I am surprised that my 300th blog post slipped by without anyone sending me chocolates or balloons. But I am equally, if not more, surprised that I unintentionally wrote my 300th blog post (according to my blog stats) about R.L. Stine writing 300 novels. Spooky, huh? What if this whole blog has been the first chapter of a horror novel? It only took us 300 pages to figure out something is hideously wrong.
I just finished watching Season 3 (the final season) of Veronica Mars. I would have watched that TV show until the lead actress Kristen Bell died of old age. I would have consumed every second of Veronica’s life until her funeral, and then I would have looked down and discovered that my own hands were all wrinkled around the remote control and my heartbeat had slowed to practically nothing and I was eating Jello in a nursing home.
Then I’d want to start Season One of my own life but the DVDs would be all scratched and time-damaged by then and anyway modern systems wouldn’t be able to play the discs due to changes in digital encoding. So apparently I’d spent my entire adult life watching someone else’s entire adult life episode-by-episode, but I wouldn’t totally regret it because Veronica was a cool and interesting person. She was a teenage detective - that’s so awesome. And while I watched her on TV, I was also a teenage detective solving crimes and helping people. But now I am accidentally an old lady and I’m burying Kristen Bell like someone will bury me soon, not long after I finish this cup of Jello.
So I don’t care if Veronica never knew my name. I don’t care if Logan Echolls was never my actual boyfriend. I followed every Mars moment. I dreamed her dreams. When Veronica solved a high school mystery, so did I. It makes sense that we would grow old and die together. If I weren’t so attached to my television set, I would throw myself into her grave.
Goodbye, Veronica. It was worth it.
Whenever I write a post for the Virginia Quarterly Review, a little voice in my head tells me that I’m neglecting my personal blog. So I come here to write, but then I realize that I blew my whole wad on the VQR. So I try to buy back my post, but the VQR is like, “No way. We love this post like our own child. Not even for a million dollars.” So I put away my million dollar bill, sigh deeply, and then pull something out of my butt to blog about on Onestarwatt.
Taser parties = “a growing US trend” according to the BBC. What else do the English think we do over here? First we’re “throwing tea” into the Boston Harbor, then we’re “invading Iraq” for no reason, then we’re listening to “rap music” and eating “McDonalds,” and now we’re apparently tasering each other Sex-and-the-City-style over martinis. Okay, England. You finally got us. Next thing you know we’ll have stars and stripes on our flag.
Caller: Hi, I’m calling for a sheep.
Sheep: This is a sheep.
The Writer House opens in Charlottesville! I am excited about joining a writing clubhouse situated next to the best bagel shop in town (coincidence?). Don’t worry, John Grisham. Someone will eventually tell you the clubhouse’s secret password.
Four Must-Read Books for Aspiring Writers, according to Chris Higgins at Mental Floss. More recommendations in the comment section. Incidentally, here are four must-write books for aspiring writers: 1) your first novel, 2) your second novel, 3) your third novel, and finally 4) your how-to book about writing.
That’s all I got. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be in the clubhouse. No poets allowed!
Even though I skipped R.L. Stine and went straight to Stephen King before I cut out the middlemen and just started murdering cheerleaders myself, it sounds like Stine gives good tea.
The Existential Diet
Excerpt from Chapter Two: The Very Hungry Caterpillar
I ate a banana. I ate it slowly, in small bites, folding down the stiff peel as I went. I let the fruit coat my gaseous stomach. I washed down each bite with cold tap water from a faded Burger King cup. The banana was the first thing I’d eaten all day. I was doing awesome.
I stood at the kitchen sink and stared through the window at the maple tree in my backyard. The tallest branches craned towards my back porch in the breeze. Rogue limbs perched unbidden over the railing. Two squirrels ran down the branches onto the deck where they ate scraps from old hamburger buns and bird food from the feeders I filled devoutly every week.
The maple branches were coming my way, stretching nearly into my house, grasping through my window in spite of the roots residing across the yard. The tree was invading my habitat, threatening to turn my colors with the season. What if the branches broke? Small twigs already scattered across the deck after every rainstorm. I wanted to kill the maple. I could dig a deep hole around its trunk and starve it out. I tapped on the window but only frightened the squirrels—I couldn’t spook the tree limbs.
Another piece of banana in my mouth. My teeth sunk into its supple fruit. I rolled the morsel across my tongue. Leafy shadows cut across my face, across the silver reflection of the sink faucet. I was beaten by shadow and vegetation and always by the oppressive daylight. I was crushed by the daylit world outside and by the illuminated leaves bridging the distance between the tallest trunk and my clumsy spine wrapped in cheese burritos.
The world could target me through the window. The tree could fall and plunge through my chest or take the food right out of my hands. I chewed my banana. I ate it and ate it. I swallowed it. I ate it until it was gone. I squeezed the peel in my hand like a rubber ball. I turned away from the window. My stomach fell into my bowels and I needed to shit and shit and shit.
I left the house in a hurry. I carried the peel with my keys to the car before I realized it was still in my hand. I threw the peel into a composted corner of my yard, where the spring ants could feed on its wealth.
The banana peel stood in the checkout line and used its VIP keychain card to get a forty-nine-cent discount on ponytail holders. The banana peel read the covers of the tabloid magazines while it waited in line. Which celebrities had plastic surgery? Which colors were fashionable for fall? The banana peel pulled back into the driveway and hauled its plastic shopping bags off the passenger seat. I sank into the forest of debris.
Makes me miss my people before they’re gone.
Makes we want to document more moments like this:
The bbf and I kick a blue rubber ball around the yard after his long day at work and my colossal afternoon nap. I collapse on the grass. “I’m exhausted from all this soccer,” I say. “I think I’m coming down with something.”
The bbf throws the ball at my head. “I think you have the trust fund flu.”
Gawker is compiling a guide to “New York’s modern eccentrics.” The list includes Mr. Purple:
Is Mr. Purple from the Upper West Side still around? I first saw him in 1978 on West 86th St. He wore flowing purple robes and a live boa constrictor wrapped around his neck and waist and he rode a purple bike…He asked my mother out on a date and she actually went.
This is so much better than Gawker Stalker. I don’t love the idea of turning potentially mentally ill people into pseudo-celebrities, but they’ve suffered for their craft a lot more than Sarah Jessica Parker has and they deserve the fame if they want it. Plus I expect that the internet attention will benefit them in some way. Maybe they’ll start blogs. Or write memoirs. Or maybe they’ll get laid by Gawker groupies:
The Earth Angel is a freak of nature who frequents the 6 train and various buses. He was written up in AM New York in early April. This guy gets on the train - with hair down to his ass - holding a folder in front of his face that he calls his forcefield. He claims to have been sent to Earth to find the angels - which, conveniently, are always hot chicks.
For some reason hipsters love crazy homeless people. I remember a man in D.C. who knew this and used it to his advantage. Every night he sat outside the Black Cat, an indie night club, and said “Black cat, black cat” on a monotone loop to the kids standing in line at rock shows. No one could resist him or the little change cup he shook. The man was a legend who made more money than I did. He may still reside in D.C., but I bet he’s retired to St. Tropez or Ibiza by now.
The story of the Black Cat Man teaches that if you’re homeless and you have style and a gimmick, you might as well capitalize on it. Maybe hipsters relate because they have style and gimmicks of their own. Is being homeless really so different from being in a band? Is being homeless really so different from living in a mansion? Is being schizophrenic and owning snakes really so different from seeing a therapist and breeding purebred dogs for Westminster? For the sake of my moral convenience, no. But the truth is I lost my train of thought halfway through that paragraph.
Monday - I considered committing an egregious act of email stalking. The boy thought he shook me and my obsession years ago when he graduated college and moved across the county, but no, I still Googled him the morning after he appeared in my dream. I assumed that he’d want to know about us hanging out in my sleep. Luckily my girlfriends talked me down from the ledge and I never wrote the email. Stop following me, dude. Please. Enough already.
Monday II - I’ve got news for you, Most Expensive Restaurant in Town. People still go number two in your bathroom. You can’t fight the Wendy’s Combo that Monsieur Fancypants ate for lunch.
Tuesday - A member of my writing group told me that my submission was a cross between Jeanette Winterson and Marguerite Duras. Normally I’d have felt flattered at the comparison, but I’d been overdosing on Marilynne Robinson that day and I didn’t want to be associated with lyrical writers. After a while their books just feel like metaphor abuse. Or worse - onanism. Or worse - masturbation of underage analogies. [Damn! I can’t contain my lyrical nature!]
Tuesday II - Man at coffee shop kept borrowing my pen, then giving it back, and then borrowing it again. I told him he should keep it but he said it wasn’t the right kind of pen.
Wednesday - Watched some handsome fellows raise a tent. For a wedding. But the other gawking ladies told me I was too late: “You just missed J___ taking off his shirt!” One of those ladies was my mom. Tried to help with wedding decorations and mangled a boxwood. Talked about it in therapy.
Thursday - Attended the Emily Couric Leadership Forum luncheon. This year Erin Gruwell, the Long Beach high school teacher who started Freedom Writers, won the grown-up woman award. A dozen senior girls from local high schools were honored with the young lady leadership awards. Kayla Hansen, a Miller School senior, won the $10,000 scholarship. But don’t get too excited - she’s probably going to blow it all on college.
I love that our community produces such an ambitious and accomplished group of girls every year. And I love that the Emily Couric Leadership Forum makes a big deal out of them. I’m not sure if I knew what volunteering was in high school. I was too busy writing cool stuff on my ripped jeans.
I wish there were a mentoring program where confident, overachieving high school girls could adopt 27-year-old Big Sisters who are experiencing doubts about the sustainability of their artistic lifestyles. I would totally throw a luncheon for that.
Thursday II - Newborns at rock shows - yea or nay? Blogging on the couch while everyone else, including newborns, attend rock show - yea or nay? A related question - do sweatpants really deserve their bad reputation?
And now my cousin’s crazy wedding weekend begins! For three days I plan to leech champagne and to embrace being the kind of wholesome dork who likes partying with her family most of all.
First draft
First person
Last chance