the dirty dozen {recurring dreams}
01 the kitten will die if someone doesn't do something
02 we have to leave new york city
03 y kant lauren type
04 time is running out in san francisco, but what about a burrito
05 accidental commitment to grad school
06 iceland
07 david bowie and i have the talk
08 this whole apartment must be painted and furnished
09 no traffic on the service road
10 pregnancy
11 swimming as shortcut
12 punching donald trump
07.13.19
the dirty dozen {instagram accounts i appreciate}
01 @drlindseyfitzharris: a medical historian; i have yet to read her book on joseph lister and victorian medicine, but it's on the list for later this summer. posts fascinating, disturbing images of everything from shrunken heads at the warsaw ethnographic museum (processed with rocks and sand over fires, then worn around warriors' necks) to the french death mask that became what we know as the cpr doll. captions are mini-essays.
02 @secondshelfbooks: a boss new bookstore in london that focuses on rare and rediscovered books by and about women; sold me a boss inscribed copy of eavan boland's object lessons when we were in town this spring. a+ source for zelda fitzgerald's thoughts on breakfast, gorgeous woolf editions, modern dances for english ladies. go to there.
03 @asari.wildlife: turkish wildlife photographers abdullah and pinar; they said hello a year or so ago after i uploaded a few images of patients at the wild bird fund. what could be finer than glamour shots of long-eared owls, european bee-eaters, and common kingfishers? learning to greet them by their names (kulaklı orman baykuşu, arıkuşu, and yalıcapkını, respectively) in turkish, obvs.
04 @gatheredgrown: nate's the brother of a friend of a friend; he and his wife, emily, live on a small lake in rural northern minnesota and make, well, everything? it's hard for me to see things like the knife he forged and sheathed in a rawhide beaver tail, but it's impossible not to appreciate their craftsmanship and commitment to sustainability. i learned the term "competence porn" the other day; this is legit competence porn. bearpaw snowshoes! mukluks! a damn canoe! i try not to think about the bear fat in the birch syrup cookies.
05 @vandervonodd: the first and last time i wore a corset—for a rasputina concert with dirty uncle paul—i ended up freaking out in a denny's on el camino, a literal and spiritual place to which i hope i shall never return.* vander von odd (aka antonio yee) won the first season of dragula and makes me want to wear corsets and wigs and this cursèd dress, and to drop $350 on a victorian mourning collar. in a world where marilyn manson keeps whatever his version of a low profile is, vander von odd saves me.
06 @fiance_knowles: south african textile artist danielle clough last sold some of her original embroidered rackets when we were in india last fall, and i wanted one so badly that i spent almost a full day in goa trying to figure out how to jump into her online store as soon as they dropped (reader, i failed). she embroiders rackets, scrap metal, surgical masks...and shows the backs of her projects, oh my heart. look at these fucking portraits.
07 @drinkingwithchickens: i have yet to watch the second or third seasons of stranger things, but when i do i will put on my big bartender pants (a thing) and make kate's tribute to barb ("rum, curaçao, coconut water, and lime, with a drizzle of blood orange grenadine"). she'd be a wildly talented and entertaining garden-to-glass mixologist anyway (hi, peppered rose paloma and honey basil julep), but she has all these chickens and she shoots them with her drinks. a ginmaker i know checked out my instagram feed a few years ago, took note of all the birds and beverages, and gently steered me over to kate's. other boozestagrammers, please try harder.
08 @hannahflowers_tattoos: i follow a lot of tattoo artists (surprise), and the local ones in particular are dangerous as hell: why, i could be at kings avenue in fifteen minutes if i wore my running shoes. tasmanian artist hannah flowers is a leetle safer, as she's london-based and her work would require a big commitment (from both space-remaining-on-my-body and plunge-into-a-new-style perspectives), but not much: i gasp every time i see one of her art-nouveau / art deco / vargas-inspired women (and she's fantastic with animals, too, gulp). while i admire the traditional tattoo aesthetic, its female nudes tend to get me down; hannah's, on the other hand, feel like characters rather than objects. her skill with color and white detailing, particularly in faces, is flat-out stunning. okay fine, i kind of want a lady.
09 @isopresso_balloon: self-taught japanese artist masayoshi matsumoto spends between two and six hours weaving balloons—and that's it, no cheats like adhesives or embellishments—into critters like violin beetles, octopuses, colossal squids, snow monkeys...i'd say clowns, please try harder, but it's irresponsible to encourage clowns.
10 @TheAmandaWoods: amanda woods, an australian writer i met on a press trip in turkey,** has carved out a magnificent travel niche for herself: she's the flame-haired queen of super-fancy transportation (like the belmond grand hibernian, singapore air's new 787-10, the belmond royal scotsman, the venice simplon orient express...yeah). beat envy is rare for me, but i have a thing for trains, and she takes the kind of trips i thought joe and i were going to take when we booked a "deluxe" cabin from milan to berlin. i bet she has to solve murder mysteries on her trips all the time! happily, she's such a lovely person that i can just enjoy her agatha christie-ing vicariously and without rancor.
11 @angeladeane: angela deane's ghost photographs give me life; in my last year as an editor in an office i got myself through lulls and frustrations by paying homage to her with wite-out and magazine spreads in my cubicle. we actually own a print of one of her older works, and as soon as i get around to actually pulling it out of its mailer and framing it i will tell you precisely which one it is. strong work with witches, too.
12 @tasteofstreep: self-explanatory, and immensely satisfying.
*costumes and denny's and i have a weird past: at some point high school friends and i went to disneyland on halloween (which was free if you dressed up and got there early enough), and i dozed off at breakfast and woke up without the faintest idea of why i was wearing a nun's habit. harrowing.
**that shot on her homepage is from our cave hotel in cappadocia, my all-time favorite digs. we attempted to go rogue and take a hot-air-ballon trip one morning, but it was too windy.
01 @drlindseyfitzharris: a medical historian; i have yet to read her book on joseph lister and victorian medicine, but it's on the list for later this summer. posts fascinating, disturbing images of everything from shrunken heads at the warsaw ethnographic museum (processed with rocks and sand over fires, then worn around warriors' necks) to the french death mask that became what we know as the cpr doll. captions are mini-essays.
02 @secondshelfbooks: a boss new bookstore in london that focuses on rare and rediscovered books by and about women; sold me a boss inscribed copy of eavan boland's object lessons when we were in town this spring. a+ source for zelda fitzgerald's thoughts on breakfast, gorgeous woolf editions, modern dances for english ladies. go to there.
03 @asari.wildlife: turkish wildlife photographers abdullah and pinar; they said hello a year or so ago after i uploaded a few images of patients at the wild bird fund. what could be finer than glamour shots of long-eared owls, european bee-eaters, and common kingfishers? learning to greet them by their names (kulaklı orman baykuşu, arıkuşu, and yalıcapkını, respectively) in turkish, obvs.
04 @gatheredgrown: nate's the brother of a friend of a friend; he and his wife, emily, live on a small lake in rural northern minnesota and make, well, everything? it's hard for me to see things like the knife he forged and sheathed in a rawhide beaver tail, but it's impossible not to appreciate their craftsmanship and commitment to sustainability. i learned the term "competence porn" the other day; this is legit competence porn. bearpaw snowshoes! mukluks! a damn canoe! i try not to think about the bear fat in the birch syrup cookies.
05 @vandervonodd: the first and last time i wore a corset—for a rasputina concert with dirty uncle paul—i ended up freaking out in a denny's on el camino, a literal and spiritual place to which i hope i shall never return.* vander von odd (aka antonio yee) won the first season of dragula and makes me want to wear corsets and wigs and this cursèd dress, and to drop $350 on a victorian mourning collar. in a world where marilyn manson keeps whatever his version of a low profile is, vander von odd saves me.
06 @fiance_knowles: south african textile artist danielle clough last sold some of her original embroidered rackets when we were in india last fall, and i wanted one so badly that i spent almost a full day in goa trying to figure out how to jump into her online store as soon as they dropped (reader, i failed). she embroiders rackets, scrap metal, surgical masks...and shows the backs of her projects, oh my heart. look at these fucking portraits.
07 @drinkingwithchickens: i have yet to watch the second or third seasons of stranger things, but when i do i will put on my big bartender pants (a thing) and make kate's tribute to barb ("rum, curaçao, coconut water, and lime, with a drizzle of blood orange grenadine"). she'd be a wildly talented and entertaining garden-to-glass mixologist anyway (hi, peppered rose paloma and honey basil julep), but she has all these chickens and she shoots them with her drinks. a ginmaker i know checked out my instagram feed a few years ago, took note of all the birds and beverages, and gently steered me over to kate's. other boozestagrammers, please try harder.
08 @hannahflowers_tattoos: i follow a lot of tattoo artists (surprise), and the local ones in particular are dangerous as hell: why, i could be at kings avenue in fifteen minutes if i wore my running shoes. tasmanian artist hannah flowers is a leetle safer, as she's london-based and her work would require a big commitment (from both space-remaining-on-my-body and plunge-into-a-new-style perspectives), but not much: i gasp every time i see one of her art-nouveau / art deco / vargas-inspired women (and she's fantastic with animals, too, gulp). while i admire the traditional tattoo aesthetic, its female nudes tend to get me down; hannah's, on the other hand, feel like characters rather than objects. her skill with color and white detailing, particularly in faces, is flat-out stunning. okay fine, i kind of want a lady.
09 @isopresso_balloon: self-taught japanese artist masayoshi matsumoto spends between two and six hours weaving balloons—and that's it, no cheats like adhesives or embellishments—into critters like violin beetles, octopuses, colossal squids, snow monkeys...i'd say clowns, please try harder, but it's irresponsible to encourage clowns.
10 @TheAmandaWoods: amanda woods, an australian writer i met on a press trip in turkey,** has carved out a magnificent travel niche for herself: she's the flame-haired queen of super-fancy transportation (like the belmond grand hibernian, singapore air's new 787-10, the belmond royal scotsman, the venice simplon orient express...yeah). beat envy is rare for me, but i have a thing for trains, and she takes the kind of trips i thought joe and i were going to take when we booked a "deluxe" cabin from milan to berlin. i bet she has to solve murder mysteries on her trips all the time! happily, she's such a lovely person that i can just enjoy her agatha christie-ing vicariously and without rancor.
11 @angeladeane: angela deane's ghost photographs give me life; in my last year as an editor in an office i got myself through lulls and frustrations by paying homage to her with wite-out and magazine spreads in my cubicle. we actually own a print of one of her older works, and as soon as i get around to actually pulling it out of its mailer and framing it i will tell you precisely which one it is. strong work with witches, too.
12 @tasteofstreep: self-explanatory, and immensely satisfying.
*costumes and denny's and i have a weird past: at some point high school friends and i went to disneyland on halloween (which was free if you dressed up and got there early enough), and i dozed off at breakfast and woke up without the faintest idea of why i was wearing a nun's habit. harrowing.
**that shot on her homepage is from our cave hotel in cappadocia, my all-time favorite digs. we attempted to go rogue and take a hot-air-ballon trip one morning, but it was too windy.
07.12.19
CONSUMED: A PARTIAL LIST.
horses and divorces (bar). joe and i visited our local honky tonk a few weeks ago and spied a poster for a bar that advertised a rosé super soaker as part of its fourth of july party. fellow tonkers told us that it was a burt-reynolds-themed sister joint a few blocks away, and i insisted on stopping by—not because it was the fourth of july (it was not) or because i was interested in being sprayed with rosé, but because i appreciated the terrible audacity of that establishment's plans—on our way home. we encountered and eventually exchanged soulful hugs with both the bouncer (who had shared a ride with joe from manhattan a few hours earlier, and was a buddy of ours from the tonk) and a mancunian olympic judo fighter (who shared our opinion that morrissey must be stopped). i left my phone there after hearing a-ha's "the sun always shines on TV" and demanding to buy the perpetrator a drink,* and when joe went back to williamsburg to retrieve it, he met another mancunian who attempted to take him home. horses and divorces has shag carpet on its ceiling.
los espookys (series). i am, for the most part, no good at watching shows as they air; season-long netflix-ish drops work for me, but i can't be bothered to tune in at the same time every week for series that aren't game of thrones or the handmaid's tale, both of which end/ed up making me feel uncomfortable and, oddly, hungry. enter los espookys, which caught my eye on a bathroom wall because i thought it was a band with an especially good name. i looked it up when i got home, as olds do, and reader! it is the six-part (this season) story of a group of friends in an unnamed latin american country that produces scrappy horror scenarios. it is mostly in spanish, and it is aspirationally absurd. i have rewatched each of the five episodes that have aired. you are much cooler than i am and already know all of this already, but OH MY GOD LOS ESPOOKYS.
trader joe's tofu spring rolls (foodstuff). while i understand that my longstanding amazon boycott is probably ludicrous when one considers all of the big tech and big-box properties i continue to enrich: fuck amazon, fuck it right in the ear.** my grocery shopping became considerably more difficult when amazon bought whole foods, and i was, if i'm being honest, pleased when trader joe's moved into the lower east side. it's been a godsend for styling props for the craft projects i've published over the last year—i'm good at foraging for floral arrangements, but i'm not that good—and though i can mostly ignore its superplastickypackaged treats, these little vegan slugs are A Thing. you've got to drench them in sriracha, but friends. i am trying to roll into my locals, spread my apron, and ask them to fill it with millet, and in the interim i am >75% questionable tofu spring rolls, and content. (con-TENT, not CON-tent.)
horses and divorces (bar). joe and i visited our local honky tonk a few weeks ago and spied a poster for a bar that advertised a rosé super soaker as part of its fourth of july party. fellow tonkers told us that it was a burt-reynolds-themed sister joint a few blocks away, and i insisted on stopping by—not because it was the fourth of july (it was not) or because i was interested in being sprayed with rosé, but because i appreciated the terrible audacity of that establishment's plans—on our way home. we encountered and eventually exchanged soulful hugs with both the bouncer (who had shared a ride with joe from manhattan a few hours earlier, and was a buddy of ours from the tonk) and a mancunian olympic judo fighter (who shared our opinion that morrissey must be stopped). i left my phone there after hearing a-ha's "the sun always shines on TV" and demanding to buy the perpetrator a drink,* and when joe went back to williamsburg to retrieve it, he met another mancunian who attempted to take him home. horses and divorces has shag carpet on its ceiling.
los espookys (series). i am, for the most part, no good at watching shows as they air; season-long netflix-ish drops work for me, but i can't be bothered to tune in at the same time every week for series that aren't game of thrones or the handmaid's tale, both of which end/ed up making me feel uncomfortable and, oddly, hungry. enter los espookys, which caught my eye on a bathroom wall because i thought it was a band with an especially good name. i looked it up when i got home, as olds do, and reader! it is the six-part (this season) story of a group of friends in an unnamed latin american country that produces scrappy horror scenarios. it is mostly in spanish, and it is aspirationally absurd. i have rewatched each of the five episodes that have aired. you are much cooler than i am and already know all of this already, but OH MY GOD LOS ESPOOKYS.
trader joe's tofu spring rolls (foodstuff). while i understand that my longstanding amazon boycott is probably ludicrous when one considers all of the big tech and big-box properties i continue to enrich: fuck amazon, fuck it right in the ear.** my grocery shopping became considerably more difficult when amazon bought whole foods, and i was, if i'm being honest, pleased when trader joe's moved into the lower east side. it's been a godsend for styling props for the craft projects i've published over the last year—i'm good at foraging for floral arrangements, but i'm not that good—and though i can mostly ignore its superplastickypackaged treats, these little vegan slugs are A Thing. you've got to drench them in sriracha, but friends. i am trying to roll into my locals, spread my apron, and ask them to fill it with millet, and in the interim i am >75% questionable tofu spring rolls, and content. (con-TENT, not CON-tent.)
*it was the bartender, and i sketched him out, of course. "THIS WAS THE FIRST TAPE I EVER OWNED AND I BOUGHT IT WITH QUARTERS FROM MY ALLOWANCE!" "to...[clink] the eighties?"
**this was a problem last year, as i'd been doing a brisk business in lifestyle shopping roundups, and one of my biggest writing outlets transitioned to affiliated stories. i miss that money.
07.09.19
the dirty dozen {excerpts from yelp reviews of the brooklyn bridge}
01 Dirty, noisy and full of freaks.
02 Probably one of the most stressful things I've done this year, if not my entire life.
03 The overall design of the bridge is pretty cliche if you ask me. It looks like every other bridge that is featured in almost every movie.
04 The main stressor in my life.
05 Do the bicyclist have shame that they have taken much more than their fair share. I think they don't.
06 I went here during construction so it smelled weird
07 Yes, it's iconic, but it's a bad idea, and it doesn't work.
08 All in all, This is my second favorite East River bridge after the Williamsburg Bridge!
09 Ok, so I guess it's pretty cool to walk across such a glamourous bridge, but be prepared to dodge throngs of others thinking the same thing.
10 Personally it no "wow" factor for me because of the Golden Gate Bridge in SF.
11 what would really make this walk more exciting is if the street vendors sold broom sticks so you could whack the bikers.
12 Manhattan is a grid, my a**.
01 Dirty, noisy and full of freaks.
02 Probably one of the most stressful things I've done this year, if not my entire life.
03 The overall design of the bridge is pretty cliche if you ask me. It looks like every other bridge that is featured in almost every movie.
04 The main stressor in my life.
05 Do the bicyclist have shame that they have taken much more than their fair share. I think they don't.
06 I went here during construction so it smelled weird
07 Yes, it's iconic, but it's a bad idea, and it doesn't work.
08 All in all, This is my second favorite East River bridge after the Williamsburg Bridge!
09 Ok, so I guess it's pretty cool to walk across such a glamourous bridge, but be prepared to dodge throngs of others thinking the same thing.
10 Personally it no "wow" factor for me because of the Golden Gate Bridge in SF.
11 what would really make this walk more exciting is if the street vendors sold broom sticks so you could whack the bikers.
12 Manhattan is a grid, my a**.
07.08.19
the fireflies are usually out by now. i keep thinking i'll saunter through the back door and there they'll be, dancing in front of my eyes like i hit my head on the kitchen cabinet because i was frantically decluttering instead of finishing a draft. it occurred to me the other night that i could just get a firefly tattoo on my left wrist, maybe from one of the guys on the bowery, so that if i was seized with the urge to go hunting at dusk i could stay inside, look down, and think, this one, at least there's this one. tattoos are a poor substitute for going outside, though, just as ricocheting around one's kitchen is a poor substitute for finishing a draft and sending it off, already. the joke's on me, though: now i don't know anything (instead of not knowing a few key things) about said draft!
i am somewhere in the summer's small intestine, i think. there's a whole lot of digestive imagery that one might apply to summers on the lower east side, and that is mostly not what i mean: what i mean is that i have been consumed, broken down a bit, if you will, and am waiting to be useful (don't say 'for shit to go down,' don't say 'for shit to go down'). leaving one's manhattan apartment in july is a bit like walking into a mouth, so this makes sense to me.
a dreadfully emetic something-or-other was making its way through my family when i went to santa cruz to visit my infant nephew and his folks last month. it was a bit harrowing for his poor big brother (when you're nearly three, puking all over yourself is pretty unpleasant). when the baby got the baton, he took it like a champ: he vomited toothlessly and joyously, a little winning slot machine! i spent most of june thinking i had a horrible bug but it turned out i was just writing.
i am somewhere in the summer's small intestine, i think. there's a whole lot of digestive imagery that one might apply to summers on the lower east side, and that is mostly not what i mean: what i mean is that i have been consumed, broken down a bit, if you will, and am waiting to be useful (don't say 'for shit to go down,' don't say 'for shit to go down'). leaving one's manhattan apartment in july is a bit like walking into a mouth, so this makes sense to me.
a dreadfully emetic something-or-other was making its way through my family when i went to santa cruz to visit my infant nephew and his folks last month. it was a bit harrowing for his poor big brother (when you're nearly three, puking all over yourself is pretty unpleasant). when the baby got the baton, he took it like a champ: he vomited toothlessly and joyously, a little winning slot machine! i spent most of june thinking i had a horrible bug but it turned out i was just writing.
07.05.19
MOM: it's gone pretty well. they gave me a nerve blocker around three yesterday, and today my arm feels like a purse that i'm holding at my side, and it keeps slipping off of my lap - but it's okay. it just feels like someone else's arm.
LMO: mom. you're sure it's YOUR ARM, right? i mean, i've seen that movie.
MOM: which movie?
LMO: all of them. i'm just saying that if it does something unusual, you can go ahead and call a priest...
MOM: no, it's fine!
LMO: it's good that you don't have a dog, because i just read a thing about how dachshunds are the most vicious breed, and some lady fell asleep and her dog ate her toe and she had no idea because of diabetes.
MOM: no, no, my arm should be un-dead by three tomorrow afternoon.
LMO: that's what i'm saying.
LMO: mom. you're sure it's YOUR ARM, right? i mean, i've seen that movie.
MOM: which movie?
LMO: all of them. i'm just saying that if it does something unusual, you can go ahead and call a priest...
MOM: no, it's fine!
LMO: it's good that you don't have a dog, because i just read a thing about how dachshunds are the most vicious breed, and some lady fell asleep and her dog ate her toe and she had no idea because of diabetes.
MOM: no, no, my arm should be un-dead by three tomorrow afternoon.
LMO: that's what i'm saying.
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