Posts Tagged ‘mortification’

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Best Cartoon Ever Revisited

November 14th, 2009 by Suzanne | 4 Comments | Filed in Asshole idiots, hilarity, mortification, random

>Years ago, I wrote a post about a “game” called “ookie cookie” or “cum on a cookie.” Basically, guys stand around in a circle and jerk off onto a cookie and whoever finishes last has to eat it. I profess to not understand males in any way, shape, or form. There are so many things that are wrong about people who would engage in such an activity.

Anyway, in response, my friend Mar sent me the greatest cartoon ever:

I am committed to republishing this cartoon every once in a while because I find it so fucking hilarious. Enjoy!

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>Publishers Weekly Best Ten Books of 2009 – 100% Male

November 11th, 2009 by Suzanne | 2 Comments | Filed in Asshole idiots, mortification, random, What is wrong with people?, writing

>The problem with feminism is that it makes women crazy. We seem to believe that our words and our stories matter, and that we are not only capable of telling stories, but that we can excel at it. Our voices and our story telling techniques may differ from what has traditionally been viewed as great literature, but we think that doesn’t mean that they are not equally good.

Of course, these beliefs are silly, and Publishers Weekly took great pains to remind people that women’s work is just not up to par with that of (white) men. Their list of the ten best books of 2009 includes ten dudes, nine of whom are white. Some people bristled at this. Kamy Wicoff at She Write – an online community of women writers that is free and you should join – wrote:

Try to imagine if they had come out with a list of the Best Books of 2009 and it had included ZERO MEN. Try to imagine if Amazon had released its Best Books of 2009 and it had included only TWO men. I know it’s hard. But just try.

Wicoff asked the She Writes community to take action. To protest this ridiculous list, we should all buy a book published by a woman in 2009, take a photo of ourselves with it, and explain why we bought it.

Here I am with the 2009 paperback edition of American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. When the hardcover came out in 2008, it received glowing reviews. My friend Alex Elliot read it for her bookclub, and said that I would really like it. Sittenfeld and I are the same age, and I wish that I had an ounce of her talent.

I don’t have pictures of myself with another two books that came out in 2009, but last night I attended a reading of A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein. I thought it was great. Deborah Copaken Cogan also read From Here to April, which came out in hardcover in 2008 and paperback this month. It was also excellent. Both works were funny and thought-provoking, as were their creators.

If you are also pissed about the Publishers Weekly list, join the She Writes community’s protest. Once you post a picture of yourself on your blog holding a book you bought by a female writer that came out in 2009 (the deadline is Friday), send Kamy the link at kamy@shewrites.com. She Writes will send these links to the entire community (5000+) on Saturday. While the emphasis is on women writers protesting, I think anyone who cares about sexism should feel free to participate.

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>Living in Outer Space

November 10th, 2009 by Suzanne | 2 Comments | Filed in hilarity, mortification, random

>As noted in previous blog posts, my memory is shot. I re-write entire stories, I forget birthdays and anniversaries (CUSS hit the four year mark on Oct. 19), and alternatively I believed that I was both 32 and 34 this year. Yesterday I had the ultimate space out day.

I woke up late, but was still tired and remained groggy while eating breakfast. While reading the newspaper, I drifted back into sleep. In hindsight, I think this was when the aliens focused their suction beam on me, but they were thwarted in their morning efforts to kidnap me when my friend Sara called and woke me up. She popped over for what was supposed to be a way to kill 30 minutes before yoga class, but turned into a morning chat fest that ended when I walked her to her noon appointment.

At that point, I was supposed to hop on the subway and meet my friend for lunch downtown. Instead, the aliens seized the moment and sucked me into space. Next thing I knew, it was 3:30 and I checked my BlackBerry life-organizing machine for the first time that day. Boy, did the aliens fuck me up! Still, I felt horrible missing my lunch date, and called my friend.

When I begged for her forgiveness, I left out the part about the alien abduction and took full responsibility for my pathetic inaction. But I’m not sure which is scarier – the fact that I let an afternoon pass and have no idea what I was doing during that time, or my wish that aliens abducted me so I could have some explanation for my spaciness.

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>The Gonifs* Win

November 5th, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in Asshole idiots, Damn, fuck, mortification, What is wrong with people?

>A few years ago, Rudy Giuliani, a mega Yankee fan and dictatorial mayor, put together a deal offering the Yankees a new stadium. This ballpark would be financed in part by New York City taxpayers. It would also require taking one of the few public parks in the South Bronx** and handing it over to the Yankees for the new structure. Boo! Hiss!

Then, thank to term limits (a concept I generally disagree with as it is not compatible with democratic elections, but that’s another story), Giuliani could not run for mayor again. Whew! The new mayor, Michael Bloomberg, announced that the public was not in the business of building new stadiums for sports teams. Hurray! Rah rah rah!

Fast forward a few years, and Mayor Bloomberg inks a deal turning Macombs Dam Park over to the Yankees for their new stadium. There is lots of taxpayers supported financing, and a secret deal for a fancy luxury box for high ranking city officials, which somehow is called a public benefit. The Yankees also get a new MetroNorth stop, so that rich Republican assholes from Westchester need not set a foot in the surrounding neighborhood. In exchange, the Yankees agree to create a series of new little parks for the impoverished people of the South Bronx. Very generous of them, right? Boo! Hiss! Rotten tomatoes!!!

Now that the Yankees won the World Series, are the people who live in the shadows of the new stadium gathering in the newly built parks to celebrate? No, because there are no new parks. At best, there might be a park in 2011. But one of the lots promised to be a park is now actually going to be a parking lot. Sure, I understand that “parking” has the word “park” in it, but my dear Yankees, they are not one and the same.

So, go Yankees. Nice work. Taking from the poor and giving to the rich is considered an admirable American trait. You are exactly the American champions you set out to be.

*Gonif: Thief in Yiddish
**The Bronx, incidentally, is the poorest urban county in the US. The South Bronx is the poorest neighborhood in the Bronx. Clearly, these people have a lot to spare for a struggling sports team that has little revenue…

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>Elections: Good and Bad News

November 4th, 2009 by Suzanne | 3 Comments | Filed in Asshole idiots, evil, I love New York, mortification, random, What is wrong with people?

>For the second morning in a row, the day began with promise. I woke up early and with big plans. Then I picked up The New York Times.

At first I didn’t understand what I saw. Why was that fucking anti-choice, social conservative idiot with no plans at all for how to govern New Jersey on the front cover of the paper? No paper puts a big picture of the loser, and as my friend said on Monday, a good sign that he is not intelligent is that his first and last names are more or less the same. (Maybe this would work in Scandinavia, but it is silly here, I agreed.) But no. The stupid fuck his his right-wing agenda and won. People in New Jersey chose a moron with no ideas other than attacking his opponent’s plans to save their state from recession.* Good luck with that.

I was relieved, however, to learn that the Democratic candidate in a district in upstate New York won. For 150 years, this community was represented only by Republicans. (Of course, that meant something different 150 years ago when it was the party of Lincoln, but that’s another story.) Crazy conservatives around the country banded together to smear the moderate Republican candidate because she had the audacity to support gay marriage and keeping abortion legal. She was supported by all the local Republican leadership. But it seems that what people want is not good enough for the fringe elements that control the Republican party, who know much better than everyone else what they want, and if you don’t agree with them, you will be punished. After months of verbal assaults from the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, who supporting a crazy right-wing third party candidate, the Republican dropped out right before the election and endorsed the Democrat. He won narrowly.

My interpretation of all this insanity is that people still do not want to elect hatemongers. Christie won in part because he hid his conservative agenda, and this is also true of the Republican who just won Virginia. They emphasized the economy, not hating gay people or women’s reproductive rights. In upstate New York, when the candidate foisted onto the voters emphasized his intolerance of people not like him, he lost. See, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and the crazy bitch in the Times who praised the national coalition who imposed their will on a small area of New York, people do not embrace your so-called values. If you want to win and continue to oppress people with your evilness, you have to hide your agenda.

There may be hope yet.

*This reminded me why a story that we read in class that same night made me laugh. My classmate submitted a story about playing guitar in high school, and described his magnet school as offering an education to “the best and brightest of New Jersey.” I thought he was making a joke about New Jersey’s image as people with big bangs and a love of shopping malls, but it turned out he was serious.

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>Maurice Runs the Wheel Out of My Head

October 28th, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in Damn, fuck, mortification, writing

>Earlier this year, I handed in a story in my lit class. I thought it was really good, so I was surprised when my instructor gave it back the next week with no comments. When I asked her why she didn’t like it, she explained that she always looked forward to my work, so she was disappointed to read a story I had submitted before.

I was confused, as I was certain that I had been thinking about the story for weeks, so I didn’t see how I could have handed it in already. But when I looked through my files, I discovered that I had written a story, turned it in, forgot, and then wrote almost word for word the exact same story and handed it in. It was scary.

Nine months later, I decided to write a story about my work with Haven Coalition. I knew I wrote a short piece about it first semester, so I re-read it, and used what worked. I thought I wrote a scene in which I was at my desk at work, the phone rang, and my first hosting night was arranged. But when I looked through my files (eerie music), I found a story I wrote almost exactly a year ago that, almost word for word, had the same opening.

Maurice, the hamster who runs the wheel that powers my brain, is scaring me. On one hand, if I wrote almost the exact same thing a year apart, I think it means that I had an important idea, and I’m glad that I did not forget. The fact that I have no memory of doing this is disturbing.

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PDA

October 22nd, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in Asshole idiots, Damn, hilarity, mortification, random, What is wrong with people?

>No one gave me the memo, but based on graphic anecdotes, yesterday was PDA Day. By PDA, I sadly am not referring to Personal Digital Assistants, like my BlackBerry. Every day in New York City is that PDA Day. It’s impossible to go anywhere without someone walking into you because he or she is texting while walking down the street. (Guilty!)

Rather, yesterday seemed to be Public Displays of Affection Day. But really it was EGPDA (Extremely Graphic/Gross Personal Displays of Affection) Day. I have only two examples, but I am certain they were part of a wider trend that I missed by staying home all day and watching Top Chef re-runs to recover from whatever stomach bug had me in bed and on the toilet all day on Tuesday. (As an aside, I do not recommend watching “Top Chef” or other food-oriented shows while you are eating toast, bananas, and Jell-O and starting to recover your appetite. Just saying.)

I ventured out at 7 pm to go to class. Still a little weak from lack of food over the last 36 hours, I took the only seat available when I got on the subway. Unfortunately, this was directly across from a couple sucking face. Literally. I might have been part of some horror movie scene in which it seems like a couple is making out, but really the girl is some sort of face eating monster-bot. They did not stop for air once between 72nd Street and 42nd St. The groaning and swaying were over the top. Of course, this happened to be the time I had nothing with me to read, so I had no idea where to look. I tried staring at the bag on my lap, but that didn’t stop the pleasure noises from invading my ears. At any moment, I thought the girl was going to unzip the guy and give him a blow job.

Then, as I walked home from my subway stop after school, I encountered another couple going at it. They stood right in front of the Jewish Community Center, vacuum suctioned onto one another’s mouths. The man was feeling the woman up right on the corner!!! Unlike on the subway, I noticed two other people pointing at the lovers and laughing.

People, have you no sense of decorum? How bad is it when I, a person who writes about throwing brown acidic stomach contents through my nose, am the arbiter of good taste? Yeesh. New Yorkers, go back to your BlackBerries and clueless and antisocial wandering!

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Memoir, Fiction, and Balls vs. Testicles in Literature

October 16th, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in mortification, writing

>I read Frank Conroy’s memoir Stop-Time for my lit seminar on Wednesday. What’s good about it is the writing. Conroy doesn’t tell his story in a linear fashion, and at times switches to the present tense. I just tried both of these techniques for a story that I handed in last week which will be workshopped on Monday, so it is nice to have another successful model to learn from. (I patterned my work on A Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid Nunez.)

During a break from the meandering class discussion, a friend calculated that we pay $125 an hour for our classes. We resumed class. After a ten minute debate on Conroy’s use of the word “balls,” which our professor defended by saying, “Balls is a great word,” I thought about other uses I had for $20.84 I spent for that. Not that I disagree that balls is a great word or really minded talking about whether Conroy should have used “testicles” instead of balls, but still. That’s a lot of money for something I talk about for free all the time.

Speaking of balls, I posted four more chapters of Always. Chapter 9 is one of my favorites so far, and Chapter 10 (not to be confused with Chapter 10*, as I had two chapter tens) is one of the most gag-inducing. The similes flow in Chapter 11 most impressively. I actually learned a lot from myself from twenty years ago while typing up this work.

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Cheese-tastic

October 13th, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in mortification, writing

>My face hurts, probably due to all the cringing I did while typing up Chapters 2 – 4 of Always, the atrocious young adult book that I wrote when I was in eighth grade. Why I decided to use a male narrator is beyond me. Also puzzling: why give half the characters fake names, but then use the real names (or ridiculously close to real names – Suzannah, anyone?) for others. I wonder what Maurice* was thinking all those years ago.

What most embarrasses me and interests me about Always is the combination of how I saw myself at that time, and how I wanted to be perceived. My favorite line so far, hands down, is “I got the feeling that when Suzannah Rawlings spoke, people usually listened.” Oh man, how I wished that were true!

*The hamster who runs on the wheel that powers my brain.

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>This Really Reeks

October 7th, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in evil, fuck, mortification

>A friend asked how I felt about the renovation now that it’s been complete for over a month. Because I am a cynical bitch who only looks at the downside of things, I told her it made me feel poorer after all the money we spent. Then I paused and realized how much I like some of the changes.

The new linen closet is amazing. The old one was narrow and deep, which made it impossible to find anything. The new one is in a strange location (the entry foyer), as that was the only place to put it, but it is amazing. It is wide and just the right depth. Everything is sorted semi-neatly. Every time I use it, I am happy.

The faucet in the new bathroom sink is perfect. It is just the right height and arc for me to use it as a drinking fountain. It makes me smile.

Best of all, the washer and dryer have made what was once a hugely stressful chore into something easy and almost even fun. I no longer have to schlep all my stuff down to the basement. The wait for the elevator (my stupid building has no stairs that go into the basement, a fire hazard if there ever was one) is eliminated. My battle to find an unused washer and a dryer that actually works has been won. What is not to love?

Oh, right – the smell of sewage. For the last week, something has gone terribly awry with the plumbing. I hear a surge of water in the pipes, then the smell emanates through the white doors that shutter the washer-dryer closet. Sometimes it is so strong it permeates the bedroom down the hall. Other times, it is just faintly noticeable as you pass the closet on the way into the bathroom. It smells like a cross between shit and rancid Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup.

I’ve looked everywhere for a leak, but I don’t see anything wet. I can’t see behind the machines, but he smell dissipates within 30 minutes at most, so I know there isn’t standing sewage water. It flush-smell-dissipation process repeats a few times a day. Oh, and did I mention that my super is on vacation? Even if he wasn’t, I’m almost afraid to have him look into it, as tearing up walls at this point is my second worst nightmare. (The worst nightmare: there is a sewage leak and the washer-dryer must be permanently dismantled.)

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