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Writing

When I Talked to You, I Could Tell That You Were Already Gone

It’s interesting how when life happens, the last thing that you care about is being funny.

These past few weeks have have been challenging on many fronts. Most particularly because the only man that I’ve known as a grandfather, the man who was most consistently rooted in my life, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease recently.
And though it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, it always is, isn’t it?
You overlook that turn down the wrong street to get home, or the repetition of a story that you’ve heard a hundred times before, brushing it off as simply old age. Nothing to worry about. However, when Grandma told me last week that Lionel informed the doctors that the year was 1999, the depth of reality finally sunk in.
I asked Grandma to put me on the phone with him. I needed to hear the Lionel I was used to. The jokey Lionel, the little kid Lionel, the man I always brush off when teasing me about something or other. “Oh Lionel, you’re crazy! Put Grandma on the phone!” Lionel was a noodge; (more…)
May 5, 2010 by
Writing

Mama Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away

When coming across new blogs, I’m constantly surprised to see that many people are more narcissistic than myself.
That is a tough chew to swallow (is that an expression?)
I mean, I thought no one could love themselves more than me.
My love knows no boundaries.
It’s blinding.
However, I’m finding that people in deed love to take pictures of themselves. In the bathroom, in the car, in the bedroom… wherever they can get it.
I kind of feel like I’m denying the world of something now.
So in honor of the art of self-lovin’, here are classic forms of narcissism caught in their natural state (tell me if I’m forgetting anything):
1.) Bathroom Mirror Shot– (male and female, worse for males)- I hate these photos so much, I almost refused to take one as a joke. Tell me, who still does this? I don’t want to see the contents of your bathroom. I understand that you may have the photography skills of an intoxicated primate but you look like a dude from Jersey. Put your shirt back on. Oh wait, you are a dude (more…)
April 26, 2010 by
Writing

Welcome To My Neighborhood

I work and live on the Eastside of Austin which means that I’m unique and hip… by default.

Anytime a young person moves to the east side of any city, their credibility suddenly goes up fourteen notches.

Or down.

Way down.
Eastside Austin is a culturally vibrant and enthusiastic part of our fair city. It’s the only place where you can sit back and watch a police helicopter chase while enjoying a nice $1.50 taco of your choice. It’s a place where warehouses are turned into art spaces, vacant lots are furnished with food trailers, and old dive bars are turned into new dive bars.
I myself work in said warehouse. My office was formerly a bus depot, then furniture store, now hipster art collective/squirrel habitat. Our building boasts a graffiti-esque sign of our name which is an exclaimed adjective followed by an exclaimed adverb. In front of the sign, is another sign posted by an anonymous local telling us to get lost.
At our office we enjoy watching prostitutes having sex with their johns outside (more…)
April 26, 2010 by
Writing

Crispin Glover is My Density

When I was a child, I lusted after Doc Brown.
I used to write my name as “Mrs. Emmett Brown” on notebooks.
My mother thought it was f’ing weird. My classmates gave me strange looks.

I mean, it wasn’t Christopher Lloyd that I was jonesin’ for.
There was just something about that wild white hair and manic eyes. I swooned after his near autistic dedication to science and inability to interact with anyone socially.
And that car!
Yep, Doc Brown could get my motor up to 88 miles per hour (weak).

But as time went on and puberty set in, my appetite towards Doc changed and my interest started to fall towards another.

Someone equally as brilliant and likely to have Asperger’s, but yet more refined. Like a fine Merlot.
With that strong jaw line, beautiful laugh, and amazing part in his hair- George McFly quickly won over my affections.
Why didn’t I see it when I was younger!? This man is beautiful!
My interest in George began to deepen and deepen. The pangs of desire would keep me up at night. It was getting (more…)
April 23, 2010 by
Writing

I’m a Big Kid Now…Wow!

My blog was born from a time in my life that I like to call, “The Time I Lost Me”.

Dear Lord, that’s an epically boring name for such a significant time in my life.
“The Time I Did Things I Secretly Don’t Regret”?
“The Time I Would Sit on Venice Beach with Homeless People and Drink From My Flask”?

“The Time I Wanted to Abandon My Life and Drive Out Into the Desert and Live in a Seedy Motel and Write Poetry on the Walls in Lipstick”?

Though I rarely addressed my “feelings” in the beginning days of my blog (at that time called, “PlasticLA”), I did often joke about certain predicaments that I would find myself in. Situations that could be labeled as “sad” or “pathetic”.
Waking up lying next to a bottle of cheap vodka with mascara running down your face and turning towards the mirror wondering who the hell you were looking at did make for endless writing fodder, but it did not make for a great life.

And though I dreamt since I was a little girl of being a bi-polar, substance abusing, romanticizing (more…)

April 22, 2010 by
Writing

Life is a Mixtape

Awhile back, someone gave me a mixtape.

It wasn’t just any ol’ mixtape.
This person, a boy, carefully selected a medley of music ranging from Tom Waits to Gil Scott-Heron, dropped it all onto a USB drive, and then fused the USB drive into a gutted cassette cartridge, therefore creating a USB mixtape.
The idea that someone wanted to give me a mixtape was lost upon me at first. However, over time the significance became more clearer. You see, it had been a long time since a boy made a mixtape solely for me. The connotation often affiliated with such an act had become foreign to me. A gesture of a time long ago.
At least I thought.
In return, I arduously made the boy a mixtape. Though creatively inferior to his own present, it held the same emphasis nonetheless.
Since the day I received the modern day version of the classic mixtape, I’ve thought a lot about it’s bearing on contemporary culture.

Being the articulate sage I am not, Rob Sheffield, from his book, “Love is a Mixtape”, sums it up better (more…)

April 21, 2010 by
Writing

Your Down n’ Dirty Austin Thrift Store Guide

I’ve officially become an expert on Austin thrift stores.
You wanna know why?
Because I’ve been to every single freakin’ one in search of a dresser.
Though I ended up empty handed (most furniture fell under the “Oh my God! Is that covered in rat poop?!” or “What!? This floral golf bag is worth more than my car!?” categories), I did come across some other great finds and colorful characters.

Forget Cream or Feathers, this is your down n’ dirty Austin thrift store guide:

1.) Thrift Town– 10 stars out of 10
Thrift Town is my absolute most favorite thrift store in Austin. Located down south at Stassney and Manchaca, this store not only has the best selection of clothing and shoes, but it’s clean, the staff is friendly, and they boast terrific daily and monthly specials. Sign up for their VIP email list to hear more about it. Thrift Town rocks because it has the perfect mix of contemporary and vintage clothing and the absolute best selection of shoes. Prices are relatively low. If you wait for the (more…)

April 20, 2010 by
Writing

My Man Harpo

(Prepare to be blown away with my nerdiness…)

When I was a little girl, I loved many men.

Men that played unpopular instruments. Men that made irreverent jokes. Men who wore thick horn-rimmed glasses. Men with big Jewish noses.

However, there was only one man that captured and owned my tiny heart.
The trouble was, he was 110 years old and thirty years dead.
Harpo Adolph Arthur Marx will forever be my number one guy.
What makes a ten year-old fall in love with a person she’s a.) never met b.) will never meet c.) never heard speak d.) knows is about 5’5″, bald, and can’t read or write?
What factors in one’s life lead to a perverted obsession such as this?
There I would be, sitting two feet from the TV screen, watching a scratchy second-generation VHS copy of The Marx Brothers’ “Cocoanuts” or “Animal Crackers” over and over. My eyes transfixed on the impish mute bopping from scene to scene. Something about his glint suggested that he would show me the secrets to the Universe, and I was willing (more…)
April 19, 2010 by
Writing

Coachella 2010

So Coachella starts today.

Five years ago I vowed that I would never step foot in Indio, CA ever again.
In 2005, I bought tickets so my gentlemen friend and I could attend together. I really wanted to see Wolf Parade and he really really liked Eagles of Death Metal (how 2005 of us). I spent somewhere around $400 for the weekend tickets and he conveniently told me that he did not want to go, and oh, hey, I don’t really wanna see you anymore.
Stuck with these tickets, I was bound and determine to go and have a good time. I was going to show him! How could he, someone who looked like a serial killer in his Nebraska driver’s license photo, dump me?!
The only person who would buy my ticket was my 36 year-old roommate who the week prior tried to kiss me while I was plucking my eyebrows in the bathroom and he was drunk off of champagne.
So we went… and I was angry and resentful the entire time.
36 year-old roommate got so stoned that I had to carry his flat ass around the 100 degree desert. By the (more…)
April 15, 2010 by
Writing

How to Dress Like Your Hipster Idols

When I was a little girl, if I liked something a lot, I typically tried to emulate it.
Take for instance the time I burned a cork and drew giant Jewish eyebrows on myself to transform into Rod Serling. Or the other time I burned a cork and drew giant Jewish eyebrows on myself to look like Groucho Marx. Or the time I burned a cork and drew giant Greek/Italian/Arab eyebrows on myself to look like Frank Zappa.
Hm.
Looking back at that paragraph just explained a lot.
I truly believe that certain movies and characters have defined who I am today. Annie Hall told me it was ok to dress like a boy. Pee-Wee showed me the advantages of bow-ties. George McFly and Egon Spengler proved that nerdy could be sexy. Andie Walsh explained to me that buying second-hand can look classy. Sloane Peterson told me that fringe jackets and shorts kind of go together?
If you’re anything like me, then you like to honor your hipster “young, creative urbanite” Gods. Below are some of my favorite hipster “young, creative urbanite” (more…)
April 14, 2010 by