Random Thoughts Day 82

1.  John Legend is a real enough person that I feel a mix of excitement and envy for him every time I hear "All of Me" play in every deli and passing UPS truck.  It's not like he isn't well known, but it's not like he has the reach of Beyonce, either.  And I think it's also because he's not a 17 year old pop new-comer which means he probably doesn't take success for granted nor feel that fame is directly tied to success

2.  I think the last time I was unironically excited for a pop group was in second grade for the Spice Girls and N'Sync and Destiny's Child in 3rd/4th  grade.  Therefore, I don't see how anyone over the age of 10 can be so in love with Taylor's Swift or One Direction.  There's just not enough depth to revel in before it sounds like elevator music.

3. I've run out of funny little lines (wait, I was funny?) It's like the well is dry.  Just nothing will be conjured up.  How did I come up with 3 or 4 of these a day? How do comedians do this constantly? I feel like everyone can come up with a story--bad or good, everyone can come up with something that has a beginning, middle, and end.  But a joke? No matter how much you can dissect one to build one up, there has to be some unexplainable click somewhere in there, I think.

4.  There's this baby named a really unisex name like Sawyer or Marlowe and I couldn't tell from his/her clothes so when his/her parents introduced him/her I just smiled really widely and was like "hiiii"

5.  Question: When individuals publicly comment on the death of a famous person on social media, what is their purpose?  Is it:

1. To respectfully salute the person as she/he passes on?
2. To seek solace and communally mourn (mourn communally) with fellow members of society?
3. To subtly brag that yes, they know this person and are interesting enough to have enjoyed their work and contributions?  Because honestly, I've never seen you wax poetic about Philip Seymour Hoffman our post the quotes of Maya Angelou or marvel at the extraordinary life of Nelson Mandela when these people were alive.  I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, though.  Maybe you guys all talk about the genius of Peter Seeger at those tupperware parties you never invite me to.

Random Thoughts Day 80

1.  It's survival of the fittest, and I feel like I can barely catch my breath

2. Being an entrepreneur is a hustle all the time (no shit, but it's just what's on my mind)

3.  Things, delicate things, do they mean anything?

4. Is my life worth more than a cockroach's? To me, yes.  But isn't a cockroach's life worth a lot to a cockroach? How would I like to be ended with a smash

5. Every now and then in blows my mind that you can just walk into a book store, read the books, and then leave.  Imagine if you can do that in a mattress store.

6.  I really can't remember if I watched You've Got Mail in the theaters, or I just heard about other people watching in theaters, pictured myself watching it in the theater, and then memory and imagination blurred after the passage of time

7.  There are some people that are so impressively good at tearing down my new experiences and accomplishments  that I was so purely excited about before and making them seem absolutely pathetic.  Except I've learned to take it in stride and give less of a shit about what they say.  One of my bosses (that sounds like such a major word, he technically was my boss, but I always feel like that word is reserved for the corporate world) once told me that you don't have to let anybody make you feel bad about yourself.  And like everything, I think it's half true half not.  I feel like sometimes you shouldn't stand for bullshit, but sometimes, you should act like the person isn't even worth your time.  In a way, it's true, they win if they make you feel crappy.

And also, I now give them the benefit of the doubt that they don't totally understand what I'm doing.

8.  I don't want to be a people pleaser.  I don't want to fake smile and fake laugh at your jokes.  But I can't help it.  The silence is too awkward for me and I feel like I should throw you a bone.  This is not a humble brag, I won't even pretend it's compassion.  I do it not for your sake, but mine, I don't want you to hate me, even though I don't respect you.  Why can't I be like that girl who doesn't even smile when you utter a lame punchline, who barely gives recognition that she heard it?  I want to be like January Jones, stoic and confident, unaccommodating to pandering efforts to feign camaraderie and small talk.  A lot of people think she's a stone cold bitch, which seems a little bit true sometimes  in interviews when it's obvious she feels her character's competitive relationship with others as if they were her own.  But I think she's mostly just a genuine person who isn't easily pleased and eager to please, which in turn force people to make a greater effort to get into her good graces.

9.  Are people inherently good or bad? I don't think there is such thing as an opaque evil person.   Or rather, people do malicious evil things, but I don't think they feel inherently evil.  They perhaps have an impulsive uncontrollable urge to do bad things, but I do not think they derive any true pleasure from it other than a temporary dopaminic high. On the flip side, I think that this means that people are fully responsible for their actions.  For all intents and purposes,  to do evil is to be evil, regardless of the nature of your soul.

10.  I am not very eloquent, and my thoughts and become entangled with my tongue resulting in a incoherent dithery string of "words." Especially when someone asks, so what is it that you want to do?

11.  I think I would probably "win" the marshmallow experiment.  Not because I don't mind delayed gratification (which I'm only sometimes good with), but rather because I'm so fearful of authority

Day 63

Emails are the stupidest form of marketing ever who actually reads the onslaught of emails everyday who likes receiving loads of emails everyday if I wanted to buy something from ebay jcrew groupon Pinterest I would just go to the site when I want to

Creative Exercise No. 35 Twitter Joke Templates

if it's done well, I don't care how many times I see these formats.  Otherwise, give it a rest.

1.  The fake quote
some do it better than others
@meganamram "I see people." - The Fifth Sense
@willyferrell Thats what - She
@aparnanapkin "omgomgomg"-squirrels

 ‏@dubstep4dads "YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS!!!" - an over informative server at a restaurant

@jondaly "Imagine" - John Lennon
@aparnanapkin "Fake it till you make it"-moustaches
@aparnanapkin "pepsi ok?" -terrible 9-1-1 operator
@aparnanapkin "um TMI"-bad interrrogator
@aparnanapkin "Please, you have to believe me!"-Religion
@meganamram "Hey, my face is UP HERE and also OVER HERE"-oma in Picaso painting
@meganamram "My name is Kid Rock"-Kid Rock
@meganamram "Sometimes I feel like a woman trapped in a woman's body"-Russian nesting doll
@BrennanLM "The world is full of hateful bigots! Do you want to see twelve pictures of hot coccoa?"--Tumblr
@totallymorgan "Oh tis old thing?"-me being awful about my grandpa


1.5. related: the fake definition
@meganamram Plastic Surgery = tailoring your birthday suit
@meganamram Blushing = face boner
@meganamram Noah's flod= God clearing his browser history


2. using a serious source to ask a rhetorical question

@robdelany is a frequent user
@robdelany @tedcruz "What is 'Medica debt has drive many of my constituents to suicide?"
@robdelany@FoxNews It's enough that Obama had Mandela killed for saying mean thingsa bout his website, but now he's taking selfies at his funeral??
@robdelany@BarackObama @petsmart I think I have vagina dentata but in my butt
@meganamram @rupertmurdoch I loved the sixth sense
@nataliesurely @Pampers how can i meet hot single babies in my area


3. retweeting people in a facetious manner. Could be regular people complaining, could be Justin Bieber.  The interesting thing about this tactic is that this joke doesn't involve any material of your own, but rather the appropriation of others. You're funny because you've recognized ____is funny. Like the twitter, written word, version of a Warhol painting.

People retweeting Justin Bieber saying Hi
People retweeting Amanda Bynes' crazy antics


4.  The one word punchline.
@kellyoxford has frequent examples

@AntiJokeCat Don't you hate it when you're reading a sentence and it doesn't end how you testicles.
@mzeld Thank you god for the gift of eyes because TV.
@mzeld I am very tech savvy. For example: megabytes

Creative Exercise No. 13: Thoughts/Tweets that will probably never make it Part 4

1. I fucking hate bad books.  Especially by celebrity writers/comedians.  I bunch of self important works thrown together reveling in their own nuance when they're just flimsy bullshit.  Just because it has a hard cover on it and quotes from your famous acquaintances doesn't mean it's good.  NY Times Bestseller List don't mean jack.

2. What constitutes writing too much about your real life? The kind that will get you fired too much for your job? Is saying this is the second time you know the insecure lowly superior is sleeping with the ulteriorly motived employee saying too much?

3.  Whenever I see a main character in a sitcom explain away the on camera absence of a guest character, I imagine the producers like ka-ching! another dollar saved.  Unless the guest star is Matt Damon.  Then he probably is off somewhere on important business.  Making movies that are way worse than 30 Rock. Because 30 Rock is awesome.  And Matt Damon movies generally suck.

4.  Eating junk food is always a battle between the brain and the tongue.  On the one hand, I'm not that hungry.  On the other, Frito's Honey BBQ Twists are delicious.

5.  I realize I think way too much about mistakes and over-inflate their importance.  But then on the other hand, I don't think I do.  I think people genuinely are taking notes.  And being short and Asian works against that.

6. I think our society is way to body obsessed.  Well no shit, Kristy.  but like, all this "health" nonsense, is just code for wanting to be skinny

7.  Sometimes I just dream of eating and eating and eating. I could have fried chicken for days. Guacamole. Chicken nuggets. Cheeseburgers. S'mores. Baked Spinach.   But the truth is, I usually eat the first tthings and then I'm full. 

8.  Can we just pretend that didn't happen ?

9. Everytime a celebrity tweets something nice about another celebrity I think that the second celebrity has died.

10. Never believe what anybody says. The more they talk, the more they bullshit.

11. I take everything personally. 

The Visceral Perception of the Embarrassment of a Stranger

It was Santa Con.

I had just moved to a seat on the opposite side of the subway to avoid one of the swaying drunk girls that may or may not have been ready to vomit.

A bottle blonde in a elf outfit playfully sat in the lap of a brown haired moderately good looking man next to me, who chuckled at whatever the blonde girl was saying.  I was attempting to deduce whether they were a couple or a couple of strangers when the man appeared to take out his phone to ask for her number.  The girl continued to smile but started to stiffen just the slightest bit, seemingly suddenly uncomfortable with the situation. She slowly doled out her number digit by digit while he scrambled painstakingly to record her number digit by digit, frantically aware of the squeal of the train wheels as we reached the next stop.

As he feverishly tried to verify the last four digits "six-oh-two-what? Six-oh-two-what?" The subway doors slid open and the blond skipped off the man's lap hurriedly and rejoined her drunken girlfriend.

He watched the girl scamper away, mini skirt and bare legs. The man shrugged and turned to me and the other surrounding passengers with a forced laugh and "ah, whatever" while we smiled a curt "we'll-pretend-that-wasn't-embarrassing-for-you" smile.   The elderly man standing in front of me sagely commented " looks like you used up all your luck this year, man."

food food food

I hate the word food, why can't they come up with a better name for it? Food reminds me of feed, which reminds me of the tiny hard yellow grains we throw at the animals at the petting zoo.  Sustenance is too technical.

But I love food.  I love love love it, eating it, thinking about it, watching it being made, looking at pictures of it.  It's such a cliche, everyone is obsessed with food these days.  But it's art that touches  all the senses.  You can taste it, smell it, touch it when you make it, feel it in your mouth, listen to it crackle, crumble sizzle, pour.  Admire how it looks-- whether it be a comforting mound of potatoes or delicately placed au jus drizzle.

sneaking spoonfuls of potato salad from the refrigerator

that warm spiced salty crispy creamy texture of that first french fry that you wrap your mouth around after what seems like a tortuously long 7 minutes waiting for your meal

the crunch and sweet tartness of a roasted brussel sprout soaked in balsamic vinegar

the pudding-like softness and chili infused meatiness of mapo tofu

I should find another hobby

That awkward moment when someone says oh you'll love my friend so andso he/she's really nice...

...and you realize

Um, no dude, he/she's nice to YOU because you're 

--a guy (so she flirting with you or he take your opinions seriously)

--gay (so you probably can talk about Real Housewives with her and there's no awkward friend-zoning tension)

--white (so she/he knows they gotta take you seriously or you gonna call the manager)

--blonde (so she look good next to you in Facebook pics and he think you have more fun)

--pretty (so she look good next to you in Facebook pics and he think you're hot)

--a really important person with a crazy high Klout score (social climbing ftw) 

The Curtailed Enjoyment of Sleep as a Hobby

Most 14-30 year olds put sleeping as one of their hobbies.  There are those annoying go-getter morning person types that hike mountains everyday at 6 in the morning, and then there are the mortals. I mean hiking at 6 in the morning does sound fun, but not everyday, and not under duress.

The Enjoyment of sleeping is ephemeral.  Because really, you're unconscious during the majority of the activity.  The only time you can acknowledge that sleeping is an enjoyable pastime is when you're just about to fall asleep safe and warm on the mattress, and when you wake up safe and warm in the sheets and fuzzy blanket and realize that you were sleeping, and you have about another hour to doze.

And  attaining the amount of sleep that signifies enjoyment is precarious.  You almost always never get enough sleep, hoping that 5 more minutes in the unconscious space will last forever, or you get too much and you feel like a lazy bum that has wasted the day away.  Because sleeping is no fun when you can do it whenever you want because you have nothing better to do.  It's no fun when you can sleep in on a weekday, all day everyday.  That's why sleeping in is never appreciated only during summer and winter breaks, only the anticipation is.


My favorite memory feeling sleeping is when I woke up in the morning earlier than I needed to go to school, to the sound of my dad getting ready for work.  It's still dark and warm in the room, and the only light is coming from the crack at the bottom of the closed bathroom door.

That was in elementary school, though.  From 6th grade on, I needed to wake up about an hour earlier than him.

My Greatest Fear

I see a billion wannabe screenwriters, a billion wannabe actors, a billion wannabe singers, a billion wannabe painters.  Oh art, you fickle, fickle prey.

These people that are working towards their dream, supplementing it with waitress jobs, nannying jobs, door-to-door salesmen jobs.  Am I a pessimistic cynic for immediately assuming that they're never going to make it? A few years from now am I going to see them on David Letterman talking about how they used to work at a movie theater and how now the smell of stale popcorn makes them hyperventilate like it was just a distant, romanticized, character-building memory?

What if I'm one of those people that are never going to make it? Will it be because I didn't want it enough? Or could wanting it never be enough because I'm too delusional to see my own bad taste? That what's clear as day to everyone else becomes invisible through my rose-colored glasses?

Dream Diary Post 4

So I finally figured out how to write a post straight from my phone.

This is a little weird. I'm writing it in a email. Will the formatting come out?

I had a dream I bought this baguette of goat cheese and celery and I thought it was the most delicious and fresh thing ever. It was held in a clear plastic tube bag. A little while later I went back to eat what was left which was a soggy end piece with tofu-like chunks instead of goat cheese. I thought, this wasn't what I remembered...

There was this giant cream colored tent, like a circus tent, not a camping tent, at a family party and all the kids were playing on a giant pillowy cushion underneath it.  Sunlight from the window it hung against set the whole tent aglow.  I saw them all jumping around and went towards it wondering why I wasn't there. A girl jumped to me and exclaimed to me "it's an island!" I saw the toddlers dressed up in Halloween costumes, one was a ladybug and another was Thomas the Tank Engine, both costumes were clearly hand-me-downs, pilled and matted and fuzzy with lint. I pulled back part of the tent to look out the window, and saw the green front lawn and cul-de-sac below, damp with drizzling rain.

Facebook Makes Everyone Seem Crazy

A conversation about Facebook that has been building for nearly 10 years has reached an all-time-high-pitched buzz. With smart phones making it easier than ever to be connected 24/7 to social media, and various channels cross-cutting each other, much of the modern world is fully entrenched in a narcissistic-masquerading-as-introspective stupor.

Those people that post very personal mopey statuses and are always laid back in real life.

Those people that share links to dozens of articles everyday under the pretense of informing when in actuality it is a less direct cry for attention.

The people who share dozens of link after link, declaration after declaration on a friend's wall, a public validation of their friendship... Does one imagine himself/herself in a bubble when (s)he shares these posts, or has all the world truly become a stage? Does one automatically fall into a mindset of presentation when they have a "public" conversation?

The people that post Instagram pics of every anticlimactic social event and paraphernalia purchase.  It's one thing to post it on Instagram, it's another to deliberately share it on Facebook as well.

The people that post selfie after selfie of contrived stoicism.

Those 45 year old women that check in every time they go to the local restaurant next to Shoprite.

And worst of all, the people that rant about how loser-ish and transparent others' Facebook activity is.

Should we let the id truly run free? Are we more truthful than ever, or more self-involved and dependent yet isolated than ever 

We are addicted to the approval of others, though only concerned about their well- being insomuch  as how they serve us

The past year has seen a host of feature articles defining The Millienials.  Like generation X, the time has finally come that enough of us have entered adulthood enough so that society may summarize our generation into a particular set of character traits.  We are narcissistic, we think we are special, we're all waiting for people to finally notice our true genius. 

There has been backlash, scorning our out of touch and bitter predecessors, as certain authors offer counterfactual evidence in an attempt to end the conversation with a determining note of finality.  Millienials are more caring than ever, our multitasking skills is what will save us all.

But as I live my own life and find myself scrolling through various feeds with zombie-like enthusiasm, an inner turmoil with the mild fervor of a closeted transcendentalist poet, it makes me wonder  certain that those writers who pitch and invest in these critiques the most are probably millenials themselves.  A classic self-loathing projected on others. We are lost in Me, and we know it.

The recent Birthday of Joan Didion had reinforced every millennial blogger's belief that every introspective thought on the path of self-discovery is intellectual and beneficial for all.  Struggle is being meta-idealized, as we fabricate our memories as we live them.  2013 'twas also the year of Introverts, and thus media comforted us that the idea that thinking too much and worrying too much and alone time with oneself is a thing to humble-brag about, like being a nerd during the era of Seth Cohen.  We've been constantly told to be ourselves, to find ourselves, and to find our way.  Social media has offered the perfect platform to brand our journey.  But not all thoughts are gold, not all contribute to the self-realization of civilization.  But should we all continue to think that one's thoughts are important, we shall continue aimlessly wandering in our own respective circles of spotlight, never looking up to realize that there are other circles too.

Romanticizing Domesticity

Reading Man Repeller's book Seeking Love, Finding Overalls  (pleasantly surprised by the sincerity and intelligence of the sentimentality in comparison to her adjective-heavy blog prose) and Watching Sex and the City from season 1 has me craving comfort and meaning in earthly objects versus to the dull emptiness I feel when staring into the bottomless galactic chasm that swallows us.

To feel a thrill from picking up a well-crafted (if perhaps impractical for the dog-shit/salt seasoned streets of New York) shoe from Bergdorf's or Miu Miu.  To have your mom inquire that you shop for clothes and make jewelry and read about jewelry and bake cakes like it's your job (because it kind of is). To create for fun, how awesome is that? It's like license to be a kid.

Thoughts/Tweets that will probably never make it Part 3

1. random sentence I wrote in summer 2010
the warming gel pack lay limp in the basin, like a dead fish waiting to be poached for supper

2. random sentence I wrote in january 2010

All my professors were/are nice, but it doesn't stop me from observing them as if I were on a safari and they were in their natural habitats.

3. These random sentence compilations  are in part an urge to clean out my drafts folder filled with barely attempted posts

4. random sentence from August 2010

I hate sleeping in new places. There's always the aching awareness that I am not at home.  Home being where I have/am accustomed to laying my head for the past week.

5. I hate that I keep having the compulsion to post something vulnerable and truthful (to be real, man) and then have the urge to "revert post back to draft" when I reread it not a week later. Because sometimes when I see other people pour their hearts out in a face book status I admire/appreciate their abiilty to put themselves out there. But other times it's like, oh my god, cut the sap.  The hope that someone out there you know is reading, the fear that they are. 

6. I just came back from microwaving leftover pudding from my banana cream pie endeavor.  Except now that I'm back I don't know what impelled me to walk over to the refrigerator at that moment. Hunger, obviously, but I had been lazy enough to ignore that all morning.  What electrical current sped over my synapses so that I decided to stand up and walk away mid-thought?

7. Funny how I hated writing in 5th grade and on when we had to keep "lifebooks" and we did all those exercises like zoom in/zoom out and just writing writing writing raw raw raw anything and everything.  And I realize, sometimes you just need to write every single thought and detail in your mind to exercise the path from thought to word.  It would be lovely and ego-stroking if there was someone there to actually read each and every one of these asinine thoughts, but it's more about the flow flow flow and maybe someday when you go back and reread you will find some rocks that could be worthy of polishing.

8.  I'm willing to suffer for my art, she said, as she slowly cut each finger off, knuckle by knuckle. 

I don't like painted pumpkins

If I were Larry David or Seinfeld, it would be funny that I'm griping about such asinine things.  But I'm not, so it's not.


I hate painted pumpkins.  They annoy me so much.  Call me narrow-minded, but I feel that pumpkins are strictly to be carved if they are to be made into decorations.  At least that way it utilizes and showcases the hollow nature of the gourd, especially when a glowing candle is placed inside. When you paint it, it just feels like such a waste, a superficial film of illustration while its insides of pulp and seeds lay rotting.  When you could've made bland roasted pumpkin seeds.  You might as well just paint a solid rock.  Those were never alive.


side note: In elementary school they never let me eat pumpkin seeds because they were afraid I was allergic to them, nut allergy-afflicted child that I was. 

10:30 PM at Kinko's

Standing in Kinko's waiting for their "print and go" app to load at a tortuously slow pace, not even the free wifi is helping, already feeling violated having spent $4.32 on the pay .30/min rental computer only to print out a singe resume after debating whether or not to spend $18.60 on color printing 18 pages of single-sided line sheets and deciding no, there's got to be a better way...while employee #1 with the thick rectangular black frame glasses and energetic black hair vacuums and cheerfully chastises himself for "missing that corner again" spitting out sparse raucous laughter while muzak plays faintly in the background and the employee #2 with the blonde Brillo pad hair and wire-rimmed glasses responds in the high-pitched voice that yes, backstabbing in Call of Duty is indeed a clever strategic maneuver... or maybe he said never really played it...I don't remember...

Never have I felt more like Walter White or Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Looper or any other violent but artsy thriller/crime/drama at that point in the plot where it's the calm before the storm or the calm right after the storm where they're sitting in a empty diner swirling their barely-touched coffee or buying snacks at a dusty gas station when they are just about to kill some people and abandon their partners in crime and loved ones or right after they did.

The app finally did load but my document didn't so I left defeated with 5 minutes left until closing.


My heart still pains from spending 5 dollars to print a single sheet of paper.

I don't like The Script

What? The last post I wrote was nearly twenty days ago? I honestly do have a lot of ideas to scribble down but lose momentum by the time I remember how to log in.  Seriously, the hardest part about keeping up with a blog is logging in.  I think there's an app that makes it simple to just stream a thought straight to the blog without coming to blogger but I'm too lazy too look right now.  Plus, sometimes I need pictures.


Anyways, I don't like The Script.  I find their melodies boring and depressing because they're boring in an easy listening Adult Contemporary kind of way. Just thinking about it puts me in the waiting room of the dentist's office.  Like if you listen to The Script you probably like The Bee Gees and Shania Twain.

Except these days I'm loathe to declare I hate something not because it's juvenile but because it always results in the impulse of exploring said loathed object until I love it (see: olives, coconuts, onions, kanye west).

On Paula Deen (and her N word fiasco)

Paula Deen has found herself in a (deep-fried) pickle again.  Unlike the diabetes, Novo Nordisk controversy, her missteps this time have found her facing far more observable public disapproval and financial (read: business partnerships) consequences.  Long story short: a former manager (Lisa Jackson) accuses Deen of creating a hostile environment, including racial slurs and viewing of pornography by her brother during work hours while employed at Deen and brother's restaurant some 20 or 30 years ago. During questioning, when asked if she had ever used the N word, she responded, "of course."  She details a story of being robbed at gunpoint by a black person and referring to him as the "n****r" when recounting the story to a family member. When asked whether race jokes are appropriate, she dodged the shot transparently-- "I can't, myself, determine, what offends another person."

Let's get the real world reasons for the hoopla out of the way first. It's money, it's all about money.  It is important to remember that Paula Deen isn't being shunned by business partners because she may or may not be racist.  First of all, the lawsuit has been brought about with accusations of a hostile work environment  that happen to include elements of racism and sexism (if it matters, the plantiff is white). Second of all, large companies like Walmart, Target, Smithfield Farms, etc. couldn't give a rat's ass whether or not Deen is actually racist--even if there was such a thing as a Racist-O-Meter and the arrow confidently swung to NOT RACIST, it would be far too late.  The accusation is in the air.  Her brand persona has now been tainted and is no longer monetarily viable.  Just the allegations are enough to bring a personality brand down.

Commenters of the fall from grace fall into these categories

Pro Paula: The media is bored: overblowing a minor PAST error in ways to fill minutes of air time and pages of blogs. She said it once! It was a different time! They're trying to paint this darling of an old woman as an ignorant hick and burn her at stake.  They're blowing it up because she's a woman (which I do wonder about myself).  A few black people have declared their race (because it's hard to see on the internet) and proclaimed, I've seen racist, and she's no racist, she didn't mean no harm.  She's like your grandmother who is out of touch with current social propriety, but she makes pies to die for so let's all turn the other way.


Anti-Paula: She said an awful awful thing, she is an awful awful person.  She's racist, sniveling, calculative, greedy. Never liked her, here's just the final reason why.  I TOLD YOU.


Paula may be a good person, but she's got three strikes and needs to be out:  Paula Deen isn't evil, but she's a little dishonest.  She's sorry because she's like a 5 year old fibbing about stealing a cookie from the cookie jar and tearful because she got caught in her lie.  She was able to hop around the diabetes landmine, dusting her hands off on her apron just as it exploded behind her.  But her clumsiness finally caught up to her.  She may be a business woman but she's just not very smart in some ways.  She's racist. And she might never know that she is, and the people that support her might never know she is, regardless of race.  From what I've seen, to your face, it doesn't matter if you're white black yellow red purple, she'll be polite.  She'll probably be gracious.  She might lend you a cup of sugar.  But that says nothing about what she thinks about you when you turn your back. She might think you were adorable, but people think dogs are adorable. She might help you, but in the way you help a child, (they're so helpless a few minutes of my time will mean the world to them, and cost me almost nothing).  And as the robber story shows, she'll turn on you and blame it on your race (not because you're a bad person) the minute you aren't grateful for "all that has been given to you."

I hope people can see.  IT'S NOT ABOUT THE N WORD.  It's about her nonchalance about it.  She didn't blame her character for her transgressions, she blamed it on the time period.  She simply said she hasn't said it in a long time, as if she  hasn't said it because she knows it's not proper now, rather than because she knows it's a horrible thing to say.  Paula Deen just doesn't get it.

During the racism interrogation, Deen explains the accusation that she suggested a plantation wedding for her brother:

... I remember telling them about a restaurant that my husband and I had recently visited. And I'm wanting to think it was in Tennessee or North Carolina or somewhere, and it was impressive. The whole entire wait staff was middle-aged black men, and they had on beautiful white jackets with a black bow tie. I mean it was, it was really impressive.And I remember saying I would love to have servers like that, I said, but I would be afraid that somebody would misinterpret.Q. If you would have had servers like that, why would that have made it a really Southern plantation wedding?A. Well, it — to me, of course, I'm old but I ain't that old, I didn't live back in those days but I've seen pictures, and the pictures that I've seen, that restaurant represented a certain era in America ... after the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War.Q. Back in an era where there were middle-aged black men waiting on white people.A. Well, it was not only black men it was black women. ... I would say that they are slaves. But I did not mean anything derogatory by saying I loved their look and their professionalism.

Paula Deen is completely clueless.  Openly chatting with the attorney about how "impressive" it was to have an entire waitstaff of "middle-aged black men" that wore "beautiful white jackets with a black bow tie." She doesn't even blink, she doesn't even know she is romanticizing and fetishizing an era that was so painful, so dehumanizing for a good portion of her fellow humans. She wanted a plantation wedding like that, but was afraid it would be "misinterpreted."  Misinterpreted as what? for what it actually is--an unsavory reminder of errors past?  When the attorney dryly notes that Deen's definition of a "true plantation wedding" harked back to a past where black men waited on white people, Deen completely misses his pointedness as she clarifies, "well it was not only black men it was black women...I would say that they are slaves." Ay, there's the rub. She knows exactly what these black men waiting are reminiscent of, and she sees nothing wrong with this tidbit.  As she reassures, "she did not mean anything derogatory," she simply loved "their look and their professionalism," as if praising a well-behaved dog.

I hope Paula knows she isn't being persecuted for saying the N word. She's being sacrificed because she's the public figural representation of a whole bevy of white Southerners that just. don't. get. that it's wrong. In the game of survival of the fittest people like her have got to  evolve or face extinction.  Hit me with your protestations that The South is unfairly portrayed as backwards, that they've moved on since then.  Well, I've met too many people that haven't. too many that are my age.  Too many that still whisper "black people" in conversations. Too many people that unabashedly proclaim, my parents are racist, but don't worry, they like Asians because they're hardworking.

I hope Paula Deen changes.  I hope she doesn't feel like a martyr.  I hope she doesn't kill herself.  Here's your chance to stop trying to talk the talk and actually walk the walk.

Tweets that never make it (some might make it maybe, maybe not)

half finished thoughts that are either a little too real or feel awkwardly pretentious and maudlin or aren't coherent in a 140 character setting:

1.  Hipster girls and their gay boyfriends

2. 95% of the time people respond to your sarcasm earnestly it means they're really gullible but also that they think you're really stupid.

3.  Those annoying instances when you run into someone on a day you don't normally run into them the day before you normally run into them and now you have to wear different clothes tomorrow

4. I feel like we could achieve world peace if everyone became a nudist.  How are you supposed to incide terror if you dont have a pocket to put your grenade in.

5. How to resist the temptation of eating a hot dog inadvertently catch yourself in the reverse camera function of your iPhone

6. A punk without The Man (to rebel against) is just a hobo

7.  I thought my mood chooses the music but really the music chooses my mood

8. I admire people who genuinely like raisins and granola bars and hard pretzels and celery sticks-really, you wouldn't prefer cheese fries?

9.  How to make sure people will never, ever read your blog: keep commenting on everyone else's blog and always paste the url to your blog underneath your comment

10.  Hell hath no fury like when a woman's texts are ignored but I see you post a new facebook status you asshole

the lady and the gentleman (and the tomboy, drag queen, etc)

femininity is the essence of being female; and in this day and age it encompasses a wide range of physical and emotional and behavioral attributes.  from the delicate "girliness" we generally associate with the term to overstepping androgynity and into the territory of "masculinity," whose character is noticeably more conservative and rigid in comparison to his sister counterpart.  The boundlessness femininity has achieved --though confusing--is undoubtedly liberating.  Should we allow masculinity the same fluidity it will not only enable the same freedom of expression, but ultimately allow the gradual erasure of hampering stereotypes* for the benefit of both (all) genders.



* Yes,  I do not think all stereotypes are harmful. Or rather, I do think some (or maybe all) are formed from some degree of truth (or the perception of it).  And to continue beating the dead horse, I do not think it is effective to blame the stereotypes; instead we must figure out WHY they arise.  Because always the disease never the symptoms, right?? (that second question mark was extremely neccessary).