kiss me, i'm done

The other day, I made a note to myself regarding something about which I desired to blog, put the note aside (well, the note was on my computer, so I didn't literally push the note laterally across my desk and under my pewter paperweight), and forgot about it.

About ten minutes ago, I thought I might catch up on my blogging, so I went searching for this note, and found in my email outbox many such abandoned blogging notes (one might call them "Eudora abortions"), dating as far back as September.

So now, I shall proceed to catch up on my blogging in one fell swoop. These are all the things that happened to me in the past six months that were sort of important enough to tell you about at the time, but not so much, really. Here goes...

• Note to self after buying cool leather-covered thermos for father for Christmas: Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones, and those who suck at gift wrapping should stop buying people cylindrical gifts.
  
  
• I saw a girl on the subway platform with a hearing aid, which was that unattractive sort of band-aid color. Kind of ruined whatever hotgirlishness she may otherwise have had going on. But then, on the train, I saw a kind of dorky guy wearing a really cool cell phone earpiece. It was black and silver and made him look important, even though you can't talk on a cellphone on the train in Manhattan. And then I thought, why don't they make hearing aids look like cellphone earpieces? Instead of trying to hide it, make it hot pink or black and glue some fucking rhinestones to it. If you got it, honey, might as well decorate it.
  
  
• My cat jumped on top of the fridge! That's really high!
  
  
• I normally would sooner stab myself in the trachea with a fork than attend a poetry reading, but my best-friend-from-high-school Maureen released her new chapbook on her birthday, so I clearly had to attend the party. And, of course, I adore Maureen herself. So the idea of having to attend a Maureenish poetry reading provides the same sort of cognitive dissonance as if I had to attend, say, a flower show (bad) in celebration of Jon Stewart (good!) Or if someone gave me some really tasty butter pecan Hitler-brand ice cream. Turns out, though, Maureen was fabulous at reading (and writing) poetry, so much so that you could barely tell that she was reading poetry. It was just like she was talking much more compactly than everyone else.
  
  
• At a fashion show, I was having my hair done when the stylist asked another stylist "Do you have any hair bands?" "Hair bands?" the woman replied. "Yeah," said my stylist. "You know, like Motley Crue or Poison?"
  
  
• As part of my job, I sometimes take the SAT. I have finally gotten a 1600. It would have been more useful a decade ago, but I'll take "perfect" any time it comes around. (Maybe I didn't blog about this when it happened because it was too boasty, but now that it's older news and it's sandwiched between trivial acts of reportage, it has ventured over the line into okay).
  
  
• My best friend Molly commented over coffee that my "eyeshadow skills" have improved since we've known each other. I did not know what to make of this compliment. I haven't been trying particularly hard, but I suppose one must pick something up from having professionals poke and prod at you over time.
  
  
• I recently taught an SAT class on television as part of an MSNBC feature on the new SAT. I still haven't seen this broadcast. They filmed me teaching the essay writing part; I was disappointed that they didn't get me doing some terribly complicated math problem, like the one where a pentagonal swimming pool is divided into seven regions of equal volume and then filled 37% full, the width of the swimming pool at its widest point is z, depth of the swimming pool is z cubed, there's a multivariable function that determines the rate at which the swimming pool drains, and then I deliver the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
  
  
• I'm reading Susan Sontag's "Regarding the Pain of Others," which is a much easier read than the seminal "On Photography." Is the pain of others somehow more comprehensible than the art of photography, or did Sontag merely become less abstruse with old age?
  
  
• As part of a report for my fiction class on publications that buy erotic fiction, I recently had the pleasure of going into a bodega in Brooklyn and purchasing both True Romance and Hustler magazines. I didn't discover until I arrived home that Hustler came with a free DVD! I mean, it's probably a promo for full-length DVDs purchasable from hustler.com, but still. I wonder where I put that. (Guess what someone's getting in their Christmas stocking!)
  
  
• My favorite color is celery. Just FYI.
  
  
• The Word a Day I get in my email has been lame for about the last five years, but the other day they sent "tribology," defined as "The study of interacting surfaces in relative motion and associated issues, such as friction, lubrication, and wear."
  
  
• I performed in The Smut Show at Galapagos in Williamsburg, on a bill with performance artist (and former Mr. Lower East Side) Neal Medlyn. Neal was funny at first, with a sort of gross striptease wherein it was revealed that, under his clothes, Neal was covered in Band-Aids. Then, ultimately, it was revealed that under his tighty-whities, his asscheeks were taped together with Band-Aids. After that it got really, really long, Molly wanted to go, and I was hard-pressed to muster an argument against it.
  
  
• I spent two hours rolling around in fallen autumn leaves in the freezing cold in a cemetary in Sleepy Hollow for a photoshoot. Reminder to self: roll around in fallen leaves sometime when it's warmer and more clothes may be worn.
  
  
• From my friend Ken, on the question of whether homeless people can register to vote: Most states have rules that all that one is required to identify for voter registration is your place of residence, which can be a non-traditional address, such as "the bench at the corner of 9th and Main," and a mailing address, which can be a post office's "general delivery" address. The main problem for homeless people is potentially the need to register every year, as most states purge their records annually based on the voter registration cards mailed and returned as non-deliverable.
  
  
• From Craigslist, Screw You, Iced Soy Mocha Moron
  
  
• Awhile ago, the MTA published the winners of their children's subway poetry contest in the ad space inside the cars. One poem, the middle school winner's, had a couple of really nice lines: "I am charmed by silver/trains slithering like snakes/in dark-pitted dens." It went downhill from there, but, hey, not bad for an eighth grader.
  
  
• My dad sent me this joke a long time ago and it's still funny.

  Why did the zombie baby cross the road?
  
  To wreak an unholy vengeance upon the driver of the car who's standing there, scratching his head, trying to figure out how a zombie baby's head can be beneath his car tires but the rest of the body is nowhere to be seen-- unless he were to turn around and notice the zombie baby body bearing down on him, coming ever closer, ready with grasping, pudgy zombie baby fingers to tear and rend at the flesh of this self-same driver who ran his head over, on the dark and rain-swept road that snakes down from the castle of the madman who's creating an army of zombie babies to do his dark, libidinal bidding.

• I am often charmed by the misusages of English I encounter in Spanish Harlem. One Mexican restaurant advertises its Huevos Mexicanos as "Eggs with Mexican Style" (the "with" being the extraneous bit), which makes it sound like the eggs are dancing or dressing well. Also, the woman at my laundry place spells my name "Jennyfer," which is too cute for cuteness itself.
  
  
• I really like looking at pictures of midgets. Also Russian mail-order amputee brides. Here are some Amish midgets, and midgets on bikes.
  
  
• I Heart Huckabees was really enjoyable, in a senseless faux-philosophy kind of way. It might be fun to go see it with a dumb person and see if they try to act smart by pretending the movie makes any coherent sense. Also, Jason Schwartzman has gotten kind of hot. Jude Law has always been hot.
  
  
• So, I have a profile on this modeling site, and I get all kinds of mail through it, from ligitimate jobs to casual compliments to casting calls for things I do not do. This has got to be the weirdest thing I've received:

  I discovered your portfolio and absolutely LOVED your work there!! We are [deleted], a family-owned company creating fun tickle videos. We're currently seeking new faces and models with an edge for paid shoots with us. Alot of fun and a TON of laughs, our shoots make for great side work or between larger projects. No sex ever, no nudity required. I would be interested in booking with you and am happy to send over additional information.

  My favorite part is that they're a "family-owned company." (Dude, what the fuck is wrong with your family?)
  
  
• I think large swaths of our generation are demoralized -- even if they don't know it -- by the intangibility of most of our labor. We need to make more things. It's healthy. Good, solid physical labor combats moroseness. I mean, what have I ever made, exactly? Scarves? Scarves. Out of yarn. That is fucking lame. In high school, I wanted to take masonry, but it was a half-day vocational program that was incompatible with taking classes for college. But maybe if all the pansy-ass college prep kids had developed some kind of backup skill (like, say, I don't know, CONSTRUCTING THINGS FROM BRICKS), half my generation wouldn't still be living with their parents like weenie retards. Thank you.
  
  
• A gentleman friend and I wanted to hand out Valentines (the kiddie kind that come in perforated sheets) at a party, but couldn't find any Valentines to buy that didn't have Shrek or Dora the Explorer or some kind of character on them. I eventually picked up some Strawberry Shortcake ones, which at least was a character from our generation. Someone pretty much has to stamp Nike logos on orphans before I start decrying commercialism in general, but, come on, what's wrong with some plain pink hearts? Dora can go shrek herself.
  
  
• Did you know that the Puritans used to name their children my opening up the Bible and picking whatever words their fingers landed on first? If you ever wondered about Increase Mather in history class, that's what was up.