I get the whole online portfolio idea, I really do.
But putting most, if not all, of one’s potentially embarrassing social media in one place just seems a little too easy.
Stalkers used to have more of a challenge. It used to take skills.
The playfulness of your heart
My fiction instructor has compared my writing voice to those of others. She’s implored me to study them, so I can figure out how to work deeper and harder with my own characters and stories.
I’m exploring Amy Hempel now. These are the last two paragraphs of her story “In A Tub”:
R. Kelly is not singing about poop
When I heard R. Kelly’s new album features a song called “Be My Number 2,” I shrieked with glee.
“Tell me he’s serenading his turds,” I thought. “‘Cause I could be all over that shit.”
This lesson is brought to you by Honest Tea
You never get over being an teacher. I haven’t anyway.
I still think like a teacher, looking for analogies to bridge the everyday with the more erudite.
And yep, I know how I would teach the definition of “erudite.”
Jing and Borun, the eighth-graders I tutor, reap all the benefits. Well, sometimes they reap them. Some lessons are a bust.
Like that time we were reading this really intense article from Slate.com, and I was trying to explain “hegemony” as simply as possible.
“Umm, yeah. Basically, in this case it sucks. Hegemony is something that sucks. Let’s move on.”
I felt as articulate as Sarah Palin.
Her bark is worse than her bullet
I got my paws on more pictures of Annie in her Halloween costume.
Girl, you make me wanna get you pregnant
This isn’t breaking news or anything, but R. Kelly is out of his damn mind.
And I can’t get enough.
It started with “Trapped In The Closet.” Then I was obsessed with “I’m A Flirt.” When I was feeling low, I’d think of the video with Kels rocking those diamond-encrusted sunglasses that make him look like a mosquito.
Now there’s another R. Kelly song that’s so bad it’s good. “Pregnant” is ridiculously sexist with lyrical gems, like, “Never felt nothing like this. She’s more than a mistress, enough to handle my business. Now put that girl in my kitchen.”
For reals!
All aboard the “bad boy Bobby Brown” train
I used to love reading Overheard in New York when it first launched. The novelty wore off as the conversation snippets seemed more and more similar, ludicrous, or racist.
But these quotes from subway conductors - who definitely say funny stuff sometimes - made me laugh:
A sorta fairytale
Years ago, I bought a pair of Tod’s black leather loafers at a thrift shop. They’re in perfect condition, which makes me wonder what happened that would leave these expensive and handsome shoes unworn.
Did someone die? Did someone live and break someone else’s heart?
Or were they just the wrong size and unreturned?
Unpublished
Sometimes I start writing a blog post and then abandon it for some reason.
Last week, I found orphan posts from as far back as 2007. I can even remember some of my original intentions for them.
Falling in love and falling apart
I’ve been going through some old blog drafts written at various points in the past. Sometimes I’ll save something that tickles me, even if it’s apropos of nothing.
Or sometimes it’s too painfully apropos. For awhile, anyway.
This is from “A Dog Is No Reason to Stay Together” by Damian Kulash, Jr. as featured in Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me, edited by Ben Karlin:
