You Just Gotta Keep on Livin’, Man. L-I-V-I-N Or, Holy Shit, I Love You!

Did you know there is a whole world out there not connected to the internet?

It’s filled with ponies and Cuban coffee and drag queens and giant skillets of food that you can eat and that’s where I’ve been lately. Hanging out, following the advice of Wooderson and just L-I-VI-N’, man.

And I’ve loved it, but I kinda sorta missed this place so I’m back with tales of the real world and how much I loved it (holy shit!).

In the past couple of months, I:

Saw The Black Crowes and Gary Clark Jr.
Was caught in a torrential downpour.
Got muddier than I’ve ever been in my life.
Made new friends who let us into the tent to shield us from the rain and more new friends who let us up to the front so we could see the Crowes up close in all their blues-rock glory.

Walked barefoot on the 70 yard line at Dolphins Stadium.
Listened to John Denney read Clifford the Big Red Dog to small children and experienced ALL the feelings.
Met TD the Dolphin. He was sweaty.

Spent my birthday with some of the greatest people in the world.
Drank bluecoat while wearing a tiara.
Had breakfast with drag queens the next morning.

Celebrated with one of my best friends as she graduated from law school.
Ate a skillet filled with deliciousness in the form of potatoes, eggs, artichoke hearts, spinach, sundried tomatoes and mushrooms.
Realized that the best thing about having two best friends who are lawyers is EVERYTHING.

Spent quality time with my sister eating ALL the food and watching Parenthood (dudes, it’s so good. I mean, Max is the worst but every now and then – they reference Friday Night Lights and my heart just fills up like a balloon).

Spent quality time with Biffle eating ALL the food and making this face a lot. Like all the time a lot. Of all of the pictures ever taken of us, this is the most representative of our relationship.

As much as I love to cuddle up on the couch and spent some quality time with Netflix, I kinda love verbing it up and can’t wait to see what adventures Summer 2013 will bring.

Simultaneously Enchanted and Repelled by The Great Gatsby Or, I Wanna Change My Hair, My Clothes, My Face

I am the first girl to hold out her fork and say, “Dude! This is so good! You have to try this!”

If I love you and you need something, I’m going to damn well make sure you get it.
Or a very close approximation of it.
Or a sandwich because dude, even if I did have Ryan Gosling’s phone number – I wouldn’t give it to you first. I mean, we’re friends but I’m not running for Jesus here.

As demonstrated above, I’m very selfish in a very peculiar way.

If I have a particular affinity to something, I’m reluctant to share it with the unworthy. It doesn’t take much but you have to earn your way to my favorite menu item and my most beloved b-side.

And that’s why I’m really worried about the fallout of Baz Luhrmann’s take on The Great Gatsby.

The movie comes out on Friday – all bombast and bling. Slick and shimmery as Beyonce’s thighs and calm like a bomb. And with this comes the inevitable gaggle of idiots who get taken in by the, ‘Oooh pretty shiny!’, idealize Jay and Daisy’s romance and basically, take something I love and like it wrong.

Can you ‘like’ something wrong?
Yes.
Yes, you can.

I’m fully aware of the fact that I sound like a crazy person right now. I mean, The Great Gatsby is a classic and it belongs less to be me and more to the collective conscience but I still think of it as mine.

I’ve written about it extensively, I own two copies (one of which lives in my purse) and when I miraculously have more body mass, I’m going to get that last paragraph inked on my flesh.

I love this story even though it’s been criticized as being nothing more than a glorified anecdote. A shivery wisp of a story we’ve all heard a million times – boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy reconnects with girl, boy loses girl again – but there’s a whole other world that ebbs and flows within the confines of that cliche.

As much as I love the lushness of the language, my favorite thing about the novel is its duality. The notion that the very hope that sustains a man is the same that will eventually slay him knocks me out.

Only love will break your heart, right? Love will tear us apart. Love is a battlefield. Love is blindness. Love hurts, right? It wounds, it scars and it breaks your fucking heart…BUT hope? Hope will reduce a man to ashes.

Love pretends that it’s dangerous, but hope will drag you through hell before it kills you and whisper sweet nothings in your ear the entire time.

A couple of nights ago, I had a conversation about the novel and it got me thinking about reinvention, reinterpretation of self, how it’s never too late to start over and how The Great Gatsby really is the great American novel.

The blue-jean clad, hip-swiveling hero from Springsteen’s Dancing In The Dark is James Gatz:

I check my look in the mirror
I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face
Man I ain’t getting nowhere
I’m just living in a dump like this
There’s something happening somewhere
Baby, I just know that there is

Both men springing from platonic conceptions of themselves. Both sons of God, but while Springsteen’s jukebox hero spent his time twistin’ the night away with a pre-Friends Courteney Cox, James Gatz ached for Daisy and casually dispensed starlight to moths in the tenuous hope that she would grace his doorway.

God, is there anything more redolent of the American spirit than this? After all, what are Americans but conceptions of themselves? Children of God who don’t mold themselves in His image but rather their own.

Unlike Gatsby, I don’t regard the silver salt and pepper of the stars looking to repeat the past. If anything, I want to extricate myself from its gnarled roots and I hope this marked difference will spare me the elegiac tragedy that befell Fitzgerald’s high bouncing, gold-hatted lover.

However, I am fascinated by the idea of reinvention and living out your personalized runaway American dream.

My life is kinda up in the air right now and I have no idea what’s going to happen, but I’m buoyed by the same sense of extraordinary hope as Gatsby.

I don’t really have a plan and I don’t really know what’s going to happen, but I do know that if you don’t like something – you can change it and start over.

That I can be the person I want to be and live the life I want to live.

All I have to do is run faster, stretch my arms out farther and one fine morning…

Every Word Handwritten Or, Pull It Out, Turn It Up, What’s Your Favorite Song?

I have this really great knack for making friends with people who love music.

Like, really LOVE it without being pretentious Barry-esque chowderheads.

Barry is judging you. With his eyes.

A couple of days go, Dana texted me with lyrics to Prince’s Raspberry Beret. Let’s be honest here – ain’t nobody gonna love you more than the person who texts you Prince lyrics. True love is Fountain Diet Cokes, Prince lyrics and shoulder kisses and if anyone tells you otherwise — they’re lying.

A friend and I have been having this ongoing conversation about the generational shift in listening to music. My boy is a little older than I am so he grew up in the album era where you let your tape rock til your tape popped whereas I was an album girl for a hot minute when I still bought CDs but made the smooth transition over to individual songs via mp3 and haven’t really looked back since.

Lately, I’ve come to a realization. Listening to individual songs is like reading favored quotes from a novel. They sound good but you’re not seeing the whole picture.

“His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”

It’s beautiful, right? A great love story – lush, poetic and effulgent with hope but unless you read the entire text, you have no way of knowing that this gorgeous scrawl is actually about how the very hope that sustains a man will eventually destroy him (unless you’re a real cynic who thinks all stories about pretty girls end in heartbreak).

That being the case, I’m coming back around to listening to entire albums straight through. And that has a lot to do with Spotify and The Gaslight Anthem’s Handwritten.

Spotify is like being best friends with a really good DJ who doesn’t try to make you listen to shit you don’t care about and Handwritten? It might just be a perfect album.

It is a labor of love – every word handwritten. Every track painstakingly handpicked. These songs have this incredible ability to make me nostalgic for my own life. I’ve never been down to Biloxi Parish or driven on Mulholland Drive, but I get it.

The sentiment is universal and listening to the record, your nostalgia kicks up like dust swirling in a summer breeze.

My favorite thing about this record is how I don’t have a favorite thing.

However, I play this game where I try to choose and much like picking your favorite sandwich, it’s an exercise in futility (Go ahead. Try to pick your favorite sandwich. You can’t do it, can you?) as well as a testament to Brian Fallon’s skills as a songwriter:

I love the cadence of the chorus in Howl – “From your hips on down like elec-tric through the ground.”
No.
Wait.
It’s the Van Morrison-esque Oh-Sha-La-La sweetness in Here Comes My Man.
No.
Wait.
Biloxi Parish. Totally Biloxi Parish because he’s right – nothing truly matters that you cannot find for free.
Wait.
I take that back.
Desire has that great line about giving anything for the touch of your skin and the song is damp with longing. Like, the same kind of longing that Bruce sang about in I’m On Fire.
Oh and God, Mae! Because it’s rooted so deeply in Thunder Road and damn if it ain’t pretty…

I’ve always had a space for this album inside me. I just didn’t know it until I heard it and I’m so glad I did.

Having heard it, I feel a little more complete and isn’t that the whole point? To find missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle until you’re whole?

Thirty-Nothing Or, We Make Plans and The Universe Laughs

I’m thirty. I’m five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor – Nick Carraway. The Great Gatsby.

We all do it – lie to ourselves and call it honor.

The biggest lie most adults are guilty of is, “I’m fine” or “It’s fine” — a tricky little bit of dialogue which actually means, “It’s actually not fine but it’s easier not to deal so I’ll just let it go.”

So here I am again where everything is as it once was and yet, nothing is the same.

I never thought I would be here at thirty.

Thirty always seemed old, you know? I figured by the time it finally rolled around, I would have that suburban quadfecta: house, husband, child and career.

As it turns out, I have a recently-cultivated propensity to listen to NPR while driving, a new-found appreciation for vegetarian sushi and absolutely none of the above.

And that’s fine.

Actually, no.
That’s a lie.

It straddles the line between being fine and being a little disheartening, depending on the day you catch me.

Catch me on a day when I’ve been spending a little bit too much time on Facebook or Pinterest and I’m bound to be dejected because there’s something both lulling and seductive about a home that looks like a Pottery Barn spread, chubby little toes and lemonade sipped from mason jars on starlit porches.

Catch me on any other day and ask me if I’m ready for the responsibilities that come along with suburban bliss and the answer will most assuredly be, “Dude. Let’s start with a dog and work our way up, shall we?”

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t have it figured out yet. I thought I did, but I also thought I was going to marry Leonardo DiCaprio and that fairies lived in the big oak tree at the end of the playground.

Adulthood smashed into me in my twenties and I learned some pretty important lessons:

- Learn how to cook well. Learn how to eat well. Feed people.
- The more complicated your cocktail order, the bigger a schmuck you are. Gin and tonic. Bourbon neat. Yuengling. Simplicity is a good thing.
- Not another soul will love your rotten bones in the way a dog does.
- Bukowski was right. So was Hemingway. So was Fitzgerald.

But the most important thing I learned was that there is nothing honorable about lying to yourself. If it’s not fine, don’t lie to yourself and pretend it is.

In a few days, I will turn 30 – a green breast of a new decade.

A blank page.

I’m a little terrified, but I’m also optimistic. Because if there’s one thing I’m good at – it’s filling a blank page.

Here’s to fresh starts.
Here’s to cold gin cocktails and feeling civilized.
Here’s to being with the people who love you – safe, warm and happy.

Here’s to honor and to being the person you want to be.

Here’s to a new year.

Holy Shit! I Love You!

It’s been a while, so let’s dust off this old chestnut, shall we?

- Starbucks Vanilla Rooibos Tea Latte

I grew up in a tea-drinking family – I learned how to make a good cup of chai when I was seven and my grandfather used to drink multiple cups a day – but I was never a big tea drinker. I gravitated more towards coffee because dear God, is anything more redolent of the bodily emissions of angels than a good cup of coffee?

But a girl gets tired of skinny blonde mistos and wants a little something different. Especially when it’s bitingly cold outside. So, I ordered a vanilla rooibos tea latte and was rewarded with a hug in a cup. A warm, sweet creamy kiss of vanilla and cinnamon that pulls double duty by warming your hands. It’s kinda perfect and I’m sure I’ll be running out to buy an aerolatte so I can make it at home.

- John Frieda Hair Dye Foam

I dyed my hair last weekend.

It went from every shade between black and honey blonde to a dark brown with cherry cola highlights….even though the box said Medium Golden Brown.

Huh. Right then…

The dyeing process was a bit of an ordeal as I spent about 45 minutes yelling in the bathroom:

“What the….Black gloves? Jesus, am I dyeing my hair or working at a black site?”
“Oh my God. Why isn’t my hair foaming up like the woman on the box? Now I know how Marcel felt. Foam, damn it! Foam!”
“I got a pocket, got a pocketful of sunshine…“

Almost thirty and I still haven’t mastered the art of basic female maintenance.

So, even though my hair is considerably darker than anticipated, I actually really like it…and this will last for about two months at which point, I’ll decide, “Hey, you know what would be great? Annoying blonde highlights that are hell to maintain!”

- Beastie Boys

I forget how much I love the Beastie Boys until I hear them and then, it comes rushing back to me – holy shit, has this always sounded so good?

However, I’ll admit that the first time I heard the Beastie Boys – I was utterly confused.
Dudes, how is this hip hop?
These are three skinny white boys who look like they belong in a 70s cop show (my first exposure was the Sabotage video).
Hip hop isn’t like this.
It’s like this and like that and like this and uh.

But it stuck with me. Because the Beasties continually redefined the boundaries of music. Yeah, you could take that funky drummer and give him back to James or you could stir fry him in your wok and make something even more delicious. Also, there isn’t isn’t a more joyous noise to make unto the Lord than screaming out, “NO! SLEEP! ‘TIL BROOKLYNNNNNN!” at the top of your lungs. Try it the next time you’re driving. You’ll see.

My Sister Rules Or, Let Me Tell You About My Better Half

My Sister: Oh my God! It’s Predator!
Mom and Paps: No, it’s not! That’s the Goddess Kali!

Yeah, I don’t think my sister’s wrong here. See?

Religion is fun, y’all!

All My Life I’ve Looked at Words as Though I Were Seeing Them for the First Time Or, Smart Girls Have More Fun

This is Max from Happy Endings (a show you should be watching).

In the winter, Max basically hibernates to the point where he takes on the characteristics of the most frightening mammal in the animal kingdom – a bear.

Yesterday, my sister texted me to tell me that The West Wing is now on Netflix.

That being the case, I’m basically pulling a Max and spending the rest of this winter underneath the covers with the Bartlet Administration (my beard will probably be a little thicker, though…)

I love The West Wing for all sorts of reasons – the walk-and-talks, the fact that the show’s politics align pretty closely to mine, the staggering crush I have on Bradley Whitford/Josh Lyman (yes, I realize he’s 53 and that’s a little weird but watch this and tell me he’s not the coolest guy ever) as well as the rest of the cast who are pitch-perfect, but the primary reason I love this show with a fierce and intractable passion is because I love words and Aaron Sorkin writes some solid fucking oratory.

My own vernacular is wet garbage during a heatwave. Peppered with ‘ums’ and ‘uhhhhs’ and ‘dudes’ and ‘bros’ and just barely cogent asshattery that makes people wonder, “You grew up in England? Where they speak English?”

But Sorkin (and by extension, his characters) speak with the kind of bluster and bombast that no-one uses in real life.

When was the last time you heard someone quote Lincoln’s first inaugural address as trash talk during a basketball game or curse out his creator in Latin?

I’m guessing never because why would you bother with oratory when you can just hiss the word, ‘asshole’ and call it a day, right?

One of my 30 Before 30 Goals was to read Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies and histories (so far, I’ve purchased a cheap copy of the bard’s collected works and I’ve read Hamlet).

I chose this lofty goal because I call myself a writer (which is akin to someone who subsists on a diet of instant noodles referring to themselves as a chef) and I feel as a writer, I’m obligated to be familiar with his works. Actually, I feel as a human being, I’m obligated to be familiar with his major works. Another reason I decided to do this is because I felt reading Shakespeare would give me a better insight into the human condition because let’s face it, he kinda covered the entire spectrum of humanity in his work – jealousy, lust, love, passion, madness, anger, ambition, greed, life and death.

But mostly, I wanted to read all of Shakespeare’s works because I watched CJ Cregg effortlessly quote Julius Caesar and the eloquence of that moment floored me.

I want to be that erudite and well-spoken. I want to be that well-versed in literature and most of all, I wanna be smart because as Aaron Sorkin told his daughter when he won the Oscar for The Social Network – smart girls have more fun and honey, you’re one of them.

Bitch Bad, Woman Good, Lady Better Or, Hip Hop Heteronyms

I can rhyme every word of Juicy by Biggie, I took a hip hop class in college where I wrote papers about the Geto Boys’ Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta and the whitewashing of hip hop culture and I can, have and will continue to get into raging arguments who can truly be considered the G.O.A.T. (Hov’ obv’)

Despite this, I don’t consider myself a hip hop head.

Mostly because the hip hop I listen to is equal parts party and bullshit and party and bullshit.

I know that hip hop can be lush and poetic. Lyrical, gritty, eloquent, intellectual and socially-conscious. As someone who loves words, I should devour this stuff. Gorging myself with a half-mad ferocity but for reasons utterly unknown, I don’t.

Instead, I shimmy shimmy ya and gleefully boast that I see some ladies tonight that should be havin’ my baby, baby…

Luckily, I have a litany of people in my life far more plugged in than I am and who have no problem dropping some knowledge.

A couple of months ago, Biffle sent me this video:

I didn’t know much about Lupe Fiasco other than I really liked the track he did with Jill Scott (Daydreamin‘) and The Show Goes On – a gem that based on a Modest Mouse sample but after one listen, I was hooked.

Bitch Bad is a pretty interesting commentary on misogyny in hip hop culture and the double-edged duality of the word ‘bitch.’

(Tangential aside: I Googled ‘Most Misogynistic…’ and it immediately auto-completed to ‘rap songs’ which I feel is slightly unfair.

Yes, the Ying Yang Twinz says some really shitty things about women but you know what, dudes? So does Mick Jagger.

And as utterly repugnant as the words to The Whisper Song are, Under My Thumb is so much worse.

I love the song. I really do. I think it is a great piece of music and when it comes on, I turn it up loud but the lyrics terrify me.

“It’s down to me, oh that’s what I said /The way she talks when she’s spoken to/Down to me/A change has come/She’s under my thumb,”

Kaine and D-Roc are practically vibrating with testosterone-fueled bullshit braggadocio. But Jagger? He genuinely seems to abhor the woman in his life. That is real misogyny, not some pissing contest between two clamheads)

There’s a school of thought that reclaiming a negative word abjures it of its power, thereby empowering the formerly disenfranchised. The grande dames of hip hop like Missy, Nicki and Queen Bitch herself, Lil’ Kim brandish this word like a flaming sword.

Oh, you think I’m a bitch?
No, no, no, honey.
I’m the bitch.
The meanest, the prettiest, the baddest mofo lowdown around this town.
Sho’Nuff.

And there’s the other razor-edge of the scimitar.

Where a bitch isn’t all She-Ra powerful and in total control of herself but rather a conniving harridan who betta’ have your money or a gyrating, semi-naked piece of bubblegum – delicious and disposable.

So, which one is it? The latter? The former?

Personally, I believe it’s both. Words are malleable and intensely personal. A revolutionary can be a freedom fighter or a terrorist depending on which side of the line you’re standing on just as a bitch can be a zenith to which a woman should aspire to or a nadir to which she can sink.

I’m not a fan of the word ‘bitch.’ I never have been. I just feel there are better ways to extol your bad-assery than repossessing venom and spitting it back out with equal rancor. There are just too many good words out there to merely settle on an arrow shot in your direction

And despite never being mistaken for a lady or ever being called a woman (‘Muppet-esque baby child’ is much closer to the truth), I’m with Fiasco on this one: bitch bad, woman good, lady better, but my name is probably best.

Or if you wanna be real sweet, call me honey. Seriously. It’s ridiculous how far that’ll get you.

Merry Christmas Or, Happiness is a Warm Sandwich

My Christmas wish for you is that you get to eat a sandwich.

A perfect one with crusty bread, really good cheese and maybe an oozy fried egg or some avocado action and your favorite hot sauce.

And I hope it comes with a heaping side of warm and salty kettle chips and a frosty cold beer or fountain Diet Coke.

This is pretty much the nicest thing I can wish for and I really hope you get it.

Merry Christmas.

Here’s to all the good things.

(Yes. I am fully aware of the fact that I look like a total chowderhead in this picture, but dudes, I’m eating a sandwich containing both remoulade mayo and garlic-sauteed spinach. I swear, in this moment – I am infinite legit insanely happy.)

Adventures In Culinary Assembly Or, Risi e Bisi

I’m English for the following reasons:

- My passport says I am.
- Nothing will never be funnier than Blackadder (“I am a busy man and I can’t be bothered to punch you at the moment. Here is my fist. Kindly run towards it as fast as you can.”)
- I eat things like cheese and pickle sandwiches, blackcurrant sweeties, chip butties and Twiglets with a zombie-like ferocity.

However, my favorite English food is the magnificent yet humble pea.

Much like Prince, I like ‘em fat. I like ‘em round.

I also like ‘em mushy, when served alongside aloo and paneer, in soup, fried with chili, lime and cumin and even frozen straight out of the bag.

Peas taste like home.

And while it’s not English, risi e bisi is the most comforting of all comfort food. It’s pretty much a hug for your mouth.

Everyone needs a hug.

Risi e bisi is basically risotto with peas. Nothing fancy, nothing special. Just a slow-cooked meal for a cold winter night.

Let’s start off with the most important part of our adventure – the music.

I’ve had a long day at work. It’s dark. It’s cold and I’m tired. All I want is to be cozy and this is accomplished by putting on my pajama pants and my ancient UCF tee and playing Jamie Cullum on Spotify. Particularly, his excellent cover of Radiohead’s High and Dry.

You Will Need:

- 1 quart vegetable stock
- 1 cup arborio rice
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese (don’t hate. It was the only kind I had in the house)
- 1 cup white wine
- Fresh parsley
- A couple of solid glugs olive oil

Bring your stock to a slow simmer in a small pot.

In a larger pot, add a couple of glugs of olive oil and heat.

Add two cloves of roughly-chopped garlic.

Add your rice and toast for about two minutes.

You’ll know it’s ready because of the wonderful nutty smell that makes you wanna shove your face into the pan.

Don’t do that.

Instead, add a ladleful of warm stock, stir and when the rice starts to get dry, add another ladle of stock.

Think of this as an exercise in meditation.

Ladle and stir. Ladle and stir. Wax on, wax off.

Add your wine and stir.

When most of the liquid has been absorbed, add your peas and parmesan.

Stir for about a minute and serve immediately.

Garnish with a little fresh parsley and it’s time to eat!

Final Verdict:

This is happening in my mouth right now:

Warm and salty and cheesy with little pops of sweetness from the peas, this is comfort food. You can keep your mashed potatoes and mac and cheese. All this girl needs is a little risi e bisi, a blanket and an episode of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip and it’s a good night.

I hope you make it and if you do, please let me know what you think.

(Also! Leftovers! Leave them in the fridge overnight and the next day, form them into little patties and pan fry to make faux arancini. So good, dudes. So good)