Excerpt

"I've been writing short stories since I was fifteen. I have trouble writing simply and naturally. My mind is stocked with some black neckties, and though I'm throwing them out as fast as I find them, there will always be a few left over. I am a dash man and not a miler, and it is probable that I will never write a novel. So far the novels of this war have had too much of the strength, maturity and craftsmanship critics are looking for, and too little of the glorious imperfections which teeter and fall off the best minds. The men who have been in this war deserve some sort of trembling melody rendered without embarrassment or regret. I'll watch for that book."

- J.D. Salinger, in a letter to Esquire

Inner Conflict

Too much time spent ogling the new Apple product has left me with two opposite feelings:

1. Pretty. I want one.
2. Smash the nearest computer, chuck your cell phone, run to the nearest green space with your favorite book.

A reference

For the record:

meep = sad, desolate, down-trodden, scared

mow = overwhelmed, shy, curious, meek

morp = covered in green sludge

- B

Gchat, Tacos Edition

B: I'm overwhelmed. I blame the tacos.

Me: What? That's ridiculous. You can't be overwhelmed by Tacos. Tacos are not whelming, they're delicious. You jerk.

B: Truer words have never been spoken. I want to seek out the most delicious tacos in NYC.

Me: Because surely with them lies the most delicious margaritas.

B: Surely

Me: The road to great tacos is paved with great margaritas.

Hey Ladies

If you want to be hit on, take a stack of comics to a Brooklyn coffee shop.

Excerpt

"Really? Wow. You’re a fucking idiot. I mean, even for a twelve year old, your level of emotional intelligence is frighteningly low. It’s not that I don’t care what you do, it’s that I honestly can’t give you any advice.

I suppose I could tell you to start reading existentialist philosophy in a quest for self-realization, but who are we kidding? Jersey Shore re-runs are about to start, and you want a stranger on the internet to help scold your alcoholic boyfriend who will undoubtedly find a way to knock you up before he starts serving time for felony hit and run, thus bolstering the supply of potential cast members for next season of MTV’s 16 and Pregnant.

Actually, wait. That is one thing you can do. Don’t ever go off your birth control. Seriously, people like you shouldn’t breed.

If this hurts your feelings, ask yourself why."

- Dear Coke Talk, the best advice blog in the world.

When it rains...

The pinky finger I broke during a 10th-grade gym class basketball game hurts like mad.

I hate sports.

The xx

On Blazing Saddles

"I mean, come on, I like farts a lot more than my mom likes farts."

On NBC

"All I ask is one thing, and I'm asking this particularly of young people that watch: Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record, it's my least favorite quality. It doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, I'm telling you, amazing things will happen."

-Conan

Static

My hair is attempting to electrocute my face. Help!

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

1. Hall & Oates sings the perfect soundtrack for a sleepy afternoon. Fleetwood Mac on vinyl blasts through dinner. "Rumors" is a perfect album.

2. The cancellation of the writing workshop goes unexplained. To make my uptown jaunt seem less inconveniencing I waif my way through the magazines, trying to find one that's "me." I can't. Marie Claire is too fussy; Cosmo, too dumb; Oprah, too soccer mom. I feel at home with men's magazines. They provide the blunt delivery that real friends should and don't feature a vocabulary threaded with "BFF," "perfect" or "accessorize." I appreciate that.

3. I can't imagine a world without Frosted Flakes.

4. The large pool of vomit on the train platform is not so much disgusting as it is impressive. The physics of that barf are surely something to behold.

5. I like my city full of troubadours. I like my trains full of library-appropriate volumes. New York musicians seemed to have misplaced my memo en masse.

Central Park at Eleven

It's unsettling to watch the children of New York when you finally realize that not only are they more refined, better dressed, and already wield an allowance close to my own income – but that they're more in tune and relaxed with this City than perhaps I'll ever be simply because they are home. Meanwhile my corner of New York still feels like an unfinished Play Doh creation.

I'm sculpting. I'm mashing. It's not right yet.

He says Murder, he says.

likes/dislikes

glamor/glitz
sunday/football
isms/scruples
colin firth/colin farrell

In the office kitchen

Bag of Jim Beam sunflower seeds. Box of Jolt Energy Mints.


I pass.

Excerpt

“I have no regret over calling Greenspan a political hack. Because he was. The things you heard me say about George Bush? You never heard me apologize about any of them. Because he was. What was I supposed to say? I called him a liar twice. Because he lied to me twice.”

New York Times Magazine profile of Harry Reid

It's time to take sides

Leno, be damned.

LIES

shakes fist.

should be words

t-rexing, unresolvedly, shitacious

On flirting

"How do you think I got so much tail at church camp?"

On January

"There's nothing good in January. Don't even say MLK Day. I know he's a good guy, but he just doesn't give me that warm, fuzzy feeling."

In which I ate soup at my desk

Fiasco! and a burnt tongue.

The next bite I trap in my spoon will sit and cool. Impatience causes me to blow, which leads to the present:

Wiping rice from my splattered screen.

Dear Humanity: Kindly explain yourself.

The Daily What

51 Ways to Tell if You're Possessed by Demons

12. On that sheet of paper, draw what you think Satan looks like. Are you doing it? Good. If that picture is a pleasant figure such as a Care Bear or Teletubby then you could be possessed by demons. Add a mark.


Brilliant.

Ruthless clicking

Subject line: The Chino, reinvented

Delete.

On fashion

"Okay, dude, honesty hour. Do I look like a lumberjack today?"

winter vocab list

hearth, blanketed, white russian, nor'easter, frosted, tucked, rosy, yuletide, yore, yearn, toasted, muff, merry

Trains don't stop your soul

January starts off dreary. Johnny Flynn keeps me company.

Listen: Trains [Rose, Mary and Time] -...

On Apples To Apples

"The most flirtatious? Choir boys, cause they're asking for it."