VENOM LITERATI

modelland. smize, y'all

2011-08-12T16:30:00.000-05:00

Everyone! I have the internet! Also, the first chapter of Tyra Banks' new book, Modelland, is available on the Barnes and Noble website! Read and discuss.

Crazy catladying it up

2011-07-22T14:47:00.000-05:00

Because I am moving soon, I am sentimental. I am thinking about things I will miss about Bloomington...the super-long stoplights, the sub-par restaurants with Chicago pricing. Ahhhh. Bloomington. One of the things that I'll actually miss is that we have like a million neighborhood cats. I know all their names. They all let me pet them.

Venom: Yes, really. We called Venom "Mrs. Honcho" for a long time because she wouldn't get close enough for us to learn her name. She is sleek and gray stripey. She sits on our laps when we're on the porch. She might be a he. S/he predatored a baby bunny in front of Abby. It was scarring.

Honcho: Brother/husband to Venom. Big and dark gray. Mean to all of the other neighborhood cats. Actually kind of won't let me pet him.

Seamus: Orange. He used to hang out with us all the time, but now Honcho took over his territory.

Maxwell: Black and white. Kind of cross-eyed. Once, we rescued him from a tree. By getting his mom and telling her he was in a tree.

Baxter: Orange and white. No matter what door I open in my house, he's out there. I don't think Maxwell and Baxter are related, but it seems like they should be.

We play this game when we neighborhood walk where we compete over cat-spotting. I always win because the game makes Abby angry. Really, it's just my game. I have gotten up to nine cats on a walk before. This is a really catty place. I'll miss that.

you guys! there's a new maru video.

2011-06-21T13:12:00.000-05:00

I made one of those talking pig videos

2011-06-20T21:22:00.003-05:00

I was bored and made one of those videos with the cartoon characters talking in monotone voices.

shouldn't i move to ravenswood?

2011-06-13T16:06:00.000-05:00

i have been thinking about moving to ravenswood in september so that i can have a big apartment but people are trying to talk me out of it because they say it is soooooo far and that i should move to logan square instead. but i friggy hate logan square. too many 2002 memories. you guys have all lived in ravenswood. isn't it pleasant? shouldn't i move there?

i want a giant apartment.

Art movie fake-out

2011-06-07T11:50:00.000-05:00

So, on Friday, Abby and I went to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams, the new 3-D Werner Herzog documentary about the sealed and preserved Chauvet Cave in France with the drawings from tens of thousands of years ago.

At one point in the movie, he turns off all the sound equipment, so you can just look and experience and listen to your heartbeat, and then a heartbeat sound comes up, and then the music returns.

It was coming toward the end of the film, and again, the heartbeat sound came up, and the screen faded to black, and it stayed that way for maybe three minutes, which is a long time, in a movie theatre. Everyone in the audience was silent. I was thinking, "Yes, this is like the modern cave." I even thought I could hear my heartbeat. I was starting to feel really uncomfortable with it, too, and then I was like, "I love this; this is brilliant! I feel so uncomfortable! Only Werner Herzog."

Then, some intrepid audience members got up to leave, and we heard this from outside the theatre, "There was a power surge. We're working to restore the movies to the place where they were when it happened."

Which...okay, it was re-started, and the movie was still good, and the ending was about albino crocodiles (spoiler alertish), which are also pretty cool, but it was no three-minute blackout to listen to the silence. I preferred our ending.

it is the afternoon

2011-06-03T15:57:00.000-05:00

i'm loooooonely and booooooored. somebody blog somethin. what are you literaties doing right now? i wish i had a satellite camera on each of you at all times so that i could check it and see you working at your desks or taking a nap or vandalizing your neighborhood.

hey sarah, remember when jeff was obsessed with hilary clinton and would constantly say out of the blue, "i wonder what hilary clinton is doing right now." and then you would say something like, "pantsuits shopping with chelsea."

sigh...what are you guys doing right now.

I can't stop watching this.

2011-05-14T17:48:00.002-05:00

I'm sorry and you're welcome.

our newest member

2011-05-05T23:07:00.000-05:00

this little fuzzy kitten, who prefers the company of his weird furry bed--or what is that thing?--to the other little fuzzy kittens, playing with each other in the distance, and who is clearly engaged in internal conversation with other kittens who aren't really there, and possibly with that furry bed thing, should be an honorary member of venom literati. he is one of us.

Four things

2011-02-28T13:32:00.003-06:00

1. The weirdest people have Kindles. Like really old men in the waiting room at a doctor's office, or the custodian. In fact, these are the two only people I have ever seen with Kindles, and these are not the people on the commercial at all. But I do not live in a town with widely used public transportation. Probably you see Kindles all the time and they are attached to the hands of hip youths.

2. I hate when I get an email that says "I read your email," and it's an autoresponse because that person has an app that reads their emails aloud to them while they're driving. Who needs to hear email while they're driving? Is this meant to be a safety feature?

3. App idea: Sarcastic voice email reader. You could use it whenever someone you hated sent you an email instead of just while driving.

4. The Oscars are boring.

This was made for us

2011-02-25T15:08:00.002-06:00

Look at this thing, just look at it!
Susanna and Gato can provide all of the long furs, and the rest we will have to spin!

tv stuff combined with celebrity crush stuff

2011-02-15T11:46:00.003-06:00

I have a weird celebrity crush on Louis C.K. Recently I was watching an episode of his sitcom, "Louie," and giggling at him as he was on a date, and Abby said, "YOU want to go on a date with Louis C.K." She was right. I do. I want to go on a date with Louis C.K.

Also, I love "Dr. Katz." Here is Louis C.K. on Dr. Katz. Here's something else: I totally remember this scene from, like, 1996 or whenever, but I had no idea it was future-crush Louis C.K.

Dexter, or now I only write about TV

2011-02-02T15:36:00.003-06:00

You guys, I hate Dexter. I know I am supposed to like it. It is about a semi-likeable serial killer. That is right up my alley. But I hate Dexter, seethingly. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.

Here are some things I hate: I hate the flashbacks to his dad teaching him how to use his serial killer compulsions for good. I hate his stupid skinny sister. She is stupid. She should not be in homicide because she is too stupid to be in homicide. Keep her in vice, Chief Whateveryournameis. Oh wait too late because Dexter is using his serial killer skills for good again, to track down other serial killers and selflessly helping his sister get promoted simultaneously. And now Dexter is eating. In every single scene. A banana or a cheeseburger or a crab leg. He is eating with his stupid gross mouth with the hair around it that doesn't match his head hair. Hate. Oh, and I hate how he magically knows if someone is a bad person who deserves to die by, like, recognizing the bad part of himself in him. And! And! I hate the stupid unnecessary voiceovers. "I can't feel, but I pretend to" (not a real quote). You have already said that in a voiceover 80 billion times, Dexter! I hate you! I hate how slowly it moves. I hate everything about it.

And here is the other thing I hate: the promise that it will get better. Oh, the second season is better. You just have to get through the first season. No. I won't. I hate Dexter. And plus also too someone told me that he starts actually seeing his dead dad not in flashbacks but in real life in the future. HATE.

Doug

2011-01-20T09:07:00.002-06:00

Did you ever think that maybe Jesus made snow all white and reflective so winter wouldn't be too depressing? Me neither.

Something I think about when I'm depressed this winter (not being the owner of a fancy lightbox like other Literati) is Doug.

Doug plays Mel's husband on Flight of the Conchords. Mostly he is silent and sits in cars waiting for Mel, the Conchords' superfan. Abby and I recently watched the first two seasons of Damages, where the actor who plays Doug is also a character...who spends a lot of time silently sitting in cars waiting for and watching people, albeit in a much more sinister way.

I like to imagine that Damages and Flight of the Conchords takes place in the same universe, and that after Doug spends his day watching Ellen Parsons walk around the city, he goes and waits for Mel outside a bar where the Conchords are playing. Occasionally during the day he'll kill somebody or plant some drugs somewhere or threaten to ruin someone's life, but he's always got Mel to pick up. One eye on Mel and Jemaine, one eye on Ellen and Katie. Poor Doug with his double life.

For some reason this makes me really happy to think about.

New diet craze

2011-01-03T09:18:00.003-06:00

While watching Nova over the break I was overcome by a marveous entrepreneurial brainstorm. We all remember Kathy's diet craze: "No Meat, No Maize: The Incan Child Sacrifice Diet," yes? Well, check this out: "The Antarctica Diet: Eat 3000 Calories a Day and Lose Weight--Just by Maintaining Your Core Body Temperature!"

We open a spa on Antarctica. A couple of tents, a fire pit, and a ton of wool socks. Scientists eat up to 6000 calories a day there, just to maintain their weight. If we can fool a bunch of people with disposable income into coming to Antarctica for 10 days, we can feed them nothing but cupcakes and beer, and they'll still lose weight and feel like they're indulging.

Who's with me?

Cat in a bag, and, unrelatedly, Stieg Larsson

2010-12-27T11:02:00.008-06:00

I'm working on an essay about Stieg Larsson, posted on Fictionaut that has proved controversial for its allegedly unflattering portrayal of the IKEA food court.

Also, here's a cat in a bag!

this holiday season let's all give thanks for maru, the youtube cat christmas miracle

2010-12-21T21:50:00.000-06:00

hey look what i discovered on saturday while watching "living single" on "The U"

2010-12-08T19:16:00.002-06:00

not a kitten, but equally as noteworthy. the very end is the best part.

USAgencies Final For Air from Affirmative Insurance on Vimeo.

squeak mew squeak mew squeak mew

2010-12-06T08:52:00.001-06:00

I Can Get On Board With This

2010-12-03T12:28:00.000-06:00

I can't blog these days because kittens are my only inspiration. But now I CAN blog! Yay! Have you seen this one?

Here you go!

2010-12-02T13:24:00.000-06:00

All in favor of turning this blog into 100% kitten videos say aye!

2010-11-18T15:47:00.000-06:00

Sarah Eaton, Interviewed!

2010-10-13T09:10:00.000-05:00

I interviewed Sarah Eaton over here about her book Tough Skin. Sarah could totally make a living doing interviews: she says all the things you want to say but won't. If you want to know what you really think about everything, read it.

Moth Moon by Matt Jasper, a not-review

2010-09-29T12:24:00.003-05:00

Writing reviews is not my forte; therefore, this is a not-review. Behold below, two poems by me and a hybrid-y thingie by Megan Martin, inspired by Moth Moon by Matt Jasper.

Purdy Group Home Van, Flat Tire

Hurdling through a human steeplechase of
Ditchwater, weed, and dirt to what
End

Who’s got the joy gun, and the jack
Cutting through rust and the whipping whipping
Wind of the road

Tire’s skin split like
Dry lips and here we are with insufficient
Supervision and handfuls of atomic
Fireballs and one wheelchair to every
Five people

None of the other tires fit.
Donuts and tubes and filling and
Looking at the sparkles in the dirt.

Purdy Group Home Theatrical Exploration

A man who is not a famous sexual
predator mumbles in a
corner and everyone applauds as far
as teeth-grinding can be
considered applause.
A man who is not a famous artist
steals a screwdriver from his
therapist and secretes
it on his person.
A woman who is not a
murderer does not
like vegetables and keeps
her lips to
herself. A person in
charge is the person
in charge, doing the
things one would expect.

The staff who had contact get sent home early.
It is never the therapist’s fault.

Moths Describe The Moon

1.
His skin like is fly paper candy. Her skin is the cuddliest kitten. Its skin is a scrubbed universe in our mouths. Later, overfed, we vomit our moon on the floor and furry wet sparkles light up our carpets.

2.
Anastasia arrived today. She sticks to the moon like something splattered, sucking.

3.
My hands said I would never find the moon, but then I was inside it swimming and it held me up and my hands weren’t leaves anymore and my hands were webs of light that didn’t fall apart in wind.

4.
I shook my head against the pillow until a bald patch appeared. I shook my head until it bled onto the pillow but nobody noticed. I shook my head until my head was an oozing black strawberry in a dead forest where the moon stood guard.

5.
My body was ashes I was falling into the cracking center of. It’s scary to fall like that, but at the center of the noose is the moon and it’s good to be in the center of something.

6.
Anastasia says things are not very interesting on the moon. The ladykiller was more interesting, she says. I abhor the green yards of suburbs. But it’s easy for her to say that from here.

7.
There is no place for God on the moon because the moon replaces God and is way better.

8.
Anastasia says Pleased to meet you, moon, but really she is plotting a murder. She wants the moon to know what it’s like to wake up with rotten teeth to a room of ladykillers, to ovens of the dead. The moon don’t know shit, she says.

repulsion

2010-08-23T10:02:00.003-05:00

Incorporating another Venom Literati theme into Hate Week (which, is it two weeks now?), I would like to ruminate on a celebrity that I hate, but may actually love. That celebrity is Scott Disick.

First of all, his name is hilarious. Clearly I have an immature sense of humor, but come on. Disick. Hehehe. Second, he is a Kardashian baby daddy. Third, he is a snappy dresser. Fourth, his eyes are completely blank all of the time. Fifth, he does awful things regularly, like trying to shove a $100 bill down a waiter's throat, or...actually I can't think of anything else too bad, but Khloe sure seems to hate him, and I'm usually on Khloe's side.

Aside: How did Rob, the Kardashian brother, escape the "K" curse? Is his real name Krob?

Let's concentrate on my third point for a moment. He is a snappy dresser. He is dapper. I look at pictures of him in magazines, and then the looking turns into staring. He wears things like pale pink tailored pants with a lavender and white striped button-down. He looks like American Psycho. He often has a sweater knotted around his shoulders. He is...magnetic. I think he could be a cult leader if he tried. Case in point: Abby also cannot stop staring at Scott Disick once she starts. We arrived at this conclusion separately. Just look at that jacket! That stance! Oh, Scott Disick, how I love to hate you.

Listing of hatred

2010-08-19T10:05:00.003-05:00

I hate that when you return from vacation you have so much to do that it instantly wipes away any residual relaxation you might have been hoping to carry over into real life.

I hate that soy milk isn't available as a pour-it-yourself-like-creamer option at coffee shops.

I hate that students don't believe sexism still exists. (Silently wipes away tear, burns bra)

I hate taking over-the-counter medicines. Like, for instance, if I have terrible heartburn and I can't sleep, I will wait for up to three hours before dragging myself out of bed to take some pepto bismol rather than just doing it right away. I also hate taking tylenol/ibuprofen/whatever for headaches.

I hate yoga. Recently I talked to a friend who has to call it "stretching" in order to do it. I am going to adopt this practice, too.

I hate that you have to stay at work for eight hours, even if you are really, really efficient and get tons of stuff done in three hours. It punishes the quick.

I hate it when people leave voice mails just asking you to call them back and not telling you why they are calling. It makes me nervous.

I think I could continue this forever. I hate a lot of things.

hate week: the telling off stories

2010-08-18T17:28:00.002-05:00

in celebration of hate week, here is an email correspondence about the virtues of going ape shit. this particular conversation is about a person and situation that must remain mysterious. but the themes are universal.

tell us your telling off stories!

Megan: i really want someone to tell him off. kathy, have you told anyone off before? sarah, have you? i have told garrison off at the top of my lungs several thousand times. tell me telling-off stories. i just told gato off for prowling around in my garden and trying to eat my pepper plants which bugs are already eating.

Sarah: Bugs are eating my pepper plants, too. But I am going to have soooo much zuchinni. The most major telling-off I've ever done was with one of my partners at Brainstorm. We were full-on yelling at each other, and he kept getting closer and closer to me, and when it was all over, my calves were killing me because I was standing on my tippy-tippy toes so I could be on eye-level with him. I think I need to re-access my anger. This is the moral. Tell him off! Tell him off! Also, all of my gmail ads are about nightgowns, now. Are yours?

Megan: There are ads for nightgowns? I never want you to go off on me. You'd grow taller and taller with anger like the Incredible Hulk except you wouldn't get more muscle-y. You might not even need to talk: you could just grow and stare through me with that serial-killer face and I would shrink into the carpet like in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Kathy, if you go off on him I want you to wear a wire. I need to hear it live.

Kathryn: i feel like i did tell him off but i did it in a really calm, gentle voice. so maybe that is not a real telling off. i think the last person i told off was vinnie, and it was when he worked at betuitive, and it was for something like turning the air conditioner off when i wanted it on. i read that self-control is exhaustible. they did a study where they let one group of people eat as many cookies as they wanted and they made the other group eat vegetables while looking at the cookies. they could see the cookies but they weren't allowed to eat them. the vegetable group could do nothing else for the rest of their day because they had exhausted all their energy not eating the cookies. i think i exhaust all my energy being nice, and that if i didn't use my energy on that, i could use it all on not eating cookies. or writing poems. this could be the next diet craze. the fly into a rage diet. "scream at people all day, and watch the pounds melt away!" remember the incan child sacrifice diet? the tag line was "no meat, no maize."

Sarah: I love your diet crazes, Kathy. I'm going to fly into a rage on the next person who walks into my office and then skip lunch.

hate week

2010-08-16T19:54:00.004-05:00

i am filled with hate and depression today. coffee hasn't transformed me. you know what would help? if you guys were all in my apartment when i got home. with a million cigarettes. but that scenario belongs to another universe, so instead, let's have hate week! this is where we all talk about things we hate, and in doing so, we experience solidarity. and friendship. i'll start:

i hate when i have a load of work to do and my office mates are having a champagne/pizza party and blasting madonna music and stomping around in the loudest high heels in the world.

i also hate it when hipsters talk about "obese people" on their blog, like they're making some kind of progressive observation by saying they saw an obese person. hey hipster, you're just being an ass hat.

i also hate it when men in bars call you sweetheart and grope you. next time that happens someone's head's gonna get knocked off.

now, you go!

isreads 7 is ridiculously good looking

2010-07-18T14:45:00.000-05:00

isReads 7, the haiku issue, is now live! it stars venom literati hotties sarah eaton and megan martin, honorary venom literati hottie, della watson, and stephanie barber, colin bassett, dan brady, jimmy chen, fred ecenrode, molly gaudry, jamie iredell, chris killen, tao lin, sam pink, audri sousa and bianca stone (all ridiculously good looking).

this issue was posted around baltimore, chicago, indianapolis, minneapolis, pittsburgh, and providence. thanks to christopher newgent, stephen pemberton, adam atkinson and shannon eddy, our fantastic contributing editors!

Critically-acclaimed violent Northern European films

2010-07-15T12:45:00.002-05:00

That's my new favorite Netflix category.

Ch. 27: Dolorous hostelry: Circle Two

2010-06-29T12:05:00.001-05:00

“No intercourse at The Pinch Punch.” So read the note safety-pinned to my felt and satin bedspread upon arrival. For me, this was no problem. Asexual by nature, attractive by countenance, I had grown accustomed to spurning advances from animal and vegetable alike.

But here a hot wind blows and stirs my loins. But here this Charming Man is charmed by wraiths in shredded robes of cobwebs.

To have never been truly punished by desire and then get beaned by its full force: I shuddered and sought the nearest cavern with my groin. The unfortunate lusty ghosts traced icy fingertips across the sensitive pits of my knees. And then I saw them and knew that I must have them.

The whining, the wailing, the beauty: I sought to enter and get swept up on their aimless blowabout. A threesome I propose, and their hearts leap. No really, I can see their hearts pulsing above their garments; that’s one of those things about the concupiscent yearners. Every cliché has a source.

Two illicit lovers, separated for eternity, now offered the chance to reunite, and—bonus!—I’m part of the bargain: clean as a fish and just as supple and muscular, innocent as a believer, horny as myth—and theirs. I approach gingerly, my tongue at the ready.

They ignore me completely, slobbering the saliva of death, clutching and shrieking and pounding away. I bid the wind drive them apart again, and forever.

Ch. 1 here
Ch. 2 here
Ch. 3 here
Ch. 4 here
Ch. 5 here
Ch. 6 here
Ch. 7 here
Ch. 8 here
Ch. 9 here
Ch. 10 here
Ch. 11 here
Ch. 12 here
Ch. 13 here
Ch. 14 here
Ch. 15 here
Ch. 16 here
Ch. 17 here
Ch. 18 here
Ch. 19 here
Ch. 20 here
Ch. 21 here
Ch. 22 here
Ch. 23 here
Ch.24 here
Ch. 25 here
Ch. 26 here

Ch. 26: The Stairs Between Limbo and Lust

2010-06-16T08:48:00.001-05:00

Prying people out of limbo takes more than a crowbar. You need skills, and a Crave Case of Slyders to toss like goals down the circular staircase. The plus-sized models are the first to extricate themselves from Ovid’s hot tub, nostrils to the increasingly heated igneous metamorphic.

“I’m so glad these stairs are going down,” the models remark to one another as they pass me. Every single one of them says it as if it is an original remark. I smack the last one on the bottom with my striped cane. Something is coming over me like a pink cloud that smells of aging cheese.

TYRA is the last to leave. She decided to try out her charitable debate skills on Plato in preparation for the inevitable talk show showdown. Looking at the flickering shadow of a Slyder is not nearly as delicious as sinking your teeth into one. Join the others! You might become something you never imagined.

I’m paraphrasing here. She went on and on about fear, and also loving yourself, and realizing that you are not the center of the universe. He rolled his eyes throughout. But she seemed to feel good about it.

She also looks good. Her weave shines becomingly in the firelight, her mouth pursed in determination. I stifle an urge to stand on tiptoe to kiss her danger space.

Ch. 1 here
Ch. 2 here
Ch. 3 here
Ch. 4 here
Ch. 5 here
Ch. 6 here
Ch. 7 here
Ch. 8 here
Ch. 9 here
Ch. 10 here
Ch. 11 here
Ch. 12 here
Ch. 13 here
Ch. 14 here
Ch. 15 here
Ch. 16 here
Ch. 17 here
Ch. 18 here
Ch. 19 here
Ch. 20 here
Ch. 21 here
Ch. 22 here
Ch. 23 here
Ch.24 here
Ch. 25 here

The squirrel

2010-06-14T10:44:00.002-05:00

Sometime in the fall of this year, we came home to find a dead squirrel in the street in front of our house. We buried it by the tree. Winter came, the ground shifted, and its little red claw emerged, like it was about to escape from the grave.

Spring came, the ground thawed, and it did escape--hopefully with the aid of some other animal. And it was on our sidewalk. And it smelled bad. And we scootched it as close to the grass patch by the road as possible to avoid stepping on it. And we did not re-bury it. Perhaps because it didn't really work the first time? Or maybe we just thought we had done our duty by the squirrel. Or maybe it became a science experiment.

Many things followed, practically on a daily basis. The squirrel stopped smelling. Our next door neighbor stepped in it. The mummified claw detached from the rest of the body. Bones began to show. Dogs sniffed it. Sometimes it disappeared for a few days, but it always came back. And then the torrential rains came.

The squirrel is gone now. Probably down the street somewhere. But his claw remains.

RIP David Markson

2010-06-08T09:22:00.003-05:00

Venom Literati favorite David Markson died on Friday.

In memoriam, our former posts that mentioned him:

It all started with Wayne Koestenbaum.
And then we bought The Last Novel.
And then we loved it.
And then we loved it some more.
And then we invited him to our meeting.
And then he didn't come.
And then he set us free.

A walk down Venom Literati memory lane. We'll miss you, David Markson.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ray Cline, master acupuncturist

2010-06-01T10:12:00.001-05:00

Ch. 25: First Circle, Limbo, as narrated by Kashmir

2010-05-24T08:51:00.001-05:00

At the edge of the suburban-green field, inside the White Castle, Socrates and Plato hold either end of the broom. Ovid bends nearly in half but it isn’t flexible enough to squeak under without bumping his manboobs.

“Too many Slyders!!!” the philosophers cry out in unison, and double over in hysterical laughter.

“I, Kashmir, am not impressed. I shall slip under easy-breezy as a miracle.”

And I do! Of course I do! I am about to inherit the Oprah Show! I am Kashmir, free and gorgeous as a nineteen-year old named Kashmir! I float under as if levitating inches above the ground!

Really I don’t feel gorgeous at all. TYRA will have nothing to do with me now that she’s on this mission, which has made me fall hard in love with her. Also, she keeps asking the Charming Man for philosophical advice, which really irks me, because he keeps saying things like “We’ve all had our buttons pushed to the point where we feel like we need to stab people in the face, but in the end the buttons belong to us: we are the ones who must deal with and take ownership of them. The more we take responsibility for our own buttons, the more we sew them tightly onto our stylish pea coats instead of letting them be pushed, the less tender they will be.”

“Exactly,” Kathy says. “That’s it exactly. That’s like, totally the philosophy behind my Animalfits™.”

“What the fuck? What the fuck does that mean? Kathy, explain to me in your own words what that means.”

“Oh Kashmir, it’s beyond words. Duh. You have to be…connected with the Universe to get it.”

Tyra nods in a faux-intelligent way, but it’s clearly just a front for lust.
She wanders off and shoves her face in in a to-go box of Slyders like it’s a trough, fighting off the plus-sized models with flailing backhands. Why can’t she see that she’s just like me, insecure and desperate; why can’t she see that we are twins? All she’s got on her mind is gorging. It’s part of our “Oprah destruction training.” We’ve stopped at every Burger King along the way. Her ass is getting beyond plus-sized.

puddin’ asks if she can please have an iceburg salad please, no dressing.

TYRA says: “Nu-uhh, Girlfriend. You’ll eat another cheeseburger and orgasm all over it. And you won’t vomit it up this time. We’re marching toward my dream, Girlfriend. Do you understand?”

puddin’ slinks off into the corner, bitching into her voice recorder; Caravaggio and a wave of tiny animals following in her wake.

“Sorry pud, It’s Slyders or nothing,” says Plato. “This is the awesome thing that happens to geniuses who are totally too smart to believe in God. We get to hang out at White Castle, talk existentialism, and eat Slyders all our lives! And Slyders are like crack! And existentialism is like crack!”

“God is not like crack—I don’t get how people get so addicted. He’s more like that Pinch-Punch thing you just gave me: mean and vile. We are totally not grieving our separation from Him like we’re supposed to,” says Socrates. “How can one grieve when there are Slyders everywhere you turn, just waiting to be thrown in the microwave?”

“Limbo, however, is the least joyous pastime on earth,” says Ovid. “Plus it just makes me feel old and fat. That’s the only part of the deal that sucks.”

“People, people, shut the fuck up; it’s mandatory viewing time.”

I put on the MANAGER nametag and the MANAGER hat and tell everybody to sit their bitch asses down while I set up the projector. Two hundred hours and six boxes of Slyders later, Ovid says:

“I like the part where Caravaggio tears out all of his hair while he’s flying the kite. But the rest is crap. Plus the sex scenes are nasty. What’s going on with his balls?”

“It’s all crap because it’s art,” says Plato. “Art is not life. Art is so fucking lowly. I’m going back to my cave now to gorge myself on Slyders until I fall into a restless, pornographic sleep. I’m dreaming of Bette Midler rubbing Slyders all over her frontside tonight. Slyders are all I dream about.”

TYRA says: “I totally know how you feel; me, too,” and her eyes bulge with empathy like plus-sized marbles.

TYRA has never said that to me. But she will, oh, she will.

Ch. 1 here
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Ch.24 here

chris killen has done another funny thing

2010-05-18T14:05:00.000-05:00

chris killen is my favorite internet comedian. i found a new funny thing that he did today: BEST WEBSITE EVER.COM

Tyra's writing about the Pinch Punch

2010-05-12T09:11:00.003-05:00

Probably. It's called Modelland. On her website it says: "pronounced Model Land."

We should review this. Tyra update!

Pinch Punch Ch. 24: Everybody, Observe and Mimic the Charming Man in his Steadfast Confidence!

2010-05-10T08:43:00.002-05:00

Nobody knows where he got the striped walking stick to pump up and down as he do-si-dos in place by the impenetrable steel door. It can’t have been his item of questionable existence. It is a stick. It can’t have fit in his rollerboard. Maybe it’s collapsible.

The Charming Man simply waits for us to join him in his vigil. So confident, so certain that TYRA will emerge with the skeleton key at the witching hour and spring us. It’s infectious, this hope. The howling girl has placed her head at his feet, gently massaging the bicep on his pumping arm.

Time elapses; hope is eclipsed.

We gauge expression and calculate at what point it will be rude for us to return to our rooms. I ready my feet to slink off to go sew neckties for the tiny monkeys, but I catch sight of a doe-eyed young woman with a prominent forehead standing barefoot among us. She looks like a catalog model, face de-lacquered and free of lines.

It is she, brimming with as much faith as any of us, traces of evil shooting around her head like electrons. Our attention is drawn to her naturally, and any misgivings any of us possessed wisp away. She is TYRA, inheritor of all things tangible and intangible, our savior, our guide, our one and only. We would follow her into hell. And we do.

Ch. 1 here
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Ch. 23 here

Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely and disturbing Ray Cline

2010-05-04T08:11:00.002-05:00

New Blog

2010-04-27T10:38:00.005-05:00

You should check out this new blog, McCarty's blog. I don't know why I'm posting a picture of the puppet bike, because it has nothing to do with her new blog, which I'm pretty sure is not about puppets.

Pinch Punch Ch. 23: A Subliminal Revolt

2010-04-20T08:28:00.001-05:00

The rumblings started at the animal level. Tiny monkeys whispered revolution to the martens who whispered it to the piglets and the chain began. They told me I was the first human to hear them speak, and I chose to believe them. The second floor, Sunday morning—revolt? TYRA will know. Kashmir is her little bitch, and the piglets trust everyone.

Kashmir is the only one TYRA would ever listen to, but only subconsciously, only in mid-dream. Caravaggio is the only one Kashmir would ever listen to, also only subconsciously, also only in mid-dream.

Caravaggio wants out more than anybody. I bribe him with a fourth color of fingerpaint and four switchblades. I hand him the subliminal message-lies the tiny monkeys have written to imbed in Kashmir’s miniseries:

You are better than TYRA. You are better than TYRA. You are waaaay fuckin’ better than TYRA, and definitely more voluptous. Plus you want Kathy to become waaay famous for her Animalfits. Way more famous than you. Plus you want Caravaggio to earn his redemption from the Pope. (He will even give you the saucy red shoes you’ve been lusting after!) And we have to get out of here to do any of that. You hate the effin’ Pinch Punch and its vats of despair. You must lure TYRA out into the forest and over to Oprah’s studio where we will all stab the tits off Oprah and also stab TYRA to death; then you can take over not only TYRA’s show, but also Oprah’s, and make a miniseries about their lives of sin. But first you must record a subliminal message, in your sexy, rascally voice, and play it to her in her sleep, for she will listen only to you.

Two hundred hours later, after reel one of the miniseries, Kashmir disappears under the floorboards, emerges in TYRA’s room with a brilliant idea, and whispers in her ears all night long.

TYRA, TYRA love. TYRA baby. You are better than that. You are God—do you know you are God? You are absolutely GOD. Oprah is not God, as you may have been deluded into believing, just as the rest of us have. God is you. You are God. You are this. This is you. G-O-D is spelled T-Y-R-A. Plus you want Kathy to become waaay famous for her Animalfits. Way more famous than you. Plus you want Caravaggio to earn his redemption, and for I, Kashmir, to take over alongside you until I stab your tits and Oprah’s tits, at which point I will take over the world—wait, I didn’t just tell you that. Erase that part. Anyway, Sunday morning you will unlock the front gate of the Pinch Punch, and we shall all escape together, in one clump, and cartwheel across the lawn on our way to murder Oprah and all of her cronies. Sunday morning 3 am you will unlock the gate and we shall flee the Pinch Punch and its self-esteem-destroying liquers.

Ch. 1 here
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Barbaric yAWP and Venom Literati Present Deborah Brandon

2010-04-09T16:57:00.004-05:00

The wonderful Deborah Brandon reads "bloom-ing."

bloom-ing (for venom literati) from on Vimeo.

deborah brandon lives in tucson. by day, she helps her toddler form, from a previously unintelligible mash of sound, words such as 'potty' and 'elbow.' deborah reverts into her own intricate gibberish, sometimes writing it down, after everyone else is fast asleep.

more yAWP! "Cars" by Meghan Austin

2010-04-09T11:41:00.003-05:00

Click here to listen to Meghan Austin reading her short story "Cars". You really need to listen to it. There's a soundtrack involved, with beats from crunchywhite.com. It is amazing.

Meghan Austin is a writer trying to escape Chicago.

yAWP continues - Miki Howald and John Heckman Wright

2010-04-09T08:10:00.010-05:00

Miki Howald, reading two poems recently published in Ariel journal:

Miki Howald writes nonfiction essays and prose poems. Her work has been published in Gulf Coast, Like Water Burning, swap/concessions #4, Ariel, and in several online journals and zines. She has performed her work at the 2009 AWP Conference, Reconstruction Room, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the First Friday Reading Series in Anchorage, AK, and the Quiet Storm café in Pittsburgh, PA. Miki was a semi-finalist in the 2009 and 2006 Guild Complex of Chicago's non-fiction prose contests. She is a former co-organizer, webmaster, and blog writer of the Reconstruction Room reading series in Chicago. Miki earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage and a BA from the University of Pittsburgh.

John Heckman Wright, reading from his novel in progress:

John Heckman Wright is a writer, bedroom DJ, and outdoor enthusiast who lives in Portland, Oregon. His website is at http://www.johnheckmanwright.com/.

And now we read: yAWP!

2010-04-07T20:29:00.003-05:00

The ladies of Venom Literati pawned our diamond ring collections and invested in webcams. Listen to us read. Watch our lips as they form words:

What did people do before the internet?

2010-04-07T09:03:00.002-05:00

I should be able to remember this. It was not around for my whole life. I learned to type on a typewriter. A nun taught me.

James Sturm is quitting. I feel like quitting, too. The internet, that is.

Entry Day II: Kathy’s POV

2010-03-29T12:09:00.001-05:00

A new resident has brought in a unicycle as his item of questionable existence, and the plus-sized models are a-flurry with excitement. TYRA convinced them they can learn fluid movement by cycling down the staircases, but so far it has resulted only in carbuncles and exposed bits of skull. Caravaggio takes advantage of their unconsciousness to paint them, re-arranging their arms and legs to relive stabbings in his past.

I whisper down the hallway, “A little to the left,” but puddin’ fixes me with a hairy eyeball. I raise my blue glass bead to thwart her ill intentions. I used to want a muse so bad. Now I want to muse so bad.

I feel feverish, and the roof of my mouth tastes of zinc. I don’t know why I wanted a muse in the first place anyway: I do not want anyone to tell me what to do ever again.

There is a Charming Man guesting at The Pinch Punch. He isn’t much of a stabber, but his anecdotes are amusing as all get out. The howling girl’s cries have turned to giggles, and she enlists the martens to comb out her hair each morning. Is this the start of harmony? Is charm the great equalizer?

I refuse to believe that anyone is better than me. But even the small pets snub me at evening prayer.

Ch. 1 here
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lightening things up

2010-03-22T08:52:00.001-05:00

Poetry Market Crash

2010-03-18T14:24:00.002-05:00

I have a lot of sadness regarding the internets lately. And because of it I am going to write a cranky post that is actually about writing and not about celebrities, which I will probably later regret.

Today I would like to blame the internets for everything mentioned in the article, "The New Math of Poetry," which everyone has probably already read except for me because I have been trying to avoid the internets as much as possible, out of sadness.

This article basically says how everyone on the planet, including my cats, can now a) have their work published in journals and b) have a book out because there are so many journals and presses. It also says that way more people are writing and publishing books than are actually reading them. It's sort of like the credit market crash: every writer gets offered a book just like every financially defunct human (including myself) could get a credit card in 2005. The result being that there's a glut of sucky books out there, and an excess of writers who think they're famous even though no one is actually reading their books - there are just all of these books floating around out there unread! And allegedly good books aren't being read either, because there's so much clutter that nobody even knows what's good anymore - because they can't find it.

I have wondered about this for a long time - especially lately with the excess of online "journals." Do we really need more journals? And why does every writer feel entitled to start one? Well, now someone else has said it, in this unnecessarily long and overwhelming article that has confirmed my suspicions that the internet is just a gross place where people create press for themselves, regardless of the quality of their work. Then we "network" by telling other people about our press (which we actually created ourselves) and they publish our books, even though really our press (and maybe our work) is bullshit.

Of course I'm all for there being more good books in the world, and that's why I like little presses, which is not what this article talks about at all - all the little presses that create books that are beautiful and strange and that I love. So of course there's this cuter and fluffier and more positive flipside.

Really this is just another example of me being cranky about living now instead of in the woods near Walden Pond...

Puddin’, Audiodiary #3

2010-03-18T09:16:00.000-05:00

I had a muse once, although I did not know it at the time. Her name was Lucy. She was a fairy tiny and light as a mosquito, but badass, with bangin' hair, and kung fu moves that she demonstrated on the teacup piglets--whacking them into the side of the barn so their brains fell out. She threatened to remove my mother from my periphery; after all, she was a muse; this is what muses do. She glistened and glittered, as muses should. She was my alter-ego, as muses should be.

She adored me; she adorned my shoulder at all hours of the day, so that I noticed her only in the rarest moments, usually at daybreak, when she was whacking the teacup piglets into the barn. Or making me perfect coffees, and cakes that tasted like the world I’d never seen: Argentina, South Pacific, Pakistan. I liked the taste of the arctic cakes best: pure as wind, they blew through my whole body, they exhilarated my insides. Her mixing bowl must have been so tiny. Her cakes were the size of a thimble.

I did not tell her how I loved those cakes best of all, but she knew. She was my muse.
She gave me maps of the icecaps, handdrew them on the inside of my mind like wallpaper. What she whispered to me at all hours was: flee.

I did not understand that we shared a language. I could barely hear her at all, except in rare moments, at daybreak. I could not picture the icecaps--what existed there? After arriving, who would I become? None of this mattered; I knew.

I didn’t know she was my muse. I did not choose her. I did not feel it when she left. I only noticed years later, brown and lumpen, that she wasn't there, that I hadn't tasted her cakes in decades.

This is how one falls through the skylight into new life: by chasing what doesn’t exist.

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Whose muse? The Plus-sized Models Flaunt It

2010-03-16T12:22:00.000-05:00

Caravaggio begs us to pose, granting us access to his extensive selection of wigs and swimwear. We swagger the hallways in his trunks, our breasts swaying, tiny monkeys clinging to our nipples to preserve our dignity.

We cannot sit still long enough for him to paint. We are meant to be captured in the present, to prolong a single moment by means of flashing light and electric sensors. Photography is so much more efficient.

He pops around corners, menacing us with knives. We submit, and he embraces another medium, sculpting us, removing ears and eyebrows, but no inner light emerges.

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let's go to japan and hang out in kitty cafes

2010-03-09T16:01:00.001-06:00

i found THIS on chris killen's blog. it is awesome.

arrogant russian nostalgia

2010-02-23T15:28:00.000-06:00

you guys, i feel nostalgic for men's figure skating, even though i only watched it one night and i was on the computer the whole time. i keep turning the olympics on to see evgeni, but he's not there anymore. now it's always those weird skiers that look like flying squirrels. so boring.

Need I say more?

2010-02-19T10:52:00.001-06:00

Celebrity Crush: Yevgeny Plushenko

2010-02-17T09:01:00.002-06:00

Oh, Yevgeny, you returned to thwart your enemies. My heart is not your enemy. I'm so pleased you did not bother to shave. It seems like maybe someone punched you in the nose since the last time I saw you, and it makes you look dangerous. I'm strangely pissed off at Dick Button for not understanding your frenetic footwork. (Not all art has to be fluid, Dick.)

my cats only love me because i feed them

2010-01-25T19:02:00.005-06:00

Have you guys read Fugue State yet? I just returned it to the library. I guarantee that I will only remember the bleeding eyes when it comes time to meet again. And playing ponies. Except maybe that I'm not sure if that was the same book. But that's okay, right? I'll just be like the surly undergrad in the insane clown posse tee. You will appreciate me for my commitment to character. Maybe I'll check it out again.

I wish there were some way to see who else/how many other people had checked out books before you now that the little stampy pages are gone. I wish that the internet actually let us spy on people more. Maybe we should all mount webcams around our houses. We can be the girls of Venom Literati. Gross.

Weather Enticement

2010-01-17T11:43:00.002-06:00

I would like to announce, for Literati who may be considering moving eastward, that tomorrow it will be 48 degrees here and sunny. Weather is important to mental health. This is a public service announcement, brought to you by Venom Literati - Cincinnati Branch.

let's state our allegiance.

2010-01-14T13:01:00.002-06:00

Okay, you got me. I like plot.

2010-01-13T09:09:00.003-06:00

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how I read, which means I am a 'uge nerd. More particularly, I have been thinking about how I read vs. how I watch TV or movies. When I watch TV, I am willing to subject myself to the lowest, most banal, most repugnant things, and what's more, I enjoy it. I am not ashamed to admit I like the Bad Girls Club, for example, and all they do is shout nonsense at each other in a repetitive way. I can pretend to think intellectual things about it, but really it just fascinate me because of what it is. And then afterwards I feel sort of gross and overexposed. So why am I such a snob about reading, or more accurately, closeted about occasionally reading things that are not also, like, art?

Confession part two: I really like plot.

I read both "Fugue State" by Brian Evenson and "The Dolphin People" by Torsten Krol over the weekend. I liked both of them immensely. "Fugue State" seems like literary horror, which is one of my favorite things, and reading "The Dolphin People" was very much like watching an adventure movie in my brain. I hope I am not discouraging you from reading "Fugue State," Kathy. The words in it are really very good, too. It's not a plot-only book.

The moral of this post is that I'm going to watch less TV and read more like I watch TV. More widely and less ashamedly. I am going to reject things that don't interest me partway through, like flipping the channel, and sometimes I'll read things that verge on chick lit. As long as they're funny. And well-written enough. I'll still read poetry. I'll still read lots of stuff from small presses. It's unlikely that I'll start reading celebrity autobiographies to substitute for the E! network, but I'm probably going to read some other terrible things. And tell you all about them. So there.

So...what's our next book?

2010-01-05T11:22:00.002-06:00

I watched a Dr. Phil episode sometime during the last week, and it turns out that teens are having sex. America is outraged. Dr. Phil cannot believe it either.

I am reading something called "Fugue State" and something else called "The Dolphin People." I am not sure either of those is appropriate for us.

Kathy wants us to read Robert Lopez. I have not discussed this with her. I can just sense it.

Wait, I just started looking things up and discovered everyone loves "Fugue State." I've barely begun it. I've only read "Fugue." Maybe that should be our book. What do you think? Here it is:http://brianevenson.com/fugue.html. It's hallucinatory and darkly comic. That sounds like us.

Re-start

2009-12-14T08:45:00.002-06:00

Let's do it for reals.

Pinch Punch Ch. 19: Every surgery is a success if you have a positive attitude

2009-12-03T08:06:00.001-06:00

They danced like instinct around the bottle. Anaesthetized, necks flopping as though cooked, their jazz hands popped and limpened. All olive-skinned and tawny and freckled, my own sweet tribe of wavy-haired combos. Joining, then separation, then joining, then separation. It has traditionally been male to female merging in the past, mostly due to biology, but The Pinch Punch is like a large scale Petri dish.

Damn, they’re beautiful. Powdered blood puffs out from every pore, giving them the high color of drunken Northern Europeans.

The Plus-sized Models howl as the chemicals wear off and projectile vomit on my army of hedgehog nurses. They don’t mind. Their soft needles slough off everything.

Just because I am hot doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Have I created four monsters? Will they attempt to usurp me? Will they work out that knotted bedclothes make as good a rope as rope does? The tiny monkeys have agreed to distract them with double dutch stylings and aerobatics. They also will be underfoot. No one is ever more careful than when there are many adorable tiny monkeys cantering about your ankles. Cuteness unseats evil.

Did you know that it is possible for someone of my stature to despair? It hurts me more than it hurts you. Now drink up.

Ch. 1 here
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I can't stop thinking about this

2009-11-10T12:37:00.003-06:00

There is this grave that can hold up to four people. This is real, by the way. And in this grave are the matriarch and the patriarch on one side, dead and under the ground for many years, and the other side is reserved for the son and his wife. Except that the son isn't dead yet, so just the son's dead wife is in the grave.

This is real: Carved on the son and wife's side of the grave it reads: "[This son] married [this other person, probably his foxy secretary or a golddigger or maybe it was true love late in life] in 2000." This is carved on the dead wife's grave. News of the alive widower's second marriage. On the first wife's grave. Carved.

I hope she's haunting the everloving ish out of him.

Postcard From the Norton Anthologies

2009-11-08T07:49:00.003-06:00

Dearest Literati,

I have emerged from the Norton Anthologies; finally I can read things I like again, such as this blog.

I had an affair with Lord Byron via the Norton Anthology. I traveled the world with various Byronic heroes whom I had thrown myself at in order to be invited. That was pretty awesome, but I'm itchy now. Do you know that Byron was considered ridiculously attractive during his time, but was genetically prone to obesity and existed mostly on crackers and soda water? I was very hungry traveling with Byron; if we went to restaurants he only ordered water or clear liquors. I had to eat greasy things alone.

I also attended Wordsworth on his walking tour of the Alps. Mostly he grumbled about Byron's fame and picked me a lot of flowers that made me sneeze. I grew bored of his rhymings.

I never knew what Blake was talking about, and enjoyed his company most of all.

Mostly I forgot to study other things that didn't interest me, and left the test center with 50 questions blank. Alas.

Pinch Punch Ch. 18: Prep

2009-10-29T09:02:00.001-05:00

Psychic severance is the most difficult to accomplish. Gazing at their roaming eyes, their nervous tics, fills me with dread. It is so easy to kill my confidence. I don’t know if an eggbeater, a table saw, and sandpaper will do the job. But I have always made due. When they said I couldn’t, I said nothing. To their faces. To their backs TYRA always spoke truth, singing hymns with alternate, rude lyrics, subtly stripping the screw.

I am fairly certain that surgery was accomplished mostly by magic in the past. I bring my own brand of fairy dust, but I am no sorceress, despite (self-started) rumblings to the contrary among the residents. All it takes to get ahead is a little bit of common sense, a touch of street smarts, a strong constitution, and a chameleonic philosophy.

The gruel has protein powder in it, okay? The compulsory Pinch-Punches contain some milk. I blend broccoli, got it? I am gentle.

I just don’t know how they managed it, the merging. I don’t think they even did it on purpose. I hate it when people succeed at something they’re not even trying that hard to do. I guess that’s called talent.

Ch. 1 here

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Ch. 17 here

The flu, the prisoner

2009-10-20T07:10:00.004-05:00

Everyone I know either has the flu, just got over the flu, or is terrified of getting the flu. The skin on my hands is starting to bubble from using so much sanitizer. I guess I'm in the third camp. It's starting to seem inevitable.

The problem with this is that I recently decided that I hate cable. I don't even like Real and Chance anymore. Heidi Klum looks overtanned. There are way too many shows where dudes stand next to a green screen and talk. I can't even special order movies because I don't have a landline. How, if I have the flu and am debilitated, am I going to enjoy myself? I'm not.

In other news, they're (being AMC) remaking The Prisoner, starring Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen. But at least 90% of the reason that The Prisoner is so awesome is the dude who played Number Six, Patrick McGoohan. His facial expressions are so...cross between charming and smarmy: smarming.

Pinch Punch Ch. 17: Self-Absorbed Non-Conversation Between Howling Girl and PUDDIN’, As Transcribed by the Tiny Monkeys

2009-10-13T07:42:00.002-05:00

HG: It’s what they tell me, what everyone tells me: Get over yourself! I do not disagree, however howling is addictive. It’s like ho-hos or weightlifting.

P: Why does everyone hate me just because I’m not ashamed of stains?

HG: I mean, whether you are being vocal or not, you are howling, you know? Howling takes on different forms: you, for example, howl by hiding in the telephone booth with as many teacup piglets as you can cram in. Kashmir by refusing to speak except with the vampire teeth in, and only to say: Um. Caravaggio by stabbing. Charming Man’s brilliant smile, upon closer observation, is a howl, too.

P: I can’t help it that my hair smells like lilacs, lilies of the valley, ocean, freshly cut grass, oranges, topsoil, and coffee beans all at once. Why don’t they get that? I can’t fucking help it!

HG: Sure, I see where they’re coming from that a howl is not words, and therefore not the best way to explain oneself, but that is generally the motivation: to release your sorrow into the atmosphere for everyone to feel so that they come running after you and bury you in a big pile of soft animals. Yet nobody does that. Why doesn’t anybody ever do that, anyway? We need more of that in this world.

P: I heard the Plus-Sized Models saying the other day that my legs look like raw chicken breast, and also that they don’t think I poop. You don’t think that, do you? Because I do poop. It just happens to smell good, and it’s really tiny so there are never streaks left behind like the ones Caravaggio leaves. I can’t help that, either.

HG: You know how once you howl once, you just get this feeling like you’ll be at it your whole life? How the more you howl the more the howl fills you up and the more you have to release it? I think that howling is basically undiagnosed bulimia. Drink a single Pinch-Punch and you’ll howl the rest of your life away.

P: Also, yes, I know the tiny animals follow me around like I’m their queen, but it’s not like I asked them to. And plus I do know everything. I scored perfect on my SAT. People who score perfect on their SAT know everything.

HG: I mean, I don’t completely disagree, but they don’t get it, how if you howl long and deep enough, everything around you fills you with howl: the empty sky, the sky full of stars or rain, commercials, supermarket muzak, everything.

P: I just happen to care about my teeth. I am a self-respecting human. I brush. I floss. I have never done that laser-whitening like they all say.

HG: Of course we would all prefer not to howl; not to be so human. I do not trust people who do not howl, like that bitch-ass gleeful seamstress making her Animalfits™ up on the hilltops. Her howl is released through her split seams and masked by her pink paisley patterns at once. She just doesn’t happen to know it.

P: And you know what? Just for fun I actually lied to them all the other night about how TYRA lets me go beyond the red curtain. I had too many Pinch-Punches that night and couldn’t help myself. I’ve never been there. Tee-hee.

HG: Nobody gets over themselves; what would be left anybody if they did?

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Benny and Joon: Some sort of cosmic significance?

2009-10-08T07:44:00.004-05:00

We all know Megan is totally and completely obsessed with Benny and Joon as of like a month ago, and then last weekend I was at a party where two people who don't know Megan brought it up independently, and then it was a question on Jeopardy, and then last night it was on television, and I watched it.

You are right, Megan: They are not--ahem--mentally challenged as my former young self thought, and that icky feeling I had associated with it the first time around has disappeared. So where is all this Benny and Joon coming from? What does it mean? Am I about to become schizophrenic? Or meet Aidan Quinn? Either seems possible.

chris killen is my new favorite comedian

2009-09-24T11:55:00.003-05:00

he has videos that everyone else on the internet was laughing at a year ago while i wasn't paying attention. and also this awesome choose your own adventure game. and also a novel called the bird room. do you want to read it for the next venom literati book? or also, i think i have a chapbook that he wrote with shane jones. i could make photocopies. let's vote. i am happy we are meeting at headquarters this weekend. someone please shine a batman light in the sky so jen and i can find our way.

Oh! Oh!

2009-09-24T10:13:00.003-05:00

Lecture
Wayne Koestenbaum: The Anatomy of Harpo Marx
#604: Sat, Nov. 14 12:00 - 1:00 PM

Poet and cultural critic Wayne Koestenbaum will share his contagious enthusiasm for the silent hilarity of the mostly mute Harpo Marx brother.

Admission: Adults: $5.00, Educators & Students: FREE Where: Chicago Cultural Center - Claudia Cassidy Theater, 77 East Randolph Street, Chicago, IL 60202

A gimmick will make me famous

2009-09-22T08:09:00.003-05:00

I saw Julie and Julia over the weekend, and anything in it that didn't involve Meryl Streep sucked (by which I mean all of the Julia stuff was good, and I could have done without Julie entirely). Really: That husband with his meaty smacking lips and eating grunts was so repulsive that I really wanted Julie to divorce him on grounds of disgustingness and selfishness so when the inevitable Marital Problem Scene surfaced I just got mad.

Also, I am pretty sure that the parents of writers everywhere are suddenly calling up their kids and asking them if they have ever heard of this thing called blogging. Which will make them famous. All they have to do is find a hook.

Crap. I just looked that dude up on imdb, and he's going to be in An Invisible Sign of My Own, too.

Pinch Punch Ch. 16: The Tiny Monkeys Overhear an Odd Conversation Among the Residents, Re: Who the Fuck is Tyra

2009-09-15T07:33:00.002-05:00

“I think she is a robot.”

“I think she is made of fiberglass and plastic.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t make a very intelligent painting: I have already made 36. To look at them is to lower your IQ by fifty points.”

“I think she is the fire that shall inherit Oprah’s forest.”

“It’s true that the chameleonic philosophy of the common man churns in her hair, but there is the bald spot, the flaw, the hunk of pink exposed brain, human as any other: warding off unforeseen desires, releasing the bitter chemicals of loss into her blood.”

“Still, she walks the robot’s walk. Do you choose your robot, or does she choose you?”

“Maybe the chemicals just pile up. Maybe the chemicals char and blacken and harden over the years until you walk like that.”

“Dreams and mothers are just piles of chemicals, too, but what do hers sound like?”

“A child kneeling in a Saharan mirage, scrubbing her face with sand, scooping sand into her mouth to ward off thirst.”

“Just think how pure her blood used to be back then.”

"You know her secret ingredient is moon, right?"

"I hear she rises mornings and claws it down with her fingernails. In her giant’s hands it is bright and tiny like a baby, then she mortars and pestles it to death, scatters it fizzing into the vats: a cremation undone."

"The moon does not resist; the moon does not strive, it only reflects."

"What would happen if she tossed it out over the ocean, into all the city’s orifices like a cure? What would happen if she bathed in it? If we all did?"

"Nobody ever looks into a shot glass before they put it inside of themselves. Nobody sees how the silvered liquid reflects us doing cartwheels across the lawn in unison."

"Only the werewolves know, and only for a minute before the moon recollects itself."

“Um, guys, I think we’ve been in here way too long. Everything is starting to get way too poetic.”

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And plus, this

2009-09-11T09:19:00.000-05:00

More faces.

Dag. Like weeks have passed.

2009-09-11T09:11:00.003-05:00

So here's a post to get me/us out of our stagnation. Look at this. I am interested in family resemblance because I think it is creepy.

Sex Toy Hostesses Are Surrealists

2009-08-25T20:09:00.003-05:00

Clearly I can't escape these things: you know how much I hated that effin' jewelry party? Well, one of Garrison's friends from the climbing gym invited me to a sex toy party. What a way to get to know people. But the party was actually not at all uncomfortable. The hostess lady just handed around a bunch of sparkly liquidy things to try on that were basically all the same lotion that tasted like cotton candy or Smarties. She also handed around this amazing pheromone spray that made your pheromones show off their own unique scent. Mine smelled like burning wood and tabasco, which was hilarious.

The best part was that we played Surrealist games. One went like this: think of the chore you hate most around the house. Think of exactly how you'd describe it. ("I hate ______ because _____.") Now substitute the word sex for the first blank. This is totally the surrealist game where they'd pull the labels off of household products and replace the brand names with "Love" or "God" and then read the descriptions on the packaging as if the products were Love or God!

The other game we played was the exquisite corpse except better. You answer questions and fold over the paper for each one and pass them around. If you could go one place in the world where would it be? Which boy would you take with you? What's the first thing you'd do to him once you arrived? What would he say afterwards? What would you say?

Venice. Anthony Bourdain. Eat seafood off him. I'm hungry. A-ha. I liked mine how it would have been originally if I'd kept my own paper. But those answers got distributed and the girl who read mine didn't know who Anthony Bourdain was, which was disappointing.

What is the connection between sex toy hostesses and surrealism? I feel like I should become a sex toy hostess now.

Mission Literati

2009-08-24T08:32:00.003-05:00

Okay, I just found out that one of my personal heroes was born and grew up in the town in which I currently reside. It is now my mission to make him come back here and perform.

The dots, the dots

2009-08-21T15:02:00.004-05:00

First there was this spider caught between the storm window and the interior window in our kitchen, and it didn't move ever. I thought it was dead. But after an indeterminate amount of time there was a small brown ball sort of next to the spider that didn't move. This small brown ball was clearly an eggsac, but I am not a handyman, so it seemed like the only recourse for removal was breaking the window, which I did not want to do. I told myself both the spider and the eggsac were dead. And then after another time period there suddenly were many dots. Many, many dots. These teensy baby spider dots also did not move, and were in a sort of exploding star formation around the sac. But they weren't moving, so I thought they were probably all dying, if they were not already dead.

But now the dots are gone. Where are the dots?

Drive-in movies, WK

2009-08-17T15:03:00.004-05:00

Do you think that Wayne Koestenbaum goes to the drive-in? I'm pretty sure he does.

I have seen four movies at the drive-in this year; each of them could be considered bad, but there is a hierarchy of badness. To wit, I have ranked them from one Wayne Kostenbaum (worst) to four Wayne Koestenbaums (best). Please do not forget that none of these movies would receive any Wayne Koestenbaums under any other normal rating circumstance.

1. Night at the Museum II. This movie is for stupid people. Not even children, just stupid people.

2. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Abby and I spent the first 20 minutes of this movie asking each other questions like, "Are they in outer space or underwater?" "Is Sienna Miller the red-haired one or the brunette?" "Wait: Is she a hologram right now, or is she really there?" "Is that the kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun? He's a slender villain." "Are we in the past?" Granted, most of these questions arose because it was the second movie shown, and both of us were slouched in our seats to the point where we couldn't see helpful words at the bottom of the screen, but still. Also, I kept thinking of Austin Powers for some reason.

3. Wolverine. I saw this movie after Night at the Museum II, it's like Wolverine was an average-looking person hanging out with someone very ugly: It looked comparatively beautiful. Also, the mouthless Ryan Reynolds at the end was actually cool.

4. G-Force. I giggled a couple of times. And the guinea pigs' hands were cute.

Pinch Punch Ch. 15: Oh my god what if I’m not the main character?

2009-08-07T09:27:00.002-05:00

Nugget number one: It takes time. Well, duh. Some of the residents don’t think that should count as wisdom, but I always record it with such a triumphant air that they get confused. I spent four days meditating on the roof deck, thinking about it. It is like mu: Has a teacup piglet a Buddha-nature? One spoke to me in Italian on a moonless night, of having been the pope’s shoes in a former incarnation. Even the pope’s feet stink.

The tiny monkeys have taken over the second floor. I woke up and there was one curled around every finger and every toe. Their message was clear: Move out.

Caravaggio and Kashmir perform symbiotic stabbing rituals all night long and wouldn’t let me crash in their third bed. The Plus-sized Model(s) bared their rows of teeth at me and gave me the octuple finger. Now I’m sleeping in the corridor, like a common Edwardian hall boy. Everyone’s started to give me things to do: anaesthetizing kittens, blocking out the moon with my palm, following the marten parade around with a push broom.

It has occurred to me that I might not get a muse.

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Oversmoking

2009-08-05T10:53:00.006-05:00

One way to quit smoking is to oversmoke, like chain smoke until your pallor turns minty green, and then you'll be disgusted with yourself and feel sick and not want to smoke at all for a couple of days, during which the nicotine can leave your system, and then, voila, step one is completed and you're practically free of that pesky addiction.

Last night I watched the two trashiest shows on VH1: Real Chance at Love 2 and Megan Wants a Millionaire.

The whole time I vacillated between shame and elation, and I got up and did things during the commercials to avoid spiraling into watching that one show where five women in lingerie rate themselves according to who has the hottest face, legs, butt, etc., and then three dudes rate them, too, and they win money if their rankings are the same as the dudes' rankings. You can actually see self-esteem deflating on that show.

And then I felt depressed because all of the "suitors" on Megan's show were verified millionaires, and apparently you can be both socially inept and kinda stupid and still make at least a million dollars. Because of luck? Or perhaps a high tolerance for risk often is associated with dumbness? Whatevs. It's slim pickings for poor Megan.

I am overwatching, so I can be free of the tyranny of trash television, which apparently I am powerless to resist, except I think this plan has already backfired because I'm kind of worried about Real and Chance and their bevy of strippers with real estate licenses. Will they find love? How will I ever know if I don't watch?

Tonight, nothing. I swear.

I have found them all.

2009-07-31T08:19:00.004-05:00

If you had Channel One in your high school, you probably feel weirdly close to Anderson Cooper, as I do. I remember him cowering in his hotel room in Iraq during the Gulf War, reporting while half under his bed. In that moment, I loved him. I also have a soft spot for Lisa Ling, and not knowing what happened to Rawley Valverde has made me feel incomplete.

Last night I found him. He's supervising producer of this cable channel called Current TV and host of at least one show on it. I may have pointed and laughed and clapped and chanted his name a couple of times when I saw him. Here's his LinkedIn page. He has four connections. Let's all link to him.

UPDATE: Weirdly, the two correspondents that Bill Clinton rescued like a superhero were from Current TV, and one of them was Lisa Ling's little sister. Talk about current.

Pinch Punch Ch. 14: All I want to do is breathe

2009-07-30T09:05:00.002-05:00

It is no fair. The Plus-sized Model(s) won’t let me breathe in their room. They say that’s one way to find out if I’m dead or not: If it’s tough for me not to breathe, then I’m probably alive, but I really feel like there’s more to it than that.

TYRA is so busy performing plastic surgery on herself that she won’t tell me if death is real or not. She says, “Being, non-being, Kathy.” She says, “Self, non-self.” Something about matter not being destroyed, and the soul weighing eight pounds. Something about teacup piglets being so snuggly because they don’t have souls or die. Something about there being no such thing as teacup piglets, which is clearly not true.

Maybe TYRA is manipulating me. Maybe that’s how I got here in the first place. Maybe this is all a construct of my mind. If teacup piglets don’t exist, then TYRA doesn’t exist either. I don’t think I’ve breathed in days.

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venom literati: cincinnati branch

2009-07-26T16:29:00.004-05:00

The Cincinnati branch of Venom Literati has officially opened. The literati office is in my backyard, because my backyard is so huge and overwhelming I am not sure what to do with it.

I think we should use the clothesline to hang our writings on, and also collages, and also ourselves when we get too old to live fulfilled lives.

I want to have a party for the literati where we all just roll around in the grass like dogs.

Kathy, see that 1980's-style lawn furniture way there in the back? The chaise lounge is for you. When it gets cold you can bundle up in a blanket and sit in it like you used to do on Sarah and Abby's porch. Don't worry, there will be a fire pit soon.

megan left, i got bangs

2009-07-25T22:24:00.007-05:00

dear literati,

today megan left chicago. it was so sad. the literati must unite in these tragic times. sarah and abby, when can we meet at your headquarters? so then after that though, i got bangs. here is a picture of me kissing megan goodbye with them. that is what i look like when i kiss someone goodbye. it's very scary. also here is a poem for megan. walt. whitman.

A Supermarket In California - Allen Ginsberg

There is always an orange cat

2009-07-23T09:07:00.003-05:00

In Chicago, there was a cat we called Orange because at first that's all he was. He'd hang out in our back yard and walk home with us from the train station. Later we figured out where he lived and that her name was Julia, so we could call her and she'd come trotting up and collapse at our feet wanting ear rubs.

When we moved there was an orange cat again, who ate voles out of our yard, greeted us on the sidewalk, and visited our real cats in the windows. We called her Julia. We just found out that where she lives and that his name is Seamus.

If, when we move again, there is not an orange cat that we can call Seamus only to later find out his name is Orange, I will be disappointed.

Fashion post!

2009-07-21T09:54:00.004-05:00

This woman, Sheena Matheiken, is wearing the same dress every day for the next year as a fundraiser for the Akanksha Foundation. This appeals to me for many different reasons, not the least of which is my own comfort with uniforms (and with wearing the same thing over and over).

Click on all the pictures to see the many combinations of tights and leggings. You can waste at least 30 minutes of your day on this.

Pinch Punch Ch. 13: Wait. I’m your muse.

2009-07-20T12:25:00.002-05:00

CONFIDENTIAL TO THE PINCH PUNCH RESIDENTS: It has come to my attention that several of you have taken on the role of muse to the more “artistic” of the residents. Those of you that are muses have developed complexes about your lack of greatness, and those of you that are artists have gotten big heads.

There is only one muse in this house, and that is me, TYRA. From now on, all artistic works must be of, for, or about me. Everything you do should be for my glory. If you get stuck, come to me, and I’ll maneuver my body this way and that; the light will catch my cheekbone just so, bounce off, permeate your brain; your hand will move of its own volition sweeping strokes or pushing buttons. Your work will be hung on the gallery wall of the bar.

ANNOUNCEMENT

All amateur muses get 20 demerits and must report to surgery immediately.

NOTE: Works of art are not a form of currency. Nor is flattery. You still have to pay your rent.

NOTE: If you’re not artistic, you’re not worthless. Just not as exciting or flaky or weird as the others. This might make you feel invisible, or worse, dead. Actually, you might be dead because there is little to differentiate those that are from the living in here. If you suspect you are dead, go visit the Plus-sized Model(s) and see if she/they’ll let you breathe on their mirrors.

NOTE: If you’re dead, you’re not worthless. Just not alive.

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You remember everything.

2009-07-16T08:41:00.003-05:00

So you know how people can find all this old stuff on YouTube, and then you watch it and feel like some part of your brain that long lay dormant re-awakens, and you remember the whole thing, but there's no way you could have remembered it without the helpful prompt of watching it again? And then you have the feeling that you probably remember everything; you just don't have access. It's sort of like when I was meditating the other day and a crisp image of my Aunt Mary's bathroom popped up unbidden. It was a really nice bathroom. There were two sinks.

Anyway, I saw this skit during a marathon of The State last night, and I sort of freaked out because I remembered the whole thing and even said, "Good-bye, mailbox." at the appropriate time, but if you would have said to me yesterday morning, "Hey, remember that sketch that The State did about the tacos and the mailman?", I would have said something like, "Um.....?"

new blog friend: bianca stone

2009-07-15T11:28:00.005-05:00

literati alert: there is a person on the internet that makes beautiful poetry comics. i found her on html giant. because the literati is too busy with top secret missions to mindlessly scour blogs all day, i am bringing her to you. bianca stone. she is so great.

Some people are afraid of conflict

2009-07-14T17:15:00.004-05:00

Shared bathrooms and refrigerators are rife with passive-aggressive opportunity.

Why am I reading a book by Chuck Palahniuk?

2009-07-09T13:55:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I am a total sucker for plot. Plots are underrated. Next summer I'm going to write a mystery horror novel that's an update of Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Detectives. Don't hold me to that.

C.P.'s plots are all sort of similar to one another, but they're also horrifying in slightly different ways, which is interesting. I like that there's a lady who kills people by bouncing a bowling ball down the street in Haunted, for example. And the idea of a culling song is cool.

Okay, clearly I've read practically everything he's ever written. Apparently I love Chuck Palahniuk and that's why I'm reading something by him. So why am I writing this post? Am I ashamed, so I need to justify it?

Oh, I know: The thing is that I totally hate his voice, and it's one of those voices that gets stuck in your head and affects your writing. I feel like I need to wash my brain after I read something by him. Recommend me something for when I'm done, something that will destroy the urge to write entirely in fragments.

New cable! Hooray for sloth! Oh wait.

2009-07-08T15:14:00.005-05:00

My "cable" for the last year has consisted of two home shopping networks, the regular old main networks, two public television stations, and a buttload of Christian talking and singing heads. And AMC, which might as well be called "The Roadhouse channel."

But today, we got real cable installed. I flipped through the channels whilst home for lunch and found: Montel William's health machine is on every third channel; P90X infomercials are on all the rest of them.

If in a month or so I start thinking that I should juice our bountiful crop of collard greens to be drunk as meal substitutions and install a pull-up bar, this is why. Be prepared for my washboard abs to scrape your eyeballs.

Pinch Punch Ch. 12: A Fearless Inventory of Light in All its Forms: Caravaggio and Muse

2009-07-07T08:49:00.003-05:00

Deep in the night, just after he has digested my latest stabbings, Kashmir disappears under the floorboards and I am alone in my bunk, the soundtrack of my life’s miniseries drowned in the sounds of the Pinch Punch that float up through the register: all its groanings, squealing, drippings, writhings, stabbings, sobbing…all the sounds of life here enter my testicles like a terrible symphony in the groin. This is as close as one ever gets, in the Pinch Punch, to lying in bed as a child listening to crickets or cicadas. You take what you can get at the Pinch Punch.

The Pinch Punch is not unlike life, not unlike dying on a Mediterranean beach full of malaria.
Have I mentioned that my testicles are the sensitive orbs where all my artistic goo resides? In my former life, they used to tingle when I painted, but now they tingle only when TYRA stabs or slaps them to punish me, which is totally different: there are good tingles and bad tingles in life.
Tonight, a tiny, squeaky, unkempt voice, sloppy as mud but barely there, alights on the skin of my testicles like a mosquito. Under my tongue for thirty-seven years…knitting shawls for the earth… The bite of my muse blooms in the dark. The bite of my muse (the present) eclipses the miniseries of my life.

I am not certain whether I am having an actual conversation with my muse, or if my nightly Pinch-Punch just really kicked my ass this time, but I am thinking about light and dark for the first time since I painted David With Head of Goliath, in which I am both David and Goliath; in which I have just switchbladed off my own evil head and am looking down on it.

MUSE: Bulbed, artificial, glancing off a hubcap or a Tylenol, or the flesh of geriatric Anita; sunlight, twilight, starlight, motion light, really it’s all the same, you try to put the light inside yourself and it fumbles and chokes.

ME: Exactamundo! Just like how the point of all my paintings is that it’s as impossible to light a candle inside one’s own private residence as it is to play Parcheesi in a tiny monkey’s bellybutton. Nobody ever understood that. They thought I was talking about Jesus or some shit.

MUSE: Despite the fact that it’s undigestable, I wish there were more light coming up from under the Pinch Punch's leaves. That doesn’t happen in the city, and if it did I would reject it, just as I do the teacup piglets, in order to make them love me.

ME: You talk about picking through flesh to get to the icecaps. I talk about scaling forests to make a new color of light: the sound and flavor of sunlight through falling leaves, changing with the seasons.

MUSE: It is surprisingly comforting to be of four minds, isn’t it? I feel sort of like TYRA.

ME: Me, too. My effect is spontaneous and meaningless.

MUSE: Um, I gotta run, but I really think you should take a shower. I can smell you through the register.

ME: You are so correct. You are so very correct. Thank you for allowing me to feel the present; I have not felt the present in so long.

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Un-American confession

2009-07-02T12:13:00.002-05:00

I kind of don't like fireworks. I mean, I like them when they are in the sky, and some crazy dudes are shooting them out of cannons, and they're relatively far away, but I don't like them when they are in my hands, or the hands of people that I know and like. Or even don't like.

I personally know three people who have lost fingers to fireworks. Two are named Steve.

I am scared of the oven. Grills seem like death machines to me. Loud noises make me tic spastically. Fireworks are like small, deafening, exploding stoves. No thank you.

Exceptions: sparklers and bottle rockets.

10 inches, gone

2009-06-29T10:57:00.002-05:00

So I just got 10 1/2 inches lopped off my hair. What do you think it looks like now? Is it:

a. shaved close to the scalp, with a single braided rat tail proving that once my hair was quite long.

b. exactly like Suri Cruise's

c. a "lob," as the magazines are calling this season's favorite new haircut, the long bob

d. the Rachel

e. the Dorothy Hammill

f. a mohawk

g. a fauxhawk

Pinch Punch Ch. 11: Room 4833: The merging

2009-06-25T07:45:00.003-05:00

When they went to sleep, there were four. When they woke, they were an indistinguishable amorphous mass of flesh. They’d gone from ferret to wolverine. The Pinch Punch affects everyone differently.

The conjoined Plus-sized Model(s) stretched and her/their twin bed groaned beneath her/them. Eight eyes are better than two. You can see all 15 dimensions and wield switchblades aplenty. Your liver(s) are better able to process the caramel-flavored breakfast mash.

It is surprisingly comforting to be of four minds. Someone always wants something, and the one who wants things the most always gets it.

The skinny men were waiting when she/they descended to the common area, ogling her/their rumples and flow. The men's eyebrows were thin, as if sketched on with dog doo, their backs attractively attached to their stomachs, so visible spine knobs could be seen, interlaced with intestines. Several of them brandished knives, but she/they could eat those blades. She/they could eat those blades, their tooth-fillings, the staples in their shoulders, their nipple rings, their chastity belts, their wedding rings, their spectacles, the iron in their blood.

But think of the flesh she/they’d have to pick through to get to the metal, the stringy muscle exactly the perfect width for getting caught between four rows of teeth. Flossing takes forever.

“Hey hey hey,” the skinny men say, pretending not to notice her eight arms and legs. She/they catherine-wheel(s) to the breakfast bar and prepare(s) to tuck in.

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Other People's Things

2009-06-23T21:01:00.005-05:00

Packing other people's things is way better than packing your own things. Today I nearly packed Mis and Trav's entire kitchen. I caught myself getting into arguments with them about things I wanted them to throw away, like a can of asian vegetables, and another can of strange and scary mexican stew. I threw away some things without asking, like a water bottle from the Brookfield Zoo because no one needs that. And a 9-volt battery that was being kept on the off-chance that it wasn't completely dead, but just mostly dead. And a bunch of other things I can't remember now because there were so many, but they will clearly not be missed.

My best friend from high school, another Missy, was in town a few years ago and did me the great favor of throwing away two artworks of birds I had that were made of real feathers. These bird-works were amazing. My ex-boyfriend had bought them for me years before and looking at them made me miserable but I could not give them away. She just said: These are going, and I said, Okay. I am very glad the birds are gone.

On the flipside, I would not let my Missy get rid of Raymond Carver, Aimee Bender, or Lorrie Moore. I just would not allow it. These are important things to keep even if you'll never read them again.

So do not ask me to help you pack. But if you want to clean all the crap out of your life, then ask me. My new career goal is to start a life-cleaning service.

People who you didn't know are basically the same person

2009-06-22T11:40:00.003-05:00

It's like that picture where you're all "is that candlesticks or profiles of people about to kiss?" and then it flips back and forth. Elijah Wood, Johnny Depp, Johnny Depp, Elijah Wood.

Country mouse

2009-06-19T09:22:00.003-05:00

Last night we made a dinner that was almost entirely composed of vegetables from our garden.

It was a strata of collard greens, potatoes, pesto, and cheese. We are brilliant cooks. Chefs, I mean. Chefs.

Except we did not grow the cheese. Our outdoorsy neighbor who is getting chickens should also get goats. I'm going to talk about goats a lot when he's around, just to get him thinking.

Next on the menu: mojitos, complete with homegrown mint.