Our trip to Burlington, Vermont was chronicled in the ‘American Elf‘ comic series by James Kochalka. If you’re not famliar with James’ work, ‘American Elf’ is a daily webcomic of James’ life transcending the past 13 years. James starred in Geoff’s movie Mars– which was screening at the Vermont Film Festival. Geoff is the guy who looks like a hairy muppet. I didn’t make the comic. Actually I may be one of the vapid ghosts in the background of the bar scene.
Bitch.
Wrapping up my work trip home this week. I’ve had a great time but looking forward to getting back to not writing overly sentimental posts about where my childhood went.
In the meantime, check out my post over at CultureMap about how to become a successful blogger without taking off your clothing.
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I love reading internet self-help lists. Lists that tell you how to balance your life, lists that tell you how to follow your dreams, lists that tell you how to be better at your job/art/money management/McRib tolerance, lists that tell you the best way to prevent yourself from becoming Howard Hughes and developing atrophy due to sitting inside and reading internet lists all day long. Lists are easy, short and to the point. They work easily with my newly developed squirrel-like attention span caused by social media.
Occasionally I like writing lists. I really don’t know what I’m talking about most of the time, but once you’ve been doing something long enough your brain liquefies (more…)
This hysterical calendar was created by one of my favorite Austin bloggers Amber Demure. Personally I can relate to the Febrowary and Oct-o-ber.
Check out Amber’s Tumblr and Twitter accounts for Arrested Development references, stories of self-deprecation and drinking and Alexander Skarsgard stalking.
This stretch of road never changes, only I do. Every twist and turn and is the same and will be for hundreds of years. Only I will go away.
All the times I made this drive, I never could have guessed what the future held for me. Now I’m here and all I can think about is the past. The future is now and and it’s better than it was back then. Cold, monotonous journeys back and forth through towns that I would run away from, seeing a young boy that I will never see again, and a lifestyle that was not for me.
We had no idea what would happen over the past ten years.
We had no idea that Josh would get into a car accident 12 months ago and die and come back. The months of being in a coma, rehabilitation. I was mentally preparing myself on the drive to his house yesterday, preparing for the changes I would see. The new Josh. Telling myself not to cry. When I saw him, there was no reason to mourn. Though life is more challenging for him now he only has optimism. He’s so far ahead than (more…)
As I’ve mentioned before, some pretty cool stuff comes out of Austin. One particular kick-butt organization is Lights. Camera. Help., “a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to encouraging other nonprofit and cause-driven organizations to use film and video to tell their stories.” LCH also hosts the world’s first non-profit-focused film festival. Pretty cool, right? Well, the gang over at LCH is throwing a “Film + Food + Focused on Good” fundraiser this Friday November 4th and featuring some of the greatest food-related organizations in town:
The Wine & Food Foundation of Texas, The Sustainable Food Center, Farmhouse Delivery, The Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, Moray Farms, the Natural Epicurean Culinary Academy, in.gredients, Johnson’s Backyard Garden, Slow Money Texas, Slow Food Austin, Greenling Organic Delivery, HOPE Farmers Market, Deep Eddy Vodka, Amanda Love- the Barefoot Cook, Amity Bakery, Pie Fixes Everything, Pate Letelier, austiNuts, and Edible Austin.
Proceeds (more…)
Visiting home is always…always…
I’m not sure what the word is.
Every time I visit home I feel different. Like the arm of a clock on a different time. When I was 22, I was 3AM, when I was 25, I was 4PM and now the clock rests on noon.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve mellowed out. Initially their dutiful daughter who always did what she was told suddenly did not like it. She snapped back. She was trying to figure out who she was and the last thing she needed was someone infringing on her time alone in her head.
Now, now she knows who she is. Now she doesn’t have a guttural reaction when one of them does nothing more than simply be the overly-concerned mother or grandmother that they are.
But coming home brings a new emotion. It’s no longer youthful angst, but rather seeing something I don’t want to see.
Something I’ll pretend is not happening.
As I hung in the doorway of my grandmother’s bedroom watching her get ready to go out, I noticed how small she looked. The weight (more…)
I’m spending Halloween back home in Central New York. If I were a child, I would enjoy this. Being an adult, there are many places I’d rather be than a town of 19,000 in a cold northern city (though I’m super happy to see my family). I’m sad that I’m not spending Halloween with my boyfriend who calls Halloween his favorite holiday. As I mentioned in my previous post ‘My Boyfriend the Style Icon‘, my boyfriend has multiple closets filled with costumes. Every day is dress-up day to him, but October 31st is particularly special. However, right now he is sitting on the runway at JFK. Jetblue has told the passengers on his flight that it could be 3-4 hours before they leave due to maintenance issues. It appears that Jetblue likes to keep their passengers captive at JFK. Hopefully this will not spoil his Halloween. I may wander around my town tonight and see if anyone is around, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve sadly become more and more disconnected from my hometown. Due to knowing that I would (more…)
Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year because growing up my mother made it so damn special. My Mom is a really creative and imaginative woman and in the confines of her small town life, Halloween was the one time of year she could really let loose. Our house was always decorated with DIY spiders, witches, ghosts, paper-mache dead trees, orange twinkle lights wrapped in cobwebs and carved-out jack o’lanterns. The best part of Halloween was my mother’s amazing gift at constructing costumes. Everything was always made from scratch. She went balls to the wall when it came to my Halloween costume. She made sure that I beat every child’s tiny ass when it came to costume contests. Every Halloween I looked forward to what my mother would dream up for me and walk through the halls of my elementary school feeling like one sassy bitch.
Then I turned 13 and was on my way to junior high. Mom told me I was too old to have her make me Halloween costumes and I became depressed. I wasn’t mentally (more…)
A wise man once told me that the key to being a balanced freelancer is making sure you change out of your pajamas every day.
So far I’ve failed miserably.
Changing clothes, brushing hair, going outside are all things I no longer know how to do.
Instead of telling you about my now two months as a freelancer, I thought I would show you in pictures.
Coffee no longer relieves headaches- it gives headaches
When you can no longer sit at your desk out of fear you will develop atrophy, watering dead plants is your only solace.
“Did I change my underwear yet today?” she wonders…
Staring at the ceiling fan pondering if you might die from lack of social interaction.
Going outside and looking for feral cats in the neighborhood because you’re not sure what else to do.
Excited to finally have time to cook but end up heating up peanut butter with stuff.
Standing outside the window questioning whether you’ll ever being a human being again.
I’ve written about being an only child before, but I mostly focused on the humorous aspect, like how we’re all a bunch of loveable narcissistic boobs. We’re a complex bunch, we only children, but outside of the attention-loving and the non-sharing, the most complicated part of our anatomy is the abandonment issues. We’re typically fearful of everyone dying and leaving us alone forever. It’s a subject I investigated more clearly in my recent post on Culture Map, “Growing Up Solo: The Habits and Hardships of Being an Only Child“. This one was definitely difficult to write. Sat their staring at the computer screen with that scrunched-up silent crying face for a good five minutes.
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The other day I picked up an anthology of short stories about only children at Book People. That’s the sort of thing we only children do—try to find books that explain why the hell we are the way that we are. You see, being an only child is not easy. It doesn’t come with instructions.
Sure, you get tons (more…)