January 2012
1 post
I haven’t posted in awhile because life is really fucking hard right now and most anything I write will be a ripped-open version of the pretty and positive and fragile container of self I try to hold in my hands at all times without breaking. To refrain from this, I’m keeping it in. Thanks for your messages about where I’ve been. I’ll be back.
December 2011
4 posts
I remembered the way this boy had kissed; gentle and slow, our lips and tongues just touching. Lovely one-note kisses. I liked those kisses, but I wanted other sorts, too: bruising, end-of-movie kisses, someone saved from a villain or shipwreck in the arms of another who suddenly realizes everything. Impolite kisses.
-Elizabeth McCracken, The Giant’s House
November 2011
21 posts
World full of winners
After this post was published, I received four emails from readers telling me about their experiences with obnoxious and awkward first dates. Three have given me permission to publish their stories.
Throughout dinner she spent a lot of time talking about her father, who she had only met once when she was fourteen. She was in school for social work and said she was there because of him. At one...
1 tag
Things Not To Say To Me On A First Date, Or Ever,...
“So, yeah, actually I’m in an open relationship. With a man. He’s a really great guy, but we’ve agreed to date other people and I don’t see him much…because of his line of work and all…he’s a prostitute. Sex worker. I’m actually fine with it…and I’m mostly straight…he’s my only exception.”
...
local kink
Yesterday I helped out a friend by volunteering for our amateur annual porn festival here in Seattle. Curiosity is my friend, but I must admit I was concerned I would suddenly see my favorite barista getting banged by a furry or that I’d have to witness penile electrolysis of one of my usual waiters or maybe one of my friends might have made a submission and I’d have to watch them in...
My mom took the family toy poodle to get his first...
Dalton: Ugh. He looks like a POODLE.
Mom: He is a poodle, sweetie.
Dalton: What? What are you talking about? He's a DOG, not a POODLE. Gross.
In 'Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short...
Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and...
mystery meat
Growing up in south Florida meant that I knew a lot of weird kids from weird families.
Florida is a strange place. It’s a melting pot of Hispanic and White and Cuban and Michigan and Ohio and Other. Extremely old and extremely young. Dirt poor and the 1%. All living together in one region but very segregated by class and race. Most of the kids I played with in my neighborhood were within a...
If you wear Uggs, you just don't give a good god...
For the cost of such a foot shitshow and your blatant disregard for style, you could own warm comfortable functional non-slip-soled boots that don’t look as if you are padding your way to the potty in the middle of the night. Those boxy chunks of suede and faux fluff are not cheap. Why shame yourself and disgust the rest of us? Stop using the excuse of “but they’re...
October 2011
27 posts
Walking down Broadway with Brittany, scoping out accessories for our Halloween costumes, discussing our relationships/breakups/employment status, deaths of our cats. I was looking up at the darkening sky.
Brittany said “Girl, from here on out things will only get better. It’s been a rough year of loss, but it can’t get any worse, you know?”
And then at that moment, a bird...
You can be incredibly talented and witty and...
.
and if you are that excited about handbags, we can’t even be friends.
Lee, I suppose if your friend with two ballsacks was alerting me to danger with regards to his carried items about to be set loose by a mechanical malfunction of his sack sacks, then yes, that would be the one exception.
“I once believed that life was a gift. I thought whatever I wanted I would someday possess. Is that greed, or only youth? Is it hope or stupidity? As far as I was concerned the future was a book I could write to suit myself, chapter after chapter of good fortune. All was right with the world, and my place in it was assured, or so I thought then. I had no idea that all stories unfold like...
what one year here has done to me
Me, Laguna Beach California, October 2010; temperature, 70 degrees fahrenheit: "Oh god! What happened? Where's my sweater? And my boots! Fuck it's cold."
Me, Seattle Washington, October 2011; temperature, 58 degrees fahrenheit: "Oh sweet! It's not raining! I can wear a dress today! And heels! What a gorgeous day."
love isn't supposed to be easy.
WatchFlorence Welch
Not Fade Away
Him: How was the housewarming extravaganza?
Me: Someone brought her dog. It pooped all over the floor and terrorized the cat.
Him: Now THAT'S a party.
Him: Sometimes my boss' dog poops on the showroom floor when clients are there. Trying to seal the deal whilst scooping up a turd: no professional handshake.
Me: They pay extra for that in certain countries.
Him: Customary poop seal deal?
Me: Poop seal.
Him: Deal.
