http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/ This is not that novel. en Copyright 2009 Thu, 28 May 2009 15:23:02 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Not dead. Just trying to catch my breath. http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/05/a_few_words.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/05/a_few_words.php Thu, 28 May 2009 15:23:02 -0500 It doesn't bode well for the day when the first thing you do is burn yourself on a pop tart. I mean, really burn yourself. I've actually got a small blister forming on the tip of my index finger. I don't know what kind of demonic, nuclear-powered toaster we've got going in the office kitchen, but I did not think it was possible to toast a cheap breakfast pastry to malicious temperatures. I stand corrected. This is in keeping with the theme of late, I suppose. Any minute now I'm hoping things will get back to a normal, only slightly fucked-up state. As it is, I'm still in limbo regarding all things related to the wallet incident, which means I'm still in limbo regarding all things related to my finances. Fun! I hope that bitch is enjoying her Old Navy sweatpants. Seriously, how do you spend a thousand dollars at Old Navy? Is that even possible? Accordingly to my credit card statements it is. A few acquaintences have cringed at the racist overtones in my telling of the wallet incident. I say, cringe away! I'm still cringing at the $3500 that whore racked up after looking me in the face and stealing my personal belongings. We can all cringe together at the unfortunate results of a pervasive urban culture which values designer handbags and rap music above dignity and education. I understand that assholes and degenerates come in all flavors, but I live in Philadelphia and ignorant Billy Bobs with more shotguns than teeth are not the problem here. When we finally move to Maine, for example, I'll spend all my time complaining about the immigration of middle-aged white liberals. Few demographics are as annoying as the white Woodstock generation; they had the gall to whine about Vietnam after their parents went through the Great Depression and WWII, and they've been whining every since. But I'll save the full text of my baby boomer rant for another time; suffice to say I do engage in affirmative action bitching, if you will. See what a good multicultipolicorrect doll I am? Now the question I'm pondering here is whether it's semantically accurate to describe a misanthrope as a racist, or a sexist, or an elitist, or anything else. I don't think you could leverage any such accusation, except to say a misanthrope is an equal-opportunity asshole. http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/03/it_doesnt_bode_well_for.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/03/it_doesnt_bode_well_for.php Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:22:01 -0500 On Valentine's Day, the Russian lover and I grabbed a beer around brunch time. We had no big plans, had just finished a morning of food shopping and figured we'd hole up at home for the rest of the day. We sat at the bar of a busy upscale establishment; I put my purse on a hook just in front of me and slightly to my right, and hung my coat over my purse. Fatefully, the Russian lover sat on my left. I didn't realize my wallet was gone for another eight hours, when I got a call from the police who had recovered it thanks to a wary shopkeeper. By then the damage was done, and the thieves had already helped themselves to about about a month's worth of my salary on a few debit and credit cards. I try to remain optimistic that I can recover at least most of that, while I dread the next few weeks of beaurocratic hassles. I remember which people did this. Their behavior inidicated that they are pros, and if I hadn't been so happy and worry-free that day, I might have been been suspicious enough to reach for my purse and clutch it to my chest. I don't care about black people's feelings anymore; not when it costs me thousands of dollars to give them the benefit of the doubt. I've worked hard for everything I have. I didn't have a baby and go on the government dime when I was 15; I got job after job and then I put myself through college with job after job. Instead of going out, I studied hard and earned scholarships. Now I have a decent job, so that the government can take a chunk of all that work and sacrifice every paycheck and give it to LaQueesha who had a baby at 15, then another at 17 and another at 19 and another at 23. And when that check isn't enough to buy her the things she doesn't need but thinks she deserves, LaQueesha gets together with her third babydaddy Jerome and his buddy Tyrell, and they get dressed up to go out and lift the wallet off a love-struck white girl. Then they take a cab all over town, and load up on cheap jewelry and Coach bags and Old Navy and pimpin' hats and drugstore lubricant. What's funny is that hardworking, well-educated black people are more offended that I look at them suspiciously and talk shit about their "sister" than they are that LaQueesha has decided to be a useless piece of trash and copiously reproduce with useless criminal thugs. What's funny is that we live in society where people will be up in arms when I call LaQueesha and her boyfriend niggers, but they will not be outraged that these niggers committed theft and fraud. Apparently saying the "n-word" is a bigger crime than any of the criminal acts comitted by these n-words. I have noticed that African immigrants don't have quite the same conflict of interest as decent black Americans; which is to say, they feel no need to have solidarity with people based on the color of their skin. There is a restaurant near us that always has valets standing outside; we often say hello and sometimes the Russian lover stops to chat. The valets are all African, and some of them are from a country he lived in for years as a boy. One day as they were all talking, a bum approached the group and said to one of the valets "Hey, brother, can you spare a dollar for a fellow black man?" The valet bristled, and in a thick Ivory Coast accent said to the man, "No. And let me tell you that I am black, and he is black" (he pointed to his fellow valet). "He" (pointing to the Russian lover) "is white. But you are not black. You are a nigger." The bum was too stunned to even protest. A man who was at least ten shades darker than he had not only dismissed him but completely disowned him. He stumbled off confused into the night. I remember being surprised myself when the Russian lover told me this story. And he was surprised that I was suprised to learn that many Africans despise many African-Americans. And then he asked me if I felt any kinship with white trash rednecks; I said no, of course not. They just happen to have the same skin color, but that doesn't mean anything. And he said, exactly. You are only as good as the worst behavior you are willing to defend; you are no better than what you refuse to renounce. http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/02/on_valentines_day_the_russian.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/02/on_valentines_day_the_russian.php Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:16:30 -0500 all expenses paid tropical vacation photo shoot is over, she flies home to her Hollywood boy toy, pricey urban loft, designer wardroble, and red carpet social calendar. In a few years, she'll retire from modeling with millions, and marry a billionaire. The self-righteous ladies need to admit it; they're just jealous they can't get a piece of that kind of degradation. ]]> http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/02/this_years_sports_illustrated.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/02/this_years_sports_illustrated.php Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:54:58 -0500 "I moved to this city to break into acting." (I will be on this restaurant's waitstaff indefinately.) "But what I'd really like to do is direct." (I'm an overpaid, marginally talented actress; soon I will be doing porn.) "Eventually, I plan to go into politics." (I plan to fail at everything else first; then I will foist myself on the apathetic populace as a capable public servant before fleeing in the wake of a scandal.) "I really want to model." (I don't realize how fat I am.) "I'm shopping my album to labels right now." (Don't be surprised when you see me still standing behind this bar in five years.) "I'm in art school studying photography." (I'm an over-indulged child with a camera.) "I'm a writer." (I have a blog.) http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/02/ambition_translated.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/02/ambition_translated.php Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:57:12 -0500 themselves. A few of my friends volunteered to try to teach me; I might as well have been a monkey groping around the back of my head for lice. Later, I had just as much success with blow dryers, curling irons, flat irons, velcro rollers, and bobby pins. And just recently, my hair dresser's assistant even commented that I was washing my hair incorrectly and creating a build-up of residue. Apparently, the only thing I can do right with my hair is brush it. And I'm too lazy to do that. Maybe I have a gene missing. The one that allows women to contort themseves in all manner of ways with all manner of tools to successfully assemble a hairstyle. This wouldn't be the only presumed gender-wide gene I've got missing, either. I also have never successfully completed a cartwheel. I know. Even today if I confess that to other women, they're all like "Seriously?" and then, if we're outside, they'll do one just to rub it in. "That? You can't do that? Even when you were a kid?" No. And you know what else? I never got past level one of Super Mario Brothers, either. Why, it's a miracle I survived to adulthood. Anyway, I feel bad about being a hair-do slacker and the un-made hair appointment I keep reminding myself to make and not making. I even feel guilty when I run into my hair dresser, knowing that I rolled out of bed that morning and walked out the door with my hair in the same ponytail that I slept in and my too-long bangs shoved back with a pair of sunglasses as a pathetic homage to a headband. At least I have not tried to cut my bangs myself; I think if I did she would file for divorce. ]]> http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/ive_been_a_slacker_again.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/ive_been_a_slacker_again.php Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:32:20 -0500 Living in a small urban apartment makes it impossible to acquire "stuff." Even if you wanted more "stuff," there is simply nowhere to put it. In any event, the rent on small urban apartments is such that there isn't all that much cash left over, after wining and dining and amusing yourself going out, to spend on bringing "stuff" back home. This might be why urbanites are credited with aquiring good taste. When you only have the closet space for two pairs of jeans instead of twenty, you're going to make sure you find the best damn jeans you can. There simply isn't any room for things you don't or can't use, and instead of filling a home with the cast-offs of trial and error, or tolerating the proliferation of mediocrity, you learn to come up with the best because you haven't got extra space for hanging on to the rest. The urban space crunch is most apparent when it comes to closets and kitchens. Ask any formerly co-habitating couple of young urban professionals why their relationship ended, and I guaruntee that whatever else contributed, the fighting over closet space was the final coffin nail. And the kitchen? Well, there is a reason most city-dwellers don't bother to cook if they can help it. To help suburbanites understand, picture yourselves in your home's half-bathroom. Now imagine whipping up dinner in a room that size. If that makes you feel a little cramped, imagine trying to store all of your kitchen equipment, appliances, and pantry goods in there with you. Uh-huh. Which is to say that you learn just what is actually necessary for cooking, and just how much you can do without. Those kitchen supply stores? Turns out they are not so much selling people helpful kitchen gadgets as they are selling people gadgets with which to fill up the excess of kitchen drawers and cabinets plaguing suburban McMansions. While we have no expendable storage in our apartment, the Russian lover and I still took the opportunity to stock up on Lennox wine glasses when the price was right. We prefer very over-sized wine glasses; perhaps because we prefer to put back a good amount of wine without feeling guilty about it, perhaps because in a small apartment you've got to super-size where you can. If you can't presently enjoy a sectional sofa or a king size bed, you can at least have extra-large bath towels and grandiose stemware. The largesse of our wine glasses does make them more vulnerable to destruction. However, we prided ourselves on not having broken a glass in over a year, between ourselves and several curious and clumsy cats, this was quite an accomplishment. But then, in the space of a week, we managed to break three of them. I broke the first, and managed to do so after an argument which left the Russian lover fuming in the other room. I was doing dishes (my preferred method of coping with a domestic disturbance) when my overzealous towel-drying resulted in the top of the glass breaking off the stem and falling on the floor to shatter spectacularly. This was unfortunate not only because I had broken a nice glass and sent sharp miniscule shards of it everywhere, I had also timed it in such a way that the Russian lover was bound to take it as a passive aggressive gesture for effect. He was nice enough not to mention if he thought so as he helped me sweep up the mess. The next two incidents were all the Russian lover's doing. Both times it was his flailing or reaching limb that sent a glass sailing off the table and splintering into a million bits on the floor. I simply helped him clean them up; it was inevitable that a few pieces of our holy-grail-sized stemware would meet an untimely end at our oft-distracted hands. And as we do with most things, we simply shrugged it off and noted the silver linings: We'd bought them on sale, and now we had that many more square inches of space on a shelf somewhere. http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/shattered_glasses.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/shattered_glasses.php Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:18:47 -0500 craving spicy foods. Pregnancy is definitively ruled out, and I am at a loss to explain why the girl who winced at too many cracked black peppercorns is now suddenly looking for excuses to add jalepenos to every recipe. Hot sauce, hot peppers, chili powder. I want to feel the burn, and I want to feel it just at the limit where the agony is exquisite. I did a google search to see if this portended anything other than being knocked up. Possibilities include: -My body thinks I might be pregnant; I'm harboring a phantom pregnancy (!?!) -I'm addicted to the endorphin release; I'm getting high. -I have bad circulation -I'm cold -My taste buds are starting to die off with age In any event, the internet tells me that I am not the only un-pregnant woman to go through a phase where all I want to consume is fire. I'm assured that this will probably pass before I reach the point where I have to buy hot peppers in bulk. Or I start bringing the jalepenos into the bedroom...those pricey KY "tingling" lotions? Got nothing on a 25 cent chili pepper. My palate isn't the only masochist.]]> http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/spice_up_your_life.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/spice_up_your_life.php Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:03:24 -0500 How will this cult of personality turn out? Stay tuned. "The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector." -Plato "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." -Plutarch "So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, the Caesars and Napoleons will arise to make them miserable." -Aldous Huxley "Communism and fascism or nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority." -James A. C. Brown "The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State." -Bertrand de Jouvenel "Government does not cause affluence. Citizens of totalitarian countries have plenty of government and nothing of anything else." -P. J. O'Rourke "At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to state this or that or the other, but it is "not done"... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals." -George Orwell http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/the_people_always_have_some.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/the_people_always_have_some.php Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:14:30 -0500 Some people are good storytellers, and some people have good stories. Rarely is one person a good storyteller with good stories. I've always been a pretty good storyteller. But I realized that all my stories are unexceptional recollections of an ordinary life, embellished in such a way that the telling becomes interesting. But the stories themselves? Pretty boring. The Russian lover, on the other hand, is a decent storyteller - he's never harbored any desire to be a writer, or even a cocktail party sensation. But his stories are absolutely incredible. And it's not just the cultural differences; he's had some truly extraordinary life experiences. Four years later, and he's still surprising me by recounting events that don't so much sound like something my boyfriend did at 19 as a scene from an upcoming 007 flick. The differences in our life stories can be illustrated by the following distillations: Me: Eventually, he was so drunk he just leaned over and threw up in my lap. Him: And on this particular jump, we were instructed to land directly on the surfaced submarine. It's harder than it sounds; I missed by a good meter. See what I mean? He could just tell the narrative of his existence in a dull monotone, leave out all the adjectives, adverbs, and exclamations, and he'd still have an audience enthralled. I understood early on that if I ever wanted anyone's attention at a party for more than a minute, I had two options: Flash them my boobs, or learn to embellish the mundane for effect. Those who become the best storytellers, I think, are often those who have the least to say. Good stories work like magic, because they are: They are something literally pulled from nothing-- a rabbit out of a hat, a shiny quarter from behind the listener's ear. http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/some_people_are_good_storytell.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/some_people_are_good_storytell.php Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:05:13 -0500 Vice Squad. Basically, it's COPS, but all the criminals are dealers, pimps, or prostitutes. I was half-watching an episode last night while I was getting dinner ready; in the first part of the show, police officers busted a hooker holding court in an Orlando hotel room. They gave her a riot act about condoms (she had plenty of them shoved in the bedside table's Gideon Bible) and harassed her about what appeared to be her appointment book. Although her profession was obvious, she denied any such behavior. The cops kept giving her shit, and all I could think was Why do we care? What do we care if a woman wants to charge a guy 100 bucks for a screw? What do we care if some guy is willing to pay it? People who condemn prostitution typically use arguments like "it's very dangerous and degrading for women." It's dangerous, you puritans, because it's illegal. So if a pimp, or some john with rage issues, flies at her with his fists or coldcocks her, she's got nowhere to go. If she's runs to the police, she'll be arrested for prostitution before she's even stopped bleeding from the head. We've labeled these women criminals, and that's why they wind up beaten or dead at the hands of brutes. And women with few options who are willing to consider prostitution are past the point where the illegality of something is going to deter them. And those that aren't destitute but do it just to make better money than they could elsewhere...well, they consider themselves successful entrepeneurs, not degraded women. It seems to me that a regulated industry would be the best solution for everyone. Hell, even the IRS would win in that scenario. It would take the teeth out of the pimps, and it would give a woman's industry back to the women. I don't know why the feminists aren't all over this one. (Actually, I do - but that's for another rant). Look, all women are prostitutes. The socially acceptable mating dance of civilized society is nothing more than a calculated exchange of goods and services. A woman lets a man buy her drinks, or a dinner, or several dinners, or a big f*cking diamond. Eventually, depending on what the woman considers her price point, a man's payout of money + time will get him sex. So why do we consider it so awful if a woman just coldly charges a stranger cash and cuts out the pageantry? Does it offend our inner romantics? Is it an uncomfortable reflection and reminder of the socio-economic undercurrents that influence our own idealized relationships? I have not met many intelligent, attractive young women who were willing to date a homeless bum. But what if I told you the homeless bum was bright, kind, and sufficiently healthy? And, women always say they love this, had a GREAT sense of humor? And was honest? He just couldn't, you know, invite you over to his place (unless you felt like sitting on a bench all night), take you out, or buy you anything, ever. Maybe a cup of coffee once and a while. What about that guy? Would you ever have sex with that guy? Your answer? No....or...sure...you know, as long as he got a job and got his life together and stuff. Exactly. No matter how naive and idealistic our inner romantic, we still need to be taken out to the Olive Garden, or something, before we're going to take a lover. And as I watch the faces of some guys on dates at restaurants, listening to a woman talk and talk and talk about nothing, I can imagine how much better of an evening they would probably both have if he just got up, slid her a twenty, and took her to the backseat of his car.]]> http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/theres_a_new_show_on.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/theres_a_new_show_on.php Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:36:14 -0500 If any of these Green Peace hacks with clipboards try to stop me on the the long walk home tonight to talk about global warming, so help me god I will punch them in the face with my stone-cold fist. http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/freezing.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/freezing.php Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:16:57 -0500 consumed occupied with building a home-made HDTV antenna out of a 2x4 and wire coathangers. The mere concept is not as disconcerting as the fact that the damn thing actually appears to work. He is now polishing up his handiwork and traipsing around the apartment with it, thirty foot cable in tow, hunting for optimum reception. When he's done with this, I'm going to hand him an empty soda can and a rubber band and ask him to build me a iPhone. Which reminds me to look into whether McGyver episodes are available on DVD yet.]]> http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/project.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/project.php Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:13:48 -0500 Would this bitch just die already. Every year it's: "Yeah! I'm healthy and fit and sexy!" Then it's: "Waaa, I'm fat!" I feel like this is just a circuitous orchestrated stunt in an effort to prove that billionaire women have problems too. She gets skinny - how inspiring for her overweight, middle-aged, mid-Western viewers! They can do it too! Then she gets fat - just like her overweight, middle-aged, mid-Western viewers. She understands their struggles! I don't think billionaires should be allowed to pretend they have problems. If you can't figure out how to have a damn near perfect life with a billion dollars, your ass deserves to be permanantly broke. http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/oprah_got_fat_again.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/oprah_got_fat_again.php Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:41:32 -0500 hey, I'm in a dream. And I remember that dreams have no limits and I can do whatever I want, and so the first thing I do is try to find some stranger to have dream sex with (must be working on all those years of teenage repression). I will spend a few minutes then running around my dream in horny circles, rejecting all the people I encounter in my dreams as not attractive enough for my fantasy romp. Recently, however, my lucid dream self remembered that in a dream, I don't have to find things that are already there with me. I can actually conjure things up. So my horny dream self really concentrated on creating a sexy stranger out of thin air. But it was like watching Harry Potter trying to work magic at school on year number 1. Instead of sexy, anonymous-elevator-make-out-session-worthy stranger, I got...well, icky bad-touch mustache stranger. Who had no otherwise discernable redeeming qualities that might make my dream self reconsider having a go. So I was veritably furrowing my brow in this dream, putting all of my energy into creating a suitable dream sex partner, only to find that the second I made something yummy materialize for a moment, my excitement to jump his bones caused him to turn back into sketchy mustache guy. The effort was so exhausting that I gave up, and slipped out of the lucidity altogether, unsatiated. Good thing I can wake up to the Russian lover.]]> http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/indreams.php http://www.sheswritinganovel.com/2009/01/indreams.php Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:38:52 -0500