100 people who are screwing up america

I don't know why The Times Book Review bothered reviewing it, but I guess it was a worthwhile enterprise for the sake of this:

The politicians in ''100 People'' were all elected, by constituencies small (Velella's State Senate district) or large (Jimmy Carter is No. 6). Who elected them? The face in the mirror, and in every other mirror of America. Similarly with all Goldberg's targets who sell movies, records or shares of stock. They have gained their prominence in the electorate of the marketplace. Goldberg acknowledges this point now and again, writing, for example, of the E! channel auteur Anna Nicole Smith (No. 53), ''Let's be perfectly honest: these people can only exist in a culture of voyeurs, a culture where there are enough people who actually care about this stuff.'' Who then is to blame? Shouldn't Goldberg's book be ''270 Million People Who Are Screwing Up America''?

bookworms beware!

"we don't want your love, just your acute sense of embarrassment"

I'm kicking myself for not having seen Vaughan's manifesto earlier. Amen! Amen! A- zzzzzzzzzzzzz

upon further examination of jason's photos...

...I remembered that this is a shot of Mike grinning at me while stroking his nipple. I guess we really are that lewd.

thank god for jason

Just when we start to worry that Shiv and Dom's wedding reception was nothing but this

and this


and this


and this


Jason comes along to save the day.


(click to enlarge)

new title bar

Inspired by Epcot's Body Wars. Seriously, what about that part.

sideways rain

I don't know why Jen calls her website "sideways rain," but it reminds me of two things - one, the only time I was ever in any weather system remotely resembling "severe" (it was a minor tornado) and the rain was horizontal, and two, crying so hard it feels like the pressure is going to make your head blow.

Today I was washing my hands in the work restroom next to Jen's crazy old boss. "YOU CUT YOUR HAIR," she said in her droll monotone. "NOW YOU LOOK LESS LIKE JEN." What?

A month or so ago, Jen and I treated ourselves to massages and were asked by the receptionist there whether we were twins. Twins! No, we said. "But sisters, yes?"

A simple side-by-side comparison will reveal that we look about as much like twins as Giselle Bundchen and a horse (guess who's which):

Something else different: she can write about anything on her website, and you feel privileged to read it. She can even write about the fights she has with her boyfriend, and it never sounds like she's self-pitying, or grandstanding, or being self-righteous. I have NEVER done that (though I occasionally leave sarcastic comments on his blog (my boyfriend's, not hers)). Jen can write about the stuff that makes you cry so hard you think the pressure is going to make your head blow, and when you read it you can't help but deeply empathize. I don't know how she does it.

I completely forget what, when I started writing this post, I intended the point to be. So I suppose I'll just end by saying ... Jen, give me a raise! I'm kidding, of course.

trying to scare the boyfriend

Bwa ha ha.

it's HOE-BUN

Today has me en route to Bath, which ties with Holborn as my least favorite word to say aloud in England.

I've been trying to own my accent on this trip, trying to steel myself against the urge to emulate English pronunciation as closely as possible without tending overly to seem like a badly cast actor.

Attempting (futilely, I might add) to blend in on prior holidays here was a completely ignoble pursuit on my part, as I self-importantly convinced myself I as good as resided in London (and moreover was as good as a resident, if you follow me). Interestingly enough it's in an effort to abandon my pretentiousness that I am trying not to try to make my accent inconspicuous (a circuitous route to virtue, to be sure). Still, when inquiring at the Paddington rail station information booth as to which platform I could find the Bath train, I was tempted just to hand over my ticket and say "Where?"

- - -

Being in London has so far been remarkably unexhilarating, by which I emphatically do not mean any detriment to the city - I'm just a bit surprised by my lack of butterflies. Or maybe "intrigued" is a better word - I'm trying to figure out whether it's because I already know a bit of London that I don't feel the thump in my stomach of being in a new place, or if it's because I live in New York now (am a New Yorker now?) and have a smaller capacity for awe (particularly of cities) as a result.

No verdict yet, but it hasn't prevented me from enjoying myself wholeheartedly. I did touristy things with other Americans for the first time ever in London, which reminded me that you don't have to travel alone to have a good time. You also don't have to be alone to make friends with the natives, though I think I was called "crass" fewer times during a summer here on my own that we were in a single afternoon.*

Tonight I reconnect with old friends. The full realization that it had been two years since these people came into my life hit me last night It's been too long since I've seen them last.

* Granted, we were only called it once.**
**And he was mostly kidding.***
*** And I think I actually was called crass once. So nevermind.

out of office auto-reply

Everything is coming together fortuitously. Almost too fortuitously. Little snags (I forgot to print out my e-ticket, I can't decide on the least bad way to get to Newark, I don't know how I'm going to make phone calls when I get to Heathrow) are smoothing themselves out (turns out I don't need my e-ticket, I'm taking a bus from the financial district, and fuck it I'll figure something out, respectively). Plus I got to spend a little time with Conrad earlier before he went to work and I started packing. Man I love that guy.

I love traveling (usually), and I can't wait to be in London. I'm better prepared for this trip than I was for either of my two holidays there, maybe understandably since they were a great deal lengthier, but it's still a bit of a relief. The most worrisome thing on my mind right now is whether I can bring few enough books and shoes to keep my duffel bag light.

In my absence ... what am I talking about, I'm always absent. In any case, check this out:

Gentrifried Rice

holy crap thank heaven

no title

I used to think of things I wanted to tell the whole world (like why I liked Diet Coke, or the fact that reggae almost always sucks) and then put them in my blog. Now I decide I want to write, and sit at the computer trying to think of something to publish.

This isn't an introspective. I'm just saying.

It's Saturday night and I'm home, taking shelter in my air conditioned bedroom, drinking Anchor Steam. The bottle sort of smells like butt (oh, I know butt when I smell it, believe you me). Stan and I went to see The Aristocrats tonight. There's a Bob Saget line you have to see to appreciate. Eddie Izzard was fucked up beyond belief. Funny people are funny.

We might go out again in a little while, but for now it's just me, the computer, and some good music I got from Stan last year. And the AC. And maybe some porn in a few minutes.

Today I did my semi-annual Friendster sign-on, which involves reading all the messages I've gotten, deleting all the shit from my profile I've decided is crap, thinking momentarily about replacing it but losing the energy, and sending friend requests to people that I fully expect to languish in their inboxes as they would in mine. I fucking hate online friend networks. Hey, remember Orkut?! Everyone's on myspace and shit now. Nuts, man.

I don't know why I (personally) don't like these sites. But hey, I'll take a stab at a guess! You can spend so much time browsing through them, and you're doing one of two things: pimping yourself up (perfecting your profile, uploading just the right photos) or trawling for people (because you're looking for hotties, because you want to see who's friends with whom, whatever). Both of which we do plenty of in real life, and with less selective self-promotional shit. Sure, we hype ourselves up plenty, but it doesn't quite parallel the selectivity of a couple thousand characters and six images.

All of which are just reasons I find it tiresome. But I'm disconnected from the media lives of most people in a lot of ways; I don't listen to the radio (much) or watch any TV, I essentially don't read blogs (horrible, regrettable, but sadly true), and I don't buy magazines. I'm basically Amish compared to everyone on my links page. So my opinion of these things (I'd seriously call them new-fangled if I hadn't been so into them at an earlier point) doesn't mean a hell of a lot.

I can feel quite strongly the slide into Becoming My Parents. Very few of their parenting methods do I think of in a harsh light, even the ones that crippled me later, like shutting me off from video games and cartoons (I can't overstate how many conversations I've been a pariah in as a result of these restrictions on my upbringing). Were I to inexplicably start liking children and get some perverse urge to have one of my own, I bet I'd be the mom forcing it outside to play with dirt (or whatever - kids are so weird) rather than park itself in from of the television.

It's the same impulse, I think, that and the distaste for online networks. Don't get my wrong, I have pleeeeeeenty of friends who use them, and I am VERY aware that I would scarcely HAVE friends, certainly in New York at least, were it not for the internet. I might (might) project my feelings about this stuff onto offspring, but no one else.

Plus, like I said, I can kill time on Friendster like anyone, when the mood strikes. Hell, I'm waiting for five friend confirmations now, and I might even check on them occasionally. So yeah, I'm not trying to moralize. Again - I'm just saying.

Also, don't forget about Bob Saget. So funny.

oh for god's sake

Last night I had about the most perverse dream I have ever had. I will never tell anyone, but ANYONE, what happened in it. If I'd been able to sleep right on through after it ended, I probably wouldn't be sitting here in shock, but I was woken up in the middle of it (rogue co-worker ... must remember to kill) so it's firmly imprinted in my head. This might be the image that drives me over the edge someday. Aaaahhhhh.

Between the wrong, wrong, wrong things that happened in my head last night, and the sudden wrenching of my brain out of unconsciousness, I feel pretty odd - deeply disturbed, frustrated, over-tired and yet irreversibly awake all at once. How is one human brain capable of producing such horrifying concepts, as the ones in my dream? Once again I offer my strange, strage mind to the scientific world for study, and this time not for having done something unfathomably dumb.

Ha, ha, my alarm just went off! Hahaha, I sure don't need that! Heavens!

Last night, His Royal Out-of-townness finally returned home, and because the airline cancelled his flight and put him on a later one, I wasn't able to go pick him up. I should have anyway. What's two or three hours less sleep when you get to see one of your very best friends for the first time in AGES and you can spill to one another everything good and everything frustrating about your lives since you'd been apart? Man, I should have gone. I'm sorry, Chris.

One of the many, many reasons I'm glad to have Chris back in town is that I'm not having the best summer (it's August 9 now, I need to accept it) (or to put it more optimistically, or pessimistically, depending on your view, this summer is fulfilling its role as The Bad Part Of The Year, Except For 2003). Having Chris back at home will jumpstart this stupid season out of lameness. (FYI, peachpie, I plan to lobby very competitively for your time henceforth.) With him as my emotional Gatorade, I will be much better positioned to be gleefully happy, as one should be, come next week and the major event of the summer, Shiv's overseas wedding.

So I'm counting the minutes until I can see him tonight. But until then, it's dirty, dirty thoughts (not the good kind) and exhaustion. Aargghhh ... and other frustrated utterances.

ode to duane reade

This entry contains information about me and my health that you might not want to know. Proceed with caution.