Saturday, June 30, 2007

Apple iPhone - Yeeeah Bitches

I'll be reading your blogs exclusively from the iphone.

Friday, June 29, 2007

Friday Confessional: Savasana

I’ve become a raging yoga fanatic. For years, I’ve rolled my eyes and thrown rocks at people that have extolled the benefits of yoga to me. Now I’ve somehow become the douchebag toting around the sticky mat and spouting Sanskrit like a goddamned hippie. Last night I spent five minutes in vrischika-asana. Now my neck hurts.


Speaking of Sanskrit, one such word I love to say is “Savasana,” which means corpse. At the end of our practice, we lie on our backs, palms up, motionless, like a corpse. Supposedly you meditate during this time. Instead I pretend to be dead. After many nights pretending to be dead, I’ve decided that I want to die outside, in the rain, during a summer thunderstorm. Nothing crazy, no tornados, just a strong shower with healthy thunder. Preferably with a light towel over my face. No rocks underneath either. Please don’t tell my yogi, she’ll make me do breath of fire until I pass out.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Is Your Boss Wearing Leather?

Most of us* spend our days at the office wasting our lives surfing the internets, pretending to read super-lame blogs just because they link to ours, and making banal conversation with the douchebags we have the misfortune to call coworkers. The relationship with our coworkers is tenuous; there’s a delicate balance between friendly and friends. Our knowledge of their personal lives should be limitted to their partner’s name, kids or no kids, and maybe where they’re from originally. Sometimes the coworker-relationship line is crossed. Maybe you find out Susan’s husband is leaving her because he’s hitting some 20 year old blond intern at PWC. Maybe you find out that Aaron’s brother is slowly dying of AIDS in his guest bedroom. Maybe you find out that Trish is a size 2 because her husband kicks her when she eats. All these things are fine, but it really puts a damper on the workplace banter.

Yesterday I was in my associate’s office, shooting the shit about baseball and (etc.) when I noticed a nail file sitting on his desk. “That’s odd,” I thought to myself. You don’t meet a tremendous amount of straight men who keep nail files on their desks. Then I noticed a website printed on the file… something with the word “leather” on it. Curious. When he went to lunch, I snuck back into his office to get a better look at the website (NSFW) and then threw up all over myself. I thought the "Boy Butter" he kept in the fridge was for his english muffins.



*Blythe excluded.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Annie Leibovitz & My Boyfriend's Groupies

Last night, it was my distinct pleasure to spend time with the great American photographer Annie Leibovitz. She was invited to speak about her most recent book, A Photographer’s Life 1990 – 2005, at the Art Center College of Design by her contemporary and friend Matthew Rolston. The evening went smoothly; Matthew’s speech was simple and glowing, and Annie’s talk was revealing and surprisingly frank in regards to her relationship with Susan Sontag. However, the entire event was marred by a posse of Art Center students who endlessly fawned over my boyfriend Mark. Mark is Matthew’s producer, and Matthew is a god to some of these budding photographers. Once these kids discovered who Mark was, they latched onto him like a leach to a baby calf. There was drool; there was gushing. I threw up a little in my mouth. On the drive home I reflected on what had become of our simple lives in Oklahoma. I decided that I was okay with the groupies; I decided I was okay being a trophy wife.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

UPDATE: Italian Explosion

The bitch fridge froze again yesterday. My milk is an icy block. My eggs are rocks. My temper is short.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

BerkShares Say F-You to US Dollar

United States separatist in Great Barrington, MA have begun to print and circulate their own currency, know as the BerkShare. After almost a year since its inception, the BerkShare is accepted at over 280 local businesses. “I just love the feel of using a local currency,” said Trice Atchison, 43, a teacher who enjoys the contact high from handling BerkShares, which are laced with LSD. Over the last ten months the BerkShares have become a regular part of the local economy and are one-to-one convertible to US Dollars.

This is not the first time a private American group has printed its own money. Most notably, Halliburton introduced a currency known as the “Iraqi Dinar” to the formerly independent country of Iraq. A spokesman for Halliburton explained that, “the best way to exploit an oil-rich nation is to control its economy—and now we f*cking print the god-damned money!”

Monday, June 18, 2007

Making Daniel Cry

As many of you know, today is the one year anniversary of my friend Blythe’s breakup with her long time high school boyfriend. Let’s call him D. Phelps to protect his identity. No, that’s too easy to figure out. We’ll call him Daniel P. You can read about Blythe’s reaction here: Bee-Spot.

Frankly, the break up with Daniel might have been the best thing to ever happen to Blythe. Believe it or not, Daniel was a douche bag. Hardcore. Seriously, biggest douche to graduate an Oklahoma high school in 1999. Douchey. Now, Daniel and I go way back, like elementary school and gymnastics way back. Yeah, Daniel did competitive gymnastics in a teal leotard—I have pictures. We never really liked each other. Rather, I was nice and Daniel was a bitch and that failed to foster a healthy relationship. He was the kid who said shit like, “What’s wrong? You’re just upset because you took a piss out of your first pube.” Seriously, where did he get this material? By the time high school rolled around, I was in good company hating Daniel. He’d really stepped up his game and alienated most of the people who pretended to be his friends. However, our mutual hatred for one another was palpable. Blythe, being the fledgling masochist that she was at 16, decided she’d love to be verbally abused on a fulltime basis, and thus began dating Daniel (I was only available for part time abuse).

Blythe and I had developed a healthy working relationship in Yearbook class our freshman/sophomore year. Yes, yearbook, really. We won awards damn it. It was hot. Okay, so Blythe and I are friends, and maybe she had (has) a little residual crush on me (like most girls I went to high school with) even while she was dating Daniel. This fact was not lost on Daniel (to my delight). My senior year I made Blythe go with me to some random art lecture at OU. She lied to Daniel, telling him she was going to an SAT study session with Lacey. The next day he found the program from the lecture and confronted her. When she told Daniel that she was with me all night, he broke into tears. Yes, for the record, I made Daniel Phelps cry like a mother fucking baby. So congratulations Blythe, on the one year anniversary of your successful break up!

Friday, June 15, 2007

The Old and Homeless Hate Me

It’s only noon and already this has been a busy Friday. Around 9am I was hit by a car. While coming back from our little office cafĂ© (Normandie—where Pete Sampras and his wife often have breakfast together) an elderly man in his late 100s took his foot off the brake right as I was crossing the street in front of him (in the crosswalk bitches). This happens; people get bumped, no big whoop. But this time he didn’t stop, he tried to mow me down, like a fucking hit man. With cat-like reflexes, I jumped onto the hood of his car and did a dive roll to safety. Senile-hit-man just kept rolling, confused and possibly rolling, until oncoming traffic had to stop and yell profanity at him. Some coffee was spilt. Later on, a nice homeless man, dressed in a white (formerly) shirt and black slacks walked into our office to request a key to the bathroom. We work in an adorable little office suite with shared (and locked) bathrooms—very freshman dorm situation. Well, the bathrooms are locked for a reason, mainly to prevent nice homeless men from moving in. At first we were confused about why he was asking us for the key—he wasn’t here to see anyone from our office. Then we caught the smell and it all clicked. All I could think about was that Will Smith movie where he’s a homeless Wall Street intern sleeping in the bathroom… because that was what was about to go down here. Eventually I made up a lie explaining that we didn’t have bathrooms in this building but that he should try Sotheby’s across the street. With candidates interview this afternoon, I can only imagine what the rest of the day will bring.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

My Childhood is Dead

First it was Mr. Rogers, then it was Mr. T, and now Mr. Wizard has joined the ranks of the deceased. My childhood, spent staring into a small grainy non-high def box of a TV, was defined by these Misters, and their deaths mark the official end of all that was good in my youth. Mr. Wizard inspired a deep love of science within me that I have carried throughout my life, both in and out of the classroom. With the staggering failure of No Child Left Behind and science test scores that are on par with Cambodia, now more than ever we need a Mr. Wizard. I’ll never forget the time he filled a glass of ice full of water and then let the ice melt, only to show us the glass didn’t overflow because of displacement. That was fucking rad. Mr. Wizard, the children of the 80’s salute you.

Correction: It has come to my attention that Mr. T is, in fact, not dead. My apologies to his family and creditors.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Hotels.com

On Saturday morning Mark and I drove up to San Francisco to see friends for the weekend. We didn’t really plan ahead; so right before we left we got on hotels.com to search for a cheap place to stay. There was a quaint little walk-up in Union Square (ok, maybe Tenderloin adjacent) for only $50 a night. Sold. We’re only there to sleep so who cares if the paint is chipped and the ceiling’s stained. For reference, Mark and I have stayed in some of the world’s worst dives--$1/night hostel in Cairo, genocidal border crossing between Congo and Rwanda, and many defunct former Soviet Bloc hotels. However, after waking up at 7am on Sunday and strolling into our “shared bathroom” at Hotel Olympic, we knew this was something different. The toilet room was covered in urine. Not just the seat, the whole room. And to accent the wetness was a used condom. Hot. The shower was even worse though. In European style, the shower and toilet were separated, but this arrangement must have angered or confused some anxious guest in the night, because in the absence of a commode someone had simply shit in the trashcan. And to crown his achievement, a cigarette butt was neatly extinguished on top, like a cherry. Nothing says good morning like a hot cup of coffee, a used condom, and a pile of shit next to your shower. Worth every penny….

Thursday, June 7, 2007

I'm Still an A-Hole

Yesterday, the hopes and dreams of a young Los Angeles Associate in my office came crashing down around him when he was fired—over the phone. Yes, we are big-time a-holes at my company, the whole lot of us. The best part of the sordid tale is that I was brought into this office to hire and train his replacement two weeks before they actually fired they guy. I just slowly started “helping” him with projects and “taking things off his plate.” The day before he got axed, he came into my office to ask if there was anything he could help me with because “I feel like there really isn’t anything for me to do here anymore.” Ironic isn’t it. I replied in my most cheery voice, “No, I’m all set here, thanks!” Because we’re a-holes, the VP fired him over the phone, after lunch; he cried a little. I secretly took pictures with my camera phone while pretending to call building security. I emailed them to colleagues who printed them on 8x10 glossies and hung them up in the kitchen. We are a-holes. Speaking of… we’re looking to hire a new a-hole to join out team. Email me if this sounds like a place you’d like to work.

Monday, June 4, 2007

Italian Explosion

On Friday I came home to discover that my crap-ass refrigerator decided to freeze over, exploding a glass bottle of San Pellegrino on my top shelf. There are tiny shards of green glass everywhere—imbedded in the butter, sprinkling the jam, and hiding between the eggs. Fuck you fridge, fuck you. My strawberries are crunchy now.