Monthly Archives: December 2007

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If Jesus hung out with me on Christmas, he would get so fat

He’d be like, “We ate an hour ago. It’s time to eat again. Where are the candied nuts?”

I’d be like, “Jesus, your pants are starting to look a little tight around the hips.”

“Shh,” he’d say. “We’ll talk about it after New Year’s. I’m going to buy a gym membership on the 2nd after I’m done purging.”

I’d put my eggnog down and hoist myself up from the couch long enough to see Jesus sneaking more molasses cookies in the kitchen. “But Jesus,” I’d say, “you are going to fall into a sugar coma.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he’d say. “Give me some more of your honey baked ham.”

Christmas wrap-up

My sister gave me the composter I wanted.

I am most brilliant when I’m sleepy

It was about 3 in the morning when I woke up with an exciting new perspective on human pollution. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be weird if people had special habitats for yawning and sneezing in the same way they have special habitats for peeing and defecating?” Like if someone was sitting at a dinner table and had to hiccup, she would have to excuse herself to the hiccup room and everyone would judge her if she didn’t wash her hands afterwards.

Cracking nuts

I’ve decided to take the GRE, so there. What are you doing with your life that’s so great? I’m studying basic algebra.

Originally this post was going to be about ballet. This afternoon I introduced a three-year-old girl to The Nutcracker with 1977 vintage Mikhail Baryshnikov (swoon!). Everything was going awesome until she asked me about the bump in the crotch region of his tights. I was honest with her, and she quickly moved on with her life, but for the rest of the ballet I watched Mikhail exclusively from the waist down and worried that I was actually showing her pornography instead of a nostalgic piece of my childhood.

What am I doing with my life?

What am I doing with my life? Someone please tell me.

Conversation on a walk with my grandfather yesterday

Grandfather: I have always been impressed with my mother’s managerial skills. Not only did she parent ten children, but she also managed a full household staff.

Me: I know! When I read older English novels, I’m reminded of those extra responsibilities of the family matriarch. Like right now I’m reading Middlemarch by George Eliot. . .

Grandfather: I’m reading Middlemarch too!

Later, walking up a steep hill. . .

Grandfather: I rode one of the first geared bikes 190 miles from Yale to visit a girlfriend at Bennington. Later she wrote me a Dear John letter, telling me she was becoming a Sacred Heart nun.

Me: A boy once drove 200 miles to see me in a car with a driver’s side window smashed in by the burglar who stole his car stereo the night before. There was burglar blood and window glass all over the seat and he arrived in a rainstorm. Later he told me he was gay.

How to survive in a small town when you have big city ambitions

I live in a small town where I also happened to be born a baby. I love Charlottesville, Virginia, and so do many respectable magazines, but it is still a small town. When you are young and ambitious, the well of opportunity can sometimes seem to run dry. Especially when you are the type of person who sits around waiting for business proposals and dance parties to come to you. As my dreams get bigger and bigger (bestselling author, Salman Rushdie’s girlfriend, millionaire mother of fifteen, non-nailbiter. . .), I have thought a lot about the limits of small town living. So here is my survival guide for ambitious people who aren’t ready to leave their small town, but who want to be more than mayor of the local bar.

-First, decide why you are still here. Here are the wrong reasons:

a) You are neurotic about leaving your house.

b) You don’t believe you can make it in a big city.

c) You hate ethnic diversity.

d) Someone is guilting you into sticking around.

e) You are afraid of terrorist attacks.

Read More →

It’s Noelle’s birthday today

I didn’t get her a present this year, because I’d have to send it to Barcelona and I am lazy. I also feel like I have a five-year grace period because of a priceless gift I gave her once. In 2003, when we were roommates in the capital city, I told her that I would clean her filthy bedroom for her birthday. I planned on doing a quick vacuum, a superficial scrub, and a light dusting, but she had other ideas. That December 17th morning she presented me with a three-page, typed agenda called the “Wistar Birthday Maid Cleaning List.” I saved the list as a permanent record of how wonderful I am and how high-maintenance Noelle is. When I look back on it now, I am glad that item #8 under the “Noelle’s Bedroom” heading – “Handwash undies and pirate top then hang dry” – is not crossed off. Here is the abbreviated cleaning list:

-Use the vacuum hose to get all the corners on the ceiling and in my bathroom to get any cobwebs, look thoroughly, use the hose to clean my yellow sofa taking off the pillows and getting in the cracks

-Dust everything with blue dusting cloths

-Fold and put away all clothing (Skirts get hung up, pants in bottom dresser drawer, long sleeve tops are hung up, short sleeve and tank are put in middle dresser drawer color coordinated, undies and bras in that soft hanging thing, coats and jackets in the closet)

-Get all mold off the shower

-Use bleach to clean the mold off the ceiling gently

-Clean toilet plunger and brush. Sanitize with bleach

-Vacuum the blue and orange sofa in the living room under the cushions to get out nastiness

-You’ll be responsible for sweeping living room and dining room after birthday party

-Clean out my toaster oven

-Responsible for mopping kitchen after party

I read the list, then I changed out of my sexy maid outfit and into my biohazard suit. I did my best to complete her tasks while she shouted further instructions to me while obsessively checking her MySpace account. I am the hero of this story, by the way.

I love you, Noelle, and I’m thrilled that you have a Spanish maid now so your friends don’t have to do your housework anymore. But you know I would still clean your pipes and your gutters anytime. Happy birthday, princesa!

Self-absorbed party wrap-up

I try to be charming at parties, and yet I always end up dry humping someone by the bar or threatening to steal a girl’s baby. I lose people’s jackets, I feed hyper kids too many cookies, and if certain friends haven’t arrived by a certain hour, I make angry, drunken phone calls demanding their presence. But the important thing is that I have a good time. I always manage to have a good time. I am glad that the party ended when it did though, because otherwise I might have proposed mooning cars or playing the fainting game and I would have weirded out my last remaining friends. I didn’t go to many parties in high school and college was no disco, so I think I am still stuck in that middle school party place, where you want everyone to overeat popcorn and candy, gossip about celebrity haircuts, take forbidden drags of cigarettes, and make a public nuisance. And then it’s one in the morning and your guests are bloated, drunk, or pregnant, and they all want to go home. I, on the other hand, want to keep hanging out and play Truth or Dare or Ouija Board, but instead I put all my Pepsi and vodka-induced energy into washing the party dishes and sweeping the floor while the bbf passes out watching The Goonies, and then I kiss him on the cheek and I can pretend we’re playing house in the 1980s.

Thanks to everyone who came to our party! If you didn’t get an invitation I promise it was an oversight or I think you smell bad.

Variety does not make up for bad taste

106.1 The Corner, you have been letting me down lately. I finally had to turn you off this afternoon when I heard the DJ say “acoustic Alice in Chains.”