January 2009
33 posts
December 2008
41 posts
My Twin and I have started something we like to call Culture Club. Venice has this strange gravitational pull that makes it virtually impossible to go east of Lincoln Boulevard and keeps us floating in a stew of stale people who likewise don’t leave the Bubble and can only converse in gossip and disaffected looks.
“We’re growing stagnant!” we declared, and we...
realrealsoft:
…and the worst feeling in the world really is knowing that you feel something you shouldn’t, for someone you should have never met.
I am so cracked out from keeping the word factory assembly line running at maximum capacity that I just moved my cursor across the page and thought that when it went to the edge of the screen, it disappeared into my dog’s fur as she is lying on the couch next to my computer.
“Don’t say that! It reminds me of the time we went to see Twilight and it...”
– 15-year-old in Famima at lunch.
Last-minute, instant gifts
Just Give - pick from 1,000 charities to make a donation in someone’s name, or give a gift certificate so they can “shop” for their own.
Kiva Microloans - your recipient will redeem the gift certificate and lend the funds from the certificate to the entrepreneurs of their choice.
Both are far more satisfying than foisting an electric corkscrew or spice rack on someone.
Boss: Where is everyone?
Me: Not here.
Boss: Why?
Me: It's Christmas week. No one really works this week or the next.
Boss: Gee, why don't we just start Christmas after the 4th of July, then?
[I attempt to kill him with my eyes.]
I know it’s the most wonderful time of the year when my car starts making odd noises and/or my check engine light starts blazing. It’s a fun tradition we have. Christmas cheer officially arrived last week and today it’s time for me to give a man with a wrench several hundred dollars.
Of course it rained this morning, meaning my forced bike-to-work day became a wet pants...
Holiday 2008 | charity:water →
Need to give a gift to someone but don’t want them to actually get anything? Donate in their name. They can’t complain without looking like a horrible human being.
A Briny Luxury at $1.75 (Pearl Not Included) →
For Mary Roach fans.
A guy on the street at lunch asked whether I wanted to get lucky. I’m not sure if he was propositioning me or asking if I wanted to go in on a lottery ticket.
Running does not ask me to get coffee for clients or make superfluous copies. It doesn’t have commitment issues. It doesn’t raise my rent. Running doesn’t ask me to explain my jokes.
Which is why I’m looking forward to resuming my torrid love affair with it in a couple of weeks. My foot is almost allowing me to walk with a normal gait again and I have such a need for goal...
I had somewhat grand ambitions of photographing the giant stack of books I have in my “to read” pile for you and then talking about the book I’m almost done writing and how I’ve named a cat in that book after a person I know and how that person wants that cat to have a much larger role in the book which is ridiculous because what, the cat is supposed to foil a blackmail...
itsbedtime:
Hey, guys?
Just allow yourself to...
Like Mary-Kate Olsen without the style icon title...
I unapologetically dress like a homeless person at work. If you do not give me a dress code, I will not impose one upon myself. But I have taken it to new levels today: I just noticed I’ve brought in some of the pizza I ate last night on my sweatshirt and my pants have the remnants of the glob of yogurt that came flying out of the cup as I was coaxing its fruit from the bottom to the top...
'Call in gay' in Utah? You could be fired →
See? There’s nothing good coming out of this state. Nothing.
My parents are very torn up about the fact that my brother and I haven’t spoken since I was 14. The last time I was home, I finally broke it to them that no, I wasn’t “jealous” of someone who lived in their basement, in this wretched state, until he was 26.
Watchskeetonmischa:
Joel McHale on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien”
I want them to kiss.
I'm ready to leave the country
Or at least L.A.
I say this at least twice a month.
“Though the case has already been assigned to U.S. District Judge Ricardo M....”
– New York Times, 5 Blackwater Guards Charged with Manslaughter
I’m still waiting for something, anything positive to come out of Utah.
He made me do three shots of tequila at 5:30 in the afternoon. Well, they were half shots because I whined so loudly about not having engaged in such debauchery in several years. So really, it was one and a half shots, but enough for me to find the absolute worst music on his iPod and then do an impersonation of myself at 22.
Then I went back to being me at almost 30, eating my spicy green...
Op-Ed Contributor - The Real Bill Ayers →
“In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten...”
– Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Books I always give as gifts which subsequently...
Never Let Me Go: Kazuo Ishiguro
Tender is the Night: F. Scott Fitzgerald
The American Way of Death: Jessica Mitford
All mindblowers. My mind. I’ve gotten complaints that the lot is too dark. My response: jump off a bridge.
I braved the managed health care system yesterday to make sure my foot wasn’t splintering apart. It’s not taking kindly to things like “walking” or “allowing me to put my pants on one leg at a time for fear of falling over, whimpering”.
After waiting 45 minutes to see a doctor for 90 seconds, I was sent to the “imaging facility” two blocks away. ...
In my dream, I had been asked to write a true crime book that I wasn’t particularly invested in, but was supposed to be good for my career.
It came back from potential editors with notes like “Needs a happier ending!”
So my dream agent told me I should think about rewriting the ending.
“But it’s a true story. The guy’s still in prison and the person he...