it’s a cold and rainy day, but my heart is coated in toasted coconut and powdered sugar

December 7, 2004

My birthday was great; thanks, everyone, for all the emails and general pleasantness.

Totally unrelatedly, on a recent trip to Chinatown, I noticed that the “Mall of Great Wall” had been renamed “Great Wall City.” You can see that the “City” part of the sign is new; it’s a slightly different shade of red.

I laughed rather delightfully when I first spied the “Mall of Great Wall,” and then came to love the rather charming name of the place, although an Asian friend of mine found it generally embarassing on behalf of all Asians everywhere.

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Whatever happened to Monrovia van Hoose?

December 6, 2004

When I was in high school, I was, to put it mildly, something of a high-profile individual. I was the “teen columnist” in the newspaper, so everybody’s parents knew who I was. I was class president one year, and I was just kind of known for various campaigns of smug, vociferous, geeky mayhem.

One day in high school, the principal called me to his office. He wanted to question me about a letter I had written pseudonymously to the administration. I had no idea what he was talking about. He showed me the letter, which was a well-written complaint that the school wasn’t doing anything for Women’s History Month.

I read the letter. “I wish I had written this!” I told the principal. “But I didn’t.” The letter was signed “Monrovia van Hoose.” The principal had seen this somewhat ridiculous name and assumed it was a pen name I had adopted for protest purposes.

Turns out, Monvoria van Hoose was a real girl at our school. She had red dredlocks with pop-tops embedded into them, and she and her girlfriend were the only out lesbians in the whole school (they were both rather physically intimidating, and the girlfriend was kind of a scary goth, so I think they did okay).

Apparently I had such a reputation that, upon receiving this letter, the principal immediately thought of me instead of bothering to look up the name on the roster of students.

I remembered this story today and thought to Google Monrovia and see what she was up to. Turns out she likes Le Tigre, has read letters from her death row pen pal at an anti-death penalty rally, and is selling an unwanted cemetary plot.

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | 3 Comments | | Email This Post Email This Post

It’s my birthday!

December 6, 2004

I just had some birthday French toast.

Directly prior to my birthday, I saw House of Flying Daggers. I adored the movie, but was annoyed at the rest of the audience for laughing at inappropriate moments. I think you have to be accustomed to epic Asian melodrama. The fight scenes were stunning. This movie kicked the ass of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

My mom writes, “I’m sending you a check for your birthday. You can pick out something that you would like, that I couldn’t pick up for you. Like bras, jeans or g-strings. These all need to fit just right.”

And finally, concordant with my birthday, my CD is now available on iTunes! It has little sample sound clips!

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

that banjo guy was freaky flexible

December 4, 2004

Schaffer the Dark Lord has reviewed me:

Jen returned this month to deliver the goods to a very hungry crowd. Jen reads her written works over slinky, jazzy musical numbers. One of her pieces this month revolved around a phony ad she had placed on Craig’s List. In her ad, Jen claimed to be an ugly woman seeking no-strings sex. Her piece was a reading of some of the responses she received from NY area men, stepping up to her challenge. Oh the humanity! Although not a bit surprised by the content of these pathetic, often graphic emails, I am surprised that I share a common chromosome with these would-be suitors.

Adira Amram is my new girlfriend. I really wish she would put up some MP3s so I can listen to them while I eat Pixie sticks.

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | 2 Comments | | Email This Post Email This Post

Oh Jen, it’s so … discular!

December 4, 2004

Just in time for my birthday which is coming up on the very important day of Monday, December 6 (!!!!), I have produced a CD! Sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus!

It will be available on the site in the next couple days. Isn’t it beautiful and red and … round?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, scroll down a couple of posts and you can download an MP3.

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Les croissants américains sont les pâtisseries du diable

December 3, 2004

America has a serious problem with undercooked croissants. Croissants should be browned and a bit crispy at the edges so they flake properly. A croissant is not an excuse to make a buttery, crescent shaped donut.

p.s. - My cat is totally mammating on the living room armchair.

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | 1 Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

and by blogging … MY WILL IS DONE! Muhahahaha.

December 3, 2004

This morning, I made up a new word IN MY SLEEP.

Drifting somewhere in between snooze alarms, I decided that “mammating” needed to be a word. As in, “doing absolutely nothing except being a mammal.”

As in “You’re wasting your life mammating in front of the television!”

Or, more germanely: “Cat! Why can’t you sit still and mammate so I don’t have to get out of bed and let you in and out of my bedroom all morning!”

While sleeping, it seemed VERY URGENT that this word pass into common parlance. Now, it seems kind of lame, but I’m telling you anyway.

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | 2 Comments | | Email This Post Email This Post

Download my new MP3! Audiojen!

December 3, 2004

Last night I performed in Schaffer the Dark Lord’s variety show at Apocalypse Lounge. I did a 15 minute reading, over a jazz track, about a fake ad on the Craigslist personals.

I might post a recording of that later, but for now, here is a short piece of mine, called “Milk.”

Download “Milk” (4.1 MB)

Expertly and graciously recorded by John Cutler of The Greek Embassy, with music by Christopherini of The=Equation.

p.s. - My brother downloaded this track and wrote back “Interesting. That totally happened here last this morning. Oh wait… nevermind… that was just regular rain.”

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

motherhood as a policymaking credential

December 1, 2004

Mothers Against Drunk Driving sent me a highly manipulative solicitation today. It said “Check enclosed!” and sure enough, there was a check for $2.50 made out to me.

There was also a letter that said, essentially: This is a real check, made out to you! But we hope you’ll be a good person and not cash it — and instead, send US money! We just thought this would get your attention (and guilt trip you into donating).

I tore up the check, of course, but, really, this marketing campaign is freakishly passive-aggressive. Not cool.

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | 3 Comments | | Email This Post Email This Post

Voltron, incidentally, was a good show.

December 1, 2004

I find it cute when people have little nicknames for the internet; Megan calls it the “intertron.”

But now coming up on a decade of home internet usage, we are well past the era in which the internet itself is cool; it is now merely a medium for accessing all things, both cool and mundane. So it seems strange that we’d need pet names. But, intertron it is.

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | 2 Comments | | Email This Post Email This Post

paddle and paddleball

December 1, 2004

Whoa. Check out this comic, about the feelings of a paddleball broken free of its paddle.

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

brazenly veracious

December 1, 2004

A woman who wrote into Salon in response to an article about little girls’ attraction to girly, pink, fairy-princess products, said that she felt the fairy-princess mystique was damaging, because she never really got past her unrealistic expectations and Prince Charming fantasies. She wrote:

I believe a large part of what now allows me to be happy in reality is that I wound up, solely by chance rather than merit, securing a number of those fairy-tale elements in my actual life. I happen to be skinny and reasonably cute; I happen to have married an attractive guy I love who makes a lot of money. If I had instead grown up to be an ugly duckling who had no man, I would probably feel like crap, even if I were a rocket scientist.

On a semi-related note, on a recent trip to Barnes and Noble, I paged through the how-to book based on the reality show “The Swan.” Hard to object to the book itself — it’s basically a workbook for improving your relationships and pursuing your goals — except that it contains full-page before and after photos of the contestants on The Swan, virtually all of whom had massive plastic surgery, which is never really mentioned in the book, except for an example about how one contestant wasn’t fully dedicated to pursuing her goals because she refused to wear her chin strap after surgery, and “fell asleep at the gym.”

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

« Previous Page