It's officially an epidemic. This week has been all sloshy and sloppy with smashed feelings and broken bloody hearts. Everywhere. All around. All your hearts. What the fuck is happening? I've certainly shed some pounds of water weight out through my eyeballs this week. In retrospect, now that the lump's out of my throat, I am not totally sure what the big deal was. There's a lingering bleakness and I still want to listen to the saddest songs but... I can't focus my eyes on it, it seems like a trick.
The way I know it is a lie is that some of the raddest people that I know - like the people that you shake your head and wonder how they fucking DO IT - are floundering. Well, not really, but they feel like they are. How can it be that even the winners are losing? It can't be. Hey winners, stop laying on the floor and listening to the Smiths. We're all alright. Champion, don't stop!
Sweat it out (probably with less cocaine than this lady though, please). Endorphin party!
Or fix your life with purchases. So what if it only helps for a little while? What's wrong with being happy for a little while? I tend to view my credit card bill as a record of me turning my frown upside down and I don't think there's a single thing wrong with that.
Or best of all, get out of town. This frozen brown dirtpile sucks at this time of year. Go brown your winter skin on a Cuban beach or go get laid in Vegas or come get wild in the streets in Texas with me at SXSW.
Or whatever. Do what you have to do, but be easy on yourselves, friends. There is no reason that we must always complicate matters with what really matters. Easy times. First round's on me.
xo
This is Julia Holter and for a slowjam, this song rules pretty hard. I guess I'd better take advantage of being allowed to post music while I can.
Also these munchkins make me pretty happy with their smashing. I think they are zygotes, which is great. Just imagine how good they'll be by the time their balls drop:
In light of the HEAVY FEELINGS of that last post, I think I am not really going to write about anything in particular. In case you can't tell.
I managed to solve all home decorating problems with a single purchase. This isn't exactly it, but it is pretty close:
That is wallpaper. If you need me, I'll be sucking back Mai-tais and bouncing on the couch in a coconut bra. Set up the bubble you want to live in and fucking live in it, I say.
Speaking of denial, look how awesome these are:
If only I'd found these before Christmas. There isn't really anyone I can think of that I don't want to buy these for, including myself. (They are from Jack Spade).
I can't tell if it is embarrassing or not that I like this, but I like it. Does the awesomeness of Patti Smith make up for the Bono-ness of Bono? Let's debate.
I remember really liking the original version of this song when it came out, which I probably shouldn't confess (in my defense, I think I was 11). Anyway, Patti Smith is awesome and I wish I had actually figured that out earlier. Even though I knew on paper all the great stuff she did, I remember seeing the cover of Horses in my mom's collection (I think? In someone's collection...) and thinking she looked like a Ricky Lee Jones type of singer-songwriter, chucking her record aside in favour of Led Zeppelin, and even now 25 years later, I've had to be inexplicably dragged kicking and screaming out of that little kid assumption that I made.
Are you ready to look at some beautiful things?
Look at this store (London friends, this won't excite you, sorry.): Merchant Archive. Give me everything.
Ok, I am going to go be a good little worker bee. xo!
Oh yeah. Recipe. I don't know about you but I just want to eat spicy soup and bread when the weather gets Siberian. Here's a bread recipe I want to try. Lots of internet bakers say it is the best bread they've ever made. Enjoy!:
Honey Wheat Bread
Ingredients
1 (.25 ounce) package rapid rise yeast
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup melted shortening
1/4 cup honey
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons butter
Directions
Dissolve yeast and sugar in 1/2 cup warm water.
Combine milk, 1/4 cup water, shortening, honey, salt
and wheat flour in food processor or bowl. Mix in yeast mixture, and
let rest 15 minutes. Add bread flour, and process until dough forms a
ball. Knead dough by processing an additional 80 seconds in food
processor, or mix and knead by hand 10 minutes. Place the dough in a
buttered bowl, and turn to coat. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let
dough rise for 45 minutes, or until almost doubled.
Punch down, and divide dough in half. Roll out each
half, and pound out the bubbles. Form into loaves, and place in buttered
9x5 inch bread pans. Butter the tops of the dough, and cover loosely
with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm area until doubled; second rise
should take about 30 minutes.
Place a small pan of water on the bottom shelf of the oven. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, or until tops are dark golden brown. Butter crusts while warm. Slice when cool.
So, this blog hosting site is really good at tracking statistics for you. I can see how often people are reading my blog from Russia and Brazil (mystifyingly often, seriously.) and I can see how many people were sent here from Harriett and Aimee's blog, and I can see how many people were redirected here from a Google search.
And I can see what they were searching that sent them here. Last night I saw this one: "I am too fat to live and I am going to kill myself and I need to know how".
Heart smashed, I spent the whole night combing through posts trying to find anything that might seem a tiny bit hopeful or empathetic or even human to a desperate person with a bottle of pills in their hand or whatever. There was nothing. My shallow and self-centered blathering, AND THE FUCKING WORDS "I AM TOO FAT TO LIVE" tossed around casually. I'm sorry. Don't be dead.
I know EXACTLY that feeling. Internalizing all the shitty things that those shitty boys said to you when everyone was a weird sticky almost teenager and everything about your body felt wrong. I don't know how some people manage to not carry that around with the forever, but I have carried it around forever and it is so fucking heavy. Too fat, too ugly, too stupid, my interests were shitty and laughable, my ideas were shitty and laughable, my attempts at expressing anything other than apology were shitty and laughable. Kids are the fucking worst, and there is nothing that rationalizing or 33 years of compliments from nice friends will do to change what I carry with me.
But don't die. This has been floating around on facebook, Margaret Cho's fury unleashed, all the things I wish I could have said back then. Don't just sit with these feelings until they make you die. This isn't our bullshit. Yell. It helps. I don't know why it seems like we aren't allowed. Seriously read this, it is so correct that it made my face turn red.
Also, burlesque turned out to be the only thing that helped me ACTUALLY feel awesome, that actually healed up those long ago hurts. If you don't want to try it, you should at least watch it. It changes a lady's perspective on things, like how much your big round booty is actually worth (lots), how awesome it is to hang out with ferocious sassy ladies (who are the opposite of those shitty boys and make everything about your body feel right), how fun it is to pretend to be someone else for a while, a sass monster who has no insecurities and is rather a glittering diva temptress amazon megastar. That person lives in you, even when you feel too fat to live and you want to die. Find her, she's awesome.
Also, what the fuck is too fat to live anyway? Bodies are crazy looking. Everyone's is crazy looking. And totally beautiful. Look at this:http://www.mybodygallery.com/ This is not pretend sexed up weird fake bodies, this is what we look like. Isn't it awesome? Look how happy everyone is in their weird fucked up hairless monkey bodies. I am furious on your behalf that your relationship with your body went so wrong that you need to kill it. I am furious that that is happening to you. It's is not fair and it is not right.
So now the influx of favourite holiday pals is over and I can't afford to drink another drop and I can't fit into my pants and it's time to start making big plans for the spring. I refuse to make resolutions, as a direct result of years of working with Kathy-type office ladies who all annually turn over a New Year New You leaf that inevitably shrivels up and dies by mid-February and they are back in elastic waist business casual, eating mexi-fries for lunch and driving 4 blocks to the grocery store. Those are my associations, so resolutions are OUT. (My annual pledge to try to be less of a dick doesn't count.)
(Allen recently reminded me of this awesome jam, which I haven't heard in a while. So good. Thanks bud! The Swedes know our winter feelings.)
I DO however, anticipate the relentless cold dark soul-death of February and March and I figure I'd better take a run at a couple of things before we all basically give up on living until the sun comes back. Seems like lots of other people are there too. The last few ventures out into public society have been weird, people seem all squirrelly and cagey, talking exclusively in the future tense. Or maybe I'm just projecting. I don't know. What I do know is that right now I am sitting on a mountain of directionless ambition and I need to find something to do with it before it gets buried in a snow drift. Time to take care of some business before the ants in my pants start biting me in the ass.
Re: Taking Care of Business, I require one of these, available at Elvis Jewellery Direct:
I am basically 100% certain that it will help with all attempts at getting awesome, so feel free to get it for me. I gotta admit, my love for The King has waned a bit since doing multiple burlesque Elvis tributes, but that TCB logo remains the most badass thing of all time.
The problem is that it is so easy to sit and spout off ideas forever and ever and make up a bazillion huge plans and to switch directions with the wind and to burn with the desire to do it all but to spend all your time burning and none of your time committing to something and putting your ass on the line and actually GOING for it. Remember the book I was going to write? (That sounds so embarrassing now that it is not MY NEW GENIUS PLAN!) Or the Master's degree I have been putting off since 2008? The 19000 different cute blog ideas I came up with and then promptly forgot about? Or the venue I wanted to start? The 19 bands that I have started in theory with so many people but never made it to the first rehearsal? Or the burlesque production company? Or the zillion super cute businesses I dreamed up and never made? It's FUN doing that part. I fucking live for that process. But now I am old and haven't done anything but dream, and that feels bad.
I don't know if I even have anything else to say about that. Like I said, meaningless resolutions are stupid. We can all want to be better with all our might, but it's pretty worthless. I have no idea how or where or what to start. Maybe I have more in common with the office Kathys than I can admit. It doesn't take much to get me to abandon an idea, no matter how much I love it at first. I guess rather than a resolution, I am taking the (totally arbitrary) clean-slate feeling of January and using it to get my inert ass moving toward a goal. For REAL this time. I MEAN it. No more fucking around. Seriously. Let's get risky.
Another thing I'm ticking off my list is some reno's to the love nest. I have been calling it the beige palace since I moved in because everything about it, literally, metaphorically, spiritually etc., is 100% totally beige. Prior to my roommates into life mates transition with the Mister, my colour scheme was always red, turquoise and as much shiny gold as possible, so you can understand what a struggle it has been. Trying to do renovations has really revealed how averse to commitment I am. Picking a paint colour I wanted to look at for the next 3 or 4 years was like deciding on having children for me. Jesus. Anyway, I need assloads of help, and I would like to throw my grown up dollars around the best way that I can, so I'd appreciate suggestions on awesome local makers and vendors. Don't say 29 Armstrong.
Sorry, I am out of practice, the next post will be better.
It seems like the end of 2011 involved taking a lot of people and organizations to task for things. Getting fighty with lazy local journalists for bad writing, getting mad at the government, getting mad at limp activist movements who were ineffective at getting mad at the government, telling off radio stations for pretending their 1970s-style glossy sexism isn't totally fucking offensive, defending intellectual property (my most hated thing to talk about!) and various other boundaries, being so painfully out of the loop (WHAT THE FUCK IS A SKYRIM???) getting called out on various mistakes and bad behaviour while I push against my life and see how stretchy it is...
It seems like it got kind of aggressive. Or again, maybe I am just projecting and it was me that was being aggressive. Anyway, obviously a couple months of deepfreeze is just in time this year. Cold is better for contemplating than yelling. There are things that need to be figured out, and we may as well stay home and do it when the weather outside is trying to kill us.
Also I suddenly can't stop reading. This is my current to-read list:
(This has also made me want to read the work of a few of the philosophers featured. Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum and Slavoj Zizek most especially (pretend the following video is in these brackets).
and last but not least, for a few nerd points:
While we're at it:
Get out a big mug that feels nice in your hands. Pour 2 oz. of bourbon whiskey into it. The good kind. Squeeze in the juice of 2 lemon slices. Add a tablespoon (ish?) of honey, the flowerier the better. Chuck in a couple of cloves or a slice of ginger. Fill the mug the rest of the way with hot water, stirring while you pour. Get into a soft cozy spot, preferably with a pet or a love interest, but that's up to you. See you in the spring.
