Housewife

Ryan makes a beautiful zombie in this very The Smiths one-off single.

And the Heart Says Whatever

I read it in one day. Emily Gould's voice is an adrenaline rush, and she hooks you, or at least she hooked me because I could relate to her so well. She had two cats with a boyfriend, and they lived together in Greenpoint for 6 years, and then she got a job while he chased his rock and roll dreams and worked some dead-end schtick and smoked pot on the couch, and she got tired of it but couldn't say it and then she cheated on him with a coworker. But even after all that she still loved the boyfriend and believed they would get back together. Until she wrote something about him and his mom told him to tell her to threaten legal action. And then she made out with young, beautiful Keith Gessen (which eventually turned into nothing but friendship) and lived in a sublet and roach-infested squalor and eventually she got back on her own 2 feet and wrote a book.

(Okay, so that story isn't exactly my story, but it's damn close enough.)

I'm with her in her intent. A lot of reviews and comments on the book jacket say this collection of essays is an elegy to the NYC of her 20's, but for me, this entire book is an elegy to her failed relationship with "Joseph" and a way to explain the guilt that must have nagged at her about publishing the NYTimes Mag story that chronicled their break-up and her quitting Gawker. She's attempting to say she is sorry.

I dont' think this is the way to apologize. But I guess I never had the energy to write that elegy. At least not in book form. But if you go through this blog over the period of May 09-September 09, you might get in the mood to turn on a depressing French movie (say, Making Plans for Lena, which I saw yesterday at IFC).

All that being said, which I guess sums up to the fact that I think I would like Emily Gould if I met her, I couldn't help but think that most chapters in the book stopped short. I remember when my favorite professor told me not to "neatly cap off" the ends of my poems, which is my #1 tendency, and it seems like Gould writes easily, races to the point, and then caps her essay with some weirdly related emphatic sentence or idea. I wish she had been given more time to write this book, to really go over it and put more of herself in it... some self-reflection. She doesn't need to tell us she was gutted by her breakup, but I feel she needs to give us a brief paragraph about her feelings outside of the medical "anxiety attack" analysis.

Maybe it was just too soon. I'm still making sense of the past 3 years after graduation. But I hand it to Gould. It takes guts, along with the undeniable need to write.

Last Days as a Bachelorette

Boys, I just don't look at you anymore. Let me lament that I never sucked face with a French teenager with a horrible nose.

I think I did my best to kiss my way around the world. But I'm missing a few strays that I'd have liked to have rescued. Dear Donald, we never got the chance for you to give me Herpes.

I will regret that I was never old enough to be a Strokes groupie.

But somehow, it doesn't matter. I'll never lust over another dishwasher again. Nor will I covet my neighbor's hipster with weed baggies in his left skinny jeans pocket. Oh, dirt magnets and DJ's, how you got me through the worst of times! Oh, old man professors and cave man economists, how you saved me from an endless dinner with people who hated my guts!

Oh, disgusting, oh, drug-addicted. I loved you all so much it got me thru it all more than 55 lattes and bourbons put together!

I love my lover. I love cilantro and avocado and reliability and texts at 8 in the morning. There will always be new music and movies. There will never be a new guy. But here's to all the boys who came before him. Here's to the Crazy that will be crazy no more.

always in my heart.

this song made all my dreams come true. sing it with your heart out loud every single day and all the simplest pleasures in the world will make their ways into your life.

8.20.10

I used to be a poet,

and my professors told me

I “had it,” but I moved to new york

city and started waiting tables

and lacked the lightning manic

of ginsberg or carlos Williams.

so now I drink my lagers

and regret the missing pages

that would have filled my notebooks,

spiral rings all rusted. truth is, I

still have it, though sometimes I feel

I’ve lost it, but if I devour a volume

of sexton and brush up on my plath

I can sit for a minute or two,

the time it takes to draw a hot

bath, and tap out the lines on my MacBook.

what an orchestral chatter! so if no one

reads it, no matter. I know

I’m still a poet.

Unconventional Dress

I'm shopping for an unconventional wedding dress. I don't think I want to wear white, and I want to look fashion-forward and fabulous. Did I mention I want a luncheon dress and a cake-cutting gown as well? If I am forced to do the whole she-bang, then I want it to be a dress-up extraordinaire. Basically I don't write anymore... the poet in me hates myself... because all I do is shop online.

Is this dress too informal for a chapel?

What about the above pictured dress from Jcrew?

Would Alexander Wang shock too many in Lititz?

I just want to look like MKO, Kate Moss, Gaga and Scarlett O'Hara all at the same time with the unbearable cool of Debbie Harry, the natural beauty of Nico and the manic charm of Edie Sedgwick. Too much to ask?

Or I would be fine if I looked exactly like "I Want You" by Bob Dylan.

God, I'm becoming one of those girls.