No, you don't get it, I'M the blanket.

Sent, at 4:01 am, to my Ghostproof Blanket email address.

[This seems like as good a time as any to say that I'm permanently abandoning this site for my Tumblr. It was a good 4+ year run, this place as a repository for my ADD-addled thoughts and the songs I was obsessed with. But I'm on Tumblr way more often in general, and I'm trying to simplify my life. It's why I wear this same burlap jumpsuit every day now.]

Follow me on Tumblr here.

W.O.W

Words to live by.  Wendy O. Williams was legitimately famous in the mid 1980s and I'm hard pressed to think of anyone like her that exists these days. Lady Gaga is the closest thing we've got to a female musician who isn't afraid to be unpretty once in a while. Which makes total sense, given the current climate in pop culture, where anything less than cute virtually guarantees a woman's invisibility (and yes, Wendy was totally hot in her own way, but in today's world she'd be ripped to shreds by Internet trolls who probably need to get drunk to even dance in public). 

"There's a lot of women out there with good heavy metal bands, but they persist to sing like pop singers."

Tonight I'm seeing two bands I've wanted to see for a long time now: Metronomy and Class Actress. "Slightly melancholy dance music made by smart people" is pretty much my favorite.

Metronomy - We Broke Free from the new album The English Riviera

Metronomy - Heartbreaker (Kris Menace rmx)

Metronomy - Radio Ladio (Mac 3000 rmx)

Has anybody seen my tambourine?

Tim Curry had an enormous impact on my tiny mind. I still watch this every Halloween, because it is perfection and has STATE OF THE ART video effects. So futuristic.

Most children's programming bored me when I was a kid (the rest of "TWW" included, sorry Fairuza Balk! Better luck next The Craft!). This might be because I had parents who thought that sitting me down and introducing me to Rocky Horror Picture Show was an important rite of passage at age 11. If it didn't have either Muppets or 'adult themes' I basically wasn't interested. I still feel this way.

According to the Internet, some people don't like Lana Del Rey. After her first album flopped she changed her name, her sound, and sexed herself up — and it kind of worked, since everyone's talking about her now. I wouldn't call that story uplifting, but again it DID work, so I'm not sure she's the one we should be mad at here. Plus, reinventing one's self is pretty standard stuff in the music world.

I could do without some of her baby-waby cooing but I'm super into this song. And if we're all weighing in on her appearance, I do love that she looks like a lost member of the Carrie Nations, or the "in her heyday" picture of a ravaged old Hollywood starlet.

I'm Mortified

If you're in Chicago this Friday at 7:30, you should come see me at the Mortified show at Schubas. I'm reading a piece centered around my 8th-to-12th grade diary entries (lots of LSD-addled poetry, my dilettantish attempts at being wiccan, and sundry 'nobody understands me'isms). The awesome and supportive producers of the show helped me put it together and it might be the hardest I've worked on anything all year. Well, the hardest I've worked on something that's actually finished. This weekend I got to hear a couple of the other readers and their stuff is funny-awkard-adorable. Come out!



Mortified Chicago Promo from Shay DeGrandis on Vimeo.

I tried to watch the "New Girl" pilot without prejudice, but I just can't relate to Zooey D at all. I think it's because she strictly plays two kinds of characters: either girls that must have strawberry-scented farts, or girls that make NO farts. "I'm offbeat and wacky but never, ever in a way that makes me look remotely unattractive!" Zzzzz.

I'm practically STAR MATERIAL.

Take the Narcissistic Personality Inventory

Remy Ma - Conceited (There's Something About Remy)*

*Currently serving time for shooting a member of her entourage

Personal - Tony Hoagland

Don’t take it personal, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal—

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain—
And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said
at the School of Broken Hearts

but I couldn’t and I didn’t and I don’t
believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

and saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I’m-Sorries

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard;
barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.

A toast to Courtney Stodden, or: You could just skip this post and read "Marriage" by Gregory Corso

Last weekend I went to a farm in New Jersey and I watched two of my favorite people marry each other behind an old silo. A recurring theme of the toasts at the reception was how the two of them bring out the best in each other, and that's something you hear a lot in toasts like that. The difference was that in this case that old you complete me sentiment is absolutely 100% true. They turn a light on inside each other and you can see it happening. With a lot of other couples in my life —some married and some that will probably marry — I see the opposite, where being around their partner makes them a little duller and a bit less funny or fun, as if the other person has a tranquilizing effect on them. And maybe that's what some people need: someone that will make them more tranquil.  I don't profess to know what's best but I know that's not what I want.

Two men have expressed the wish to marry me in my life. The first man later recanted his wish; it was ultimately the right decision and we parted with a lot of respect for each other. The second man proved to be so mentally unstable that I still half-believe he'll show up someday to turn my skin into a suit (for the record I never returned his sentiment). As for my own feelings toward marriage, I'm somewhere between indifference and skepticism. I'm not against the institution and if we all could have what Coach and Tami Taylor have then by all means sign me the fuck up. But between my lamentably short attention span and the impermanence that's characterized most of my life, I have a hard time believing I've got what it takes.

By "what it takes," I mean both the ability to maintain interest in one person for all of my days and the stones to jump in with both feet and believe with my whole heart that it will work. I went to dozens of weddings in my twenties and several of those marriages are over now. If I've learned anything it's that there's absolutely no rhyme or reason as to what lasts. A couple that dated for 6 months beforehand fared no worse than one that had been together for 7 years. When I was younger, hearing about a rash and probably ill-fated engagement would horrify me — I'd think they were making the mistake of their lives. Now I know so many divorced or remarried people that when I hear of two people getting engaged, somewhere inside I just do a standing ovation for their fucking bravery. Have I ever been so sure of anything in my life? These days I'm wondering what good things can possibly come out of caution and safe bets. I'm becoming increasingly averse to risk aversion. Good for them I say, good for all of them.

Little Dragon - Ritual Union

Ricky Nelson - Fools Rush In 

Split Enz - History Never Repeats

Department of Eagles - While We're Young

Boyfriend Rap

My friend Hanna and I totally took some time out of our busy prank-calling schedule to call that Vanilla Ice 900 line back in the day. 

Sassy Nostalgia Corner: Funny Old Ads

I thought "Nicolas Cage awoken by naked man with Fudgesicle" was the best headline I would read all day, but apparently not. [via Gawker]

Soft Cell - Sex Dwarf

My mother died a year ago today. She loved David Bowie, and dancing, and driving so fast that it scared my high school friends. Her favorite Muppet was Animal and she was probably a lot like him before she quit drinking. She dyed her hair to match mine, she chain smoked and then she quit, I watched her make people laugh so hard they cried, she could go from sunny to squall to hurricane in no time at all, she could be meaner than most people couldn't be if they made twice the effort, she was beautiful, and she tried as hard as she could.

David Bowie - Golden Years

Testament

by Connie Voisine

The cat wants to be a strong thing—a hand, a tree.

The girl wants to be a pirate, in a tree.

The tree wants to be the pond with its face of shining.

The pond wants to be the sun who dumps its sugar on the grass.

The grass wants to be the foot, its sole, its heel.

The foot wants to be the brain who always gets to choose.

The brain wants to be the feet dumb in their shoes.

The shoe wants to be the buckle that the girl shines with a cloth.

The buckle wants to be the magpie lifting what shines.

The magpie wants to be the egg in the nest touching its brother.

The egg wants to be the feather.

The feather wants to be the mite, devouring its plume.

from Poetry Magazine July/August 2010

This song is dedicated to Natalee Holloway/I feel for her daddy so I wrote this on Father's Day

Is it insulting to say that I'm surprised by the level of female-positivity on this track? Well, except for the part where Game pronounces the women on "Basketball Wives" not cute enough.
Really? They're not cute enough? Nice face tattoo that covers up your old butterfly face tattoo, Game.

I love ya ass like Milhouse love Lisa, I love ya ass like the Ninja Turtles love pizza.

Game ft. Drake - Good Girls Go Bad

Tiniest Lights from Randy Sterling Hunter on Vimeo.

I went to see Angel Olsen play last night at the behest of another talented Chicago-based singer, Angelina Lucero. Her performance was great and the music had a "ghost of an old country singer" vibe that this video captures really well. I was totally hypa-matized. If you get a chance to see her I highly recommend it.


Angel Olsen - If It's Alive, It Will by batheticrecords

All of these signs are amazing. 

My favorite might be: As Jesus said about gay people, "      ."

Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy

Little Dragon - Ritual Union

I want the entire Universe to get off my lawn

Party of however-many-people-TMZ-is: Your table in Hell is ready.

Telepathe - Chrome's On It (Gold Panda Remix)

[image via]

ssshhhh gal whine n flex yeah

The quality of the music in the classes I take at the gym is usually Vengaboys-level of lowest com denom, so I was pretty psyched that a Bob Sinclar song played yesterday. I've probably posted this video before but it is the best so whatever.

It's blazing hot outside.

The other night I heard somebody say the summer's almost over. NOPE! I'm squeezing out every little bit like it's a toothpaste tube full of funtimes, right up til it's sweater o'clock. 

*Here's a mix of songs I've been listening to this summer and/or every summer.*

Tracklist:

1. Seu Jorge and Almaz - Everybody Loves the Sunshine
2. Yacht - Psychic City (Classixx Remix) 
3. Boz Scaggs - Lowdown
4. Frankie Smith - Double Dutch Bus
5. MGMT - Electric Feel (Prince Language Remix)
6. DJ Quik - Pitch in Ona Party
7. Tommy Roe - Sweet Pea
8. Wavves - King of the Beach
9. The Soft Pack - Answer to Yourself
10. Mariah Carey - H.A.T.E.U. Remix 
11. Blair - Hello Halo
12. Alessi Bros - Seabird
13. Sat Nite Duets - Peel Away

I'd never seen this "Ignition Remix" cover before my buddy Noah sent it to me today. Usually 'indie' covers like this annoy me because I feel like they're making fun (unless it's Will Oldham who is an obsessive R Kelly fan), but this is pretty genuinely sweet. I also enjoy the completely airless, Disney show-style delivery of the pianist when she says Kels' intro at 0:15. 

Things I saw on this trip back to NYC:

1. Many people that I love and that make me feel loved.
2. The Alexander McQueen show at the Met (I'm pretty sure my eyeballs had an orgasm).
   
3. LonelyBoy Dan Humphre─I mean uh, Penn Badgley walking down 8th Street in a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off.
4. A roach the size of a small mouse, skittering purposefully down the street like he had somewhere to be.
   
5. A man of Indian or Middle Eastern descent standing on a street corner at 11 in the morning, holding cellophane-wrapped flowers and shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other and looking around.
   
6. The charred shell of an SUV cordoned off with yellow police tape and the twisted steel remains of a wheelchair two feet behind it. Hopefully the car was empty and it expelled the (also empty) chair in the explosion.
   
7. Three women crying on the street: the first was walking briskly while talking on her cell phone, the second put her sunglasses on after sitting down on the N train and kept them on for the remainder of the ride, and the third was me looking at my own reflection in the Sephora window.

Adele - Hometown Glory (High Contrast Remix)

Things I Wish I Liked, but I Don't.

1. Tea
2. Lentils
3. Architecture
4. Bob Dylan
5. Red wine (gives me a face-rash and headache)
6. The idea of giving birth
7. The idea of being a mother
8. Foot massages

The 12 Step Aerobics

Me: The trainer I stopped going to at the gym is teaching a different class now. It's called "Rock Bottoms." heh heh.

Coworker Amanda:

Heh

All glutes, all the time

(I'm assuming)

Me: Yeah it's probably not an AA meeting

Coworker Amanda: It's a combo ass class/AA meeting

Me: The perfect storm

Coworker Amanda: weeping about drinking and exercise

Me: Just gritty stories and LOTS of squats

Coworker Amanda: Feel the burn (in your liver)

When your weiner is too flashy, haters gonna hate.

[I used to love the guy, I voted for him in the ‘05 mayoral primary, I’ve been long past his last name etc. But I mean, come on.]

so stooooormy

self portrait taken just moments ago

It's raining out, again. Now all the barbecues I was gonna to go to are cancelled and I can just stay inside wrapped in a blanket and focus on my neglected projects. What an exciting opportunity for me. I probably didn't need all that sun and liver damage anyway. It's like I always say when the lord closes a door he opens a window and then the rain gets inside and ruins all those stacks of newspapers you were going to read someday when you get around to i[GUNSHOT]

Classics IV - Stormy

Alela Diane - Can You Blame the Sky

Cat Power - Top Expert

Up for Grabs

Two items I own* that I will never wear, unless I wake up as a Japanese teenager.

*One was a gift and the other was a thrift shoppie in Utah.

Last night I was sick in bed so I watched Lost Boys: The Tribe. It's a 20 years too late straight-to-video sequel, but I chose to pretend I was watching a supernatural-themed Lifetime movie which really helped me enjoy it more. It stars the chick from when The OC got unwatchable and the scary vampire is played by Kiefer Sutherland's half brother, which is ostensibly his sole qualification for the job.

Corey Feldman also grits and grizzles his way through an uncomfortable-making performance as the lone Frog Brother. I was like, "Why do I find this so hard to watch?" and then I realized that it's because he is weirdly likable and watching him be such a terrible actor makes me embarrassed for him. But he's getting paid and stuff, Corey Feldman neither wants nor needs my pity so I will save it all for Corey Haim's ghost (Haimster is in the movie for two seconds at the very end).

Gerard McMann - Cry, Little Sister (Theme from the Lost Boys)

Why I Shouldn't Get Overly Familiar with People Who Don't Know My Sense of Humor, Part 45234820

[At work, I call someone we've just hired to do a project. It's our first meeting.]

Me: Hi.

Her: Hi!

Me: 702, where is that?

Her: I'm outside Las Vegas.

Me: Oh! There was an all-girl R&B group in the 90s called 702, they must have been from there.

Her: Oh.

[pause]

Me: Wait you weren't in the group, were you?

Her: ...What?

Me: Just uh, just kidding! Um. Moving on.

*scene*

702 - Where My Girls At

The first bar it was just alright, the second bar was Friday night

I saw Jonathan Richman last night at a sold out show at the (pretty tiny-sized) Hideout here in Chicago. Despite being a fan for years I've never seen him live before, and at 60 he still has the energy he had in every Conan appearance I've obsessively watched on Youtube.

My favorite of his many mid-song storytelling digressions was when he demonstrated the difference between the dancing that went on at the first bar, and then explained/showed us the clearly superior dancing that then transpired at the lesbian bar. What a weird and wonderful man.

Jonathan Richman - I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar

Modern Lovers - Dignified and Old

An oldie but such a goodie.

Caterwauling

It's pretty hard to sing along to Cocteau Twins but I do my best. The trick is to turn it up to 11, preferably with headphones on, to drown out how I actually sound like a deaf person trying to sing.

White Hinterland - Icarus

[White Hinterland]
image via my new favorite Tumblr

This week in future TV Carnage clips

1. His character's name IS Franco. Meta! So many layers to this onion.
2. The portraits. How much for the pink one on the left? Haha, just kidding. I never thought I'd say this but I'm starting to agree with Videogum on this overexposure thing. My love flame for Daniel Desario grows ever dimmer.
3. Odd pacing and general surreality aside, I'm pretty sure this scene is making fun of Steve Burton's Playgirl shoot from 1995 and speculation on whether he's had Botox. Don't ask me how I know this. I definitely haven't watched GH infrequently since the 7th grade SONNY AND BRENDA FOREVER —what? Who said that?? Look, I don't have anything to prove to you people.

Velvet Goldmine

I love this beautiful mess of a movie. It's one of my favorites, and it's also one of the best soundtracks ever. David Bowie wouldn't let them use any of his songs, most likely because the film shows a fictionalized Bowie having an affair with a fictionalized Iggy Pop. This made the soundtrack 100 times more creative than it would have been: Interwoven with classic gems by Roxy Music and T. Rex are original songs by Pulp, Grant Lee Buffalo, and Shudder to Think that sound like they could have come from that era too.

The flashiest thing about the album are the covers recorded under the name of the two bands in the film, Wylde Ratttz (faux Stooges performing "T.V. Eye" with Ewan McGregor not doing terribly on lead vocals) and The Venus in Furs (the British glam band that alternates Thom Yorke and an also-not-terrible Jonathan Rhys Meyers on vocals).

The Venus in Furs - 2HB

Shudder to Think - The Ballad of Maxwell Demon

Forever and ever amen

A few weeks ago I was having dinner at my brother's house, my five year old niece Lina sitting to my left. The two of us were laughing over a joke I'd made when her eyes fell on the inside of my right wrist and stayed on it as I lifted my pizza to take a bite. For a moment she looked like was considering something and then said "Aunt Samantha...your tattoo is still there."

"That's because she hasn't taken a bath yet," my brother said. When I'd first gotten that tattoo I'd tried to explain to Lina that it was like a drawing that's permanent, but she wasn't even four at the time and I'm not sure when kids begin to grasp the concept of forever. From what I can recall of being that age I knew that I'd keep advancing to the next grade in school and the excitement of birthdays would come every year, but it was my understanding that absolutely everything else was going to stay the same. I was my only time marker for those years before things around me did start to change.

Earlier in the evening Lina had given me her review of Madagascar 2: It was good, but she had to hide in the next room during some scary parts involving a dam and a volcano where characters either died or might die.
"When did she learn about death?" I asked my brother after dinner, when my niece and nephew were off to bed.
"I'm not sure when exactly but it was around the time she started going to Sunday school. One day she came home with a drawing she'd made of Jesus on the cross. She explained his situation and there was a big frown on his face."

AA Bondy - Rapture (Sweet Rapture)

Glasser - Glad (Delorean remix)

Meet my new spirit animal

The complete disinterest of the kid in the foreground in the face of such blistering awesomeness can only mean Grandpa does this ALL THE TIME. You, sir, are an inspiration.

The Secret History

I finished Donna Tartt's novel The Secret History today. I was looking for a new book and Lesley Arfin — author of Dear Diary which I read and loved last year — said in an interview that she had separation anxiety from the characters after the book ended. At 600 pages you're definitely with the six (and then five) friends in their insular little world for such a long, harrowing ride that you can't help but think things like "Oh, that's SO Francis" toward the end.

The book and some of the characters are such a slow burn at first and then things become so vivid and epic that I kind of can't believe it's never been a movie. In fact I wouldn't be mad if it was adapted, so long as they kept it set in the early 90s. The psychological thriller interwoven with Darren Aronofsky-type CG camp for the dream sequences and the bacchanal with Dionysus in the woods? It could be like "Kicking and Screaming" meets "Heavenly Creatures" meets  "Heathers." And just this month someone fantasy-casted it on Flavorwire, with choices I mostly agree with except let's switch out Jo-Gor-Lev with Jesse Eisenberg for Richard the narrator, and maybe Wallace Shawn for Julian.

The icing on the cake was Tartt's fucking pitch-perfect satire of how ridiculous a tiny elite liberal arts college can be. It takes place in Vermont at a thinly veiled fictional Bennington called Hampden and the faculty, the drug-drenched student body, everything just rings so true. One main character wears pince-nez which of course turn out to be lensless, the way so many people at Sarah Lawrence had some affectation-by-way-of-prop like a cape or exotic pet. We used to call one kid "The Mayor" (of McCheese fame) because he tried to get all WC Fields with a top hat and cane every day. 

"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion. I remember well, for instance, the blind animal terror which ensued when some townie set off the civil defense sirens as a joke. Someone said it was a nuclear attack; TV and radio reception, never good there in the mountains, happened to be particularly bad that night, and in the ensuing stampede for the telephones, the switchboard shorted out, plunging the school into a violent and almost unimaginable panic. Cars collided in the parking lot. People screamed, wept, gave away their possessions, huddled in small groups for comfort and warmth. Some hippies barricaded themselves in the Science Building, in the lone bomb shelter, and refused to let anyone in who didn't know the words to "Sugar Magnolia." Factions formed, leaders rose from the chaos. Though the world, in fact, was not destroyed, everyone had a marvelous time and people spoke fondly of the event for years afterward."

The fact that the story takes place in this environment goes a long way in making the cultish central friendship believable enough, and lends a sort of No Exit feel to their dynamic by degrees as the book goes on. I won't say I have separation anxiety from the characters, but I'm definitely thinking about them and wondering what they're up to.

The Velvet Underground - Ocean

Let's Get Romantical

In 2002 I had a job at 43rd and Lexington and would walk through Grand Central every day to get on the 6. On Valentine's Day that year, heading to the subway at around 6pm, I saw a line of men about one city block long leading up to the tiny Godiva shop in the train station. Men of all age, race, and class, some holding cellophane-wrapped flowers but most not, collectively sent me the indelible message that roses and candy on this day of all days said: "I have put the minimal amount of thought into this."

I've never been into Valentine's Day because of that sort of by-the-numbers feel, and I ended a relationship pretty recently so I'm rollin' solo this Monday. But maybe that's exactly why this year's Valentine's Day Mix is 100% free of bitterness and irony. Just 15 of my favorite love songs of all time (let it be known that "Nitemare Hippy Girl" is for my money the most romantic song ever written). We've got to keep loving love, right?

LUFF SONGS: Click here to download

1. I Need Love - Sexton Blake
2. Nitemare Hippy Girl - Beck
3. Just Really Wanna See You - Shudder to Think
4. Tim, I Wish You Were Born a Girl - Of Montreal
5. A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off - The Magnetic Fields
6. Intimate Friends - Eddie Kendricks
7. Good Timin' - Jimmy Jones
8. Everyday Clothes - Jonathan Richman
9. I'm on Fire - Bruce Springsteen
10. You Are the Blood - The Castanets
11. Love Profusion - Regina Spektor
12. The Way I Feel Inside - The Zombies
13. T Ser s Mi Baby - Surfs
14. Put Your Hand in My Hand - Lungfish
15. I Touch Myself - Scala & Kolacny Brothers

bitch bitch bitch bitch make me rich

It’s hard out there for a pimp—especially now. Changes in the sex industry have rendered them superfluous. I met 11 pimps working out of midtown Manhattan in 1999, and all were out of work within four years. One enlisted in the military; two have been homeless. Only one now has a full-time job, working as a janitor in a charter school. I asked one of them how pimping experience helps him in the legit economy: “You learn one thing,” he said. “For a good blow job, a man will do just about anything. What can I do with that knowledge? I have no idea.”

-The most riveting article I've read all week via The Hairpin


Too $hort - Pimpology

Grimes is a woman named Claire Boucher from Montreal. Her stuff sounds kind of like if Pictureplane and Enya had a baby, and the result makes me want to hold onto a unicorn's silvery mane and ride deep into some Legend-type woods to consort with furry tree-dwelling creatures that speak their own language. My sloppy pastiche of 1980s fantasy movie references does no justice to the genuine imagination present in the entire Halfaxa album.

Grimes - Devon
Grimes - Weregild

Nerd Alert: I See What You Did There, Fringe.

“These were created by my old friend of mine, Dr Jacoby from Washington State.”

1. Fringe has gone from mediocre to good with this season. Finally, having no standards for the sci fi shows I watch pays off!  I'm not just in it for the Pacey anymore. 
2. It's the point of winter in Chicago when it is so cold that I've been watching Hulu in bed all Saturday, which I felt guilty about until I remembered that sports fans spend EVERY Saturday and/or Sunday just sitting and looking. With beer. Ooh, a beer does sound kind of good right now though.
3. The Twin Peaks soundtrack (and by extension Julee Cruise's album) got a lot of play in my parents' house circa 1990. 

Angelo Badalamenti - Dance of the Dream Man 

I like big bones and I cannot lie

A: This is totally not weird at all. Definitely mention the 'bones are the only things left behind when we die' thing on the first date as you take one of her hands, testing its heft and running your fingers over her phalanges to see if they protrude enough. Say it exactly like you said it here.


via Time Out Chicago

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and get them sit ups riiight and

I joined a gym this week because, as I wrote as my reason on the registration form, "it's a real slippery slope to suddenly being full on fat." I have a crippling fear of exercising in front of others. This is why I like jogging, because I can just run right by people so even if they know me they barely have time to realize it before I'm gone. But it's cold, and fears were meant to be conquered, and the fat-slope has gotten slipperier in the past few months. A beefy man with a shaved bald head and beady eyes sold me my membership. He looked like a guy who would get into a fight at a bar. Actually, he looked like that idiotic cop Herc from The Wire.

Tonight I went in for my free training session, in which I explained my aforementioned crippling fear to the nice lady and asked her to show me how to use all of the machines. Even the ones with actual instructional illustrations on them. She was the only employee wearing glasses who didn't have a creepy hard face to go with the hard body, so I lucked out. I saw two coworkers and I'm afraid I'll totally see more people I know basically every time I go. Damn you, Chicago! I did alright, meaning I managed to completely ignore the fat 50 year old man sitting on a weight machine, blatantly staring at all of our squatting and lunging and not even pretending to exercise for 15 minutes.

Oh and when I stood by the front desk, nervously fiddling with my paperwork while waiting for the personal trainer and staring into space, some older dude started asking me to help him sign up. I said I just joined and he was like "Oh I'm sorry, you look like you work here!" I guess I just command an air of authority and have an amazing body. Definitely wasn't because I was standing right at the door holding a form. Yup, 35% body fat according go this weird gadget, jeeealous?

That happened, I knew you, we were there.

My mom's memorial was five days ago. She's in a purple flower patterned porcelain urn and I touched the top of it to make it feel more concrete to me, the whole concept in general. Relatives that I haven't seen in years came and it turned out to be more welcome than nerve wracking. I read, and then her siblings said some stuff, and then a Kenyan priest from my uncle's church in New Rochelle arrived to say some prayers. After he asked who everyone was, he asked if I had any brothers or sisters. I don't have any from my mom, so he said in his South African accent, "Jesus was an only child. You should be the female Jesus." During his prayers and wandering strange homily (my friend Jeff: "You know, I didn't know where he was going for a while but he totally brought it back around, kind of!") I stared at the flowers and checked out. We couldn't bury Mom with her mother that day because the cemetery was closed from the blizzard, so we all drove to an Italian restaurant in a small strip mall and ate a lot. People brought a lot of great photos from family parties decades ago in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and the Bronx.

Standing in front of the podium next to my mother's ashes, with everybody staring at me while I got ready to read my eulogy, was one of the strangest experiences I have ever had. Definite life milestone. Anyway, I wrote it the day before but I think it turned out pretty well, and so I'm posting it for my own posterity: