September 2010
39 posts
This is the column I wrote about how beer drinkers... →
(Note: In the column I make fun of French people, Germans, and beer snobs. If you fall under one of these categories, please don’t be offended. After all, I’m just a crazy person obsessed with her dachshund. I only make fun of people to feel better about myself.)
By now, chances are, you’ve heard about how the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life called a bunch of (3,400) people to ask them questions about religion and discovered that self-proclaimed atheists and agnostics got more answers right than anyone else. In the last two days I’ve heard religious people proclaim that the survey was false and not-so-religious people say that...
Finally. This I can get behind.
This is semi-old news, but I read in this week’s Time that the U.S. government is funding a project to airdrop dead mice stuffed with Tylenol into the jungle in Guam. The hope is that the brown tree snake, which is wreaking havoc on the native species in the region, will eat the mice and die. (Because apparently Tylenol kills brown tree snakes.)
At first I was indignant. You know, with the...
“I’ll tell you this about New York City during the summer of the Ground...”
– Scott Raab, “Good Days at Ground Zero,” Esquire, October 2010
Writing like this is what has made Esquire my favorite magazine. I realize it’s a magazine for guys. But ladies, if you’re not reading this because it has some dude’s face on the front and smells like cheap...
Crazy is Hereditary
Today is the deadline for me to turn in my back page story at the magazine where I work. Actually, that's a lie. Today is two days after the deadline. But I'm seriously struggling with it this month. Struggling so much that this morning during a phone call with my mom I asked for her suggestions. The topic is loosely "football" and it's supposed to be funny.
Mom: What about something about mascots?
Me: Maybe the entire column could be me campaigning for an NFL team to take on Dachshunds as their mascot.
Mom: Yeah! Are there any teams called the Dachshunds?
Me: Seriously?
Mom: Yeah, I don't know all the teams.
Me: Um. No. There are no Dachshunds. Can you imagine the Dachshunds versus the Panthers? It would be a massacre.
Mom: Oh yeah. Good point. Or the Dachshunds versus the Lions. That would be the worst. But, if there was a team called the Badgers, they could win that!
Me: So true.
“Like fanning through a deck of cards, my mind flashes on the thousand chances,...”
– - Frances Mayes
Last night, after a full weekend of walks through mountain woods with friends and gathering around porch tables to enjoy the soon-to-be-fall air, I arrived home. I love Sundays with their long do-nothing hours and football on in the background. But Sunday nights are different. When...
50 Cent. And his dog.
I started following 50 Cent on Twitter about a month ago. Mostly because he was hilariously offensive. Then, I decided that really I could only read about someone wanting to kill people so many times a day, so last week, it was with great sadness that I unfollowed 50.
But now I see he’s created a Twitter account that is his dog tweeting. And his accounts are tweeting back and forth at each...
““I drink my Champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when...”
– (via Sarah) (via quarterlifecoe)
Neighbor Update
Yesterday, as I was watering my rose bushes (seriously. I’m a 45-year-old masquerading as a 28-year-old) I could hear my neighbor, Stephanie talking on the phone through the fence.
Through her side of the discussion, I learned the following things:
She has a friend named Cowboy.
Cowboy is a drug dealer.
Cowboy has a 2-year-old named Shiloh (Thanks Jolie-Pitt’s).
Cowboy leaves drug...
I’m going to my ten year high school reunion tomorrow. We picked this weekend because tonight our high school plays its biggest rival. And so, tomorrow I’ll see faces I haven’t looked at and hear voices that I haven’t heard in ten years— something that seems strange in this world of technology. What really feels strange though is that our reunion is being held on...
Rosie and Mackie Are No Longer In A Relationship
This morning, as Rosie and I were walking a few blocks from my house, I spotted her former lover, Mackie. It was too late to cut down another street and so we were forced to walk right up to her ex. I whispered for Rosie to keep it together and act cool. Which she did. Right up until the moment when Mackie walked up to sniff her and presumably say “what’s up” and she promptly...
Talking the Talk
Me: You were quoted as "an inside source" today on the magazine's style blog.
Katie: I was? I'm a rat!
Me: What?
Katie: You know, a rat. Like a secret source.
Me: ...
Katie: Or is it a mouse? What is it? Some small animal...
Me: A mole?
Katie: Yes! A mole!
Yesterday I went for a run after work. I switched my route around a little bit and ended up coming back on a street I don’t typically run down. It’s a nice neighborhood street a few blocks from my house. It was towards the end of the run and the street has a steep hill on it (see: Reason I don’t typically run on this street). I decided to walk up the hill. As I started up the...
Skin →
“The lampshade emerged from the wreckage of Katrina. But was it really what it appeared to be—a Buchenwald artifact made of human remains? A Holocaust detective story.” - New York magazine
This book excerpt is fascinating—and sickening. It’s worth a read.
Last night when I returned from work, my favorite neighbors were hanging out in their front yard (as in, the neighbors who have about 47 people living in their house and are running an illegal daycare). Stephanie, the 20-year-old with the 5-year-old son, walked over to chat. She was telling me that last week, when I was at the beach, they'd heard noises coming from my house, so they'd called the police.
Me: Well, thanks for calling the police about it.
Stephanie: It didn't make any difference anyway. They didn't come for thirty minutes. And then they got here and starting saying it was my boyfriend who'd done it.
Me: Your boyfriend? Why'd they think that?
Stephanie: Because he got here right before they did. They were all like 'What's your name? Where do you work?' And I was like 'You can see it right there on his Pizza Hut uniform, his name is Quavias.'
Me: Oh. Well. That was kind of stupid.
Stephanie: You know what's kind of stupid? Taking 30 minutes to get to somebody's house after they've called 911. My sister, she does that kind of thing, and she says she can be in and out of a house with flat screens and computers in under two minutes.
Me: Um. Your sister robs houses?
Stephanie: Yeah, but we don't talk much more. She hasn't been allowed to come over here ever since we got the flat screen.
Me: Good call.
She went on to tell me about various other 911 calls throughout her life, including the time a man mistook her house for the home of a crack head who used to live behind her and started banging on the door saying he was going to shoot everyone inside. Luckily, her grandfather and uncle lived there at the time and of course both had guns, which they in turn threatened to use on the man.
Seriously. I love my neighbors.
