Hacked Braff
So, I’m sure people have seen this coming for a while: Zach Braff, America’s goofiest doctor (New reality show? Anyone?) comes out on his website, saying “I’m excited and proud to announce that I am an open member of the homosexual community.” Well, who isn’t? Oh, Zach Braff isn’t? He was hacked? Never mind…
Braff and his people have been swearing up and down today that the site had been out of commission since 2006, making it a sitting duck for internet imps. Well, I feel ya, Zach. One can only wonder what’s become of my childhood Xanga blog, or the Geocities page I started with my best friend, the Hotmail account I’d need the jaws of life to open again, and the four or five Twitter accounts I already kind of don’t care for.
The Art Of Looking Effortlessly Ethereal
1) Always wear a flower in your hair. Typical symbol of femininity, it is the equivalent of wearing a t-shirt with a picture of your vagina stenciled on it - but real classy.
2) Always find a way to face a setting sun. It will highlight your best features and also make you look kind of like you’re glowing. Glowing makes men think of magic, which makes them think of Lord Of The Rings, which leads them to associate you with elf-creatures, who are inherently sexy, despite the Santa Clause connection.
3) Never wear clothing. A true ethereal beauty can strut around in the buff 24/7 and reveal not a single inch of the forbidden. Think sea shells falling perfectly into place, tiny, random birds hovering over nipples, gossamer flying from the hands of a wacky tailor two towns over and shaping itself around your form into the perfect light pink day-gown.
4) Sing, but with your mouth closed, well, parted a bit. Yes, I do mean telepathically. If you can enter and control the mind of a suitor with other-worldly melodies then you’ve got yourself a date, girlfriend.
5) Don’t sweat it! You’re perfect the way you are. But, seriously, don’t sweat. Moisture should only come from tears cascading down symmetrical cheekbones and never from pores. Pores must only secrete glitter and the scent of summertime strawberries.
I’d like to preface the following rant by saying that, yes, I may have a tendency to get jealous pretty easily. For instance, women who wear shorts in the summer who do not feel instantly ashamed of their debauchery fill me with immeasurable envy, as do men who can function on nothing but marinara sauce and Cheetos and still, despite everything medical science has proven thus far, have full and stable function of all major organs.
But rarely, in fact never, have I found myself coveting a quadruped. Until, that is, I happened upon the above-referenced video of a Boston Terrier doing a handstand.
So, sure, cats get a lot of attention. Whatever. Zebras are cool-looking. Eh. And reindeer are iconic or something. But this is different! I’ve never been able to perform a single act that required upper-body strength in my life! I’m so bottom-heavy and top-feeble, I bet if I were to fall from a 7-story building, I would spin around exactly twice before the torque planted my body into a perfectly upright position. As impressive as that might sound, I hope to never have to prove my theory. Meanwhile, every Tom, Dick and Orson at the donation-based yoga studio can pull off a Triple Lutz in Vinyasa while I struggle to touch my toes.
So what am I trying to say here? Would I willingly switch lives with a canine to be one step closer to a cartwheel? Probably not. Will my expanding list of “things I want” drive me to the brink of insanity? Most likely.
Do Not Be Alarmed; I Have Turned Into A Garlic Scape
Dear friends, colleagues, loved ones and former missed connections, I am writing to inform you that a tragedy has befallen me. Somewhere between the hours of 1am EST till about 11am this morning, I had been transformed…into a garlic scape.
For you this might sound like a tall tale, a foodie fabrication of Kafkaesque proportions, but no, sadly, it is my reality.
It all began on Sunday evening after a jaunty round of make-em-ups with my beloved comedy troupe, Sandino. I found myself struck with a sudden peckishness and a premonition of the empty fridge awaiting me at my home led me to saunter over to the nearest grocery store to pick up some nibbles.
I had been inside no longer than five minutes when lo and behold, I spotted them: garlic scapes, dozens and dozens of garlic scapes. I had heard many rumors of their palatable pleasures, ranging from pestos to pickles to stir-fries. Surely it was merely an accident that I had not known them for myself up until that point. Or was it? Perhaps this was destiny’s method of aversion, perhaps I was not meant to have them for my own, and maybe on this night, of all nights, destiny slipped up, allowing the devils to finally have their way.
I was immediately struck with the scapes’ sensual curves, the vibrant green hue and springy demeanor. Dropping a few into a baggie, I felt a shiver go up and through my back, as if something warm was playing my spine like a xylophone. I turned around to see what it had been but the nearest clerk stood seven feet away. I shook off the brief occurrence and moved on to the rest of my shopping.
At home, the first bite was pure heaven, bells ringing in every ear. Crunchy, honeyed, garlicky goodness permeated every cell of my being. I stood silent only for a moment before attacking, literally attacking the remaining scapes, ravaging them like an animal. This behavior repeated itself daily, the supply of scapes renewing itself as if by magic. Every morsel I consumed was with scape. Bread, butter, potatoes, tea, everything had a scape on it. I felt my body change ever so slightly day by day, but only internally. My outward appearance remained pasty and non-vegetable-like until today. I felt stronger, more agile, beautiful, more like a garlic scape, if that makes sense. It does to me, now that I’m in this form.
I do not regret my actions or the unforeseen consequences. I have locked myself in my bedroom, typing away before it’s too late, before I become fully inanimate. Until then, I hasten to share my story and occasionally gnaw at the curly end that is sort of my face.
I do not know if I have a moral to this story. I would warn to keep away, but I’ve never been happier. I would encourage to experiment, but that seems wrong. No, instead I’ll just tell it plainly, and let the reader decide whether or not they would want this strange new life.
Farewell. I will not miss you.
Scape
Having had to find this independently, I’m wondering if other people and/or the media have realized/are aware that the crisis in Japan may have been secretly caused by Michael Bublé and those supple, undefiled throat labia he refers to as his vocal cords.
1) Drink a scotch now and then.
2) Stop wreaking havoc on the Pacific!
Budget Concerns
As a freelance unemployed crazy person living in New York City, I must adhere to a very strict self-imposed budget, lest I be unable to afford rent for my windowless, 8x9 box in beautiful (currently snowy) Park Slope - where the streets are paved with pre-made pesto and overpriced duck confit, and children run free through overflowing fountains of magic artisanal ice cream.
In such a tantalizing environment, maintaining an 80% organic-local/sometime-vegetarian-but-not-really/grass-range-free-fed diet on $150 a month is quite difficult. Factor in the occasional dinner/brunch/Walpurgisnacht guest and it’s pretty much impossible.
Even with a bit more money, it’s hard to figure out how much raw organic cheese one can actually afford, and still fulfill the basic nutritional requirements for keeping your hair from falling out or changing different colors.
That is why I’ve been fretting over a homemade spreadsheet listing many of the foods I’ve purchased in the last few months by category, price and vitamin content. I believe I have devised the perfect cheese-filled meal plan for the spending-conscious foodie like myself.
So, here goes:
Assuming you already have staples like seasonings, baking powder, yeast, etc, you will be able to purchase twenty 8-ounce blocks of raw milk cheddar cheese at $5 a pop, a sizable sack of organic wholewheat flour, 2lbs of butter (approx $10 for the lot), and leave the rest for crispy, crunchy kale - and only kale.
Each morning, you will awaken to a refreshing kale and water smoothie, followed by grilled cheese made with cheddar and bread baked the night before.
For lunch, have a kale salad with croutons (from the bread) and grated cheddar on top for a little extra zing.
Dinner can be homemade kale and cheddar ravioli! With a béchamel kale sauce, cheddar optional.
Feel free, also, to slightly vary up the menu from day to day.
Some mornings you can have a cheddar and bread smoothie, and grilled kale in-between kale. Delicious!
Or, instead of a salad, kale pasta: strips of chopped up kale in a bowl, with a side of crusty bread and grated cheddar on top, cheddar mandatory.
Kale and cheddar tortellini for dinner. Or kale and cheddar lasagna, kale and cheddar manicotti- the list goes on and on!
When guests do join you for a meal, you can pretend like you’re practicing for one of those Food Network competitions where you’re only allowed a certain number of ingredients, thereby insuring that no one will try to “help” you by deleting the iExpensit app from your iPhone, or changing your Google Docs password.
As long as everything is mostly organic or local and comes from Whole Foods (or equiv), you should still be nice and alive by the end of the month.
Or don’t you?
Snackies
My wonderful roommate made fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. Gorged my little piggy face on those (with milk!) and wrote more Transmetroparkslopin’.
Sugar makes good fodder for ranty lit. I shall try it again.
Note To Self
Try to avoid writing creepy apocalyptic fiction while alone in a drafty house, at 2AM in the morning, with the lights off, during a snow storm, etc, etc.
The Making Of A Skeptic
When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I was losing a baby tooth. Somebody, probably a teacher, brought to my supple attention the existence of “The Tooth Fairy,” a benevolent being who, in exchange for my useless old tooth, would provide me with cold, hard coinage. I was listening.
The idea that there was some sort of generous, yet sneaky, and potentially perverted creature-god bent on invading my bedroom at night to satisfy its base desires seemed, at the time, perfectly acceptable. What really upset me then was, up till that point, I had been instructed to bury my no-longer viable teeth in the soil, a Soviet custom, or maybe my parents thought it was funny. In the USSR, much like in the USA, money doesn’t grow on trees and, if it did, everyone would equally share in the bounty (ideally). Teeth, it seemed, were a different story.
Sadly, I had never actually enjoyed the ripened fruit of my petty gardening, which I had intended to sell off to dental suppliers first thing that fall. We must’ve left the country before my tree had flourished. But now I learned, in America, there was instant monetary reward.
So I did it. I bid farewell to my enamel/bone thing, placed it under my pillow, and went to sleep.
And….nothing.
Later, back at school, I had told the class what hadn’t gone down and was given some important advice: “You have to tell your parents first.” Thus were sowed the toothy seeds of a future master manipulator. I knew then it was all a scam but I would have every part of it.
At dinner, I oh-so-subtly dropped some hints. The speech probably resembled something like “Oh, did you hear? Apparently there’s this thing, yeah, I know. So weird.” My parents smiled at each other, made a couple of jokes. I took note of their patronizing behavior.
I went to sleep that night with the tooth still under my pillow. The next morning, $$$. 32 hours prior, I had gone to bed hopeful and trusting and sweet. Now, I had awakened a skeptic.
Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Santa, who knew how deep this went? I was going to do everything in my power to find out.
Canola
- Mom: (Through phone) I don't know what canola oil is made from. I'll ask Anna. (To me) Do you know what Canola oil is made from?
- Me: Umm. No.
- Mom: (Through phone) She doesn't know.
- Me: (Looking it up on wikipedia) Umm. It's made from something called "rapeseed."
- Mom: What? What do you mean rape?
- Me: RapeSEED.
- Mom: What is that? (Through phone) It's made from rapeseed? Yeah, I don't know. (Comes over).
- Me: See, "RAPEseed."
- Mom: (Through phone) Yeah...umm...I'll have to check the dictionary.
