A Gift From The Barely Employed: I Read Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth and Summed It Up In The Following Haiku So You Don't Have To!

I am bringing this blog column back. Mostly because writing full-length book reviews is too daunting and How I Met Your Mother is waiting.


Next gen immigrants

Why they all marry white peeps?

Parents, learn to deal.

Now to get yourself into the right Lahirian state of mind watch like, uh, five minutes of Kumar Goes To That Girl From The Real World's Vagina (commonly referred to as The Namesake), get in a fight with your parents by refusing to eat their ethnic kugel and screaming, "I only eat American food now!" before slamming the door and running out to White Castle. Come home, glutted on grease, and ponder the ramifications of your assimilation.

Bonus fun fact: Kal Penn (Kalpen Suresh Modi; case in point!) America's favorite/only go-to Indian actor was a Women's Studies major at UCLA.

OhNoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooes

The. Greatest. Con. Of. Our. Time.

I was color-coding my Hermes, waiting for Yolanda, my personal pubic hair trimmer to arrive, when I got the call.

"What do you mean it's gone?" I said.

"Ponzi? That man from Happy Days? Well, for God's sake, can't they catch him?"

It was explained to me in full over the course of the next few days. I became despondent. My husband asked me what luxuries I could live without. In reply I threw up my rainbow of silk scarves in the air, yelling "Take them! Take them!" while collapsing dramatically on the bed, where I hid a few of my favorite ones under my right breast. In the end I was forced to get rid of two of my cars, and Yolanda, the pubic hair trimmer. But I went further: "Without Yolanda," I said, "I have no need for the Italian villa. I'll not be able to wear a bikini until I hire a new trimmer, so sell it. Just sell the villa."

I tried to garner sympathy for the wealthy but they make it nearly impossible, what with the starched white shirt imperative and brown bagging designer labels. I hereby concentrate all my sympathy on the Jewish charities that were swindled.


As if Christmas time wasn't bad enough for the Jews.

I'm somewhat perplexed by the slew of articles trying to delve into Madoff's psyche to uncover what sort of mental illness brought on this huge financial scam. I mean, sure, the guy's a more virile form of nutty than Burt Reynolds' balls, but concentrating on why he did it evades the simple answer: he could do it.


DEM BALLZ R CRAZY

When you're playing with pretend entities to begin with and someone's like, "Here are five hundred unicorns!" what's to stop you from bragging, "Your unicorns are frollicking in the candy cane fields! They have sweet syrup dripping down their glitterly horns! They're fucking each other like crazy! SRSLY! Big unicorn candy orgy!" I mean technically the SEC is supposed to monitor the unicorns, but who knows what happened there.

It's a system-induced sickness, I tell you! DSM-VI get on that!


Your financial portfolio.

But the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time my friends, is perpetrated by The Hills LLC. I invested emotion in that enterprise. Yes, I'll admit it. In a bunch of dumbfucks I would slap if I ever met them in real life. But investing in dumbfucks on TV is more like investing in principles, since you can't actually personally relate to any of them you attempt to rally around what they represent.

I put my emotions into preventing Heidi and Spencer from getting married on the feminist principle that women shouldn't marry abusive douchenozzles. Yes, Spencer and I both agree that Heidi's friends are all retardos, but you don't stay with someone who isolates you from your F&F! That is like, uh, level one, middle school brochure on abusive relationships.




The only time I ever had a morsel of respect for Heidi was after Spencer proposed to her in Mexico, telling her he had to "take her away from her family" because that was when "they worked at their best." You can actually see the discomfort in her eyes, perhaps mildly registering how fucked up that is, before she says in a fake-Mexican-sounds-like-Italian-accent: "Oh noooo, Monsieur Spencer, I think we should not get maarried."

Then they do. And at that point I was like, "FUCK this shit. I am cashing out." There's nothing left for me. Lauren Conrad's so boring they should use her voice in those sleep machines they sell at Brookstone.

But as soon as I try to rescind my emotion, The Hills just transfers it to Audrina and Justin Bobby, who, in the season finale, are set up to be the new Spencer/Heidi. JB takes Audrina out of L.A. to some sort of Bed & Breakfast, and starts to seduce her on the bed, by, uh, dissing her friends. Apparently the road to romance is isolation? "Now isn't this great, to be here all alone, without your little friends chirping in your ear..."

Um, HELLO, WARNING SIGN. Haven't we learned this lesson before? But still, I reinvest for next season.

Brunette viewers must learn that abuse can affect them too.

Entrepreneurs Dancing

A VC firm asked 70 of its start-ups to submit videos of office dancing for their holiday card this year. I know it's corny, but I find this video so fucking adorable. This is what a year at a small business magazine will do to your heart.

New Twitter Offers Gross Personification of The Unborn!

If My Dog Had A Tumblr, It Would Be One Of Those Hot Narcissist Tumblrs.

CAPRICIOUS LEWDNESS
Bemused animal and docile hearts.

DEC 2

This morning there was light rain as I wandered around the back of the shed, taking my first defecation near the second, most rusted trash can. I find sometimes I have a strange attraction to the old and ugly. The smell of garbage mixed with the cleansing smell of the rain reminded me of my time in Santiago. The dogs, they were always fighting over scraps in the back alleys of the city while the brown women angrily kicked them away from their sitting posts and the children tried to recruit them as friends. A cafe leche only cost a peso back then, and I drank more than a lifetime of them. Time for another defecation. It's one of those days.

DEC 4

The sun is setting and I've spent all day inside reading The Wapshot Chronicle. It left a funny feeling in my stomach, one I will try to alleviate now with some Kibbles N Bits.

DEC 5

Friday Night. I'm going to go dancing. It's the only pure form of joy I can completely lose myself in. This was taken an hour ago after my boyfriend said I should cut my hair like Jean Seberg in Breathless.


DEC 7

Sometimes I really think I am quite pretty. Other times it's like I can't even recognize my face in the mirror. Most of the time, I wish I didn't care so much.
Even so, e.e. cummings always makes me feel better.

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like,, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big Love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

DEC 9

I'm trying to get into a John Berryman state, before my writing time. I told myself I'd commit two hours, no less. I've abstained from water so I won't have to go outside. We'll see how this goes.

But Still, I Just Cannot Stop Loving You

SRSLY

It's time to revisit this thing called Modern Love. Let's just call it a Best Of, after last month's winner:



I hope the author takes that fat New York Times paycheck and goes straight to a bonafide fem therapist.

Is it too much to ask for one column that doesn't completely reinforce the patriarchy? Who is in charge of this operation? Is it edited by Beyonce's crazy Put-A-Ring-On-It roboto-hand?

The overarching theme seems to be "Let's exploit the CRAZ-E ladies!"


EVa's forthcoming ML column: How Rolling Around With A Garbage Eating Robot On Parole Taught Me The True Meaning Of Love.

Other examples:


This author gets raped by a man and yet hates all women. Calls girl on girl fighting "tribal instinct." Wants to teach daughters to distrust women too. Great.


This author displays a remarkable understanding of feminism.


Dating someone on parole for rape. Hmmmm.


Oh, and then crying on a urine soaked floor,engaged in the kind of "female" hysterics everyone loves!

Things You Should Know About Norm Coleman Before We're Stuck With Him Again.

This post is dedicated to you, Lizard Person, you fame whore, who I originally guessed was:


("I Facebook friended Eric van Markovik to see if he was a Minnesota voter; he wrote back "Ur A Ugly Slut Whore With Man Hands" and then poked me eleven times.)


....but is actually this man:

"A friend of mine, we didn't like the candidates, so we were at first going to write in revolution, because we thought that was good and to the point. And then, we thought the Lizard People would be even funnier, and there was kind of a running inside gag between some friends and I."

Happy Recount!

The irony that goes beyond the Lizard People author is that Norm Coleman is in fact a Lizard Person of sorts, a reptilian humanoid to those of us who earned our college degree in shape shifting clanspeople of medieval ages, or who used Dungeons & Dragons to snag nerdy boyfriends in junior high. A New Yorker masquerading as Minnesotan, Coleman shifts form whenever it's politically opportunistic to do so. His master suite is the shape of a lizard's tail. He secretes slime during rom-coms. He's been known to fabricate a pregnancy, destroy the sanctity of eyewear, and wax on about cracking the glass ceiling, then deny you birth control. Oh wait. Still the latter clause is true.



Gleaming Light Hands: A Common Lizard Person Trait.

I first encountered Coleman in a servicing position circa 2002. I was home for the summer waitressing at an Italian restaurant in St. Paul. He came in with a hot leggy blond who was decidedly not his wife. In retrospect it may have been Heidi Montag.


Norm's wife, Laurie: lives in L.A.! Wears lingerie!

(It rapes my goat when a politician who doesn't support widely available birth control-- a position that derives from the notion sex should not be for pleasure but rather procreation---is totally cool with lingerie nudie photos of his wife. Clearly taken for procreational purposes.)

They ordered red wine. I am notoriously terrible at opening wine bottles.


"Your neck smells musky, man hands."

I struggled with the bottle standing over their table for a minute or two trying to pull the cork out. I resorted to putting the bottle between my legs and pulling up. Release came, and with it an outpouring of red wine on their tablecloth, and a few specks on Coleman. "For the blood of the innocents you've shed!" I screamed, or should have.


After winning Minnesota in 2002, eleven days after his competitor Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash, Coleman stated: "I am a 99 percent improvement over Wellstone."

I stammered and began apologizing. He just stared at me with his lizard eyes and then stated coldly, "Move us to a different table." Later, he left me a four percent tip.



The wine spill got me in trouble and led to me peeing in my pants.

Earlier in September, suspicions arose that Coleman had illegally funneled money for his campaign. Shortly after, he filed a lawsuit against Al Franken for defamation of character. He's filed four lawsuits against former rivals, and each time has dropped the suit once elected.

Minnesota law states that if the recount results in a statistical tie, someone basically pulls a name out of a hat to decide which candidate becomes Senator.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

In Which We Go Down Under.

Cruel World Love Connection

Sorry About That.

Slow blogging is silly. It's called writing. I am most closely associated with the school of FLB (Fucking Lazy Bloggeury), revered widely for its general disdain of everything except fine cream-based cheeses, sophisticated chokeholds, and weekly nonsense posts molded together with a mysterious sticky substance that smells like sour cream (Note: I have seen the evidence of the sour cream facial and I believe in it. Just like I believe in Obama. The only problem is I would eat my face if I slathered it with sour cream, so I prefer the gentler Whale Sperm facial remedy.)

Members of the FLB, or bloggeurs, as we are apt to call ourselves, sometimes earnestly, sometimes with a tongue-in-cheek Palinesque wink, will barf filth all over the Internetz but still want you to call the next day to say you had a fine time. Bloggeurs will have phone sex wearing top hats. They'll rendezvous with Hillary while secretly whispering Shakespeare's Sonnet #54 to Barack through their microscopic collar mic. They'll take you out for ice cream, and expect no favors in return. You'll only realize you love them once you uncover their monocle in your top left sock drawer. Bloggeurs are Steampunks through and through.


Bloggeurs like the word shit-fuck; also fucking the shit out of fuck.

From the NYT article on slow blogging:

A Slow Blog Manifesto, written in 2006 by Todd Sieling, a technology consultant from Vancouver, British Columbia, laid out the movement’s tenets. “Slow Blogging is a rejection of immediacy,” he wrote. “It is an affirmation that not all things worth reading are written quickly.” (Nor, because of a lack of traffic, is Mr. Sieling writing this blog at all these days.) Ms. Ganley, who recently left her job as a writing instructor at Middlebury College, compares slow blogging to meditation. It’s “being quiet for a moment before you write,” she said, “and not having what you write be the first thing that comes out of your head.”


Ms. Ganley blogmedibating by the creek.



Later, after a day of contemplating both the beauty and violence of nature she sat down to write her blog masterpiece. That afternoon she had witnessed two ducks making love, followed by the excruciating horror of watching a sweet baby frog drown while its Daddy frog callously shouted "Survival of the fittest, my son!" and continued to play poker with the watersnakes. She took a deep sigh, and began to slow-blog:

ow put your hands up
Up in the club, we just broke up
I’m doing my own little thing
Decided to dip but now you wanna trip
Cuz another brother noticed me
I’m up on him, he up on me
dont pay him any attention
cried my tears, for three good years
Ya can’t be mad at me

Cuz if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it
Don’t be mad once you see that he want it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it

If her post sounds reminiscent of the lastest Beyonce single to you, you're right on: Beyonce also wrote her tribute to the patriarchy while sitting by the pond, with her new boo, who put like 8 million rings on her crazy roboto-finger.



A few points:

Beyonce wrote this while honeymoon-bloggeuring.

One of the Single Lady Dancers has a peen!

Beyonce is strangely socially conservative. Stay tuned for her next album "Dey Won't Buy the Cow if that Milk is for Free Girl" with songs like, "If You Want A Blow J, Give Me A Necklace", "It's Anal Only Until We're Married", and "Independent Bloggeur".

Luv,

Ur Bloggeur.

If You Insult My Culture Good Sir, I Will Cut Out Your Heart With My Monocle

Here’s a theory: In times of recession, people get a hankering for the good ole days. We miss things like grandpa’s ownership imperative, the New Deal, spankings, electing African Americans to national office, Campbell’s Soup (not the To-Go Cup kind, rather the slow-cooked, laid-off friendly variety), marrying the high school sweetheart/baby momma, unicorns, and flared jeans.



Kate Beckinsale's flared jeans: the embarrassed friend of that would-be-totally-awesome-with-a-timepiece Steampunk vest.

Srsly, just try on an old pair of flared jeans right now instead of blowing your load on new skinnies at the soon-to-be-bankrupt GAP. THEY FEEL SO GOOD. It’s like your calves are free from their denim-skin shackles and now you can put that spared paper towards renewing your subscription to _______ magazine. Oh snap, nevermind, that print shit just got shot down by a Steampunkian sleuth submarine. Better read a bloggeuah, suckah.

Culture is the same way. The old feels as good against your anxious head as Mom’s overplump bosom. And who can think of a better era to get all wet in the nostalgia orifice over than the industrial rev. years? Factory lines meant hot uniforms, greasy environments, tousled dirty hair, and what do you know, showering ain’t that good for your looks anyhow. Poor betches got to quit their jobs as plebes or whores and get their hands cut off at the mill alongside the men: gender appendage equality. Also, all the new products led to mass consumerism, new modes of transportation, and duh, the birth of the sexy advertising industry. Don Draper, tip your hat to the modern day lifestyle historians of this great era: Steampunks.


Draper: What Do Steampunks Want?

What do Steampunks want for their Dickensian Christmas? Here's just a short list:

1.) Steampunk-themed bumper stickers for one's horse-powered "automobile" $5-$10


2.) Steampunk hand-crafted Robocop on a unicorn $50-$100



3.) Magical Steampunk Chastity Belt $100+

Benjamin: I am like wall-e
me: list the ways and I will judge
11:50 AM Benjamin: I like "eva"
11:51 AM me: I think you mean E-Vas (like E-vaginas?)
11:52 AM Benjamin: who doesn't?
me: Steampunks
11:53 AM Benjamin: they like chastity belts
11:55 AM me: So true, chastity belts made out of metal studs with the magic password "dirigible"


"Dirigible" is also a suggested safety word-- for more tips see MakingLoveToASteampunk.tumblr.com


I also have it on good authority that Obama has mandated a Steampunk be found to fill the Secretary of State slot. Clinton is currently converting her lower half into a single-engine train.


Your new boyfriend: I hear that Steampunk helmet also has special licking abilities.

Sarah Pee's Legacy: It's In The Eyes

If Sarah Palin did one thing for this nation, it was to expand the meaning of eyewear. No longer do glasses automatically connote intelligence. And no longer do glasses mean you're not a sex kitten. Clearly Dorothy Parker, that tightly packaged bubble of caustic sass, if alive, would be forced to amend her seemingly age-infinite adage, Boys Don't Make Passes At Girls With Glasses. Something like a general guideline to help get us back to glasses as the original signifier of intelligence would be useful. Maybe: Don't Make Glasses For Girls That Cannot Passeth (school exams) Because It's Confusing For Everyone.

And Tina Fey is going to have to find a new way to pretend she's ugly on 30 Rock.

JEWS and BLACKS

Together again!




Now a little more centrist, but DOUBLE the hot quotient.


If only Saul Bellow could see this.

Scattered Notes From Election Night

-- 11pm Elizabeth Moss partying on the street outside of Southpaw in Brooklyn. Why is she in Brooklyn? Could she be a method actor? Does this mean she is currently knocked up by a slimeball? Start the rumors.

-- 12am Hugging at 4th Ave Pub. Drinking. People dancing to Feist, the whitest music ever invented.

-- 1 am, Drunk people making out, exclaiming drunkenly "This is history, man! This is history!" in between making out.

-- 2 am, "Yes We Can" chant on the corner of 5th and St. Marks in Brooklyn. Cars honking. Tears. Lots of Tears. Looking for Peggy Olson. Wondering Who Would Don Draper Vote For? More Tears. More Hugs.

-- 2:45 am, Home, awed, turn on Roomba to clean up apartment mess. Watch Roomba clean, watch CNN, thank country for 1.) inventing a self-operating vacuum cleaner, 2.) making intelligent choices.





TXT messages received from Election Day:

10am--- Dude, I'm behind like 150 people! There was no line last time. Go America!

12pm-- Whew, that felt great.

8pm-- You delivered Penn!!!!!

9pm-- FUCK OHIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!

9:33pm-- Obama just on the presidency!

10:52pm-- Congrats to you (and me and everyone)dear

10:56pm-- I'm now gassy in a good way.

11:10pm--i gots chills all over

1:02am-- I LOVE YOU SISTER! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!

1:05am-- Call Gaga! She's still up!

1:12am-- Grant Park is insane!

1:16am--I've been openly weeping for hours this is wonderful. And surreal. xoxo.

2:12am-- Did you pee yourself yet? YOU PROMISED.

Recommended Reading

Friending The President at The Morning News.

McCain's Moniker Invokes Sucky Olden Days

Lauren, the Fact-Checker, would like to point out that McCain's incessant use of the Joe the Plumber title is a riff on the titles of medieval times, when people were addressed by their occupation:

One class of surnames reflect the occupation or status of the first bearer. These occupational last names, derived from the specialty crafts and trades of the medieval period, are fairly self-explanatory. A MILLER was essential for grinding flour from grain, a WAINWRIGHT was a wagon builder, and BISHOP was in the employ of a Bishop. Different surnames often developed from the same occupation based on the language of the country of origin (MÜLLER, for example, is German for Miller).


Joe the Medieval Plumber/Movie Star.


Not only is McCain so fucking old that he inadvertently harkens a society that thrived on slavey plebes, but he also seems to derive a strange sense of nostalgic pride when addressing people as their occupation, perhaps hinting that his view of the economic landscape is simplisticly old fashioned.

For nowadays Joe the Plumber equals Joe the CEO and that is not equal to Bob the Plumber-With-An-Actual-License-And-Mortgage. And none of them really exist in that one-dimensional form.

God, the triumph of nuance is going to feel so good on Wednesday.

Well, well, well hasn't this just been the sexiest election ever? I can't even read Politico at the office anymore because it makes me nip inappropriately.


Being a VEEP candidate is just like being an actress! You memorize some lines and hire a stylist for $11,400 a week.

Palin Political Strategy (Confidential Internal GOP memo): Wink, smile, don't finish words, act so all men think they have a chance of doing you and all women want to impress their men by voting for you.

Welcome to the new female power. It's like in high school when dating a boy requires spending Friday nights in watching Jenna Jameson pornos on loop, talking about how hot Jenna Jameson is, and then getting complimented for being the kind of cool girl who can wax poetic on Jenna Jameson's hotness. Women for Sarah Palin are pretty much like girls at frat parties making out as a form of heterosexual foreplay for the boyyyz.

If John McCain had picked Condeleeza Rice as his running mate I could get behind this so-called GOP feminist ticket. I mean, not behind it as in vote for it, but behind it in the sense that I would recognize a smart, qualified (albeit evil) woman was undergoing a historic moment for womankind.

It's been my dream since I came home from school at age 15 thinking I had accidentally melted a Hershey bar in my pants to see feminism thrown around as a national issue. But not like this. This insidious, creepy bastardization of feminism is not only frightening because of McCain/Palin's stance on the issues (opposed to reproductive rights, supported a Supreme Court case against equal pay for women, makes Wasila, Alaska women pay for their own rape kits), but because this is the language with which potentially the most powerful female in the nation is described when asked about her qualifications to lead America:

And it's time we had that bresh of freth air (breast of fresh?) -- breath of fresh air coming into our nation's capital and sweep out the old-boy network and the cronyism that's been so much a part of it that I've fought against for all these years.

She'll be my partner. She understands reform. And, by the way, she also understands special-needs families. She understands that autism is on the rise, that we've got to find out what's causing it, and we've got to reach out to these families, and help them, and give them the help they need as they raise these very special needs children.

She understands that better than almost any American that I know. I'm proud of her.


I'm proud of her. The highest praise John McCain can give his running mate is Daddy's little girl accolades. I'm so proud of you sweetie, you've come to memorize so much about elections and America and how to say 'Ahmadinejad' on the news! Now go out to those rallies and make Daddy McCain proud.

It's THE PATRIARCHY utterly and literally personified before our eyes.