if i were 20 years younger

I'm not sure why, but I was thinking about that bar mitzvah scene in "The Wedding Singer" when Drew Barrymore is slow dancing with the "loser" kid and he grabs her ass. I realized that kid will grow up to be the kind of guy I'm crushing on right now: chubby, sweet, sexed-up. I wish I could find that kid's name and picture. IMDB, you're failing right now.

in the news...

"The Times reported that the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars (euros) to Taliban commanders and local warlords to keep the Sarobi area near Kabul quiet in the months before French forces moved in."

I know this is being disputed by the Italian government. But I'm going to choose to believe it for now because it appeals to my lowest, stereotyping, cynical side.

Italians bribing? Of course. Taliban commanders taking said bribes? Duh.

As my dad says when there's a problem, "Let's just throw some money at it."

Seems like a small cost for some peace and "quiet."

hip(pie) hop-inspired

Last weekend, I went to the wedding of an old friend. He was the first person to be friendly to me at a new school in the 8th grade. In high school he shunned drugs & alcohol for skateboarding & playing acid jazz. I once offered to carry his baby (long story, not exactly what it seems.) Now, among other things, he's a sweet, stoned dj influenced in equal parts by Wu Tang Clan and Bob Marley. His wedding was beautiful and drunk and I danced my feet off. But I can't help but come up with a few "always a bridesmaid" tips:

1. If you want to acknowledge "The Four Directions" in your ceremony, make sure the officiant knows where to turn to face each one.
1a. I prefer a ceremony where the bride and groom have not seen each other since getting gussied up. My sentimental side likes to see the groom's face when he sees his bride looking so gorgeous.

2. An onion stuffed with rice is not a sufficient vegetarian substitute for chicken.

3. If possible, do the toasts while everyone is sitting at dinner. Once they're standing in the reception hall they're too drunk and antsy to dance to listen.

4. A big fireplace with a pile of pillows for the kids to fall asleep on is the cutest.

ears not eyes

I listen to podcasts all the time. I listen to so many podcasts that sometimes I can't find anything new I want to download from iTunes. I am such a podcast freak that I am traveling to Brooklyn, NY (from SF, CA!) to see a podcast "performed" and recorded live.


(Can you blame me? Look how adorable those two are!)

But, meanwhile, I can't make it through a TV show season to save my life. Every week, I forget my "favorite" show is on. And never mind the common DVD / Netflix arrangement: I have started so many "amazing" shows - The Wire, Weeds, Mad Men, even Arrested Development (oh, the shame) - and never finished a one.

I don't know what my problem is. I do like TV. Really.

* I didn't take that picture, thanks to whoever did.

frank o'hara

Having a Coke with You

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles


and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it

H.H. Munro

...or perhaps she was drawn to his unusual amber eyes and he was taken in by her inadvertently sexy, self-conscious girlishness. maybe he took great pleasure in shocking her, in playing to her secret more sophisticated desires. and she was secretly amused and gratified that he took it as a given that she was highly competent and did not have to prove herself to him in any way whatsoever.

edith wharton

her words pelted me like hail:

"he just took what he wanted; sifted and sorted you to suit his taste; burnt out the gold and left a heap of cinders. and you let him. you let yourself be cut in bits...and used or discarded. while all the while every drop of blood in you belonged to him. but he's shylock and you have bled to death of the pound of flesh he has cut out of you..."

she thinks the pound of flesh you took was a little too near the heart...she expressed an unwillingness to be taken "with reservations." she thinks you would have loved her better if you had loved someone else first.