where are all the beautiful people at?

nothing says 'holidays' like going through your financial paperwork and figuring out your student loan payments for the coming year in relation to the meager sum you will soon be receiving for pretending to be a professional who never, ever uses the word 'cunt'.

i'm feeling a bit melancholy

nobody questions the good things in life.

but i may have overdosed on lovely recently. which is something entirely different.

that's so meta!

if you want to know what it was like to be surrounded by undergrad art students for two and a half years, i would suggest reading this essay by james franco justifying his recent stint chewing soap opera scenery as performance art.

i once had a circular conversation with an art school buddy about whether the giant bedazzled vagina canvas submitted by a classmate during finals was awesome because she knew how ridiculous it was, or lame because she didn't know how awesome it was, or awesome because she didn't know how lame it was.

eventually, what you have to realize is it doesn't matter how self-conscious you get about it, or what the intentions are. it's still a fucking ridiculous cunt.

talking about the weather

this is my third winter away from chicago.

winter in chicago is one thing i may never actually miss.

i had a discussion with my husband last night about other things i may never miss. most of them had to do with being unhappy.

last night's drinks out plus today's film in

the girl who served us drinks last night had put on at least five pounds and ten years during her morning makeup application.

this is something that happens often here. there's a reason the english call it 'slap'.

here are some things to keep in mind:
cute doesn't age well. if you're noticing the makeup, you're not noticing the girl. and often, the one standing next to the tiny pixie with the impeccable haircut is the real superstar.

christ alfuckingmighty, don't you just love grace coddington?

oh, honestly

how much more bored can we be?

i'm so tired of the apathy and the sex and the tits and the piss and the violence and the heavy eyelids and the highly visible ribs and the coke and the hipsterer than thou bullshit.

have a twinkie, do and/or say something you actually mean for once, fall in love and be unironic about it.

modern art memories #2

in the 1980s, chicago got its first, and so far only, black mayor - harold washington, a charismatic democrat who broke some pretty thick racial barriers.

a student at the school of the art institute of chicago painted a portrait of the mayor in women's underwear, complete with stockings and garters. its exhibition caused an uproar and was part of the wave of art funding backlash amongst politicians and conservatives at the time. i remember hearing about it on the car radio as my mother drove me to grade school and asking why someone would paint that.

i later ended up attending that art school.

but i very much doubt that conservatives would mind if someone painted a humiliating portrait of the current charismatic democrat who recently broke very thick racial barriers.

blahblahshittingblah

'how do you want your beer?'

'in my mouth.'

modern art memories #1

i once sat at my grandmother's kitchen table attempting to explain andy warhol's art as she chain-smoked and glared at me like i was making fun of her.

i wonder if she's met him.

more likely, she's hanging out with john philip sousa and ronald reagan and steering clear of the whole factory crowd.

sometimes the best thing we can get from knowing someone

is learning how not to act.

when your fingers are inside my brain

Freeman [after cuts made in the left side of the frontal lobe]: Do you feel any difference?

Patient: I feel there's a book on my face. They worked on the left side. There was a drawing when they put the knife in.

Freeman [later during the operation]: Does your conscience hurt?

Patient: I don't know where it is. It was down by my heart, but I can't feel it at all.

but this time, it's all vegetarian

i am hosting my first thanksgiving today. necessity dictated a weekend, as the english don't get a thursday off work just because the americans are spending the day eating (again).

it's like i've woken up this morning as an adult. in the wrong country.

but thanksgiving is not about location, it is about appreciating those around you. and i appreciate the hell out of the lot that are coming over. it feels good to know that if i had a bigger kitchen, and the infinite cooking capabilities of my late gramma, i could have invited over still more wonderful people.

we make our own families, and today marks the first occasion of mine assembling around a holiday dinner table.

(also, if i fuck up thanksgiving, my guests are english and won't know the difference.)



'i really don’t know if anything sums up america better. it’s simultaneously preposterous, incredibly laughable, impressive, charming, ridiculous, expensive, overpopulated, wonderful...american.'
stephen fry

these things are golden

on my way to life drawing night, my husband awkwardly checks to make sure that i'm planning to draw the model, not model for the drawers.

as though if i had decided to go back to life modeling (which i did when i was putting myself through art school) i wouldn't have mentioned my intention to take off my clothes for strangers to the man with whom i share my life.



p.s.
tits per hour in chicago = twenty dollars
tits per hour in the uk = twelve pound fifty

i am reading a book about lobotomy

it is, so far, not as upsetting as one might imagine.




it's almost attractive.

sunday

i dreamt i worked at a museum that was attacked by bears. we rounded up the visitors and staff and barricaded them in the cafeteria. (the furry attackers were uninterested in most of the dioramas, but tore apart the taxidermied polar bear display.)

teenage waste

'how do you eat all that and still look so thin?'

'oh, i throw up a lot.'

when we email to plan the next step in decade revivals

'Have you picked a 90s icon to represent?'

'at the moment, i'm working on combining the two female leads from the movie reality bites - winona ryder and janeane garofalo - and a girl in my biology class when i was fifteen who wore corduroy miniskirts and chunky soled shoes in colours like maroon and olive green.'

'oh, yes, that'll do it. the angry elf look. rock on.'

'exactly. except...um...angry six foot tall elf. dark lipstick.'

'well yes, you won't be an elf so much as...angry fairy? angry angel of a vindictive Lord?'

'overgrown sophisticated grunge pixie?'

i forgot i had a blog

you officially live in a place when the officials running that place allow you to work legally.

(i officially live here now.)

filling out applications, i decide to find out what a prospective employer would find if he or she googled my name. see, i'm recently married, so all internet data on my name is really quite new. if it weren't digital, it would be delicate. that's how new.

in my google list, i find a blogger hinting that i am an idiot because my face is aesthetically pleasing.

to do list:

• grow up fat
  
• develop a personality and sense of humour because relying on looks is not an option
• read a lot of books
• lose weight in twenties
  
• get used to being considered hot