This weekend, I abruptly stopped smooching someone and said, “Wait. Does your therapist know about this?”
He said no and pulled my mouth back to his. I pulled away.
“Maybe you should tell her about me,” I said.
Making heads or tails of it
I spend a significant part of my week playing with numbers, looking at Hunch data, and saying the word “algorithm.”
Yep. Algorithm.
Today the latest Hunch infographic came out. It’s all about interesting correlations based on how thousands of people answer Teach Hunch About You (THAY) questions. If you’re into fun stuff, go ahead and check out the rest of it.
Oh, and here’s another look at some fun Hunch correlations. Fast Company’s design blog liked it.
Giddy up and play along
Improv Everywhere can just stop its antics now. I’m not sure the group can do anything better than this Bryant Park carousel horse race. It’s amazing.
Costumed race patrons, announcers, and a jockey went to the Bryant Park carousel for the mission. But the real stars are the delighted children. They’re surprised, but they just go with it. It makes me tear up every time.
I’ve never been one to romanticize childhood. I would never want to be a kid again. I wouldn’t mind thinking more like one, though.
When you’re an adult, you have to strain to see the magic. When you’re a child, it’s just there. You don’t have all the explanations yet, so you make up your own. You’re two or three or four feet of raw feeling. No wonder you anthropomorphize everything.
I remember doing word searches in elementary school, imagining the two, three, or four columns of words underneath the puzzle to be separate teams. Who would win first place? I struggled to make it fair. I didn’t want any team to consider forfeiting.
It took me ages to finish one of those things.
I guess the point of this is that we all can stand to be more like the kids in this video. And the adults who stayed in character and made it happen.
Giddy up and play along.
Oh life! Can you blame me for making a scene?
This is one of the poems sent to the people on my National Poetry Month email list back in April.
I hope you take it personally.
Personal
Don’t take it personal, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal—the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,the wet hair of women in the rain—
And I cursed what hurt meand I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.
Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of TalkGet over it, they said
at the School of Broken Heartsbut I couldn’t and I didn’t and I don’t
believe in the clean break;I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,I believe in saying it all
and taking it all backand saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I’m Sorrieslike wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard;
barking and barking:trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.-Tony Hoagland
Let’s watch the new Beyoncé video together
Some of you may know that Beyoncé is my spirit animal.
Her new album, 4, recently dropped after leaking and well, this is all sounding kind of gross right about now.
But it’s not. It was time for a new Beyoncé album, especially after that last disappointment that harbored “Single Ladies.” I never liked that song, and yes, I wish I could dance to it.
My favorite of Bey’s albums is B’day, which came out around 25 years ago. One of the best songs on it is “Irreplaceable,” a sassy, vengeful song about a man who cheated on his woman and can just move his shit “to the left, to the left” for all she cares.
A bright future
I went to dinner and an event with my friend Claire tonight. I left her alone for three minutes outside so I could sneak into a bathroom at a local eatery. By the time I got back, she was sitting in a chair on the sidewalk having her palm read.
It was such a Claire thing to do. Amused, I tried to listen in. Then it was my turn.
And this tweet pretty much sums it up:
Incidentally, this is also funny.
When I’m not securing my place in hell, I’m also amused by less offensive things.
Exhibit A:
!!!!!!! [BESTIE x BESTIE 1] !!!!!!! from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.
I’m going to hell. Would you care to come with?
(via I Love Charts)
I met this guy a few weeks ago, and we were talking about our respective childhoods. This is what you do with new people when you don’t want to discuss work - you ask about what happened before they lived in New York. Then you share your own story. Things can get pretty personal. Someone might as well say, “Show me on the overpriced cocktail where the man touched you.”
This guy was really Midwestern. I would have guessed this after talking to him for a few minutes. He’s wholesome and attentive. Plus he told me he was really Midwestern. But you know who’s even more Midwestern? His parents. They are so Midwestern.
FYI: It is worse to be so Midwestern than it is to be really Midwestern. So Midwestern is just gratuitous Midwestern-ness, and we can’t have that.
I asked some follow-up questions, but it was pretty evident that this guy needs to see a therapist. (It takes one to know one.) He just can’t get over it. His parents are so conservative and religious. So Midwestern!
Lie the fuck down, my darling
Adam Mansbach’s picture book Go the Fuck to Sleep is the perfect bedtime story. For parents or annoyed babysitters, that is.
And who better to read it than Samuel L. Jackson?
Living the dream
Tomorrow I’m finishing a five-week writing class that’s really shaken my confidence. The teacher never set out to break anyone down, and I suspect she’s hardest on people who have promise.
Still, I’ve spent the last month second-guessing my voice and the way I’ve processed experiences, wondering, “Do I think like a writer? Should I repackage the truth into something it wasn’t in order to sell a story? How have I gone this long convincing other people that I’m a writer?”
It’s like coming out of a long-term relationship and realizing that you have to get naked in front of a stranger someday. We only realize how comfortable we used to feel once we don’t feel that way anymore.
