April, 2008

  1. Today, I

    April 13, 2008 by admin

    1. Sweated. We are currently having a heat wave and it is 90 degrees Fahrenheit, which, in Celsius, translates to fucking hot. Now, I realize that this is where all of you Canadian-types are going to tell me to shut my mouth because it snowed today, but, honestly, I almost would prefer the cold at this point. At least I would get to wear a fabulous coat, likely a floor-length, blue velvet one.

    2. Went all the way to Silver Lake for coffee. This is not rational behaviour for several reasons. Firstly, it takes at least an hour of traveling eastwards on the bus to get to Silver Lake. Secondly, as one travels east in Los Angeles, it gets noticeably hotter because you are moving away from the ocean and basically into the desert. Thirdly, coffee? Today? During a heatwave? Apparently, yes. But let me tell you – that cappuccino from Intelligentsia was pretty much the most delicious thing I have ever consumed. I tried to describe it to Sam and the best I could come up with was “It doesn’t even taste like coffee – it tastes like . . . love. And candy.” And this was just a cappuccino. Plain. No sugar, nothing. I have a bag of Black Cat at home, but I cannot reproduce whatever fucking magic those hipster baristas are channeling. So an hour of bus into the desert was worth it because that coffee is probably made with the secret involvement of unicorns.

    3. Decided that I need to stop being so bitter. This past week, I have been kind of unreasonably angry about everything that ever happened with that guy, and I need to stop. I need to stop because it is probably aging me prematurely, and is definitely giving me a stiff neck, and he is really, really not worth being angry over because he will get his when he dies alone, with only his collection of Guitar Hero controllers for company, because he has alienated everyone in his life. It felt really good to say that just now, actually, even though it was a mean and horrible thing to say. Maybe I need to start saying things like that and then maybe I will be less angry. I don’t even know why I’m angry right now. I wasn’t angry for weeks and now I’m just filled with immeasurable amounts of rage. I need to, like, sleep with somebody, somebody who’s not him, as a cleansing ritual. But at any rate, I’m tired of being angry and bitter. It was fun and constructive for a while, but has ceased to be so.

    4. Found an amazing, amazing dress at Ragg Mopp vintage in Silver Lake – 50′s, really good condition (well, it was missing one shoulder pad, but seriously, who wears shoulder pads?), brown, in a shiny brushed cotton, with amazing bias-cut stripey detailing. Maybe I will model it and post pictures, because it’s truly wonderful.

    Oh, and in case you missed it/don’t obsessively check Flickr, yesterday I found an important historical document.


  2. So, apparently any time I need an ego boost, I should just go shopping at Target.

    April 11, 2008 by admin

    Words of wisdom, courtesy of the same security guard as last time:

    “Excuse me, miss, could you come over here? Now, with those shoes and those amazing glasses, you have no business walking with your head down. You put your chin up and you walk like you are here, like you have arrived. And if anybody gives you any trouble, you send them to me. Where did you get those shoes? Those are fantastic.”

    And why were we at Target today? To pick up a limited edition copy of Funplex, but of course.

    And then afterwards Sam and I cooked delicious food and mixed French 75s (now also known as “The Fastest Route to Drunkenness Before 10:00 PM”) and watched terrible science fiction and then ate donuts.

    And then I came home and saw this! And that’s hilarious.

    All in all, a pretty good night.


  3. Currently Excited About:

    April 11, 2008 by admin

    1. Moving to West Hollywood at the end of June! We will have the most funnest apartment ever. And a wonderful time shall be had decorating.

    2. Going to the L.A. Times Festival of Books and finding a celebrity author boyfriend!

    3. The following now-defunct musical groups, whose albums I bought the other day because class was canceled so I went record shopping: The Ace of Cups (whom I would describe as: The Doors, if The Doors weren’t awful and were instead a 1960s girl group), The Box Tops (lead singer Alex Chilton being my current old-man-crush), and Cadallaca (good if you’re jonesing for some Sleater-Kinney).


  4. Georg Simmel, I remain unconvinced.

    April 10, 2008 by admin

    Is it just me, or is Simmel (whose contributions to Western philosophy I encountered for the first time this afternoon), really just justifying being a hipster?

    “There is perhaps no psychic phenomenon which has been so unconditionally reserved to the metropolis as has the blasé attitude. The blasé attitude results first from the rapidly changing and closely compressed contrasting stimulations of the nerves. From this, the enhancement of metropolitan intellectuality, also, seems originally to stem. Therefore, stupid people who are not intellectually alive in the first place usually are not exactly blasé. A life in boundless pursuit of pleasure makes one blasé because it agitates the nerves to their strongest reactivity for such a long time that they finally cease to react at all. In the same way, through the rapidity and contradictoriness of their changes, more harmless impressions force such violent responses, tearing the nerves so brutally hither and thither that their last reserves of strength are spent; and if one remains in the same milieu they have no time to gather new strength. An incapacity thus emerges to react to new sensations with the appropriate energy. This constitutes that blasé attitude which, in fact, every metropolitan child shows when compared with children of quieter and less changeable milieus.”

    Like, hipsters can’t help being blasé. The boundless pursuit of pleasure will do that to you. Gosh. It’s part of being intellectually alive, and, you know, better than everyone else. It’s not their fault they can’t react to new sensations with the appropriate energy.

    (Please note that while I have some admittedly hipsterish tendencies – ie: I enjoy vintage clothing, own a pair of Chuck Taylors, unsuccessfully dated a hipster for a while, and occasionally read Juxtapoz – I am exempt from ever being a hipster because I am too fat to wear most American Apparel products and too busy attempting to relive 1992-1996 to successfully know about bands before anybody else does. Therefore I am allowed to make fun of hipsters. It is my right as a hipster manqué.)


  5. And . . . I accidentally just wrote another paper about sex.

    April 9, 2008 by admin

    I swear to god, one day I’ll write a paper in which a bunch of piano pieces about a nice time in the forest are really just a bunch of piano pieces about a nice time in the forest, and aren’t about the masculine subject losing his virginity by penetrating the dark mysteries of feminized nature. Today is not that day.


  6. I am in a foul mood.

    April 8, 2008 by admin

    You would think that I would not be in a foul mood because I am wearing my peacock cardigan, which is usually enough to ward off any foul moods, but today, even my peacock cardigan just isn’t cutting it.

    Reasons I am in a foul mood include:

    1. My dishwasher doesn’t wash my dishes. My dishwasher makes my dishes come out dirtier. Dishwasher, what is the point of your existence? To drum up my hopes that maybe, this time, you will clean my dishes, which, as your name suggests, is supposed to be your job, only to dash my hopes by providing me with plates and glasses that are covered in a fine mist of damp crud?

    2. I forgot to bring my yoga mat to yoga class and was just going to buck up and use one of the communal yoga mats they have in the room at the gym, only for some reason they removed all of the yoga mats from the room and if you want to use one you have to check one out at the front desk but there were too many people running around being annoying so I didn’t even bother and just came home because I have a headache anyhow.

    3. I have had a headache for the past three days. Do you know what happened to Bette Davis in Dark Victory? She had a headache. It turned out to be a brain fybroidy-tumor-thingy. They removed it. And then it came back and she died anyways. Jesus Christ.

    As a result of my foul mood, I have decided that tomorrow night I am taking the evening off. I am going to buy a bottle of cheap bubbly after class and I am going to mix French 75s and I am going to watch Cat-Women of the Moon.


  7. Genius strikes again!

    April 7, 2008 by admin

    I don’t know why this was not painfully obvious to me when I first decided to do a major research project on the beehive in popular music, but clearly, as I work on this project over the course of the summer, I will have to grow my hair into a beehive of my very own, in order to gain a better understanding of my subject matter. I probably need to start immediately. As of right now, I am officially growing my hair out for beehive research purposes.

    Also, it may help me recruit some cute rockabilly boys into my Retinue of Gentlemen Callers.


  8. Retinue!

    April 6, 2008 by admin

    A herd of cows, a flock of sheep, a murder of crows, a retinue of Gentlemen Callers. Clearly that is the appropriate term. And that’s what I want. A retinue of Gentlemen Callers.

    And clearly I have been thinking about this all night.


  9. Currently accepting applications

    April 5, 2008 by admin

    I have decided that rather than a boyfriend, what I would like is a number of dashing Gentleman Callers. I think five or six would be an appropriate and manageable number for a charming Lady-About-Town like myself. I am currently accepting applications. Last night when I stopped at the newsstand to pick up a magazine on the way home, the Cute Newsstand Boy bowed (seriously) and said “Farewell! And have an inspirational evening!” which is excellent behaviour for a Gentleman Caller, so I may offer him a position.

    Um, also…Tanya said my life resembled the plotline of a Jeffrey Brown graphic novel (ie: an endless cycle of depression and despair), so I made a webcomic.


  10. No more France!

    April 3, 2008 by admin

    I’m done! I’m done! I’m done writing the most aggravating paper of my academic career! It’s full of leaps of logic and specious conclusions, but it’s done! How it managed to expand from my goal-length of fifteen pages to a whopping twenty-two I will never quite understand, but it’s done! And I am never going to think about France ever again, except for in the context of good cheeses and fine wines. Oh, and sometimes mimes.