Filed under: art, general, growing up, love, money | Tags: art, cowboys, documentation, introspection, meaning, monks, nostalgia, painting, stuff
Thematically, my work is the product of three basic interests: Nostalgia, introspection, and documentation. [from crude home videos and cameraphone pictures to giant oil paintings.] At this point in my life, above all, I think I want to make art that I can hang around me, that will make me happy. But there is a possibility that by taking my good memories and feelings and aestheticizing them [by reproducing them,] hanging them all around me, essentially exploiting them and putting them to work, I will strip them of their meaning. But that’s a risk I’m willing to take. And actually, it’s something I’d like to explore. Because I’m not really a fan of meaning. Part of me wants to be a cowboy or a monk or something. Someone with nothing to loose.
Filed under: art, celebrities, general, money, television | Tags: art, BBC, digital conversion, Jeopardy, NPR, tracey emin
Emin, 'The Perfect Place to Grow'
I got home from work tonight at about 330. I went to turn on the TV, but it was static because of the digital conversion. I turned on NPR. Because it is the middle of the night here, it was the BBC. It’s like 9am there or something. I turned on the radio, and there was a proper-sounding English woman interviewing a hackneyassed English woman. The first sentence contained the words “rape” and “art” so I yelled “Tracey Emin!” at my radio as if I were on Jeopardy. Well, no, if I were on Jeopardy I would have yelled, “Who is Tracey Emin?” But I yelled her name, and sure enough, it was Tracey Emin. And I thought of how I liked Tracey Emin. And I thought of how my friend Danyel likes Tracey Emin. And I thought of how much I like my friend Danyel.
And damnit I’m glad the TV is just static. I’m glad.
Filed under: growing up, love, money, television | Tags: car crash, hallucination, joaquin pheonix, werner herzog, witch
Oh my god. Every goddamn thing I look at has to do with Werner Herzog. What is it with this guy? How does he know exactly what sort of things I’m interested in? What business does he have with me? What is with this guy? How did he get into my head? How did he get into Joaquin Pheonix’s post-car accident hallucination?
I think Werner Herzog is a witch.
Filed under: general
He is stretched out on his ratty, three hundred pound stupid wood and vinyl sleeper-sofa, which has not been sleepable for a long time. Something having to do with missing pieces. It is a sofa that my stubborn boyfriend hauled up and down four substantial flights of stairs in two years because it was worth a lot of money before my dog chewed the wooden arm up. And now the dog lays on it, and he looks so bored. I whistle, and his face twitches.
Now he suddenly jumps up as the synthesized voice on the laptop starts speaking. The long grey fur on his face is smooshed in a million directions at once, which is hilarious. He looks annoyed now for being interrupted from his boredom and then laughed at. He looks at the back door. He looks at me. He yawns while falling backwards, into his original position.
The new neighbors are out in the street screaming again, but he doesn’t respond to that. It almost seems like they go outside to scream, instead of staying in their apartment to scream. Maybe they are the tenants of various apartments so they meet between their buildings to scream.
My boyfriend hates it when I raise my voice. I do it a lot in public because of my trashy upbringing, but I don’t go out into the street in front of my house to do it. And that makes me feel more civilized than the new neighbors. The new neighbors’ kids go out into the street to get involved in the arguments too sometimes. Little kids. Like six year old girls. I think it is not a good example to set for your kids.
The dog sighs loudly, almost theatrically.
I begin to think of all the bad examples I would set for my kids, if I had some. Sleeping all day, watching too much television, smoking, drinking, swearing a hell of a lot. And yelling at my baby’s daddy at the grocery store for rushing me. I hate being rushed. Just like my mother.
The dog jumps up again with a smooshed face. He is responding to a noise. It is a noise I hear often, probably daily, mid-day. I don’t know what it is. It sounds like someone hitting a garage door with a big rubber mallet 100 feet away. It sounds approximately three times a second, but not with any rhythmic regularity. Sometimes it gets louder, and that is when it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
In the Summer, my neighbor to the north, who drives a truck around to collect junk during the day and drives a cab at night, releases his six kids into his backyard to stomp on soda cans. I hear them doing it almost every day, and it usually makes me happy. They have a green plastic swingset in the backyard which was new last summer and now has no seats. It is just a structure with chains hanging from it. Maybe the kids sometimes hang from the chains. That’s what I would do.
After about five minutes, the banging sound out back has stopped. The arguing out front has started again, and I feel relieved.
Filed under: dogs, growing up, money | Tags: assholes, doctors, dogs, growing up, money, newsweek, puke, rush limbaugh
I had a conversation with a co-worker a few weeks ago about childhood. He said that he doesn’t miss being a kid. He doesn’t reminisce about fond memories of a stress-free, simple life.
Me neither. I like being an adult. When you’re a kid, you don’t have any freedom.
Goddammit.
It is so hard to write with them staring at me. Rodney is sitting ten feet from me, staring at me. Rodney is exactly halfway between me and Nick. Nick is also staring at me. Nick is whispering and whistling and laughing. Now he is snorting. Now he is slapping his thighs. Rodney runs to Nick. Rodney jumps down onto his forearms in his trademark pounce stance. He does that, and then he hops up and down 3 times. That’s what Rodney does. Now he barks once and runs to me for cover. He knows that if he barks, Nick will try to slap him. He runs back over to Nick and does it again. He runs to me. Then, he looks at Nick and he pants, his tongue slobbery and wagging. He barks one last shrill, defeated bark and collapses.
Nick yells, “Shit, Rodney!” and brings me my highlighter. It was in Rodney’s bed and it is chewed up. The foam tip is dirty and worn down and it doesn’t mark anymore. It is not out of ink, I can see the ink sloshing around inside. It simply won’t make a mark. I throw it in my office trashcan. My office trashcan is plastic and cylindrical and has a panoramic computer-generated moon-landing scene on it.
Rodney has been sick lately from eating too much random crap.
Does this make me a bad mother?
I think so.
He puked five times yesterday morning while I was asleep. I woke and found caustic piles of puke all over the kitchen. They were like landmines. I used last weeks’ Newsweek, the one with Rush Limbaugh’s fat, sweaty face on the cover, to scoop the chunky piles into a grocery bag. Suddenly, the smell hit me. It hit me so hard it made me puke into my mouth. That was the first time I’ve ever puked from puke.
I took him to the vet on Saturday. There were three other dogs in the waiting room. The dogs were all equally aggressive to each other, which made me feel better. I am not the only person with an asshole dog. When we were finally admitted into the other room, I enjoyed showing off to the fat nurse-guy with earrings that I could easily pick my dog up and put him on the steel examination table. I didn’t need his help.
Rodney put his head on my shoulder and I hugged his body with all my strength to restrain him while he had blood sucked out of his arm and mystery liquids shot into his hip.
He really trusts me.
The doctor gave me some antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and I gave the doctor $217.
It was painful for everyone, I think.
Filed under: growing up, love, money, television | Tags: alcohol, capitalism, existentialism, family, gossip girl, growing up, love, math, money, nihilism, slut wine, symbolism
Lately I’ve been dragging my feet through my life, wishing I was watching Gossip Girl instead of doing whatever I’m doing at any given time.
I only kind of mean that, but I mean it both literally and symbolically. And subjectively.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot of the following things:
1. Does that mean something?
2. Can I say that?
3. Is that interesting?
I don’t think people ask themselves those questions enough.
I think a lot of things don’t mean anything. A lot of things that are written in essays don’t mean anything. But that’s the kind of stuff that’s really supposed to mean something. And it doesn’t. Not to me. What I can’t figure out is if things that are really supposed to mean something and don’t mean anything are interesting or boring.
Or maybe I’m just stupid, and that’s boring.
You know what makes things less boring? Alcohol.
She was wasted last night. She had 4 dirty stoli martinis. After work I was talking to her and she couldn’t finish her sentences. She would start to say something and then trail off without finishing a thought… she was talking about how we live in a capitalistic society. She would say “I don’t think those bottles of High Life are supposed to be two dollars, I think that’s a mistake. We’re supposed to make a killing. We live in a capulistuck society.” Her speech slurred and her body leaned to the side.
It embarrassed me.
I don’t really get like that. I don’t handle alcohol well at all, but I don’t usually make a fool of myself if I get drunk. I usually start to get a buzz and the next thing I know I’m sitting on the bathroom floor in a cold sweat. I really have very little business with alcohol, so I usually avoid it.
When I was growing up my mom was into wine. She liked sweet whites and blushes. Slut wine. She wasn’t an alcoholic or anything, she usually just had a glass or two, but sometimes she would get drunk. When she got drunk she would get really giggly. The giggles would sometimes crescendo into hysterical laughter, and it would freak the hell out of me. It would make me cry and that would make her laugh more.
My dad used to call me and leave cute little drunken messages on my cell phone. He would say things like “Hi Kelly Marie this is your dad. Remember me? Call me back. My phone number is 391 7822. You can remember that because 3 times 3 is 9. And 3 divided by 3 is 1. And 1 plus 1 is 2. And if you subtract 2 from 9 you’ll get 7. (And so on.) He’s not the easiest person in the world to talk to so if I had to talk to him about something I didn’t want to, I’d wait until he’d had a few scotches. I always kind of liked him better when he had a few drinks in him.
He and my mother are polar opposites. I can’t imagine them ever having a relationship.
This always happens to people in February.
Filed under: food, growing up | Tags: all clad, cheese, dogs, health, ming tsai, nuts, tomatoes, weight, wine
There’s a recommended daily allowance of nuts? Nuts can be part of a healthy diet?!
I like to eat honey roasted peanuts as a healthy snack. I am your recommended daily allowance of nuts. I am getting fat. I don’t want to be an adult anymore.
I want to be a farmer. A dog farmer. A farmer of dogs. Not for eatin, but for lovin.
Here is what I want to know. Wine is good for your heart, right? So if I eat a brick of cheese with a bottle of wine, do they cancel each other out?
Chef hats are ridiculous. They look like fire hazards.
Mmm crème brulee.
Ford Expeditions are ridiculous. I don’t care how many kids you have.
I knew I had to drive home but I felt stupid not having a drink.
Living a fast life doesn’t mean you have to settle for fast food.
All Clad is a state of mind.
Ming Tsai is sexy. I want him to teach me how to play golf.
Sleeping dog makes me happy. Makes me sing. Wakes him up.
Salmon, shallots, tarragon, seasalt. Edamames, olive oil.
Should I tell him I’m pregnant? Just kidding.
We open a door to the tomato. The tomato shows us its’ secret.
I was trying to flirt with him, so I told him his legs were too fat. I’m not smooth, I’m not a smooth person at all. I thought it would be a silly thing to say. Apparently I hit a soft spot. SO, he slept on the sofa. He didn’t kiss me goodbye this morning. He didn’t respond to my text message that said “love.”
When I was 6, I pushed a boy off the swingset because I had a crush on him.
When I was 10, I threw a rock at a boy because I had a crush on him. It hit him in the eye.
When I was 23 I called a boy fat because I had a crush on him.
Ming just called the gazpacho sexy. Oh my god.
Fat fat fat. Fat fat fat. We’re all gonna get fat, we’re all gonna die.
Go exercise. Go do some situps. Go do some squats. Fatty.
My stream of consciousness is immature.
Filed under: dogs, food | Tags: cheesecake, children of god, dogs, food, hollywood, joaquin pheonix, letterman, NPR, puerto rico, tomato soup, werner herzog, wikipedia, youtube
It started with talk of grilled cheese sandwiches, but we did not have any tomato soup. We figured tomato soup must be pretty easy to make. I had my laptop on the coffee table, right in front of us. It was there because we had just finished watching a Youtube video of Joaquin Phoenix’s recent Letterman appearance. It is sad on many levels and hysterical only on one.
I googled “tomato soup recipe” and clicked on the link at the top of the list.
Chopped tomatoes
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Celery
Carrot
Cebollas (this week I am saying cebollas instead of onions.)
Garlic
Chicken broth
Bay leaf
Butter
Basil leaves.
Shit, our basil is dead.
Heavy cream.
I have evaporated milk. I bought it accidentally and opened it accidentally a few days ago. The can says I have to use it soon. My boyfriend says evaporated milk is disgusting, so we will not use any sort of milk or cream in this soup.
On the left side of the window there are tabs… one has a striking picture of a brown, dense-looking pie with no crust. It says it is a chocolate cheesecake. I am very, very interested.
Smoke detector went off.
I’m back now.
Anyway, chocolate cheesecake. Click on the picture, and you get the recipe for that. The links on the side of this page read: “Paula’s NY Cheesecake, Deep-Fried Cheesecake, Ultimate Fantasy Deep-Fried Cheesecake, Jake’s Explosive Turtle Cheesecake.”
I email Jake’s Explosive Turtle Cheesecake recipe to myself and print out the Deep-Fried Cheesecake recipe. I’ve got everything for it except white chocolate, but fuck white chocolate. I hate that shit anyway.
I made the cheesecake without the white chocolate while listening to a black history month special on NPR about the N word. Don’t use it, it’s back out of style. Fashion isn’t the only thing that runs in 20 year cycles.
As the cake cools in the backyard in preparation for its dive into a pool of hot oil, I meander onto Joaquin Pheonix’s wikipedia page. He’s Puerto-Rican! His parents were hippies who met through hitchhiking and belonged to the Children of God, a cult I look forward to googling. Under the “Personal Life” section it says: “On January 26, 2006, Phoenix was in a car accident in Hollywood on a winding canyon road that flipped his car over. The crash reportedly was caused by brake failure. Shaken and confused, Phoenix heard a tapping on his window and a voice say, “Just relax”. Unable to see the man, Phoenix replied, “I’m fine. I am relaxed”. The man replied, ‘No, you’re not’. At this point, Phoenix managed to see that the man was famed, eccentric German auteur Werner Herzog. After helping Phoenix out of the wreckage, Herzog phoned in an ambulance and vanished.”
My dog has just walked into the room with his head down. His face is covered with tomato soup. Suddenly, my life feels hopeless. Hopefully it’s just a phase.
