is which. So I taught 'em myself and they learned right quick. Here are my tips for other mommies who want to teach their younguns all 19 letters and how to make pictures with them:

1. Bark is cheaper than paper. Paper is made from trees but bark is ON trees. So just write on there.

2. Fingers is pens. After cooking, jest use your fingers to make black greasy marks on the bark and you don't have to buy a thing.

3. It starts with A.

4. Examples are helpful. Here's one of mine: "If Jeremiah was running from a black bar and tried to shimmy up this here tree because he doesn't want to be et up, what's this letter that I just wrote here on the bark with my fingers that he'd smear with his knees?"

We So Excited

2011-04-27T00:58:00.000+03:00

Since the weather in Chicago is horrible and unpleasant and reveals that nature has a truly evil soul that takes pleasure in torturing innocents, I'm turning inward, turning to the past, dwelling on happier, and - yes - warmer times. Here are some pictures from last Halloween, taken with a disposable camera.

I JUST LOVE THESE PHOTOS.

They're just me and my bf goofing off (aka looking HAUTE), but they're so, so precious to me. THANK YOU DISPOSABLE CAMERA! THANK YOU FILM! THANK YOU REAL THINGS!

Brit's New Single!

2011-04-26T05:51:00.000+03:00

OMG you guys. OMG. Have you heard Britney Spears' new jam? SO hip! SO fly! SO catchy! I can't wait to go to the clubz and dance my jeggings off to this one. If you haven't checked it out already, I suggest you do so immediately. OR ELSE. Tee-hee. Just kidding. NOT!

I love Brit-Brit. (For best results, read the lyrics while listening here.)

Call Me a Creeper

[VERSE ONE]

Hey, over there

Please forgive me

If I'm comin' on too strong

Hate to stare

But you're winnin'

Jail won't hold me for long

So come here, a little closer

Wanna whisper in your ear

Make it clear, little question

Wanna know just how you feel

[CHORUS]

If I said my heart was beating loud

If I could escape this cell somehow

If I said I want your body now
Would you call me a creeper?

'Cause you feel like paradise

And I need a probation tonight

So if I said I want your body now

Would you call me a creeper?

[VERSE TWO]

Hey, you might think

That I'm crazy
But I know I'm just your type

I might be

Little hazy

But you just cannot deny

There's a spark

In between us

When I peer beneath your door

I want more

Wanna see it

So I'm asking you tonight

[CHORUS]

[SPOKEN IN A LOW VOICE]

If I said I want your body, would you call me a creeper?

Yeah

Uh-huh

Oh!

[BRIDGE]

Gimme something good

Don't wanna wait, I want it now (na-na-na-now)
I'm misunderstood
My lawyer wants to get me out (ou-ou-ou-out)
If I said my heart was beating loud--
If I said I want your body now--
WOULD YOU CALL ME A CREEPER?

[CHORUS]

Kate & Johnny: A Retrospective

2011-04-21T20:32:00.000+03:00

Every now and then I'm going through life and then all of a sudden I remember: KATE MOSS AND JOHNNY DEPP USED TO DATE!!! ?????? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHH!

It gets me every time. I mean, what a beeeeautiful couple! I think Kate Moss is the most beautiful woman in the world (my other Most Beautiful Woman is Ciara, no joke, she's SO GORGEOUS), and as anyone who knew me during the wild days of my youth can tell you, OMG JOHNNY DEPP IZ MAH HUZBAND! POTC!!!!! I HAVE A NOTEBOOK WITH HIS FACE ON IT!

The ever-so-cool nineties fashion, the insouciance (such a Vogue word, I hate it, but you know it's perf), the gritty paparazzi shots...oh, I DIE! I'm going to run home and buy a pack of cigarettes and make my boyfriend smoke them while taking Holgas. WE CAN BE ICONIC TOO!

Communism, Fascism, Journalism

2011-04-19T21:51:00.000+03:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, I wrote this fictional article to celebrate that HIGHEST of art forms, that FLAWLESS and IMPECCABLE HOLY GRAIL of the English language, that SPARKLING MULTIFACETED DIAMOND of literacy and proofreading: JOURNALISM.

This Title is a Pun

As I wait in the lobby for my famed celebrity interview subject, I mention a needlessly personal anecdote in the opening line of my article to create a false sense of camaraderie with my readers, while accidentally revealing what a soulless and creatively vapid individual I really am. Ooh, there she is! Looking effortlessly beautiful in a black Calvin Klein turtleneck, Balenciaga leather jacket, vintage Levis and towering patent leather Louboutins that belie her slim frame, with just the barest hint of makeup smeared across her Girl Next Door good looks and her hair tossed into a blonde topknot that's so perfectly messy it's almost like she doesn't have a stylist, she slides into the booth across from me and orders a salad—WITH CHICKEN!—as though she’s just a regular girl next door. The theme of this interview will be that she is merely a GIRL NEXT DOOR although she is also a TALENTED CELEBRITY. I will include several examples of her “throwing back her head and laughing with abandon” or “tapping a manicured finger against her glass of Evian” to show that I have an eye for detail. I took a class on that! It was called Good Descriptions I think.

Wait, let me set the scene! The paparazzi are lurking behind that tree. I am sympathetic to the deeply conflicted phenomenon of fame and so I notice that my celebrity subject's smile has acquired a strained quality, though I have to say it’s kind of flattering to have all those lenses pointed at me. Ooh, this is so exciting! Teehee, oh really, this old thing? I only wear this when I simply don’t care what I look like—where was I? The sky is blue, the grass is green, we’re having an al fresco lunch and she’s eating her salad with a fork just like a GIRL NEXT DOOR WOULD. Her hair is still blonde as she uses one FINGER (yes a real finger) to push it out of her EYES (yes she has EYES TOO). She seems just like a Real Person but also she is Pretty. I ask her a semi-personal question. I’m not prying, I’m INVESTIGATING! REE-REE-REE (that's my theme song).

Here it comes: THE SCOOP. Let me tell you about her body language: she’s raising her eyebrows, biting her lower lip, and—ouch! Flinging her dirty martini in my face! Wait—wait—come back!

Sigh. It’s hard being a hard-hitting investigative journalist like me. But you know what? I’m not afraid to show the world the dark side of life. I’m not afraid to stand in front of the masses with my moleskin and my shorthand and shout, HELLO WORLD, I AM THE MIRROR IN WHICH YOU SEE THE STRETCHED, CLOGGED PORES ON THE TIP OF YOUR NOSE. This sentence right here is a bit awkward because my training was sub par but BOY CAN I CRAFT AN OPENING LINE. Whats reading? I am Muse, I am Trumpet, I am Using a Little Poetic Language Here to Impress You.

“This is a quote from the celebrity,” she said. “My professors taught me that this is the most effective way to end an article.”

And here’s a final thought from me.

Creeping is Genetic

2011-04-19T00:45:00.000+03:00

I was going through my very important files the other day--you know, files like Tax Information (soup recipes, random receipts), Published Work (empty!), and Northwestern (Phi Beta Kappa paraphernalia, betches! No, I did NOT purchase the $200 mahogany engraved PBK stool!)--when I found a file marked simply "Stuff."

It was a treasure trove! First of all, it was full of flattering old Polaroids of myself (IS THIS REAL LIFE?), kind birthday cards from people who love me (HI GRANDMA!), hilarious photocopies of Gary Larson cartoons (I'm kind of a hoarder), and best of all, the most adorable ephemera you can possibly imagine, created just for me by my baby sister. There was an invitation to a VIP-only "movie night." There was a card promising me a shopping spree which never quite managed to materialize. And lo and behold, there was a booklet called 9 Ways to Get Through College. The dedication read: "To Tori (of course, who else that I know of is in college?)".

Here is Way to Get Through College #8:

I LOVE HER!

Be My Child: The Application Process

2011-04-14T22:03:00.000+03:00

I've been getting a lot of comments, emails, and even a few phone calls lately from people who would like to be my child. Now, as an opinionated and probably somewhat obnoxious girl of 16 or 17, I spent a large portion of my time declaring to the world that I would NEVER have children. (The rest of my time was occupied with researching Nero, my favorite Roman emperor, and preparing original monologues for play tryouts where I awkwardly insulted Oprah because I didn't realize high schoolers actually LIKE Oprah.)

I still find the concept of children mildly claustrophobic, but now and then I see an adorable little chubster with his hip mom at Intelligentsia, and I think to myself, “YOU ARE SUCH A POSER, HIP MOM!” and then I think to myself “That child better not spill his doppio macchiato on my new Louboutins—dammnit!” and then I think to myself “Aw, his morbidly obese cheeks are pretty cute,” and then I think to myself, “What would be so terrible about having a little kid running around to bake me cookies, foam milk for my cappuccinos, and tell me “Mommy, you look beautiful!” every time I ring a bell?”

But I am a woman of high standards, and I will not accept just any child. I need a truly exceptional child with a great work ethic, a charmingly rakish grin, and a finely-honed sense of personal style. If you'd like to apply to be my child, please read the guidelines below before submitting your application.

Can your cheeks accurately be described as “chubby,” “rosy,” “voluptuous,” or “squeezable”?

Can you bake the ideal chocolate chip cookie—thin, chewy, crispy around the edges, buttery, a little salty, and oozing with chocolate chips?

Are your hands small enough to fix the innards of a dying computer BUT strong enough to give great massages?

Can you commit to showing great artistic promise before your 4th birthday?

Do you solemnly swear that your artistic greatness will be in a different field than mine?

Do you have legitimate, personal connections in the world of literary adult publishing?

If an offer of employment is extended, can you commit to bringing the following on your first day of work?

A pair of Louboutin Dillian Flower Pumps, size 8, your choice of color
Anything Burberry, must have signature plaid clearly visible for status symbol purposes
A sachet of lavender potpourri including toenail clippings from Hugh Jackman, Scott Weiland, Adrian Brody, and Josh Ritter

If you answered YES to all of the above questions, please continue on to the WRITING SECTION. If you answered NO to any of the above questions, I'm terribly sorry, but you are not qualified to be my child.

Mommy is having a bad day. Come up with 5 compliments that will make her feel better.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Complete the following paragraph:

The sound of twittering bluebirds outside her window woke Tori from her dreamy slumber. She stretched, yawning _______ly, and opened her ______ eyes. A ________smile played across her ________ face. She tossed on a gown of finest rose-gold silk, which made her look absolutely _________ and ________________ and ___________________________________________. Her little boy/girl pattered into the room carrying a big tray of fresh __________ and said, "_____________________!"

Essay Prompt:

As Plutonious once said, a great mother is one who slaves over her children until her hands are chapped and raw, forever putting the needs of others above herself. Do you agree? Why or why not? Please respond in less than 500 words.

Thank you. Your application is being reviewed by the committee and you can expect a response within 4-5 months. Have a nice day.

First Holgas

2011-04-13T01:07:00.001+03:00