Archive for August, 2006

A little random never hurt anybody

August 14, 2006 | Filed under: La Madre

“Brain, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think.” ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Normally the problems that I may project are not really problems, but more like expanding on the banal and making things far bigger than they actually are. If I were to inflate every other problem that came across my path, then last week would have been full of ‘shits’ ‘damns’ and ‘fucking bitches’ because that’s what I was feeling. I would have exploded with vitriolic and caustic phrases aimed at one person who probably deserved such but not in such a public manner.

That was last week and my god, while I try not to go off in hyperbolic clichés, I’m a bit annoyed and annoyance that I must talk about because it’s driving me batshit insane. I’ve lost something. Not just any something, but something that I love and adore. A beautiful faux crocodile pink clutch that held a pot of Nars lacquer and my portable makeup brush.

Though to many – specifically the men – this may seem banal. But to me OH MY LORD I love that clutch as much as my prized Kate Spade. I adored both the clutch, in all its pink glory, but also my NARS people! My Nars! And it’s so close to fall and would have been the perfect color, but alas it is now missing. Somewhere in the bedroom that time forgot where a dresser is situated smack dab in the middle of the room: A perfect spot for little piggy stubbing.

So there you have it, I’m annoyed. Really annoyed and disappointed.

In the spirit of all things random, I keep pulling what I will now affectionaly call a ‘V’. In which I see things or read about them and suddenly decide that YES! I would make an excellent fashion designer. Pay no mind that the only thing I’ve fashioned is a felt bag and a pillow case in home economics in the 8th grade. I would also make an excellent book reviewer, perhaps for the New York Times and an astronaut. Did I ever tell you about my days of watching A Baby Story and how I was convinced that I would make a most excellent Ob/Gyn even though I failed biology? No? Well there you have it.

HB: dissecting the banal by day, Vera Wang protégé by night. Oh, my next life.

Loverly

August 13, 2006 | Filed under: La Madre

“This is serious. Serious high fashion. And I made a tinker toy.” – Bradley B.*

Everything was lovely. Truly lovely; though I’m headed straight towards spinsterville with my flake out on Saturday night, I wasn’t nearly as upset and distraught as I’d normally be with such a cop out.

But who cares? There was that sense of ‘Ahhh. All is well’ in the air. ‘Ahhh all is well. Perhaps I will run 15 miles and limit myself to less than 2,000 calories.’ And then I woke up from my apparent dream state to a true reality: One that no longer consisted of fingerless potheads traipsing through my apartment in hopes of becoming my new roommate (In case you were wondering, that dude will not be celebratin 4/20 in the confines of my living room).

On Thursday I had made a list of everything that I needed to accomplish for the weekend:

(Ahem)

Procure Silk soy coffee, watch Project Runway, eat French fries, go to the gym, sleep all day, drinks with Kimber, make like an illusionist and escape from helping new roommate move in, read, become mildly inebriated, get carpets cleaned, attempt to live off of $52 for the course of the weekend (including a trip to Whole Foods to procure the aforementioned silk soy coffee), seriously think about going to the gym, do not watch anyone else’s children

And lo and behold, I managed to do everything on my list, save for the drinks with Kimber. But who cares? There was forward movement, with progress.

Hell, I managed to be NICE people. NICE. For an entire weekend. I didn’t even swear once. (Did you not see the headlines? ‘Hell feezes over! Pigs fly!’ ) I didn’t even refer to the cops that hit on me on Sunday morning as dumb shits lacking both brains and balls. Nope. Didn’t dare. I managed to just roll my eyes and keep walking.

I think all the niceties may have come about when the nice group of Christian** boys (For real Christians, like just came from church and then one said “Well in High School, when I became a Christian.” So yeah, I am sure…) who decided to sit with me at Cosi (there were like 2 tables and mine happened to be a larger one in the shade…) when another somewhat socially inept guy came up to them and started chatting they just smiled and made small talk and that was the end. They didn’t even turn to each other, with saucer eyes, and mouth ‘Awkward.’ Nope. They were just nice. And that niceness apparently rubbed off on me.

And when I came home! To my apartment! (Can’t stop with the exclamations!) It looked glorious! And there was a dining room table! With slip covers on the chairs! And a cake dish thingy! With a cake recipe that wasn’t from Betty Crocker! Amazing!

We’ll see how long the exclamation points! And the niceties, will last. Sadly though, I doubt it will be for long. Especially since my religion involves praying at the alter of Tim Gunn, with a glass of Cab Sauvignon at my side.

*I might get cable, solely to watch people make outfits seemingly made out of tin foil.

** Please don’t take that as a slight to Christians. I am a Christian. Just at some point my religious learning went a little askew and I tend to say “Holy motherfucker” a lot.

Blogiversaries: like birthdays without the presents or money

August 10, 2006 | Filed under: La Madre

OR: A year ago today I lost my mother fucking mind.

“If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad.” ~Lord Byron

Last week I received an email (or maybe a comment.) from someone claimed to be “addicted to [my] blog”. Which made me tempted to change the tagline to No Pasa Nada: Just like crack or something equally as unfunny. I can see where the addiction might come from; all of those times I discuss random shopping excursions, having sex on an ibook, a dependence on McDonald’s, why Meredith Gray is an evil whore and MC Hammer – yup, addictive indeed. I can picture this woman sitting alone and looking forlorn, tears streaming down her face as she stares at the monitor, saying between sobs “I wish I knew how to quit you HB”. No Pasa Nada: Like your favorite gay cowboy.

There’s really nothing funny about graduating from College. There’s also nothing remotely amusing about having $5.45 in your savings account or contemplating writing erotic literature for money because you have a “flare for the written word and an active imagination.” (someone actually said that to me. Seriously) So terribly unfunny but sadly one of those things that one must go through. It’s inevitable, right up there with death and taxes, so is being forced to pay your own rent. Of the very few things that I enjoy about myself, I can say that I enjoy my ability to see reality for what it is and to (sometimes) rationalize the absurdity of things right now. It’s so fucking trite. Everything right now is trite bullshit that will get better in a few years. It won’t ALWAYS be like this. But then again I also have a flare for hyperbole and am convinced that when things are fucked in my little world that that is how it will be and I should probably toss myself off a balcony. The point is to make the very unfunny, into something close to mildly amusing, because everyone goes through this period of life and while it sucks, it’s nice to know that I am not the only one.

My dramatic outbursts and my amplified statements as to why things are going to Hell in a hand basket are precisely the reasons for why my parents sent me 400 miles away: Because they could not deal with the talking and the drama and the endless hypothetical situations based solely on irrational thought. Thus the reason for why when I say thank you to you all and want to hug and maybe lick you, I really truly mean it. Despite the endless prosaic rants and the fact that I use the word ‘fuck’ no less than four times when speaking of small children, means that you all are either hardcore sadomasochists (Good for you!) or you have been here before. Here in this place that I affectionately call purgatory when one is always dangling precariously awaiting the next bad thing to happen: The ‘bad thing’ which always ends up being that ‘stupid thing that happened and I really can’t remember why I was crying and threw a wine glass on the floor’. It’s times like that when I realize that this is just how it is until one turns 25.

(And please don’t use this moment to tell me that things do not get better because then I’ll kick you.)

(Oh and thanks for helping me work through my propensity for violence)

I could say that I do this because it’s cheaper than therapy (and closer) and that I just love the internet with every fiber of my being. Though the story is that I am an eternal narcissist and read an article about Stephanie Klein and it snowballed from there: Into emails to random pregnant women about babysitting their unborn child and slight indiscretions against my leasing office and a 72 hour jaunt to California. What I’m saying is that it’s been fun and sadly for all of you I have no intention of quitting at anytime in the near future.

So if you all continue to wait with baited breath about my awful life of visits to Martha’s Vineyard and new Kate Spade bags, then I will keep writing about them. Just don’t blame me when you tire of this crap and want to stick a sporksteak knife in your eye, for you’ve been properly warned.

Issues

August 8, 2006 | Filed under: La Madre

“I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.” ~Jane Wagner

I think it might very well be the heat. Yes! That’s it! The heat has turned me into a slimy slithering slug that has found itself sticking and holding on for dear life onto a rather precarious surface. The heat! That’s what should’ve been the answer when I announced “I’ve never had an asian/white republican male/hippy looking republican female for a roommate. I wonder what that will be like?” Yup, the heat. Not the fact that I’ve turned into a bigoted slug creeping around getting closer to the edge. Peering down and possibly letting go because of exhaustion.

Yes, the heat. Which is why I just spent much of my time crafting a post as to why there are no fucking forks anywhere in the free world and why I threw out my ONLY fork for the day. And the heat will be to blame when I explain why I’ve just spent the past two hours of my life watching the movie that brought little Shiloh Nouvel to all of our lives. Crap ass move that it is, seeing Adam Brody and Vince Vaughn almost make up for the crap ass acting skills of Shiloh’s parents.

So, yes the heat is why I have some serious issues today. I’m going to go cry and/or nap and/or watch Harry Potter now. I do hope you kids are having equally as wonderful (If I’m miserable, everyone should be miserable) days.

And you?

August 7, 2006 | Filed under: La Madre

“Politeness is the art of choosing among one’s real thoughts.” ~Abel Stevens

Leave it to my cynical and pessimistic ass to question the legitimacy of whether or not someone actually means it when they ask how my weekend was or what I am up to for the weekend, but there it is because I would really like to know. It’s one of those standard things that is polite to do I would imagine. But it’s also polite to do a lot of things, like say, telling someone that they have a little something hanging out of their nose, but then again, I am mean. And unless I really like you, I might just let that person go on with their bad selves and a little boogie off their right nostril, for my own amusement.

But really, when one asks how my weekend was or went, does that person actually care or is it just because their Mom taught them manners and I was raised by heathens? Do you really care that I took a three hour nap on Saturday in between viewings of A Clockwork Orange and Chasing Amy? Or that I had to resist the urge to laugh at a four year old for screaming about the small cut on his toe, because my God, a small scrape does not a staph infection make. Are these things that you are really waiting with baited breath to hear about?

I will admit that I do ask how one’s weekend went if I know that the person I am asking had an interesting weekend filled with a ménage a troi and a visit to TenPenh planned; because those are two things that I might actually be interested in hearing about. But then again, I am mean and also can be somewhat polite because them there heathens that raised me (they actually adopted me from a pack of grizzlies)…well they done taught me to be polite and endure conversations about how a normal trip to the beach took like 8 full hours because of the traffic. Because I would never bore anything with such a thing. Ever.

So a question for all of you: Is asking how the weekend went or what the plans for the weekend will be an act of politeness or do you really care or are you participating in some social experiment on how long it takes for one to be bored to actual tears?