February 2012
2 posts
“I brake for birds. I rock a lot of polka dots. I have touched glitter in the...”
– — Jess, New Girl
Watching New Girl has actually become kind of rewarding. My husband and I hate-watched the first couple of episodes and then took a long break because we found ourselves yelling at the TV and rolling our eyes so much that it was kind of exhausting. But then one night I was...
January 2012
8 posts
I tried to write a limerick about my quarter-life...
… but I ran out of rhymes. This is what I’ve got so far:
My bank says my balance is dismal And my job prospects, they look absymal. I got a silly degree; I’m all, “Oh, woe is me!” Graduation looks so cataclysm … ic. (Dammit.)
Tubalr →
Tubalr uses Youtube and collects all the videos by a certain artist and makes a playlist, displaying all the titles in the sidebar so you can click through songs you don’t want to hear. You do get multiple copies of each song, unfortunately, but it’s still absolutely indispensable if you go through periods of wanting to watch every video an artist has ever released, but hate wading...
that's as many as four tens (plus one)
Last year I read forty-one books, which is one more than I read in 2010. This year I’ve read zero. Oops. Well, I’m most of the way through How Conversation Works by Ronald Wardhaugh; about halfway through Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (dull and disappointing so far!), Priscilla Long’s The Writer’s Portable Mentor, and Ibi Kaslik’s Skinny; and I’m a...
“I will poop in a bag and then drizzle it on you.”
– I found this written on a post-it note way back in the drawer of my coffee table. Incredulous, I asked my husband about it, and he nonchalantly responded, “Oh. I was mad at you.”
I think this is the passive-aggressive note to end all passive-aggressive notes.
The Perils of Marrying Young
I am 24 years old. I’ve been married for four months. And I know that, in 2012, this means that I got married really young. (In 2009, the average woman was 26.5 at the time of her first marriage. My October-born husband was only 23 at the time, making him almost five years short of the men’s average of 28.4.)
I did have doubts about getting married so young. But they...
cheap laughs
The best thing about marrying a man who owns a poorly-bred miniature dachshund (read: doesn’t meet size AKC size requirements for either the miniature or standard varieties) is that I get to say things like, “Well, honey, at least your wiener is bigger than most of the miniature ones.”
I’m pretty sure the waiter thought I was the Worst Wife EVER.
the future of supernouveau
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this blog—far more time thinking about it than actually writing for it—and trying to figure out what to do with it. I’m not entirely certain that it still deserves to exist, after all, in case that hasn’t been apparent from my recent habit of multiple-month absences followed by flurries of short, inconsequential posts more akin...
December 2011
9 posts
weird winter
For the first time in my life, I have really cute snowboots that I am dying to wear.
For the first time in my life, it is 43˚ on New Year’s Eve.
We have had no snow at all. What’s up, northern Midwest?
I’m trying to enjoy this, but it’s actually kind of disconcerting. My little snowbunny system can’t handle it. It just feels so wrong.
I also have two new pairs of mittens, a new pair of...
Allison Versus Her Twelve-Year-Old Mentee
M: You're not a real grown-up, you know.
A: I'm not?
M: No.
A: But I do grown-up things, don't I?
M: Sometimes. I mean, you're 24. You're married. And you have a grown-up job. But that doesn't make you a real grown-up. You're like a kid in a grown-up body.
A: How do you figure?
M: Well, you wear t-shirts and jeans. And you don't fix your hair fancy. And it's long. Grown-ups usually have short hair.
A: So my superfine, impossible-to-do-anything-with long hair and the clothes I wear on my days off negate my degrees and my occupation?
M: Well, you also don't eat grown-up foods. You hate vegetables.
A: I eat them sometimes. I don't prefer them, but I do eat them. Which is more than you can say.
M: You like cookies.
A: Plenty of grown-ups like cookies.
M: And cupcakes.
A: Ditto with the cupcakes. I'm not seeing any of this as legitimately excluding me from Land of the Grown-ups.
M: Well, I don't know any other grown-ups who talk to me about Twilight and listen to Ke$ha and Katy Perry with me.
A: You're 12. You're into vampires. And it's kind of a distinct part of our friendship that I'm supposed to point out problematic messages in the media you consume, especially if it's Stephenie Meyer. And as for Ke$ha, well, everybody likes a catchy pop song. But I don't really listen to Ke$ha on my own time, if you want the truth.
M: What do you listen to?
A: Lately? Eels. Coconut Records. Best Coast.
M: I don't know who those are.
A: I know. I played a Junior Senior song for you once and you acted like you were going to die.
M: Well, just because you like music that real people don't like doesn't make you a grown-up.
A: True.
M: . . . Actually, no, I take that back. You probably are a grown-up. I mean, you like the Beatles. Only old people like the Beatles.
Allison Versus the Patriarchy: A Conversation...
Waiter at Fancy Restaurant: "Oh, and it's men's night tonight, so drinks are half-price for all the gentlemen in the group."
A: "What the hell? I'M the oppressed one."
Male Acquaintance: "Yeah, yeah, patriarchy, parity, rigid gender roles, whatever. You want gender equality but you also want special treatment?"
A: "Centuries of systemic oppression, dude. The least I can get is cheap booze and free admission to strip clubs."
St. Louis Reports That Former Selfless... →
It’s a bit of a rough day for a fourth-generation Cardinals fan. My emotions don’t know what to do: on the one hand, “but Albert we LLLLLOOOOVVVVVEEEDDDD you!” but on the other, “Dude, if $220 million and being treated as a GOD isn’t enough, then you are a butthead and LA can have you.”
The real tragedy, of course, is that now I kind of want to trade him...
The Best Icing Ever
Over the last year or two I’ve gotten into baking as a hobby, reasoning that just because I’ll never be a decent cook (WAY too picky and unfocused) doesn’t mean I can’t come up with reasons to buy and wear aprons.
(A post for another time: I love this whole retro twee thing that’s been going on for the last few years—cupcakes, ukuleles, braided pigtails,...
Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith,...
The first time I read this poem it was just an excerpt in Ted Kooser’s The Poetry Home Repair Manual, just the first five lines, and so that’s how I’ll always think of it. I was so surprised later when I discovered that it was far longer. Out of respect for Mary Oliver and because it really is a glorious poem in its entirety, I’ve included the whole thing here,...
November 2011
5 posts
“Find something you are passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.”
– Julia Child
seriously, there are like fifteen different brands...
My husband and I are in the midst of buying a television, and it’s proving extraordinarily difficult, mostly because neither of us knows very much about televisions at all.
We’ve made other major purchases without much difficulty. We each helped each other buy cars last year (his job was to know stuff about cars and my job was to go along with him to the dealerships and look sour...
Adventures at the Pub Round Two
Me: I want to do terrible things to Dhani Harrison.
Him: Well, that was apropos of nothing.
Me: I'm uncomfortably tipsy and talking about my thesis in a bar with people who use words like "apropos" in drunken conversation. I'll talk about whatever I please.
Him: Hmm. True. Okay.
Me: And if you knew what Dhani Harrison looked like, you'd want to have sex with him too.
long-suffering
I may have asked my husband if I could start using “Jigglypuff” as a term of endearment for him. He decided it was an upgrade from “Princess,” which I only got away with after an involved explanation that “princesses are things that I like” and that I called both my cats “Princess” and all matter of other things “Princess” and so really,...
heyo!
1. Got promoted! Granted, I’m finishing up my last semester as a TA, but I’ll take what I can get.
2. Got married.
3. Honeymooned in Savannah, GA. (GORGEOUS.)
4. Moved to the Big City. Well, the Big South Dakota City. Well, a super-small town outside the Big South Dakota City, a.k.a. Needed a Cheap Place to Live While I Finish this Degree.
5. Doing the thesis thing and the...
August 2011
22 posts
On Summer Jobs
Customer: What the fuck?! This is bullshit! Bullshit! What the fuck is wrong with you?! Are you fucking stupid?!
Me: Yes, yes I am.
Customer: . . .
Me: . . .
Customer: I--what--yeah, yeah! You're fucking right you are!
Me: (totally worth it.)
Symphony in White, Buson
Blossoms on the pear; and a woman in the moonlight reads a letter there …
After Many Springs, by Langston Hughes
Now, In June, When the night is a vast softness Filled with blue stars, And broken shafts of moon-glimmer Fall upon the earth, Am I too old to see the fairies dance? I cannot find them anymore.
i will wade out, by E. E. Cummings
i will wade out till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers i will take the sun in my mouth and leap into the ripe air Alive with closed eyes to dash against darkness in the sleeping curves of my body Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery with chasteness of sea-girls...
Life is but a Dream, by Lewis Carroll
A boat, beneath a sunny sky Lingering onward dreamily In an evening of July—
Children three that nestle near, Eager eye and willing ear, Pleased a simple tale to hear—
Long has paled that sunny sky; Echoes fade and memories die; Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise, Alice moving under skies Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear, Eager...
Although the Wind, by Shikibu
Although the wind blows terribly here, the moonlight also leaks between the roof planks of this ruined house.
Awakening, by Franz Kafka
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table, and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and ordinary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
Quiet Girl, by Langston Hughes
I would liken you To a night without stars Were it not for your eyes. I would liken you To a sleep without dreams Were it not for your songs.
I Met a Genius, by Charles Bukowski
I met a genius on the train today about 6 years old, he sat beside me and as the train ran down along the coast we came to the ocean and then he looked at me and said, it’s not pretty.
it was the first time I’d realized that.
maggie and milly and molly and may, by E. E....
maggie and milly and molly and may went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and
milly befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were,
and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways blowing bubbles: and
may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as...
After Visiting Hours, by Leon Weinmann
All unnecessary weight is eliminated … Even the brain cells needed for song are lost and replaced seasonally in some birds. - All the Birds of North America
At midnight, in the sunroom of the ward, when you’re locked in your pajamas, stupid with heartbreak, and your throat a frozen stream, you’ll read how birds in winter lose their minds, or lose that part that urges them to...
A Door, by Toon Tellegen (translated by Judith...
I came to a door and read: Thinking About Death Is Forbidden. I cast down my eyes and stopped thinking about death.
I went inside and someone cried: “What are you thinking about now?” “About nothing.” “Me too!” I walked through gardens, climbed mountains, waded through rivers, got lost in swamps and deserts and only just managed to find the way back. I came to...
A Man who Transforms You into Poetry, by Nizar...
When you find a man Who transforms Every part of you Into poetry, Who makes each one of your hairs Into a poem, When you find a man, Capable, As I am Of bathing and adorning you With poetry, I will beg you To follow him without hesitation, It is not important That you belong to me or him But that you belong to poetry.
Forgotten Language, by Shel Silverstein
Once I spoke the language of the flowers, Once I understood each word the caterpillar said Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings, And shared a conversation with the housefly in my bed. Once I heard and answered all the questions of the crickets, And joined the crying of each falling dying flake of snow, Once I spoke the language of the flowers … How did it go? How did it go?
Lament, by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Listen, children: Your father is dead. From his old coats I’ll make you little jackets; I’ll make you little trousers From his old pants. There’ll be in his pockets Things he used to put there, Keys and pennies Covered with tobacco; Dan shall have the pennies To save in his bank; Anne shall have the keys To make a pretty noise with. Life must go on, And the dead be forgotten;...
Entry into the Bourgeois
I had a bridal shower yesterday (less painful than expected, actually), and one of the gifts I received was one of those countertop things you use to display fruit in a way that you might actually remember to eat it. You know, one of those things that has a bowl made out of artfully arranged wire-type metal (to keep the one bad apple from spoiling the whole bunch, girl) and a hook that you hang...
Daguerreotype Taken in Old Age, by Margaret Atwood
I know I change have changed
but whose is this vapid face pitted and vast, rotund suspended in empty paper as though in a telescope
the granular moon
I rise from my chair pulling against gravity I turn away and go out into the garden
I revolve among the vegetables my head ponderous reflecting the sun in shadows from the pocked ravines cut in my cheeks, my eye- sockets 2 craters
among the...
Dance Russe, by William Carlos Williams
If I when my wife is sleeping and the baby and Kathleen are sleeping and the sun is a flame-white disk in silken mists above shining trees,— if I in my north room dance naked, grotesquely before my mirror waving my shirt round my head and singing softly to myself: “I am lonely, lonely. I was born to be lonely, I am best so!” If I admire my arms, my face, my shoulders, flanks,...
A Man Is Only as Good, by Pat Boran
A man is only as good as what he says to a dog when he has to get up out of bed in the middle of a wintry night because some damned dog has been barking;
and he goes and opens the door in his vest and boxer shorts and there on the pock-marked wasteground called a playing field out front he finds the mutt with one paw
raised in expectation and an expression that says Thank God for a minute there...
Overhearing, by Rae Armantrout
The way “The Tennessee Waltz” is about having heard
“The Tennessee Waltz” before:
an almost floral nostalgia,
totally self- contained,
is what we call beautiful.
*
You’re in the rocker, I’m on the couch, long since hauled off, but stationed like organs in this dream.
You’re saying, a bit too loudly, so that I’m afraid the one doing dishes (now...
a feature for awhile
I caught myself wishing today that I had a place where I could post the pretty poems I had been reading. Then I remembered that I’ve had a blog for eight years. Pretty poems shall therefore soon commence …
March 2011
2 posts
vintage
On dreary wintry days like today, I love to wander through antiques shops on small-town Main Streets. I love the smell, the dusty library quality, the racks upon racks of kitschy junk mixed with beautiful loved things, the snooty old women who perch on stools behind the front counter and and watch you balefully as they work on crossword puzzles, their lips pursing and their fingers clutching...
February 2011
3 posts
oof.
I’ve spent the last few days with The Worst Cold Ever, so my days have been a haze of low-grade fevers, incessant naps, a cough a longtime smoker would envy, and oodles of OTC medications. I would probably bleed cough syrup if you cut me right now. I’ve slurped so much Vicks 44 Chesty Cough that I have (shudder) gotten used to the taste. (I cannot recommend Berry Blend.)
My fiancé...
The Best Beer in the World →
We’re crazy for New Belgium beers here in South Dakota (NB is a brewery in Colorado most famous for Fat Tire). Mothership Wit is my favorite. Wheat beer + orange + coriander = mmmmm.