28 Jun
I’m remiss, again, in updating this here blog because I happen to be traversing the country on a train. Yes. That’s right. An Amtrak train. I know train travel doesn’t exactly scream glamorous jet setter, but it does have quite a few perks: you can bring more than three ounces of liquid, you don’t have to check your bags, and there’s minimal security (I’m not sure whether this should fall in the “pros” or “cons” column).
30 May
I have a Gmail folder for rejections. I systematically file away every rejected pitch and every job I’ve applied for and been rejected from. Essentially, everything that hasn’t gone my way is filed under rejections. I don’t find it depressing (most of the time). It’s life.
18 May
xojane.com has garnered quite a bit of buzz since its launch earlier this week, and it’s no wonder. Editor-in-chief Jane Pratt (of now-defunct Jane and Sassy fame) has long been known for pushing the envelope, and her latest incarnation of slightly smutty but highly self-aware snark is no exception. The site mixes a little pop culture (Pepto Bismo facial, anyone?) with subversive and shocking content to be “the place women go when they want to be selfish” or something. Um, hasn’t the Internet got the selfish thing down? (See Twitter and/or your (read: my) own self-titled blog).
5 May
March 18th, 2003 was the day the U.S. invaded Iraq. That evening, I went riding around Los Angeles in the back of a van and illegally putting up posters on bus stops and mailboxes. “It’s a globe, not an empire” they read beneath a large mother earth. Even then I wasn’t naive enough to believe Washington would listen. There was just an aching, urgent need to be heard.
13 Mar
Another spring, and another wedding season is upon us. I’ve attended my fair share of weddings, most of which have left me misty-eyed and temporarily less cynical about the possibility of everlasting love. This year, however, I find myself getting queasy about impeding nuptials, like I do when thinking about barely avoiding salmonella poisoning from sprouts at Jimmy John’s. I just don’t think I can sit through another set of vows and another round of conversations deconstructing the dress, the food, the centerpieces, the spectacularly bad decisions and divorce predictions.
So here’s a word of advice to all you happy couples: elope. I’m starting the trend.*
28 Feb
Just as I was getting pumped for the Oscars, I read this rather grim piece in GQ about the future of movies (or lack thereof). Despite the end-of-season Oscar contenders, Mark Harris writes that the film industry is dominated by blockbusters that turn a profit but offer little in the way of artistic integrity. Um, yeah. Writes Harris:
But the truth is that we’ll be back to summer—which seems to come sooner every year—in a heartbeat. And it’s hard to hold out much hope when you hear the words that one studio executive, who could have been speaking for all her kin, is ready to chisel onto Hollywood’s tombstone: “We don’t tell stories anymore.”
23 Feb
Dear Gentlemen,
I can imagine what you thought of me. Stupid yuppie chick sitting in Starbucks sipping her soy chai latte and checking Twitter on her MacBook. I’m certain I looked like just the type of gal that’s begging to get her iPhone stolen, didn’t I? Don’t worry. I’m getting “sucker” tattooed on my forehead tomorrow to make it easier for you in the future. I don’t know whether or not you reduced me to my stereotypes, but that’s certainly how I felt. You probably thought I was “nice” and would reach into my purse to donate to your nonexistent team, making it easy as pie for you to grab my phone on the table right out from under my nose. You were basically right.
24 Dec
Although I don’t celebrate the holiday, I take no offense when someone wishes me a Merry Christmas. Yes, I live in a secular society where there should be a complete separation of church and state, but if the cashier at the grocery store or a friendly neighbor wants to use the seasonal pleasantry, I don’t consider it insensitive or as a personal affront to my religious beliefs.
16 Nov
Wanting to write a novel is a curious human impulse. It’s right up there with procreating as one of those things I feel compelled to do, but can’t for the life of me explain why. I won’t get into the particulars of fiction writing because talking about it is like trying to hold cotton candy in your mouth for more than five seconds. It dissolves before you can grasp its texture, and its fleetingness is part of the fun. I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo not because I sincerely believe I can write a novel in a month. I’m doing it because I need to get this novel that’s been needling me out of my system, and I’m unemployed at the moment. “Working on my novel” at least gives me something to do.
26 Oct
As an avid reader, I took personal offense to Rick Gekoski’s lament about my generation’s lack of essential books . His basic indictment is that young whippersnappers — perhaps too obsessed with their Tumblrs and their Tweets — have failed to develop their own “literary culture.” Perhaps I could write him off as an aging curmudgeon who just doesn’t get kids today and so decided to wag a figure at an entire generation of illiterate degenerates who don’t absorb text beyond 140 characters.
