I just discovered that my website is featured in my favorite local paper! I always read Nell Boeschenstein’s column because we seem to share taste in all things internet, so I was thrilled to be mentioned. Thanks Nell!
I have to mention that I was at Court Square Tavern tonight when I picked up the C-Ville, and when I saw my name in print I experienced the simultaneous needs to throw up and to call my mother.
a) I spent an hour on a blog post last night, but it meandered from World War II to Britney Spears to T.C. Boyle and by the time I was done writing I realized that I had written about absolutely nothing.
b) Today I drove around town running errands with my windows open because it was so warm. Only at my third stoplight did I realize that I was blasting my audio book about porcupine sex. I’m sure it was thrilling for my fellow travelers.
c) The professor I work for reminded me today that in college I had emailed him some of my poetry. I was mortified. I recently reread these undergrad poems and they are raw, personal, and badly written - not exactly the glimpse into my subconscious that I want my employer to have taken.
d) I am afraid to post blog entries. I am afraid because I put my URL in the personal statement of my application to graduate school. What was I thinking? Now I will imagine my academic future hinging on each post. Learned professors might be sitting in front of their computers thinking, “Ew. Ballet porn? We don’t want this girl in our program.” My psychological helper person says that I’m a troublemaker. But isn’t that the kind of asshole everyone should want in a classroom?
e) I did not grow out my nails while the BBF was in Africa (I think his plane has taken off from the continent by now). But they are polished and well moisturized. My New Year’s resolution to partake in a nightly dessert of 50 sit-ups also failed, but that is nothing to be embarrassed about. I tend to lose weight while the BBF is away because when left to my own devices, I just consume red wine and chocolate for dinner. I worked at Ben & Jerry’s years ago and I lost weight then as well. All I ate was sample cups of ice cream and bananas meant for splits.
f) I’m not embarrassed about anything else. I actually feel pretty good. After two glasses of wine, I’m not even reluctant to admit that I watched Hot Rod with SNL’s Andy Samberg last night. I can’t wait for my boy to come home and return me to a healthy state of nightly vegetables, serious documentary films, and ideal companionship.
In my absence I have celebrated New Year’s with my favorite three-year-old, applied to a prestigious MFA program, driven to Georgia and back for a visit with my beleaguered grandmother, missed the BBF who is vacationing on the other end of the earth, and incurred $90 in overdue library fees (who knew the library had its own collection agency?).
Life will now be getting back to normal, and you can look forward to posts expounding my thoughts on what life is like for a barely-employed writer residing in the lion’s den of 2008. Or you can offer me a job.
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.
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.
Alternative name for this post–”Unfaithful doctor, I advise you to stop having an affair. Your wife is onto you.” Saw this ad on Charlottesville Craigslist this morning with the subject:
“I am a private investigator in Richmond and have been hired to identify the female drug representative who is having/had an affair with a married physician in the Charlottesville area between 2005 to present. This person may cover the Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Staunton, Harrisonburg and Waynesboro areas. The only information I have is that she has been a drug representative for many years with one of the larger drug companies.
Information I need: which companies work this area and which are the largest. Phone numbers of regional offices and names of managers. Names of physicians who have had improper relationships with pharmaceutical sales persons The names of any of the female reps who may provide me with information.”
Good luck, P.I. Since when do the good people of Charlottesville rat out their doctors? And since when does the Craigslist “Community” section conduct your investigations for you?
Squirrel, you did what you could.
We lost our power for three hours.
That’s five dozen trees
or the moon
or whatever they make power out of.
Now you are toast and there’s no one left
to torch SUVs
or blow up dams.
Perhaps another squirrel
will take your place.
I hope it’s the one
living in my attic.
He is noisy
and deserves to be arrested.
Tonight I found this website, which informed me that Darren Hoyt is “a name we all should know!” I totally agree, and that is why I have decided to publish my highly-anticipated interview with Darren Hoyt, captain of the web design blogosphere and my own buttered bun.
THE Q&A:
W- How did you get interested in web design?
D - I used to visit my Dad’s house in 1995 and play around with his Compuserve account. At the time there was a buzz about “alien autopsy” photos from Roswell that someone claimed to have published online. I was on Christmas break from college with nothing else to do, so I made a point of tracking down these photos. I finally met someone in a chat room who said he’d send me copies using whatever transfer protocol was around at the time. All I know is that it killed my dad’s 14.4 modem connection for the better part of a day. I finally found an actual web domain that promised the photos. This time it took three hours to load in the browser, and it was obvious no thinking person would mistake them for authentic. But I still stayed up til 3:00am anyway, watching a black-and-white JPG load one fragment at a time.
I used to read Trevor Moore’s Cuddy cartoon in the Daily Progress when he was in high school at Covenant and I was attending every other high school in Charlottesville in rapid succession. Cuddy was about a funny talking cow that always told me in the last panel to have a big crush on Trevor Moore. I’ve been seeing ads for Moore’s new IFC sketch comedy show The Whitest Kids You Know all over the internet. I was going to say something about IFC having a big advertising budget, but I have no idea what it costs to advertise on the internet. However I know how much it costs me to mistake an internet listing solicitation letter for an internet domain bill–$75! If I hadn’t retired “the mailbox” feature of my blog, you would be reading an entire post about this mistake. But here I am writing about Trevor Moore. My question is, has anyone seen this show? Do the Whitest Kids do stuff other than dress up like Hitler? I’m tired of the “Hitler being funny” joke, by the way. Trevor Moore, you are too good for that joke. Go back to the cute cow that tells me to send you anonymous love letters.
I guess The Hook totally did an article on this same subject last spring. I am going to start a rumor that The Hook has herpes. Don’t sleep with The Hook, Trevor. I love you Moore. [I thought you’d appreciate that little play on words since you’re in the comedy field.]
First draft
First person
Last chance