Actual broker voice mail messages:
“Hi you’ve reached [name deleted]’s phone. Um.. I’m not picking up. I’m not here. So. Leave a message. I will call you. Back. Thank you. [Pause] Oh, God, that was a terrible message. [Fumbling noises.] Oh, I hate these things. How do you turn it off. [More fumbling.] I am so bad at this kind of thing. [Into the receiver again] Hello? Hello? Do you think it’s still on? What the hell. [Beep.]”
Oh, god, this essay.
Modern Love: Raising a Princess Single-Handedly, NYTimes 28 June 2009.
IT was about 6:30 on Thursday morning, and I was cooking breakfast in my pajamas. My daughter, Madeleine, 4, was helping by transferring eggs from the cardboard carton into the refrigerator egg box. It’s one of the things she does, like pressing the button on the elevator, and licking the cake spoon.
That morning we were both performing our duties with sleepy devotion. Then I put down my whisk and asked Madeleine to throw me an egg.
She peered up curiously from her work. "One of these eggs?"
I nodded.
"But it might break."
"Just throw it, Madeleine. I’ll catch it."
She looked at the egg in her small hand, and for reasons known only to her, she began to carefully inspect the shell.
What at first was a trifling culinary request — another egg for the mixture — quickly became something more significant: an unscripted moment of trust between a father and daughter. I wanted her to trust that if she threw something delicate, I would save it. Her mother had died a year earlier. It was sudden — an undiagnosed disorder, a suspected case of Marfan syndrome. Most people I know have never heard of it.
...
Besides learning how to fake New Year’s parties and sew buttons, I’ve learned about myself. The other day when I was brushing my cheeks with shaving cream, Madeleine came into my bathroom. Surprisingly, she was already dressed for school.
I’m rather a messy shaver. Afraid I might get shaving cream on her dress, I said: “Please keep me company, Madeleine. But don’t get too close.” Then I laughed, realizing that what I’d said characterizes the nature of my adult relationships.
...
The other morning I was frying bacon, drinking coffee and trying to scramble Madeleine’s eggs. In a single moment of craziness, the bacon turned black, which triggered the smoke alarm. The eggs began welding themselves to the pan; the garbage bag I was tying split open at the bottom, covering my slippers in three-day-old linguine and rice pudding.
As I fanned the smoke detector furiously with a towel, Madeleine rushed off the couch to see what was going on, tripped and spilled her orange juice on herself and the floor. From the corner of the kitchen, a little girl covered in juice looked up at her father and said, “We’re like clowns!”
I think it was Charlie Chaplin who said that close up, human life is tragic, but from a distance, it’s funny.
SO on that recent morning, when Madeleine was still clutching the egg that I had asked her to throw, I leaned across the counter toward her and softly said: “Just throw it, Madeleine. I promise it won’t break.”
“O.K., Dad.” And in one quick motion she flung a single perfect egg at her father.
A man walked past me in the subway yesterday, and said, "Ooh, yeah, gimme summa dat fried rice, baby."
Claudia: At least he got the nationality right and didn't request sushi.
James: What a post racial world we live in.
I guess.
DFW on being a tourist: "You become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing."
[Thanks, Will]
Brighter in real life. Now that my computer's been fixed by my IT department, none of my illegal software works anymore: go figure.
For a man named Bill on his 24th birthday, a month and a week too soon. 16" x 12" x 1.5". Acrylic, oil pastel, gel medium, nail polish.
I don't know anyone that wants to come to this with me, and that is part of the problem.
I figure that since I’ve already gotten in trouble for writing imprudent things* in my secret public journal (see: Exhibits A and B), I shouldn’t quit just because I’m behind.** 
Dear Prudie,
A few months ago I went through a very bad breakup. My boyfriend and I were living together at the time, but he has since moved to many states away*. I do not know his address, there is little to no cell phone service where he is living, and he does not have Internet in the house. I recently contacted our landlord who gave me back our joint security deposit in full. I know that half the money is rightfully his, but he has not mentioned it, has made no attempt to retrieve the money from either myself or the landlord, has moved 7 hours away, and has since begun ignoring all contact I have tried to make, no matter how civil or friendly. I’m loathe to put myself in an uncomfortable situation (calling his parents* or friends* for his mailing address or making yet another attempt to contact him) for his sake and in turn helping him continue to skirt his own responsibilities*. Am I obligated to track down this man who has cut me out of his life in order to return something that he has seemingly abandoned? Or can I put it away in a safe place for a time in case he resurfaces to claim it?
Signed,
Not My Money, Not My Problem?
Weirdly, all the lawyers who have had some say have said not to sweat it; the nicer ones have said to make sure I have enough in my funds to reimburse him at any point in the next few months to a year, and the meaner ones have said to pocket and run. (RAW Esq., any thoughts?) The ethicists and do-gooders have ideas of their own, naturally.
How mad would you be if instead of returning your money I sent you a certificate that said I bought a star in your name?*** There have also been the more prudent suggestions of investing the money in CDs and mutual funds.
I took your money and saved some whales in your name.
I took your money and sent a pair of mating cows to a poor family in your name. (What up, Heifer International!)
I took your money and set up a scholarship for people who are bell ends in your name.
I took your money and bought billboard space with your name on it in your name.***
I took your money and put it in my pipe and smoked it every night before bed for a pretty long while in your name.
I took your money and rented a plane with a custom banner towed behind it with the message, "I almost bought you a star, dumbass."***
Discuss.
*THERE ARE SO MANY IMPRUDENT THINGS I WANT TO SAY HERE THAT I’M ALREADY BITING MY TONGUE ABOUT SO GIVE ME A BREAK PLEASE THANKS.
**R, if you are reading this -- I mean, really? Get a life, bro.*
***Credit: Ryan Beikes.
I was way too high last night* and this:
(714): dude facebook disabled my account because im registered under a false identity. now in order to get it back, i have to prove that it's really my name. i sent them an email and had to sign it "Cordially, Lloyd Pancakes"
was way too funny. I think I stopped breathing.
*George was sick! I had to smoke my share all at once! Instead of passing it back and forth like normal! It was an accident! I misjudged! :(
Claudia: "I am really bad at it. I never take the hint. Ezra once told me that he was scared to go to the bathroom in the dark, and instead of turning it on for him, I just made fun of him."
For some inexplicable reason (that is, I love Jews), I really love being a Shabbos goy and wish I could do it all the time every day. I know that kind of is besides the point, but not for me.
"You're going to need a safe word, and it shouldn't be 'more.'"
Charles Hamilton dot blogspot dot com.
The Amy Rose dot blogspot dot com.
Myspace dot com slash Hamilton's music.
I am not Charles Hamilton dot com.
Charles Hamilton dot blogspot dot com.
The Amy Rose dot blogspot dot com.
Charles Hamilton dot blogspot dot com.
I shut the game down again
Can't nobody stop me, I'm sorry. I was raised in the concrete safari.
You other clowns got hate in your blood.
You talk that new shit with Windows 98 in your blood.
I am being the angstiest version of myself that I can remember in a long time, daydreaming of high-waisted throwback swimsuits, whale-shaped butter dishes, and footwork dancing on roofs. I can only express myself in variable/variable-type emotions anymore. I wonder about the difference between Hemingway men and Hemingway women and how difficult, unlikely, impossible they are. I sit out on the fire escape and read Maxine Kumin aloud to no one. I think endlessly about the myriad metaphorical meanings of anchors. I wonder about permanence.
"You must remember that those women always die. When men write about beautiful women, the women always die."
Someone punch me, please.
I promise I’ll go down easy and hard like a sack with one brick in it, one soft thud of defeat muted slightly by the layer of fabric between me and the ground.
Modern Love: Want to Be My Boyfriend? Please Define." (NYT Sunday Styles, May 4, 2008.)
[via Claudia]
When I found out where he had been going everyday for the past week, why he had suddenly rid himself of some once-important possessions, why he was moving away, I wanted to hug him hard without letting go. It’s not that I wanted to go anywhere with him or adopt his old treasures; it wasn’t about him at all, really. Instead, it was about someone else he had never met, never really even heard of, a person I hadn’t seen in months, who no longer had any interest in knowing me, whom I had once thought I would fix and marry and own dogs with -- a person less like so many ghosts I have known and more like a cadaver: palpable, real, strange.
My feelings about his decision were a direct extension of the feelings I wish I could have had about decisions I wish this other person had made. It was as if my past were living vicariously through him, one person living out their desires through another person they’d never met. The cadaver had come back to life as a perfect version of itself, but any suspension of disbelief lasted only long enough for a long sigh, when upon the unwanted truth settled back in: nobody can be anybody else no matter how much you want them to be.
S: "Me: Okay so I just told the whole narrative to a friend and realized.. I am crazy."
R: I enjoy these monthly realizations.
S: Monthly? Do I seriously realize it that often?
R: Well, there are long dry spells--
S: --and every time I come to you I make the same realization.. again? Oh man. That's bad.
R: Well. I think you often ignore the realization when it was supposed to happen.
Finding summer, at last, with the windows open cruising down the Belt Parkway and under the Verrazano Bridge along the river sharing a spliff in the Saab with George, seems a lot more of a significant seasonal milestone, suddenly, than any New Year's Eve spent making out with sloppy strangers at midnight in the dark dead of winter. December 31st seems irrelevant when you have the day before the first of June.
I woke up early, before anyone else was up, and sat out on the fourth-floor fire escape with some Siken, Jack Spicer, and a few Dream Songs, reading aloud to myself and the mottled cat with mitten feet down below. We went for a family breakfast at the Spanish diner down the street when everyone was finally up, after which George and I embarked on that roman-a-clef-sonnet-turn of a drive. All I could manage thinking at the time was, "everything is beautiful" and "this seems significant." It really wasn't until the next day, some time after lunch after Debra had come in for the first time in many months un-pregnant -- slender, lovely, glowing -- that I realized it was suddenly summer and that long-ago song made its fancy-free way from the ghostly closets of my subconscious and into the emptiness of my closed mouth as a hum.
I guess what I'm saying is, "It's summer," and that seems important these days. 
Now that it's June, we'll sleep out in the garden,
and if it rains we'll just sink into the mud
where it is quiet and much cooler than the house is
and there's no clocks or phones to wake us up.
Because I have learned that nothing is as pressing
and the one who's pressing would like you to believe.
And I'm content to walk a little slower
because there's no where that I really need to be.
And I find that life is easier when it's just a blur
with no details to confuse who or what or where I was,
so when the ending comes the full regret will be obscured.
But these are the days we dreamed about
when the sunlight paints us gold,
and this apartment could not be prettier
as when when we danced up there alone.
I feel like I'm 14.
1.
Guess which famous person lives here: round 2.
Cake-eater: Raffi was not the correct answer for round 1, sorry.
2.
We did it, ok? All bets are off; send the ref home; tell your mom not to bring the orange slices and Capri Suns. No need for a game face because the game's been canceled. Why so molasses, waffle face (CASE IN POINT)?
DISCLAIMER: SO-AND-SOS ONE AND TWO, THIS CRYPTIC POST IS NOT ABOUT YOU. Lex, I'm lookin' at you / I know I owe you an email / whoops / be patient / it'll be worth it / maybe.
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