this post... has moved

this post...

has moved here due to space.

you're all invited in

you're all invited

in order to give advice to a recently-engaged friend, i just had to register at weddingchannel.com so that i could view some bridesmaid dress options. i have now committed to marrying "bob smith" on the 10th of October, 2009. "bob" and i are very excited about our far-future nupitals. currently, the wedding theme is "disney villains" and i'm planning on walking down the aisle to the tune of "poor unfortunate souls". this may all change in the two thousand and twelve days bob and i have until our nupitals.

from now on, please refer to me as the future missus bob smith.

"oh yeah? well you

"oh yeah? well you SUCK."

the world of feeble insults just got another golden nugget. this weekend, in an attempt to explain to my brother why i was incapable of some of the world's simplest tasks, my father said, "yeah, well, she's missing some DNA in her head."

i seriously have no idea what that means, but i mocked him all day for it. you know, by refusing to do the world's simple tasks:

dad: "take out the garbage, would you?"
me: "i can't. i'm missing DNA in my head."

in other news, i was able to answer the trivial pursuit question "how many countries claim to have stockpiles of nuclear missiles?" based solely on my repeated viewings of this piece of unadulterated brilliance.

a million lights, a

a million lights, a million stories

here, charles tries once again to spend christmas with his mother. he wakes up, chooses the shirt hanging at the back of his closet, the button down an aunt gave him that he never wears. his car won't start in the snappingly cold air. never mind, he tries again. he arrives at his mother's shingled cape cod home and spends exactly three hours and seventeen minutes there, according to the swinging-tail cat clock with the shifty eyes. they eat dry turkey. his mother oscillates between nagging and silence. she looks older. he leaves at the stroke of five.

the streets are quiet, resignation palpable in this forgotten town his mother lives and will die in. there's a bar, a shack drooping at the edge of the farm route. he stops there. there are two cars, only two other loners, perched at the edge of the bar. the bar is simply called mike's. charles slumps into the bar stool like molasses settling and orders a beer. when the shaggy redheaded girl at the other end of the bar looks up and gives him a weak smile, he figures, what the hell. he walks over, sits down next to her, and says with a laugh, "hey, merry christmas."

****

here, sherry knows peter is coming to her house for christmas, because mom invited peter's parents. mom is humming some cheesy christmas song in the kitchen, obsessing over the gravy. sherry leans forward carefully over mom's vanity mirror, carefully destroying her mother's eyeliner pencil by giving herself heavy-lidded eyes. she tilts her head and sucks her cheeks in and thinks, if you squint the right way, she looks a little like angelina jolie. except, you know, thirteen with brown hair. nevermind. he'll like it.

but when she opens the door to let the macallisters in, peter doesn't even notice her deliberately torn black tee and jean skirt. nor does he even glance at her coup de grace - eight hole doc maartens. all through dinner, sherry throws what she assumes are "come-hither" glances at peter and his long black hair, but he just pushes the cranberry sauce around and snorts derisively every time his dad talks about his job.

it's only at the end of the evening, when she's standing on the back deck. that he comes outside, having stolen a coors light from the fridge, and nods upward in her direction. "nice shoes." that's what he says. she knows not to smile - she just shrugs. he walks over to her, his breath hanging in the air like mist. she tosses her bangs out of her eyes, trying to control her shaking hands behind her back. one side of his mouth turns up into a grin. and then peter macallister says, "merry christmas."

****

here, catherine is at home, her crepe-paper hands carefully dusting the fireplace before her son and grandchildren descend on the house and the piled-up presents. her hands only just betray a slight tremor of the disease that will claim her in five years.

but the hands are still capable enough to pick up the picture frame of john, who left her in this world three years ago. she's a tough bird, our catherine, not given to tracing lines in the faces of loved ones. but she gives herself this, and stares at his once-young face and says, "merry christmas."

****

here, in front of a convenience store. a young boy, golden locks framing his round face, brown eyes peering out from under his wooly cap, is being dragged along the sidewalk by a mother furious that she forgot to buy enough eggs. little ryan chooses this moment, in front of the sleeping derelict, to use the powers of a four-year-old's body weight to stop the forward projectory of his harried mother. he stares at the sleeping man. looks at his mother. looks at the man. and says studiously, "merry christmas."

****

here, a twenty two year old soldier from kentucky looks into the unfeeling void of a CNN camera lens and talks, pretending it's his family's eyes and smiles, "merry christmas!"

****

here, a grown daughter spends christmas with two parents, in two houses, for the first time. she then gets drunk with her best friend and cries, wailing with hiccups, "merry christmas."

****

here, a pastor looks out over his congregation and thinks their lives might feel just a little bit better because the choir sounds so angelic today. to the flock he wishes, "merry christmas."

****

here, a woman kisses her pudgy husband and means it, even though yesterday she yelled at him about the plumbing in the basement. she says, "merry christmas."

****

here, a man usually too busy and important to talk to the harried, drawn woman at his deli, remembers as he's leaving, and yells back, "merry christmas!"

****

here, there's always a little bit of magic and a little bit of sorrow. here, it's christmas.

merry christmas baby gave:

merry christmas baby

gave:

desktop waterfall, edith piaf cd, and fujifilm I-O advantix P&S for mom
tom petty and the heartbreakers "playback" box set for brother
strait-line laser level for dad

recieved:

DVD player and picture frames from dad
trivial pursuit 20th edition and zippo candle lighter (engraved!) from mom and dad
cashmere sweater, animal toe-socks, aromatherapy candles from mom
carton of kamel red lights and target gift card from luiz

did:

ate delicious christmas-eve greek chicken and drank shiraz
went next door to lovely neighbors house to borrow flour (just call me june cleaver!)
made sweet-potato casserole with brother
made biscuit's cranberry sauce

love:

christmas
family
home

candy canes for all

candy canes for all the good little kidlets

help! we're changing our knickers! don't look, naughty children.

welcome to the briefly redesigned but infinitely more colorful pH. grab a candy cane, stay and chat a while. notice how the sidebar is no longer pixel-defined by percentages. those of you with safari should have told me a long time ago that you had massive gigantor sidebar issues, i would have bowed and scraped to fix it.

i'd like to thank the academy matt-hieu for not only designing my cheery banner, but also sitting on the phone and talking me through the TD changes.

and for being a great shag friend.

merry fucking christmas y'all.

pub chat it's about

pub chat

it's about 9:30 and the pub's just starting to get loud, with some football going on in the background and whiskey flowing carelessly. shivery just got trounced at pool, but since the teams switched round so much, no one has any idea who won. kate and shivery and i are discussing my attempt at a date on saturday night, then i chat with mark about the viable possibility of him actually having an evil, egotistical twin. stuart and i discuss snarky ways to get out of work, but wicked D thinks it best to discuss how the troika could really pull off some tasteful pornography. now mark, bring me round another pint, would you, dear?

alas, wouldn't it be nice if i'd really been there, as opposed to simply being chatted around the table on my mobile?

locker room love let

locker room love

let me tell you about a place. a place with a thousand shades of blue tiles on the walls, giving the place a oceanic sense of calm. with long seamless mirrors, lit carefully with quiet strong lighting. granite countertops, with beautiful porcelain basins to wash your face. use the complimentary washcloth. feeling tired? try the H20 evian mist. need hair products? will that be gel, hairspray, or mousse? or you could shave your legs - there's the disposable razor and shaving cream. and your hair? hey, they've got eighteen-hundred-watt hair dryers, about a dozen of them.

the showers are individual smoke-glass stalls with lovely shoulder-massaging showerheads. forgot your shampoo? no problem. elegant dispensers in each shower offer you shampoo, conditioner, and body-wash. need a towel? need four? no problem. unlimited towels, generous and fluffy and perfectly folded, await you at the entrance.

yes, you guessed it - i've fallen in love with my new gym new gym's locker room. it's the perfect antidote for the screetching wailing stress that is midtown holiday fever. i can go there, strip, wrap myself in several towels, partake of the steam room and then a refreshing warm shower. and i can do all this on the ground floor of my office building.

oh, while i'm there, i'll probably work out, too.

a thinking place to

a thinking place to quiet

i've come down with what feels like a two-ton weight in my brain, and i'm currently attributing it to exhaustion. i realized just now, while tapping my restless feet to get out of the office, that in the past twenty eight days, i've spent a whopping total of four nights by myself, keeping quiet. not that i'm complaining - since thanksgiving, then kate's visit, then a weekend home, then this week's festivities, i've been busy and happy. i have.

only, as i gear up for six days with the family next week, followed immediately by Best Friend in Whole World visiting over new year's... i need the weekend. i need the entire weekend of quiet and working and cleaning and relaxing.

so to kick things off, i'm going home. right now. i'm going to sit in the bathtub with a tumbler of bailey's on ice and sing along loudly to the record player. after that, i'm going to wrap myself in warm robes and cashmere lounge pants, drag the TV into my bedroom, and watch a movie in bed.

and then i'm going to sleep. for twelve hours. at the very least.

Fiction, continued this is

Fiction, continued

this is the beginning to the short story i excerpted here. maybe eventually the whole thing will be posted in confusing non-sequitors. wouldn't that be fun?

"Heat warps memory and reality as it does photographs, and vinyl records, and credit cards. It has an unforgiving presence, seeping into all the places you hold sacred – into your bath, between your fingers and toes, your churning and dying air conditioners. It is the heat, this summer, that is the constant to my memories. And it is on the heat that I now blame any transgressions of character or departures from sane behavior.

Houston’s heat is singular and infamous. The city has thrown an invisible plastic sheath around itself, blocking out the breeze and the relief. It has turned inwards and begun to fester, reveling in it’s own accomplishments: 95 degrees in the shade, the hottest two-month stretch in recorded history. In July, the days don’t drop below 98 for two weeks. We are a national state of emergency. Old people without loved ones or pets are dying unnoticed, like the June bugs that collapse and wither on the very leaves they chew. There are air conditioning shelters in the local elementary schools, and I sneak away to the one near my house to watch the homeless people file in. They look like oil paintings, shiny and ridged with grime and sweat. Mothers leaving their children there all day. These children are baffled by their abandonment, and the parents seem jealous to leave them in such cool decadence.

The heat does not seem to affect those of us without the clutches and trappings of the real world - for us, it means our mothers and fathers will grudgingly turn on the lawn sprinkler each afternoon for us to play in. We alternately run towards and dash away from its mechanical attacks, chig-chig-chig, as it arcs its cooling path over the piles of sweaty little bodies. Parents watch from the window, clucking at our carefree attitude towards yet another burden of circumstance that they must face.

Our house doesn’t have air conditioning. We have financial worries, my mother tells us, and so we must make do, which is nothing new, since we make do in winter as well. My mother puts our sheets in the deep freezer every night for twenty minutes before bed time, which leaves me rashy and rubbed raw in the morning. We are allowed to eat as much ice as we want, and we are supposed to mark down our eight glasses of water a day on the fridge door. I am fourteen and have no interest in water. My mother also allows us, my sister Addy and I, to remain in various states of undress since we are all girls in the house, and we often lounge around eating popsicles in old mens’ undershirts that are dingy and grey from so many bleaching runs in the washing machine. They are irreversibly stained, at the end of the summer, with the drippings of our lazy afternoons - orange, pink sherbert, and grape are our favorites."

"robert" ed note: inspired

"robert"

ed note: inspired by tequila mockingbird's brilliant writing, i remembered how the following episode had bothered me for days. feel free to share yours - god knows there are too many of these stories floating around.

i had spent the night carousing with a guy friend of mine. i get on the homebound subway unfortunately without a book, which is my shield of choice for rude subway intruders. with my book lifted up to my eyes, i'm practically invisible - i simply ignore anyone who tries to interrupt me.

i am without a book. this is the big problem when he moved from his seat on the other side of the car to sit in the empty seat next to me. he's hispanic, well dressed in a navy blue suit and a mildly expensive briefcase. on a full train, with classic new yorkers staring directly forward, he sits down next to me.

"hi," he says. great, i think. a talker. i flicker the briefest of smiles. anyone reading body language would scuttle away quickly. my entire torso is facing the window and i barely make eye contact. i pull my coat down to cover the flash of leg between my boots and my skirt.

"my name's robert." again, i smile wanly for two point three seconds. i am not encouraging this, i tell myself. but eyeballs that slide over someone else's body while seating half a foot away cannot be poked out in polite society. that this man has chosen, of all the women on a subway train, to mentally undress me - there's nothing i can do but move away and risk him following me.

he starts talking to me. asking me questions. i lie, of course. there's this:

"so, you live in astoria?"
"yeah."
"with who?"
"my boyfriend." (lie)
"oh, yeah? i don't see a ring."
"..."
"your boyfriend doesn't mind you going out late at night?"
"no."
"if you were my girlfriend, i wouldn't let you go out late at night without me."

at this point i just stare at him, incredulously, and sputter that, well, that's nice.

"no, seriously. he should take better care of you, you know, protect you."

kind of hard when he's imaginary. i simply say "well." and turn away again.

this is that turning point, that all women understand. where you get beyond being simply annoyed by the unwelcome intrusion and start to play out all the wrong scenarios in your head. i'm getting off at the next stop. it's midnight. what do i do? okay, i'll go into the deli if he gets off the train when i do. i'll go into the deli and that's where i'll be brave and rude. i'll say "PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE" like our moms all taught us to do when we were five. the guy at the deli knows me. it'll be fine.

the thing is, "robert" doesn't follow me. nine out of ten of them don't. but i don't know that, sitting next to this harassing little shit on the train. and because i don't know if he's a rapist or a murderer, i don't stand up for myself. i'm not agressive. i don't turn to him and say, "would you please stop talking to me?" because i don't want to piss off the potential one-in-ten rapist. i don't want to ineffectually fight off some sleazeball in an alleyway. so i don't tell "robert" to fuck himself sideways like i should. because he might follow me and trap me in some alleyway and attack me. pure and simple. there's a mechanism in my brain that says, warning, back away slowly without inciting agression.

i hate this mechanism. i appreciate its presence. i know it's cultivated and necessary. but i still hate it. i hate that as a woman, i have to even stop and consider my personal safety when some snivelling asswipe decides to hit on me. this doesn't happen to men. men don't get undesired come-ons that make them think, "will he club me?" but women do. we have to assess some rotting fucktard's opportunity's to do us harm before we tell him to shove off. and even when, as julia did, we stand up for ourselves as best we can, there's still a chance that we're in danger. it happens. all the time. and it's not, at the risk of sounding cliched, fair.

so as i see it, the only solution is to stealthily become a black belt in the martial arts and beat the fear of god into the unlucky shitbag that tries to follow me anywhere.

that, or move into place my plan for female global domination.

deedle deedle deedle digguh

deedle deedle deedle digguh digguh deedle deedle dummm

when i am rolling in bling bling, i will have the following:

1. an entire cashmere wardrobe including but not limited to cashmere pajamas, cashmere blankets, cashmere hats gloves and scarves, and cashmere towels.

2. a good medium-rare sirloin and a glass of chateauneuf-du-pape every day for lunch.

3. cabs all the time.

although i am not yet rolling in the bling bling, i do own the following:

1. cashmere pajama pants.

LIFE OF LUXURY, HERE I COME.

the prodigal blogger returns

the prodigal blogger returns

after months of scattered silence both real and cyber, seastreet returns to the page and our stage. welcome back.

wonky, check 5 am:

wonky, check

5 am: wake up on four hours sleep. drive to new york city from rhode island, due to horrifically inclement weather prior evening. fight urge to impale self on knitting needle while groggily riding shotgun for five years hours.

11:30 am: arrive at office. fight urge to transfer impalement-desires to entire pen jar. would be a right messy clean-up, that.

12:30 pm: while attempting to point out that flying me down to texas would be costly, gaffe and say "laying me is expensive". actually, may not have been gaffe.

1:34 pm: fly into 2.5 minute murderous rage over mysterious disappearance of candy bar just purchased. discover after exactly 2.5 minutes that candy bar is actually in palm of hand and melting now.

2:20 pm: jealous of recent flurry of transatlantic phone calls not seen since the heyday of the revolutionary war [if they'd bothered to invent telephones by then], pick up phone to call old shag pal in london, marnix. flatmate of shag pal answers phone. identifies self as george. accent irresistibly plummy. plummier than mark's. fight urge to propose marriage followed by sex and babies to complete stranger flatmate-george based solely on plummy swoony meltiness of accent. restrain self to a simple "cheers!" at end of conversation, hang up phone, and say "ms. george, haver of sex and babies with mr. george" aloud at desk. get strange looks from co-workers.

conclusion: must. get. sleep. then, promptly fly to england for multi-purpose trip of seeing friends, shagging marnix, and marrying george.

NB DO NOT POINT OUT SNAFU OF SHAGGING ONE AND MARRYING HIS FLATMATE STOP WELL AWARE STOP

unfade: nineteen eighty nine

unfade: nineteen eighty nine

the screen fades from black, a suave little trick her mother always uses with her semi-professional three ton camera that she gladly lugs all over the world, recording moments in a daughter's precious life. the screen fades up, delicate and subtle, like the mother herself.

the scene is greece, and the most cliched of greeces. the square for the unknown soldier, in the scrambling center of athens. sure, the camera sweeps the square, why not? there are miles of unused tape, miles of life and faces to be recorded onto celluloid. let's pan the square, for posterity. but it doesn't take long to zero in on a darting little shadow, a scrawny little form dashing fearlessly around the impervious marching soldiers with their silly pom-pommed feet. the changing of the guards. there she goes! and there her mother's watchful optical eye follows. but we can't see her face, til her mother's accented and disembodied voice, close to the microphone, calls her name.

she turns, as young do because they can always hear their mother's cry over the din of crowds. she skids to a stop and turns, throwing her arms in the air and smiling. we fade, again.

unfade. there she is again, standing in what can only be described as a teeming mass of pigeons. her tanned skinny arms stretch out, comtemplatively staring at the three pigeons perched there. like a true little girl, she wears a cotton white slip of a dress, hanging off her tiny body and falling to her shins. no doubt the manufacturers meant it to be knee length. no matter - she's small but feisty. jarringly, she carries a purse, a grown-up-girl's purse, that hangs all the way to her knees. the camera tightens as a pigeon descends onto her shoulderblades and stares dumbly at her golden-streaked messy brown hair, held back with a red headband. the camera tightens more. she laughs, a scratchy peal of a laugh. the camera fades.

unfade. the little girl squats amongst the dirty little sky-rats. did we say squat? it's more delicate and ladylike than that. look at her, modestly tucking her skirt between her knees! her mother must silently smile, behind the lens, at the grace her child radiates, even with that skinny frame. there she is, communing with the birds. funny, that this little girl grows up to positively hate pigeons, longing to kick them out of her way in washington square park. not here. here, she watches them almost mesmerized by their screetches and their incessant pecking at her hands. and the shoes! tiny little open-toed slides, white, with red bows at the top. bows, you'll notice, which match her red headband. remarkable.

look at that face. her glasses near slide off. glasses which, while made by christian dior, are pink and far too big for her tiny face. she chose them because they came with a free glittery barrette, and her parents have always allowed her free choice in this manner. even when the glasses are obviously too big. looking up, she beams for the camera, delighted in her mother's photographic admiration of her obvious rapport with the winged critters. fade.

unfade. a busy street that mom pans, setting the scope, always careful to give future rapt viewers a context for her little girl's early years. perhaps she imagines them shown one day, on 20/20. she always likes that barbara walters, strength against adversity, the kind of thing this mother holds in high regard. she lowers the camera to the confident little face next to her.

"what's that, pumpkin?" the camera moves to the other side of the hectic honking street, to a statue that seems to be moving forward in space, a running man in green abstraction.

"that's hermes." pumpkin pronounces it like the designer, whose perfume caleche her mother wears to perfection. subtle accent on the e. "he's the god of mischeif," she says into the screen, grinning with knowledge, "and he's a currier."

"courier," her mother corrects gently.

"courier," the little scholar nails it. this'll be great for 20/20, maybe she'll be a mythology expert or a professor, proud mama might think. "what else?"

the little girl cocks her head at the statue. yes, a professor, mom thinks. "well, it looks like it's made of trees, but it's not. it's made from plates of green glass. isn't it beatiful?" she beams.

"yes, it is."

"the greeks don't like it."

"well," corrects mom, "some of the greeks don't like it."

"that's right," she takes correction well this early in life, not so later as her father often bemoans, "some of the greeks. they think it's too modern."

she's nine! such a capable little nine year old, with her too-big glasses and her tanned skin and her messy goldened hair. so sure of herself, so happy in the moment of knowing something about this beautiful moving statue.

"let's go across the street, mommy, can we?" she smiles at the camera - these summers in greece, the camera almost becomes her mother's face, so often does she talk into its black murky lens.

"sure, pumpkin. let's go."

fade.

ATBloodyQAlready #4: Stuart's Autoblography

ATBloodyQAlready #4: Stuart's Autoblography

1. What’s an embarrassing story that your family or friends could tell about you?

Take your pick. Already written about are ‘Sky Sports Shocker’, ‘A Very Public Dropping’ and ‘Celebrity Foot In Mouth Disease’. I shall offer you another...let’s take the moment, at my Sixth Form Summer Ball, just
after the fireworks, when I was back inside demonstrating to another guy (who’d got it so wrong), exactly how Joey from Friends dances. It was also the moment when my entire sixth form came back into the clubhouse and thought I was dancing in earnest. I won one of those end-of-year certificate things; the ‘I wanna dance like Carlton’ Award.

3. What or where is the most inappropriate place you’ve ever been turned on? Extra points if it involves famous people or religious institutions!

St. James’ Park, Newport, Isle of Wight. Fourth tree from the left, by the wall behind the library car park. Hideously wide open space. About half ten at night in December. Drunken sex with a girl in a nurses
outfit. There is a church about five minutes from there, if that helps.

4. Tell me about your relationship with your parents or parent figures.

My parents are amazing. I found out that the man I thought was my Dad was in fact my Stepdad at the age of nine (that moment was a serious contender for Question Two) and the only thing that changed was that I called him by his first name from then on. He has the amazing talent of being both a friend and a parent – both a mate you can have a laugh with and an authority figure, sometimes in the same sentence, something I appreciate greatly. My Mum has had such an enormous level of suffering in her life, but she is still an immensely giving person. She would do anything for me, and I for her. I love making her laugh.

5. Recall a moment in your past that you remember as being absolutely perfect harmony in your life.

It was twilight, the sand was gritty and grey. The bench we were sitting on was a white cool smooth concrete, the wind was blowing warmly off the sea and towering clouds hung over the horizon in a coruscating hash of orange, red and grey. Out of sight on the beach someone was playing bongos and the sound of it grew with the blowing wind, taking the thrill of realisation and hurling it onwards in the imagination to the months of travelling ahead. I was relaxed, Gemma was relaxed. We were still, sitting and looking at the sea, and we knew exactly where we were. We were off.

the little owl that

the little owl that could!

despite my winning smile, winning brunches, and winning charm, i've never been much of a winner. i'm always sauntering in second or third to the finish line on most things, more interested in the journey than the destination.

so imagine my surprise when i stumble across a weblog competition and discover i'm actually in the running for best Female Authored Weblog! well, not in the running, per se, because i'm at a woefully short fifteen votes, since i didn't know to pressure you guys to log your admiration for me through meaningless online competition.

so consider this your campaign poster, your milk and cookies, your KRISSA #1 button all in one... get your tail over there and vote for me*!

*voting for me is not considered an exchange for sexual favors. don't even ask.

petit Hiboux Cupcake and

petit Hiboux Cupcake and Vodka Hour® Presents: We Lurv You Kate Party

well! here you are then. i hope the foul weather didn't dampen your spirits too much. did it? well, that's what drink and pastry is for. give me your sopping coat, okay, and your umbrella as well. oh, do you have to shake your head like that? you're getting water all over the cupcakes.

under the spotlight, there's kate, mouth full of vanilla cupcake with strawberry icing, topped with a chocolate garter belt. of course she's drinking straight vodka a la russian samovar, her flavor of choice being a lemon-raspberry mix. she's telling shivlet all about the sudden and traumatizing death of her blog yesterday. shiv proposes a toast "to the pilgrims!" with her delicious sweet summer. course, it's hard to toast when she's waving about a red velvet/choco-topped cupcake with a miniature bust of the smarmy agent cooper. but she's a pro - she does it anyway.

ah! and who do we have tucked in this dark corner but mark! he's splashing around his citronade tonic while drunkenly praising kate to karen, who's staring with suspicion at mark's squirrel-topped cupcake. mark, dear, i am sorry about the cufflinks, can i offer you these instead? there, now stop your snivelling.

karen, of course, has paired her death-by-choco cupcake with a neat hungarian vodka [i had it in the freezer all night, k, should be plenty cold], perhaps a palinka?

the phone's ringing, hold on - oh, karen, it's pete for you, and i think he's warbling something that sounds like white christmas on crack. and stuart, honestly, here's your stoli, you're going to need it when i release your cupcake from the cage in the backroom. honestly, diddy munchkins? and stop playing with kate's hair.

and stuart, darling, do me a favor introduce mr. D around? make sure mark explains about the squirrels. and keep replenishing his smirnoff blue and cupcake dip. that's a good lad. oooh, and here comes an anonymous
matt! he wants munchkins on top of his cupcake. stuart's munchkins or dunkin donuts? we'll find out, eh?

and moi? well of course, i'm manning the door with biscuit, who's quite tanked on the entire bottle of ice-cold russki standart drunk out of these adorable shot glasses. he's wailing on and on about AT&T, i just put another cream-cheese-frosted-choco-topped-raspberry-filled cupcake in his hand and nod sympathetically.

and of course, i keep it simple and classic. i'm having a vanilla blue-iced cupcake with a tiny manolo blahnik stiletto on top, with a cosmopolitan, which i happily double for ms. fish, who's whispering in my ear.... no... really? ... you don't SAY!.. the NERVE of some...!...indeed! well, fish, have three more cupcakes, darling.

now, kate and shiv, scoot over. what are we gossiping about? boys? i'm not drunk enough.

another round, everyone?

t minus one hour

t minus one hour

place your last minute orders with the cupcake-vodka fairy or she'll totally cut you.

it's happy hour somewhere

it's happy hour somewhere in the world*

as kate is leaving sunny climes for the foggy days of london town, i am saddened beyond consolablility that i will not have her perky and hysterical IMs to quicken my days.

thus, in order to stymie the rapidly cascading tears we're all experiencing at the impending infrequency of fauxhemian glitter, let us raise glass and pastry in her honor. how, you ask?

well, hold on to your propriety, lads and lasses - in true FG fashion, welcome to the first petitHiboux Cupcake and Vodka Hour® ...

thursday december the eleventh
half past noon

...held for the express purpose of drunkenly sending off our dear kate. we're now taking all requests for what you want decorating your cupcake (a bunny? a corvette? an impossibly large sugar diamond?) and what you want to swill with your vodka (you real alkies can have it straight, chilled. the rest of us need mixers).

to make it interesting: nice things said about kate, excellent song requests and/or your own personal sob story will get you an extra cupcake.

order away - and see you tomorrow at half past noon. i'll be the one stuffing her face with cupcake batter.

* as always, with much slobbering respect to karen for making cocktail hour what it is today.

Fiction "Reluctantly, I release

Fiction

"Reluctantly, I release my legs from the tangled humid sheets and pull on the aged baby blue nightgown that I pulled off last night, unable to cope with its strangling warmth. I throw on one of my father’s old denim button-downs and roll up the baggy, frayed sleeves. I pad out of my room into the furnacebox of the hallway, its dingy trodden carpet prickling my feet with cheapness. In the kitchen, I unwrap a cherry popsicle and wander into the living room, fiddling with the denim shirt as it slides off my shoulder. I can hear my sister banging around purposefully in her room, and Jackson is alone, stretched meditatively on the couch under the window’s glare. I notice details.

He is lengthy, in this position, even though he is not particularly tall - but his presence, his breath and long legs, his languid stare out the window, has total control of the couch. It is covered with him, and he is the largest thing in the room. I notice more. His cheekbones are golden and highlighted by the muggy stillness of the room. The shadows floating there are out of a sketchbook, the chalk strokes made with caution. His arm hangs off the couch, the sinew of his thin, graceful shoulder drooping down (slow honey off a spoon) into the slender, pale underbelly of his fore-arm. I see his ribs, stretching across the cave of his chest. This chest is hairless and youthful, lighter than his arms, and I feel the nesting instinct to lie on it and hear that heartbeat. I watch it rise and fall and this rhythm is the only one in the room.

I am not prepared for the ferocity of my own reaction to this scene. The room shimmers. Jackson looks at me. I have been caught, deer in the headlights, staring at his supine form. I see my cartoon self, eyes popping out, drooling, feet off the ground yelling something ridiculous like ‘WOWZA!’ I stutter and retreat from Jackson’s dark eyes, which are still half closed and stunned from the light. A smile breaks on his beautiful face, saying, "Hey Nina, running away?" He is teasing me, and it smacks me like a battering ram between my shoulder blades as I turn back into the kitchen and scuttle to my bedroom, breathless. I forget I’m holding the popsicle and it crushes, comic book blood on my bed, as I throw myself back to the safety of ten minutes ago."

-- excerpted from 'Slow Honey off a Spoon'

the mistletoe mafia strikes

the mistletoe mafia strikes again

what i'd say if

what i'd say if i could say anything at all

i don't think i'll tell you all about this weekend. i'm still glowing from the magic of it. it'd be impossible to explain what seeing kate again was really like. it'd be completely unimaginable for you, so i won't try.

for instance, i cannot summarize the amount of topics laughed about this weekend. penguins [always those shifty penguins], the miracle of modern science as expressed through automatic twenty-five minute hair dye, but i am le tired, cats, chenille, hipster boys, more penguins, zombie-face, well then take a nap, mistletoe, bugs, snarky gossip, ex-boyfriends big and small, sex, incredibly bad jokes, the evil of handbasket living, the joy of evil, and BUT THEN FIRE THE MISSILES.

nor could i really emphasize enough what it was like to pound pavement once again as a troika. the perfect balance between shiv, kate and myself might not seem as explosively perfect to you unless you could see it. i mean, can you really believe that we sat at naidre's and the grey dog chatting and gossiping and advising, munching down on french fries and grilled cheese and sun-dried tomato cream cheese? that we managed to get cozy little tables perfect for snuggling together and being girly? you wouldn't really believe that on sunday night, we actually dyed each other's hair and exfoliated with clay masks while drinking whiskey-infused hot cocoa, it's far too perfect. that we were finishing each other sentences and helping pick each other's outfits, cleaning shiv's apartment in harmonious tandem and getting ready to dazzle the world without even fraying a nerve... this seems like some kind of heart-warming tv show, not a real weekend.

the snow seems too perfect for you, doesn't it, that on friday night, kate and i had a honest-to-goodness shrieking snowball fight on the way to the liquor store, slipping and sliding in the fresh powder, while our shivvy kept the hearth warm with our biscuit and jason and flex. it's too much that we really did sip hot cocoa all weekend and smile at the falling snow.

and far be it from you to fully comprehend that we throw the best party known to civilization - with booze aplenty, craftily-designed mistletoe-subtitutes for when the kissing berries couldn't be procured, fascinatingly diverse friends from all over new york with all kinds of interests, and the best music mix this side of heaven. i mean, if you weren't there, you wouldn't believe it. and if it doesn't sound like the party would have rocked your socks off and then cooked you breakfast in the morning - you're not paying attention.

i won't tell you how at seven o clock in the goddamned morning, there was only kate and i, and two charmingly fun lads named b and g still carrying on the party, having belted out dylan tunes and traded sex stories after the other partiers pooped out. so nevermind that when dawn stealthily crept up on us as we giddily devoured breakfast at the local 24 hour countertop, and i was happily if deliriously chewing on a piece of bacon and trading horrifically inappropriate jokes, i realized: fuck money or fame or power... this is the good life.

but no doubt this is all just tedious and boring to you. so i won't tell you. you'll just have to trust me. and the forthcoming kissy pictures.

the mistletoe mafia are

the mistletoe mafia are coming to town...

the christmas lights are hung around the apartment with care.
the stockings lie flat, emptied from the goodies that were there.
the girls are preparing, primping and pretty.
the boys will drool, and otherwise be smitty.

the snow coats the world, muffling our urban racket,
the candycanes lay out, for anyone seeking a snacket.
the floors are swept, the ashtrays lay ready,
the liquor is poised to flow, making us heady.

and now at the dusking hour, we smile,
knowing friends will cross an inch and a mile,
we drink hot cider, and toast our joy,
our party will rock, rock off some socks, and we'll just grin, coy.

merry christmas to all, from the many to the one.
in case you're wondering, that is how it's done.

ATQ #3 - Londonmark

ATQ #3 - Londonmark

1. What’s an embarrassing story that your family or friends could tell about you?

When I was at school, the mother of a friend of mine had a holiday cottage in the south of France, and she allowed him to take about five or so friends down there for a fortnight each summer. One summer, I was included in the tour party and so we went there for fun, sun and, oh, more fun. The house was small but pretty, the weather was exceptionally good and, if you walked for about ten minutes, there was a stretch of the nearby river which was beatifully secluded and perfect for paddling and sunbathing. And we were in wine country.

One particular evening, we decide to go down to the river with some Evian bottles of wine (no glass bottles here, thank you, they're far too classy - we took empty water bottles down to the vigneron and got him to fill them up with some of the good stuff for half the price), take a guitar and get drunk and sing. We go down there and meet up with some other groups of people who have had precisely the same idea. Good. We drink lots, we play guitar badly, we sing loudly. We continue to drink. Some people stop, but I continue to drink. Someone suggests jumping into the river fully-clothed. This idea is dismissed. Someone suggests jumping into the river without clothes. This idea is endorsed to highest firmaments of heaven. Drunken skinny-dipping ahoy.

I wake up in my bed at my friend's house a day later with a headache that is literally blinding me. No-one is in. When, eventually, someone comes to check on me, they tell me what went on: unclothed bathing had proceeded by the numbers and upon clambering up onto the banks, I had continued drinking to the point of passing out. I came round again, to find that retrieving clothing was proving difficult for me in my condition, and so when we all walked home (correction: when I was semi-carried home), I was slightly deshabillé. Back home, I proceeded to throw up vast amounts of red wine and, apparently, I refused to speak English, conversing only in French including the classic line "je suis mal" punctuating the emptying of my stomach. Then, one of them put me to bed. I had a two-day hangover, and the rest of the tour party laughed at me for the remainder of the holiday (and years afterwards).

2. Tell me about a time where you cried so hard you thought you were coming apart at the seams.

The death of my godfather. I can't think of him without either starting to cry or wanting to cry.

3. What or where is the most inappropriate situation or place you’ve ever been turned on? Extra points if it involves famous people or religious institutions!

Five minutes before I was due to go onstage and sing a song called 'Agony' when I hadn't learned all the words.

4. Tell me about your relationship with your parents or parent figures.

Our family has always been four individuals, rather than mother, father, son, daughter, and so the supposedly difficult transition into 'adulthood' hasn't been at all traumatic for any of us. I rarely see my father and mother in the same place at the same time, and so they are now more like friends with whom you have to synchronise schedules, rather than authority/mentor figures.

I like them both as people, I love them both because they are my parents, and I respect them because they have achieved so much in their lives; nothing famous or noted or incredible, just the achievement to get from where they were to where they are now. I suppose the best thing I can say about them is that, were they not my parents, I would choose them as good, close friends.

5. Recall a moment in your past that you remember as being absolutely perfect harmony in your life.

The smell that someone's hair has left on the pillow that morning, the half-asleep kiss goodbye, and the knowledge that it's only a few hours before you see them again.

mark has an evil contingency of squirrels and is always fresh out of wit.

everyday she wears the

everyday she wears the same thing, i think she smokes pot, she's everything i want, she's everything i'm not...

our delicious and delightful kate arrives tonight. shiv and i will be waiting at my cozy little flat to run out into the street when her taxi pulls up, screamingly delirious to be hugging her again. the next five days will be filled with gossip and laughter and ice skating and window shopping and singing and drinking and loving. lounging and laughing with the biscuit. pounding pavement with jason. the new york public library. dessert at serendipity. hot chocolate at grey dog. bagels at naidre's. subways. glittering sidewalks. cute boys at bars. leather pants. holiday parties thrown by us, the mistletoe mafia. blueberry pancakes and sleepovers. snow on a sunday. kicking the last few leaves down the sidewalk and exchanging christmas gifts. and on monday, when she leaves, shiv and i will send a little piece of our heart back on a westbound flight.

santa baby, just hurry

santa baby, just hurry me to london tonight

see those three women i just told you about? they're going to be in london together, carousing the streets of foggy london town in just a few weeks. not to mention the dashingly self-deprecating londonmark and sweet stuart and karen and her many shoes. this will all be happening without me.

i would do any of the following in order to spend the weekend of the 19th-21st there:

1. sever/rearrange limbs in order to fit into fed ex box, overnight self on company tab.
2. find $500 on street corner.
3. catch/trick politician in compromising situation, bribe.
4. conjure up long-lost airline miles out of thin air.
5. marry someone who works in the airline industry.
6. beg the internet for extra tickets to london lying around.

in terms of do-it-yourself-ness, #1 is looking mighty feasible. in terms of least-painful-to-self/future, i'm dreaming of #6.

cmon, santa, don't let me down now.

iconic the von trapp

iconic

the von trapp family has their whiskers and brown paper packages. the golden girls have their cheesecake. petula clark had her downtown. people the world over have their countless addictions - drugs, sex, chocolate. everyone has something that they turn to, something they think of, something they rely on, when the woes of the world weigh heavy on their shoulders. i've got my girls.

friendship is antidote to the pandora's poison of disappointment, rejection, pain, humilation, anger, loss, and fear. and nowhere have i found better solace than my girl friends. thinking about the world's iconic women, i found the archetype to the women in my life.

stephanie is truly a queen amongst women. pricelessly stylish and effortlessly graceful, just like jackie. sweet, cultured, accomodating and kind, i think perhaps people underestimate stephanie's true grit. she's gentle and respectful but underneath she's tough as nails, with strong opinions, a cautious and thorough intellect, and she's fiercely loyal to those she loves. i remember meeting stephanie four years ago and thinking her perhaps a bit of a pushover. boy, was i wrong. she'll be the first person to say "nope, sorry, stop apologizing for yourself or others, you know what the right thing to do is." like jackie o, under those sexily chic clothes and winsome friendly smile beats the heart of a true regal princess.

kate, though she may not realize it, absolutely stuns people when they meet her. i recall a certain love-crazed emcee at an open mic we attend for shiv who simply couldn't get his eyes off her and couldn't stop talking to her the entire night. annoying though the incident was at the time, it made me realize that kate has a certain light that shines when she walks in a room. it's not flashing and sparkly - it's a kind of quiet gamine beauty, much like audrey's, that entrances without being the least bit snobbish or coquette. kate is a rare find of a human being - infinitely caring of everyone around her while remaining proudly her own woman. she may come across as a little quiet or even reticent but her strength and radiance is apparent the minute she turns those flashing brown eyes in your direction. like the iconic audrey, she's a force of beauty and confidence and intelligence that only the most dimwitted of people wouldn't gravitate towards. and she's still the girl next door.

when vivien leigh first read mitchell's 'gone with the wind', she drew herself up to her full five foot nothing height and said to no one in particular that she was going to be scarlett. shiv is considerably taller but not an inch less determined, proud, or beautiful. while the shiny red hair might make you compare her to lucille ball, shiv and leigh are luxurious burgundy velvet compared to ball's gutsy gingham. the songstress, the gutsy dame, the angled chin, the quick wit, the laughter like bells pealing - shiv is a dramatic, magnetic presence in every room she enters. heads turn when she smiles. with a heart of gold and a will of steel, shiv effortlessly morphs from a little girl cuddling on the couch and giggling about boys to a warm-hearted woman listening to a friend's woes, from a tough-as-nails urban warrior who doesn't take an ounce of shit to a voluptuous siren with a smoky-blue gaze that'll knock your socks clean into next week. and like vivien leigh, the only rulebook she reads is the one she wrote herself.

and little old me, who often feels compltely unworthy of the caliber of phenomenal women in her life? all her life, katherine hepburn marched to her own slightly wacky drums. i relate to her drastic polarity - while she was incredibly ballsy and brash, she was also cultured and well-raised and fiercely intelligent. while she was independent to a fault, she gave herself heart and soul to spencer tracy, giving her love so selflessly that it was almost self-destructive. i identify with her impetuousness, her earnestness, the little inner child she constantly indulged, and the strong proud woman she was through and through. i can only hope i measure up to those qualities the way i measure my girls by their brilliance, wit, strength, and beauty.

monday morning, see manic

monday morning, see manic

head: time to put on skirt/sweater ensemble. legs, let's get these pantyhose on, shall we?
legs: dude, we just put one foot in the hose and we're still wearing these pajama pants. how do you expect us to put pantyhose on while wearing these silly paisley pants?
head: right then. sorry 'bout that. wee glitch. remove the pajama pants, would you?
legs: grumble grumble.
head: well done! we're successfully wearing pantyhose! now on to the --
butt: I'M NOT WEARING ANYTHING YET.
head: what's what, butt?
butt: hello, i need to be wearing underpants [the lacy ones, please, hand] and you've forgotten to put me on.
head: ouch, you're quite right, butt, you need underpants. ah, leg, would you mind removing yourself from one half of these pantyhose?
leg: but it took me two trembling minutes to get them on!
head: leg, honestly -
leg: grumble grumble.
butt: these aren't the lacy ones!
head: shut up you gibbering idiot. leg, put the pantyhose back on now.
...
head: leg?
leg: zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.